On a Personal Note

So debt has been kicking my ass for the past year or so. Just between credit cards and a personal loan I've had for a few years, I was paying over $600 a month just to keep them current. It was rough. So I checked out this CareOne credit counseling place. I started filling out their info on line, talked to a counselor afterwards and within oh.... 2 hours or so I went from over $600 a month to $313. And I'll be 100% paid off within 5 years.

Talk about stress relief!

Age of Conan - Thoughts and Experiences

After a LONG time playing World of Warcraft (since it’s release in 2004), I decided it was time for a change. I had been keeping my eye on Age of Conan for a little while. The gritty universe, the mature rating, and the promise of blood and boobs was enough to pique my interest.

I was lucky enough to get into the beta, and I enjoyed it. There were quite a few bugs and framerate issues, but word on the grapevine was that the closed beta testers were running a different version of the client that had FAR fewer performance problems. I was willing to wait. After all, I had already ordered the game.

So beta came and went, then it was time for the pre-release headstart that was available to those who preordered the game. I was stunned. It was a totally different game. What has come to be known as the ‘Miracle Patch’ had hit. The client ran more smoothly. The graphics were better. Numerous bugs had been squashed, and it was game time.

Let me take a step back and mention the real innovation with Age of Conan: the combo system. Unlike most MMO’s in which you hit autoattack and merely use abilities as you can, every single attack in AoC requires a keypress. You start the game with three directionally attack buttons bound by default to 1-3 on your keyboard. An upper left attack, an overhand swing, and an upper right. Later in the game you receive a lower left and lower right attack. All combos and abilities, unless you’re a spellcaster, utilize a sequence of these attacks. It sound’s a little complicated, and it is at first, but after you get the hang of it it was pretty intuitive and mostly fun.

So there I was. I had rolled a Herald of Xotli (a kind of melee based mage with the ability to turn into a demon), and was powering through the content, generally having a blast. Then I noticed as I started to reach the higher levels that content slowly dwindled away. I was being forced to grind for hours to gain experience rather than questing. This was when the game started to lose its appeal for me. As the grinding continued even the spiffy combat system started to become tedious. I started thinking about a raid situation. Do I want to be standing here for 15 minutes on a raid boss mashing buttons? I thought to myself. And the answer is a definite no.

There just seems to be no hook to the game. I find myself with little to no desire to log in, and when I do, I am bombarded with bugs. Yes that’s right. Despite patching twice weekly, Funcom (the game’s developer) seems to be breaking as many things as they fix. So at this point, I would give Age of Funcom a failing grade. Not enough to do and frankly, it’s just not much fun.

Goooood morning Internets! This is the first of many posts on this wonderful place known as ‘my blog’. I’m working to get myself in the habit of writing something at least once per day, so I expect to see articles and thoughts often. I’m currently working on a writeup of my thoughts on Age of Conan, which should be up by the end of the day. After that are some thoughts on Warhammer Online, and perhaps a few sentences on my burnin yearnin for an iPhone.

Stay Tuned!