Age of Conan – Day 4

The leading cause of Brasse’s death in Age of Conan: crashes and/or BSOD.

I have crashed more times than I can count, suffer weird polygon issues and experience the joys of Blue Screen of Death. I haven’t actually had a BSOD in a game for years, and I cannot say that I am happy to see it again.

I run an AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core processor, NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT and 2GB of RAM, running under Windows XP. Not cutting edge, but it meets specs. I have tried uninstalling, sweeping and reinstalling drivers, to no avail. Yeah, I have reinstalled DirectX as well, you betcha. I am not as n00b as I appear.

The AoC forums are loaded with people who cannot play the game at all, not to mention the many, many of us who crash regularly. I read all the threads that I can, to see if there is a magic fix. There isn’t.

Now, one would think that this all got sorted out in beta, right? After all, with thousands in beta, they had to come across almost all system configurations… trouble is, we have people who played happily back then who are now crashing out too.

The truth is, there is a special sort of HOODOO that goes on when a game goes live. There is immense complexity in what it takes to make a game play on literally thousands of variations on what appear to be, on the surface, identical or similar systems. This is one area in which I am willing to cut Devs of any game a lot of slack… but there are limits, and the people who cannot play at all are angry and frustrated.

As for me, it will only be a problem if I am in a group and crash juuuuuust as the crowd of baddies rushes in. Cries of “Heal! Dammit, HEAL!!!” will fall on my deaf, crashed ears, as I try to read the mysterious text of the BSOD. Like my life, it flashes so quickly before my eyes…

So, aside from crashing every 20 minutes to an hour, how are things going?

"Things got better on Day 3, which shall henceforth be known as “The Day of The Awesome Hat”. In fact, this hat is so cool looking that I wish Age of Conan had “appearance slots” for worn inventory, like…. Oh no, I have to say it… EQII does.

Long, long after I have outgrown this hat, I will be wearing a hat that is much better stat-wise, but looks like a brown bucket. You all know what I am talking about, you’ve all been there. You can wear all your ubery stat items in your equipment slots, and look like a mismatched zombie who shops at K-Mart… but with the addition of appearance slots, you can use wearables that you like the look of.

Thus, in EQII, Brasse has marvelous level 32 burnt orange chaimmail that she loves to hide her ugly, ugly multicolored level 80 'real' gear. Now before the AoC diehards pooh-pooh this notion, let me appeal to your baser nature: A fully geared up female warrior is not going to give you the ogling benefits of one who has a bikini in her appearance slots. Ah, you get the idea now… good.

Still, it will be a few levels before I have to give up the Hat of Much Awesomeness. Meanwhile, I also got a very cool looking stick from one of the hundreds of faceless mobs I killed. Brasse the Cimmerian Bear Shaman is, at level 14, still wondering where the heck her heals are. She has one feeble HoT, and in most encounters, it does not make or break her chances of success.

Skill Points – The Point?

The skill points you get for leveling don’t go into class related skills, but rather, are spread across a largely generic pool… like running, climbing, perception, bandaging, combat casting, etc. Not hard to identify where the points are best spent in theory, depending on your playstyle, but they really don’t seem to make much difference. I’ll have to challenge a level 1 to a running race, to see if my maxed out run skill is of any real use or not. Mobs can certainly catch me…

Random Comments on the UI and Spoon Feeding:

Here is a picture of some UI, featuring the quest journal. Note the mini-map at lower left, which spoon feeds you info on your quest. I call this “quest by numbers”, because you don’t really need to learn anything. Just follow the arrows and kill/pick up whatever it is, follow the arrows back. Your target is either marked with a big X, or if there are multiple targets spread across a large area, the entire target area is outlined for you. No thinking required.



Now, don’t get me wrong. While I can’t stand it, I suspect a lot of people LIKE this feature. They can drink twelve beer and THEN go questing, and not get lost. Unless you are RadarX. Then you can get lost anyway. Maybe he needs more bigger arrows. Ones that glow neon pink.

You can also see what I mean by ‘clunky interface’. I suspect it is designed to look heavy and barbarian, and it does. Therein lies the problem. The main HUD looks like it was lifted straight out of WoW, but at least there you have a slider.

Other UI issues:

You cannot change the chat colors. I like to differentiate my channels, and find it very difficult to read, especially the purple guild chat, against certain backgrounds. The friends list is particularly heinous, as it features dark red, very fine text against a black background. My nose has left little smudges on the screen while I try to read the names or classes of my friends, it is that bad. These items are among the most wanted changes listed on the AoC site as well.

I occasionally complain about how MUCH there is to adjust in the EQII Interface, but really… I’ll stop; being able to change absolutely everything to suit your preferences is a good thing, and the UI modders at eq2interface.com do a great job too.

Today’s feature annoyance: ONE PACK?!?

One pack to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. Come on, people. ONE PACK??? There is a seller in Tortage that sells additional packs… at 11 silver each. So why don’t you buy one, you may ask? Easy. I cannot afford it. At level 14, I have about 23 copper and 85 tin to my name.

Let’s do some math here… 100 tin = 1 copper. 100 copper = 1 silver. 100 silver = 1 gold.
Having bought nothing else, ever, I have almost 24 copper.

The bag, at 11 silver, is 1100 copper. Yeah.

If someone knows of a PACK QUEST, let me know before I stab myself in the eye with a fork to stop the pain.

The result of a single pack is the unthinkable: crap loot left behind to ROT. This stuff sells for 2- 20 tin each, so lugging it back every time you fill the single 20-slot pack becomes an onerous chore. People don’t bother, because the mobs also drop tin bits as cash, and looting items is therefore simply not worth the effort of traveling all the way back to town.



Above, Brasse staring in dismay at the bags and bags of loot others have left behind. If this was a frontal shot, you’d see a single tear running down her face. Instead, you get a view of a single butt-cheek peeking out from her upgraded skirt. This one apparently offers more armor than the waist to knees rawhide model she wore previously, in spite of leaving most of her backside uncovered. Go figure.


Things done right:

There’s no place like home...

AoC has a gate with a mere 30 minute reset timer, which beats most games that require an HOUR or more (yeah, this includes EQII). Here is Brasse, using her gate ability. Her pack is undoubtedly full, and it is against her religion to leave loot behind, having grown up in the depression and all.

Anything that makes travel time faster is good by me. I like to explore areas more than most, but after a few road trips, I like to get to my destination faster.

What? Yeah, yah, I know it’s not called “Gate”. Gate, Hearthstone, Recall, Call of whatever… THE THING THAT TAKES YOU TO YOUR BIND POINT.

For future reference, when I write about games I am playing and don’t feel like looking terms up, the red line that keeps track of your life is HEALTH, the blue line is POWER, the green/yellow line is STAMINA. To heck with action points, vitality, energy pool, life force, mana, woobliedobbs or whatever inventive name devs give these things to attempt to differentiate themselves from other games, they all come down to the same thing. I’ve played way too many games to remember what they all are from game to game to game. I need a cheat sheet.

Animals that look like animals:

As an artist and somewhat of an anatomist, I find it jarring when animals are rendered poorly. I almost suffered an apoplectic fit when I first watched the sheep walking in LOTRO, and the joints in their forelegs moved in the wrong direction. Put the poor, crippled things out of their misery!

Thus far, the animals I’ve seen in AoC have been well rendered. Here is a piggy, happily dining on leftover adventurer intestines. It is a well structured, balanced pig typical of tropical climes (not the same as our domestic swine). The big cats look good too, although I couldn’t get one to pose for me without chewing on my leg, so that will have to wait.



Foliage and water:

I talked a bit about the foliage last time. It is dense and lush and does not put much of a strain on my system. It is also varied and satisfying in style. Well done, and the best game foliage I’ve seen to date.

Water is good. With today’s technology, there is no excuse for poor water, and I would have come down hard on AoC if it was not well done. I am pleased to report that it is wet and beautifully colored. They use some tricks to get the illusion of depth and sea floor ripples in deeper water, quite effectively.



Am I still bored?

Sadly... yes. It is not that AoC is a bad game, it's just more of the same stuff we've been doing for the last 9 years. I am holding out hope yet, partly because I have a cool hat. Yah.

;-)#
Brasse

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