ePwnage

So here is the deal. I rerolled another character a POM (healer technically) and I am loving it. I am level 37 currently, I can take on 5-6 mobs at 1 time. This number shoots up to 10 or so if the mobs are equal to my level. If they are 1 level below i can take on 15.. it’s a rush. My xp bar jumps like crazy.

They’ve been making improvments to the game and while the end game content still needs to be worked on, the game has come pretty far in the past month.

I ran Sanctum as a healer last night, and it was the easiest thing ever. I spammed my HOT spells and then just kicked back and enjoyed the show while doing damage. So healing isn’t a bore anymore in AOC which is very cool!

AOC has switched from a 2 day a week patch schedule to a 1 day a week time frame. They also introduced a new patch test server. This should help since their QA staff are a bunch of morons!

http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=621935&postcount=17

Another Monday and Thursday went by and there have been some massive updates to the game.

1. You can now cast while riding your horse, if you are a caster. Problem/BUG they introduced with this? Casters can cast while running.. LOL
2. They nerfed DT’s. The last saving grace of the class was a small glimmer of hope if you had ALOT of time to farm unholy dmg adding items. Now if you added +400 unholy to a weapon it would do so, on your armor the same rules apply. Now you get nothing.
3. DT’s can’t dps, can’t AOE, can’t tank, and can’t block.

My DT has been frozen since last Friday. I started a caster/healer POM. It’s pretty awesome killing 15 mobs at 1 time and getting mega xp. Then never running out of mana and healing.

So I am now a level 54 DT. My overall impression of AOC is this, great game, huge potential, unfinished product. I am basically paying to play a beta game. Levels 1 - 50 were pretty good in terms of questing and leveling. Now that I hit level 50, the grind begins….. Repeatable quests to kill 25 of x mobs over and over and over and over. Sounds fun right? Well not too much, I hear it picks up again from 60-72 but overall it’s a grind to 80 from here on.

They just brought out a patch to put in place…. get ready, this is something that should have been there from day 1….

Your skills including Str, Sta, Dex, Int, Wis now actually modify your base skills. Hilarious huh? Loot items give bonuses but they didn’t do anything till today (6/16) lol 3 weeks after the games release.

So yes, I am playing a beta game, but loving it still… Out of 10, it’s a 6. In 1 years time, in line with the xbox 360 release, the game will be ready for primetime.

-Latez

Simply the best MMO I have played. I played Everquest 1, Everquest 2, DAOC, WOW, Hellgate London, etc etc. AOC finally caters to the “older” and more mature crowd by adding in nudity, blood, and impressive violence.

Key Features:

• Mounted Combat
• Fatalities (Like mortal combat, awesome!)
• Player Owned Cities
• Siege PVP (Catapults, Towers, etc)
• Single Player and Multiplayer Functions
• Combat System. Not your old boring button mashing. You control how you cast/fight.

I am a level 40 Dark Templar and the game has been quite impressive. While my class is clearly underpowered in PVP, the pve aspect of the game is still enjoyable. Once they fix many scaling options and feats (like talents in wow) I should be a formidable opponent in pvp. The first 20 levels of the game are extremely fast, maybe took 10 hours to complete. The world was vast and detailed, npc’s had amazing voice overs and storylines.

Post level 20, you find yourself not really trained for the world. Sure, you can do the basics, fight, run, climb, search, but tradeskilling is still a mystery. At 20+ you need to travel and do tradeskill quests for resource gathering. I hate this aspect of the game; it’s quite confusing on what to do and where to go. Traveling the in game is horrible, the maps are bad and don’t actually tell you how to get somewhere. Additionally, AOC is still based on old “zoning” technology where each area you have to load.

Level 30 is where you can really start to make your character your own. Finding new quests and areas to fight in is constantly a challenge, but well worth the time and attention. You should now know how to play your class is various situation, and how the game mechanics work. You should start playing around with shield placements and stances as well. At 35-40 you will be doing your first group instance in Sanctum. This is an awesome instance and the combat system really shines here. You start to use your skills wisely and decide what to use in different situations, stuns, slows, knockdowns, pulling, etc.

I just started level 40..so more to come

Great Game - 5/5 Stars

Couple of notes:

1. Turn up your brightness in the game by hitting the Start button and Display options.
2. Linksys routers need to have UPnP disabled on the router to allow NAT open settings
3. Tap button A to dodge a punch or knife thrust!

That’s it. Buy the game, it’s well worth the 70 bucks.

This Saturday was exciting. I woke up at 8:00am to get a good two hours of World of Warcraft in before the start of the day. I attempted to login and kept getting a password error. “Hmm” I thought. I went to my email and noticed the following.

12:55am PST

1) This is an automated notification regarding the recent change(s) made to your World of Warcraft account <account name here>.

Your password has recently been modified through the Account Management website.

1:53am PST
2) Your Paid Character Transfer for the character <character name here> on the ARCHIMONDE realm has finished processing and is now ready to be finalized. This is for your World of Warcraft account <account name here>.

3) The character transfers listed below have been completed as of 4/26/2008. The character[s] listed will now appear in the new location and/or account selected and are immediately available for play!

- <character name here> - Level 70 Night Elf Hunter - now on realm: Ravencrest.

When I did get control back of my account I noticed that the guild bank was looted, characters striped, and my main switched on another server. The interesting oddity I noticed was the character that was switched to another server was logged out in an instance. This leads me to believe that Blizzard can’t track transaction in instances? Why would an account stealer (refuse to call them Hackers) login to an instance?

The scary part of the account hack was the fact that I still have no idea how they got my account information. I did have UI manager at one point but I did several checks on my system for Keylogger and haven’t had it.

Good Times…