All Posts by markyturnip

So, all said and done, is the answer to this no? There won't be any flying, floating, superleaping, fast running  etc?

I found a reference to a flying mount. Conan's reaction would imply they are pretty rare, but Pelias implies there are a number which are accessible to those who have the right words etc

From the Scarlet Citadel:

"True!" Conan paced the chamber like a caged lion. "With the fastest horse I could not reach Shamar before midday. Even there I could do no good except to die with the people, when the town falls--as fall it will in a few days at most. From Shamar to Tamar is five days' ride, even if you kill your horses on the road. Before I could reach my capital and raise an army, Strabonus would be hammering at the gates; because raising an army is going to be hell--all my damnable nobles will have scattered to their own cursed fiefs at the word of my death. And since the people have driven out Trocero of Poitain, there's none to keep Arpello's greedy hands off the crown--and the crown-treasure. He'll hand the country over to Strabonus, in return for a mock- throne--and as soon as Strabonus' back is turned, he'll stir up revolt. But the nobles won't support him, and it will only give Strabonus excuse for annexing the kingdom openly. Oh Crom, Ymir, and Set! If I but had wings to fly like lightning to Tamar!"

Pelias, who sat tapping the jade table-top with his finger-nails, halted suddenly, and rose as with a definite purpose, beckoning Conan to follow. The king complied, sunk in moody thoughts, and Pelias led the way out of the chamber and up a flight of marble, gold-worked stairs that let out on the pinnacle of the citadel, the roof of the tallest tower. It was night, and a strong wind was blowing through the star-filled skies, stirring Conan's black mane. Far below them twinkled the lights of Khorshemish, seemingly farther away than the stars above them. Pelias seemed withdrawn and aloof here, one in cold unhuman greatness with the company of the stars.

"There are creatures," said Pelias, "not alone of earth and sea, but of air and the far reaches of the skies as well, dwelling apart, unguessed of men. Yet to him who holds the Master-words and Signs and the Knowledge underlying all, they are not malignant nor inaccessible. Watch, and fear not."

He lifted his hands to the skies and sounded a long weird call that seemed to shudder endlessly out into space, dwindling and fading, yet never dying out, only receding farther and farther into some unreckoned cosmos. In the silence that followed, Conan heard a sudden beat of wings in the stars, and recoiled as a huge bat-like creature alighted beside him. He saw its great calm eyes regarding him in the starlight; he saw the forty-foot spread of its giant wings. And he saw it was neither bat nor bird.

"Mount and ride," said Pelias. "By dawn it will bring you to Tamar."

"By Crom!" muttered Conan. "Is this all a nightmare from which I shall presently awaken in my palace at Tamar? What of you? I would not leave you alone among your enemies."

"Be at ease regarding me," answered Pelias. "At dawn the people of Khorshemish will know they have a new master. Doubt not what the gods have sent you. I will meet you in the plain by Shamar."

Doubtfully Conan clambered upon the ridged back, gripping the arched neck, still convinced that he was in the grasp of a fantastic nightmare. With a great rush and thunder of titan wings, the creature took the air, and the king grew dizzy as he saw the lights of the city dwindle far below him.

Originally posted by Sovrath

 

Originally posted by markyturnip

Fist off, you lost me at "all that  spectacular silliness".

 

However, I would ask you, what incidents can you find in the Conan stories for flying mounts being used? If there are and it makes sense, then of course.

I personally don't remember any flying mounts.

It was mainly a gameplay question, not really advocating one thing or another... just saying that enhanced movement/travel in other games has been very fun and I was wondering if there were any plans to have it in Conan.

I have a couple of questions -

a) Was this sanctioned; ie, is this part of official development policy? If so, this dev is getting a rough ride. It should be the company that receives complaints...

b) Is this standard practice in other MMOs? ie, does wow test etc the same way?

c) is there anything actually at stake in this 'competition' to kill the boss first? From what I read, the guild got praise on the official website for being superstars and some all-singing super reward popped up.

d) Is anyone else's experience lessened? Maybe so, maybe so... then again, as I could never dream of having the time to spend all those hours playing I am not sure what drives the full-time no sleep players.

e) Are MMOs improved by coopting high level guilds, and allowing them to play through content on a privileged basis? Perhaps.. we all argue that player feedback should be listened to. But I am not sure what is being tested when the answer to riddle is given out a priori..

Originally posted by sanicek

Maybe you can volunteer for living catapult ammunition.

hah! I like this!

I wonder whether there are any plans for any kind of player flight - mounts, powers, what have you - in AoC?

I can already hear the 'go back to wow comments', but on a purely gameplay level, flying was very fun - and I really wished it had been implemented for the original lands of Azeroth. I could spend many minutes just cruising through the world, swooping down and causing some mayhem.

And while Wow's flying was fun, it did not hold a candle to CoX's superjump. That was truly fantastic; in some ways the best thing in the game in terms of pure entertainment. I could also cite Crackdown, the surprise hit on the Xbox 360, which also offered a great sense of super movement.

Now, I can certainly understand why swarms of leaping flying superheroes would not sit well in Hyboria, and might severely disrupt gameplay like sieges etc, so I am not advocating that per se. 

On the other hand, people sure do love to leap/flap/dash/charge/zoom around, and all that spectacular silliness.

So is there anything of this ilk going to be available in AoC at any stage?

Originally posted by GreenChaos

I never take anything a WoW player says seriously.  I don't find them to be very mentally stable.

What a constructive comment.

bump for more polling

Hmm - thinking this true, it all seems logical enough.

You need people to test an encounter, the best people to test are "real" players, those players will want to continue in the "real game" etc etc

But this leaves the question of whether under these circumstances there can be any genuine competition to be the "first" to down a big boss... with the in-game rewards that implies. Or is the ingame reward effectively a payment for the help in beta testing?

Originally posted by quaiky

While i do not agree with the devs supporting some guilds with extra infos, to me as a Software Engineer i can also see the reasons why to do this in a testing scenario. Some standard testers that never raided hardcore will probably not be the best testers for the fight that is supposed to be the hardest raid encounter in an expansion. So they decided to use  a hardcore guild, and supllied them with the infos that a testing team usually gets. 

Could they have found a better way to do that i would say yes, there definitely was not that much info needed for a test of a zone if you use a guild for testing. also the reasons why this guild was chosen are not totally ok.

but i as a guild leader of a casual guild that also raids personally am not affected by this and noone that is not in one of the few top guilds that are fighting for worldwide firstkills of raidencounters.  I personally prefer that raidencounters are tested and not bugged and don't mind who gets the first kill of a mob (what is that worth in a few months).

So yes they could have done better in this situation, but i am sure that other games are also using highend guilds for testing highend content and even if they get no strategy for that tests they still get a few extra tries at these encounters before they reach the live servers which also gets them an advantage.

 

In the end it leads to the question if the devs should play their own MMOS in highend guilds, some might say yes cause only then they can see what works good and what not in raids and can use that knowledge for better designs in future or bugfixes where needed, but others will say that they have insider knowledge and the guilds they play in will have an advantage.

For someone playing and raiding not to be first worldwide but to have fun in a working game i can only see more advantages of devs that play their game in all types of guilds (from casual to hardcore playstile) cause that will help them to see things that need balancing better.

But in that case there should be disclosure - ie an announcement that a certain guild is involved in testing. And there should be the opportunity for other guilds, non-testers, to win the award for first kill, or whatever it is, as well as the plaudits. The set-up described seems pretty disingenuous - give a guild the blueprint to defeat an encounter, then make announcements on a website about how excellent they are.

All that said, this does not really affect me either - I don't have the time to dedicate to one of these guilds.

wow - that thread will be remembered for a while - what a fight that is.

Originally posted by vickypollard

 

Originally posted by miagisan

in spite of that EQ2 is still one  of the BEST games out atm.

WOW this genre sucks.

 

Wheres our Half-Lifes or our Company of Heroes or our Oblivions?

 

Instead we get a buggy pile of shit list and then WOW which is good but you can't play one game forever without getting tired of it.

QFT

But that Everquest scandal is delightful.

Call me naive, but I genuinely did not know that top guilds were told how to defeat all the big bosses by company staff. I actually imagined that top guilds worked at figuring it out. Hah! The scales fall from my eyes.

All of this makes me feel there really could be some kind of distinction between casual and 'hardcore' servers.

Let the hardcore players have their hardcore servers; let casual players have casual servers, (with, perhaps, an hours/week cap). That would enable casual players to 'keep up' relative to the rest of the player base, while hardcore players could duke it out on their own servers to their heart's content.

Originally posted by vesavius

 

1) Playing for 30 mins a day is definitly ultra casual. I don't see the problem with accepting that as a definition.

2) Ultra casual players should be thanking the more dedicated players for pioneering and sustaining these games instead of trying to make them out to be some kind of social freaks or something. It just smacks of jealousy to me to be honest and a little respect for those that actually bother to build these worlds the ultr casual so loves to dip into is due.

3) With their demands of instant gratification that they can achieve in 30 minute a day chunks playing solo, the new generation of ultra casual gamer is why all current MMORPGs are terrible soulless experiences the are compared to the first generation games. They are the real reason why these boards are full of 'Why do MMORPGs these days suck' etc threads.

I hope this clarifies things a little.

 

2) No, the people they should be thanking are the developers, and they thank them with their subscription fees. Some of those developers are also players, but not all players are developers.

3) Actually, what you call the new generation is probably the old generation. I have been playing games for years, and try to fit them in when I can. Personally, I manage to fit in a couple of hours of game playing a day, but it's a squeeze at times, with job, kids etc. Until you have small kids you simply have no idea what a challenge it can be to play these games...

bump for more clicks.

Interesting to see the Tempest of Set is less popular... also, I dont hear many voices in favour of the guardian

I see from the FAQ bar brawls are advertised as in... I had read they would not be until after launch. Has this changed?

Gotta say, it's quite a feat to stir a fight on their forums and drag it over here...

I withhold comments on the nature of either of these communities (or any online community for that matter)  - but one thing I do know: you have successfully advertised a game I had not even checked out before, and I think it seems like it could be quite fun.

So thanks for the heads-up, I think I will keep an eye out for this game. Any eta?

This whole Darkfall thing would make an interesting anthropological study, I reckon - it really has the features of a cult, both from the detractors and the defenders.

Strikes me that by any real standards this game is a mirage, but hey, who cares. It is intriguing to see people who care so much that they run analysis and comparisons of posts etc...

I am not speaking from any personal experience... I am in fact downloading fury as I write - just that from what i read in other posts people talk about newbies wrecking their characters by choosing the "wrong" skills... if that is because of combinations, fair enough. If it is because the skill is considered inherently bad, leaves me wondering.

I am encouraged that you think all the skills are valid...

EDIT: from the post above yours:

"WEWT GG A55A55IN!!!!!

So many newbs just have no idea what abilities to unlock and what to put on their bar, so they end up unlocking crap abilities =("

What always surprises me is that a game like fury has abilities that are considered crap...

I can understand that certain combinations work better with each other, but why would devs leave in an ability that people all accept are a waste of time? Is it a deliberate trap for new players?