AoC released in a weekFollow

Could you elaborate? I'm going to assume healers still watch bars and react somehow (likely smacking a button). Is there something else they get to do?

Let me ask a question (may not be the right one): say there is a full group and this is going to be a really tough fight. Would you be better off if the healer just stared at the health bars or could they also do something else? Or would they *have* to do something else?

I can still not get those fricking forums to work.

Special needs bodhi

So I've heard, no luck.

Same for me. Your not missing much tho...Now I'm in theres a lot of whining along the lines of "i had my account banned and i lost 3 lvl 80's and 35 Gold".

Why didn't Alla do a network site for AoC??

Edited, May 30th 2008 12:31am by paulsol

I've only just discovered this

the healers in AoC are more like shamen in other games. they cast AE hots adn melee. just like casters cast damage shields, ae, and melee.

the key word here is melee and tank. the end. casters, weather its healing or damage classes, are just slight variations of melee and tanking. little side abilities.

my little necro has 3 differant pets now. the last two pets she earned do LESS MELEE DAMAGE than the first one she got. infact, it seems each sucessive pet does less and less damage.

first pet - 15 to 22 damage melee plus bleeding dot that also makes mobs less resistant to melee damage.

second pet - 14 to 17 melee damage plus a dot? is what it says havent noticed it working.

third pet - 13 to 15 damage plus it drains mana from caster mobs.

situational. ie, useless as the fights are fairly short and melee damage is king in this game. MABE the mana drain pet in some end game epic encounter in a raid against a caster god.

they REALLY had no clue as to how to make a caster, much less make one interesting to play. they had a tank/melee mindset and didnt look any further. the melee combos with beheadings and stuff are really cool. casters just kind of stand perfectly still with their arms out wide with some swirly smoke graphcs that lags out all but the best video cards. no beheadings, no cool moves. just stand there taking hits like a warrior with swirly smoke graphics using ae spells.

a 3 for casters. and thats being generous. healers are not any better. they are warriors with a couple heal over time dots. real tanking classes get taunt skills but they are pointless as the hots the healers use are AE and a caster with a damage shield can tank as well as the warrior.

absolutly no clue as to how to make a caster. none. my cloth robe with a damage shield can stop a blade as well as the best plate. the only differance is, melee classes get the cool combo graphics.

the graphics realy are awsome. you can see straps and shoe laces on the boots. you can see the leather strap and gold pendant on a necklace. the detail is very very good. and my 3 necro pets look grusome with bone and gore included. usless but grusome. they still cant tank. my dark templer seems to be struggeling more than the pure fighter classes. shamen seems to be the most inline for an upgrade. they are tough to play at lower levels. die alot. rogue classes cant take a beating as well as casters or plate classes, but they kill really fast.

graphics a 10
game play a 7, pretty much same ole same ole
casters a 3, they really suck

mid 30s now.

casters still suck. my necro hasnt had a new spell in many levels. just upgrades of existing ones. my dark templar, ie, sk, is doing fine but getting a bit boaring. push ability button, smash corresponding attack button, repeat untill one of you runs out of red stuff.

but atleast the fights are short. no where near the log sawing encounters of EQ2 or EQ1.

the world is awsome. increadably detailed. and thankfully, probably the only reason they will be here a year from now, is the game play is more WoW than EQ, EQ2, Vanguard ish. no mandatory grouping and the majority of the content is open and geared for solo game play.

there are group only dungons. have been in one. its funny how people try to bring fighting styles from other games to new ones. i saw 2 casters and 3 figher classes screaming for a healer to get started. with as fast as you recover hitpoints, and the way mobs aggro and the tanking ability of casters, they didnt need anything. but there they sat, crying for a healer doing something close to nothing. i was in a group what had a healer, but mainly he was doing dps, not healing. we had 3 casters doing AE. by the time the tank got aggro on anything all the mobs were dead.

granted, it would have been a bit different of we were fighting mobs 3 or 4 levels higher than us. might have actually needed a healer then.

the world is just stunning. first rate. its a great platform to start bulding from and they didnt make the mistake Vanguard did with going for a grouping gamne.

These days it pretty much recognised that grouping should be for fun/gear not leveling.

So basing a game around group to level is doomed to failure.

The WoW population represents a pretty signficant portion of the MMO pie.

Tarv is right, forced to group is a death sentence for an MMO.

?

*edit... Denied!

Edited, Jun 5th 2008 2:04pm by tarv

Not necessarily a death sentence but it does end up narrowing its viability to a niche market. VG:SoH tried to make the claim that the niche market was viable, also beyond that they claimed that WoW had created a backlash in the market against "casual". I think it became VERY clear that they overestimated the "backlash" and that they failed to consider the fact that they were entering a niche market with already established and loyal user bases.

End of the day its about selling boxes and more importantly maintianing a subscription base. The golden days of EQ are gone, welcome to 2008 and a post WoW mmo community.

Honestly, grouping can be tedious, but if your playing a game with millions of other people, why not actually play with them, instead of by yourself? If you don't have time to level in a group, you won't have time to do anything in a group really. So why not just just play a single player game? Its not like WoW has a good storyline, or any mmorpg for that matter, with the exception of maybe FFXI, but they take grouping a bit too far lol, not being able to do anything without a group is too much.

I think a lot of the issue is the fact that quite a few people that started off with EQ have gotten older, had families and kids, gotten more demanding jobs, etc. Essentially, we've "grown up". We don't have the time that we used to have to play games. So the casual play style and being able to solo works better for us.

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for me, its more of not being willing to ever, EVER again waste so much of my time for a game. EQ was as ground breaking as DOOM was. facinating. totally new.

not so much any more. i dont think its a matter of growing up as much as it is the car is 10 years old and doesnt really do anything other cars dont do, so, not going to spend as much time washing or waxing it anymore. i think if something totally new and excieting hit the market, you would get people spending hordes of time playing again just like we did with EQ. but the games that have launched are pretty much all the same. whack-a-mole for levels and loot. the end. the quests are the same, the stories, while differant, all pretty much sound alike, the grind is the same.

so people are just not interested in allocating so much of theri precious time for...the same ole same ole. and we have had time to sit back and say "omg, i camped that ancient cyclops for 24 hours streight..." and think to ourselves, if hat wasnt the stupidest waste of time it has to come a close second to anything i have every wasted my time on in my life.

we still want to play, we just dont want to spend our life in it any more.

along comes WoW. no pressure. no greif. no fustraition. just play time with out the increadable time commitment.

they are up to 12 million subscribers. they added ANOTHER MILLION subscribers in the last 6 months. Vanguards circleing the drain with 20k. last check placed EQ1 and 100k and shrinking. EQ2 never made it past 300k, and shrinking. LOTR never made it big time.

and during expansion after expansion, free game play after free game play just to try and keep it going.........WoW added ANOTHER million subscribers in the last 6 months.

forced grouping IS a death sentence for a mmo. so is a PvP based game, something Warhammer is going to find out soon enough. Wii want to play, not hold down a second job. Wii want to explore something new, not spend most of our playtime popping up on a rez platform from being endlessly ganked by other players.

most of us anyway.

BTW, 35 now in AoC. have hit a wall. very few quests left from here to aleast 40 it seems. time to grind or bolt. also, mounts are 100 gold and up. after 35 levels of looting, i have 12 silver. need 100 silver to get 1 gold. dont expect ill ever get a mount. infact, if i cant find another questing area for this level, i may not even see another level.

the graphics really are worth the price of the box though. and they are talking about adding another fighting are from 30 to 50 this summer. so who knows, mabe ill park it for a month and come back to see.

but im not grinding, camping, or even medding in any game ever again.