Anyways, Age of Conan is going “Hybrid” Free to Play.  Free players won’t have full access to the different zones etc. but will be able to level to 80 without having to fork out some cash.  Subscriptions will remain, with subscribers being on a “Premium” account with complete access to all the content the game has to offer.

I did a brief foray into the world of Conan and since have the phrase “Warm Days, Pleasant Nights” stuck in my head from the excellent Tortage tutorial area.  Admittedly, the game didn’t live up to the high standards set by Tortage, but it was still a very solid MMO, with a fantastic almost targetless combat system and some awesome graphics, the “god rays” lighting in particular looks amazing.  I’m going to be dipping back in when the F2P change goes through, probably still have my bear shaman around level 30 kicking about if I can remember the account details.

Anyone else fancy some brutal MMO action?

(PROTIP: The Woman are Topless!)

Via MMORPG.com

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Age of FREE-nan!, Originally Posted At: MMO-Symposium

Why?  Complete and utter bordom of the genre.  Why am I still posting on and reading the various MMO websites?  I know of all the good stuff that is just around the corner…

I guess the main reason has been the lack of any actual gameplay in EQ2.  Combat is automatic, with a few clicks on various spells or combat arts here and there. Mob positioning is important, and keeping the mobs in the corrent position being rather challenging at times, but with the general level on intelligence of most of the pickup groups I get lumbered with being lower than yoghurt, there is little point in doing that…

So what have I been doing?  Battlefield Bad Company 2 has been my multiplayer game of choice, but the main thing I’ve been doing is single player games, preferably ones with a good story, which is sorely lacking in MMO games.

My latest game has been Alan Wake, it’s basicly one of those high budget American TV shows about some horror writers search for his missing wife after a novel he hasn’t even written yet starts to come true.  A plot easily summarised in one sentence.  If you tried doing that for most MMOs, you couldn’t.  Such a depth of lore and story, but why isn’t it being used to a greater extent?  In the entirety of EQ2, there is one zone, The Estate of Unrest, that has a story, which you follow through to complete the zone.  It is fantastic, nostalgic for those players from EQ1, well made, full of scripted events, though not upto the standards set by Half Life or Call of Duty, but very good for a MMO.

Another game I’ve been playing is almost an MMO, but not quite.  Monster Hunter Tri, basicly you play a hunter, of monsters… no fat on that title.  The game has an impressive sense of scale, although the actual areas you play in are small, there is a feeling of being within an immense landscape, which you don’t get often in MMOs.  The game is one of those japanese sandbox style games, which differs from the western style sandbox games like Crackdown and Grand Theft Auto, in that you don’t really see there being much to do, but then it gradually builds up until you’re always occupied, less overwhelming than most MMOs are at first.

I recently finished Alpha Protocal, a spy-rpg.  The game is your standard action rpg, think Mass Effect but with the combat dice rolls taken from Deus Ex, fairly generic Middle Eastern locales at first, and if I’m being honest, I struggled to go on, but then the game gives you loads of choices on how to do missions, how to treat NPCs, who to kill, who not to kill, where to go, what missions to do first…  The best thing is, you can’t make a wrong decision.  The game won’t end if you annoy someone, or get someone else killed, it will impact the story, you may make bad decisions, but it doesn’t matter.  This is a thing missing from most MMOs.  If you want to play well, you need a wiki, or somewhere to get detailed, up to the minute, information on your class/race/quest/faction etc.  I don’t want to spend hours respeccing, testing dps, swapping gear to min-max my character. I want to be flexible in what I do, how I build my character, and yet still be a valued member of my group or guild.

So what is “good stuff that is just around the corner”?

Firstly a little game you may have heard of; The Old Republic.  Bioware know how to do story, so I’m really hoping that the game gives MMO developers (not looking at you, Sony Online Entertainment or Blizzard) a well needed kick up the posterium in regards to creating a living, breathing world.  Hell, even Oblivion succeeds more than most MMOs just by having (badly) scripted NPCs wandering around.

Final Fantasy XIV is looking pretty much likely to show people what proper freedom is like in an MMO, multi classing, massive areas to explore, and the game looks great to boot.  I’ve been in the Alpha and Beta and it’s going to be my next main MMO, unless I get to have a go on…

Rift: Planes of Telara.  Some of the original EQ1 Devs are behind this.  Class free, skill based leveling system, very freeform.  The game for people who want a next gen EQ1 style experience basicly.  The thing current MMOs don’t have, that EQ1 does, is versatile classes.  Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft and Everquest 2 all have classes that are good at one or two things, whereas EQ1 had classes that could do far more.  I’ve seen Wizards tanking raids, bards soloing swarms of mobs, necromancers healing groups, beastlords being total badasses! (yes, I played a beastlord, biased, I know…)

Hopefully the “Next Gen” MMOs will bring gameplay and choice back to the genre, or otherwise, I’ll be wearing my xbox out..

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Not Playing MMOs., Originally Posted At: MMO-Symposium

For me, that chance amounts to a 3 month re-subscription.

AoC was always a pretty game. The lush and vibrant jungle setting of the starter area was, and still is, a real optical treat and definitely sets a new standard in MMO gameworld content. The interface is tidy and unobtrusive and exerts a feeling of simplicity, yet quiet confidence. Graphically, everything has a genuinely polished and finished feel to it. The machine I run it on is by no means a slouch, but it is a couple of years old now and CPU architecture and speeds have obviously improved. However, driven by an XFX 9800GTX, AoC runs nice and smoothly in the PvE areas at around 40fps with almost every slider set to maximum and this gives a nice gaming experience. As I’m also sticking with XP for the foreseeable future, this is without any DirectX 10 enhancements which are said to improve the game’s visuals even further.

Alas, sadly I cannot really comment on whether the recent fifth major update has improved AoC to be the MMO it always should have been because my character had only ever reached Level 21 and is still only just beyond the confines of the beginner stages of the game. But Funcom obviously feel confident enough that the developers’ hard work has transformed the game, so much so, that they are currently heavily inviting previous subscribers and players to rediscover Hyboria via a free, 14 day no obligation re-evaluation offer.

Two weeks is not really enough time for me to make an informed decision on whether AoC is now a viable candidate for THE MMO to be playing, but what I will say is that if you’ve played Age of Conan before, or have never experienced the mystical and enchanting realms of Hyboria, give the new (and hopefully improved) version a chance – you never know, you might like it!

Getting Mature Again, Originally Posted At: MMO-Symposium