AoC released in a weekFollow

Mounts are 2g. And at level 33, I have 30+ silver. You just suck.

The valleys of Cimmeria are really breathtaking to move around in, in fact all of the zones are equally as dramatic and gruesome. I enjoying the Khopshef province the most, with quests ranging from recovering the half-eaten corpse of a woman from a croc to retrieving the ******** from a verile hyena for use in a black magic potion. Fighting your first rhino is just plain intense as they charge your ***.

Climbing the tower to fight the bat-demon was one of a dozen "Holy Sh'it" moments in the game. My lvl 30 destiny quest was fun and had the spirit of how I always pictured Conan and the lore.

I have just never been an alt person, In fact for the last year in WoW it has been 1 main and a 1 alt that I slowly leveled on the side.

Though I know for a fact that I am going to have to level a healer in AoC, despite the fun I am having with my ranger.

My biggest concern to date was how big the world really was - I'm happy to say it's pretty frikkin' huge. Saw someone on a Rhino mount today - very cool.



I finally got one of my toons to explore out in Cimmeria and it's been a blast. These games to me are all the more fun when grouped cooperatively. I grouped pretty much all day (as my Barbarian) with 2 Guardians - first time grouping in the game for me - it rocked. Soloing as my Barbarian in Cimmeria is definitely a bit more challenging. I died several times before I grouped. Lots of mobs are chained/linked or call for help. I'm hating on archer mobs.



Funny you should ask - Neph and I started a guild on Wiccana - Magnificent Bastards. Any and all bastards and bastardesses are welcome. The rules are, there are no rules. Promise, there's no drama and we have fun. My main is a Conqueror, Neph's is a Necromancer. I've got a bunch of alt toons on Tortage island still that I want to see how their destiny stories for their classes go. It's the best server in terms of general and ooc chat that I've seen. People are pretty helpful.

I'm also in a guild (Divided Loyalties) on Thog with folks from the Forumopolis message board. My Barbarian is 26 there and the guild has already built their Keep. Pretty amazing. Can't say the same about the general and ooc chat on this server. It's WoW's worst of the worst on here. But the guild is decent and friendly and like I mentioned above, I grouped with some nice folks today. I plan on focusing more on my Wiccana toons this weekend.

Git's Howler is now a Magnificent *******. Huzzah!

Done and done!

Oh and speaking of the valleys of Cimmeria the fact that you can see the light angle changing and shadows creep in as the sun starts to go past the mountain peaks is flat out ludicrous!

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the detail is nothing short of first rate. even the clothes you wear have wrinkles when you move. the shadows on your body change depending on the sun angle from when your arm moves back and forth, to even your butt cheeks depending on your leg movement. it is more lifelike than anyhing i have seen in any game, off line or online.

and like someone above mentioned, you can get to a high spot and slide the horizon bar all the way out and see.....forever. cant really play that way without a lot of lag unless you have mabe a crossfire or sli set up i think. but the level of detail down to the smallest thing like a necklace is just increadable. i cant even imagine how much time it took them to draw everything in this game, then create shadows to match.

some other games i have played have as good or better character creation programs, but no game i have every played has toons that look anywhere near as lifelike as the ones in AoC. i am ALMOST tempted to buy a top end sli system just to see more. but my cheap streak wins out for now. its a strugle though.

the game is worth every penny of the purchase price for nothing more than the increadable graphics. the game play is same ole same ole. nothing new. but the graphics are staggering. even EQ2 and Vanguard couldnt hold a candle to what they have accomplished. with what they have done with shading and details like wrinkles and the way the sun shines off water, it is as close to 3d as you can possibly get with animation i think.

as far as questing, have a level 35 and a level 30 now. just focused on one caster and one fighter type. there is a gap in the quests at 35. the 30 fighter from a differant race as been led to basically the same fighting areas as the 35 caster after level 20 to 25ish. they seem to merge at thirty. would HATE to be on a gank server at this level. so i dont think it will be any differant for the fighter than the caster quest wise, but who knows, ill check it out and see if there are class or race dependant quests that might fill the gap my caster cant get.

for starters, gathering and minning resources might be a good way to make money for the toons who are already 80 and dont want to bother gathering themselves. personaly, crafting boars me to tears, so havent even tried any of it even though there are 2 zones dedicated to crafting and home/guild house building that i have come across so far. but its there if crafting is your thing. and BTW i have seen several level 80 player toons already. the game must be really sucking for them now.

also, you can max 3 stats with the points you earn out of mabe 10. for a caster. there are others that just are not important. like hide for instance if your not a rogue class. just kill em all. its easier. or out of combat run speed. pointless. in combat run speed would be nice, but out of combat run speed? wasted points. you will need about a total of 100 points in climbing by level 30 to 35. but just put the minimum in there untill you have to increse it for a quest.

you stumble on ample supplies of potions for regaining health, stamina, and mana through out the game, so really, spending points in those skills is almost pointless too as they can only be used out of combat. havnt tried using a potion BEFORE combat begines to see if it helps mitigate damage, but i suspect its benifits will stop when the fighting starts. plenty of food items too that give you pluses to the 3 basic stats, mana, health and stamina. they are like a 1 hour buff and do work in combat.

up untill level 35, you only get enough feat points to progress one tree of feat benifits and there are 3 trees. at 35, once you have maxed one tree, you can use the feat points to progree the generic tree which increses your basic stats. at 35, the next feat tree upgrade is level 40. so you can either spend the points from 35 to 40 upgrading your basic tree, or you can save them untill 40 and get your first 5 points of the tree you want to advace right off the bat.

and if i find another questing area for 35 to 40, ill let you know how tha works out. if not, i may not make it to 36.

Like I said I am really enjoying the game so far, however a couple things have me worried.

End game balance seems borked, I think a lot of that is people not understanding PvP class balance being akin to Rock Paper Scissors but class balance particularly in PvP is a very important thing and very hard to do properly.

Stats, from what I have been hearing stats are next to useless. Dex isnt being registered on Rangers. 0 str vs 150 str is seeing no noticeable differences in dps etc. There was a long post on the forums about it and a generic response from a community relations person. People started piling on, a lot of idiots but also a lot of people who obviously are used to WoW type theorycraft who picked the mod response apart and sent them realing so when a game mechanic as fundamental as stats is borked it doesn't bode well. Hopefully things even out.

I'm confused.

I don't speak Shadowrelm, fortunately.

Go me!

Only in Newfoundland.