Age of Conan: End Game

I have not had a chance to use the computer much over the past three weeks so I had not written about the level 60-80 part of Age of Conan. I will write it here together with the end game part.

Level 60-80

At level 60 to 70, again there are only two zones available for questing in. Aztel’s Approach in Cimmeria and Thunder River in Aquilonia. Aztel’s Approach is huge, with lots of quests and repeatable bounties for players as low as level 57 through to level 75. Snowy mountains with monsters, bandits, beautiful scenary and glorious Acheronian structures. There are many places to grind experience in the zone, and many quests as well. In contrast, Thunder River is severely lacking in quests and feel like a lost opportunity. The zone is beautiful and not too small, but there are too few content in the zone. A prison colony for Aquilonia surrounded by waterfalls and forest. Most of it is pedestrian, but it is topped off by a nice level 69 elite zone called the Prison Colony.

Level 70 to 80 has a painful zone called Kheshetta. We left Stygia behind at level 40 and it is only now that we find ourselves back there. Kheshetta has as much ganking as White Sands, quite simply because there are lots of level 80s walking around with nothing to do. There are quite a number of quests in Kheshetta and it has some intriguing mobs in the form of the Selkhetite Archers, four armed humanoid archers that draw their bowstrings with their feet. It is hard to explain, but they must be the most refined monster in the whole game, from design to their movement animations. If the rest of the game had this quality, it will kick every other game’s butt. I hope the designers of this monster still works at FunCom.

There are not enough quests in Kheshetta to bring you to level 80, so you will have to resort to grinding. There are two to three areas of grinding in the zone. One is the Cohorts of Set, which are level 74 to 76 worshippers of Set, the next is the famous Death Master’s Camp (DMC), where there are these bandits which respawn really fast for great grinding. The last place that many people ignore are the big cats in the corner. Cheetahs and Leopards. While they don’t drop much gear, they drop lots of Gnarled and Whorled Leather for armour crafting.

Kheshetta in Epic Mode is also a popular one for grinding “Tier 0″ armour and epics. In the southern part of the zone, there are many bosses from level 80 to 82, and in Epic mode, their loot is the best short of raid dungeons.

Level 80 and beyond

Let me start by describing what is available at endgame.

There are three “Tier 1″ dungeons for “Tier 1″ epic gear. Kylikki’s Crypt in Fields of the Dead, The Lair in Aztel’s Approach and Yahkmar’s Cave in Eiglophian Mountains.

Kylikki’s Crypt has two bosses, the Champion of the Honourguard and Kylikki herself. She seems to be a White Hand mummy and she has risen from the dead and ordering the Vanir to dig up Fields of the Dead.
This seems to be the easier of the three dungeons. Once raid groups figure out how to manage the trash mobs, they should be able to kill the Champion as well. Kylikki can be challenging because she spawns some minions that heal her.

Vistrix the dragon resides in The Lair. The trash mobs there are quite easy, all except the Chill Crawler Champions can be crowd controled. Vistrix has a massive AoE stun every minute, and after which he uses a fire breath that does massive damage. Some classes can do a quest to get a talisman called Vistrix’s Bane. This helps remove the stun from tanks and gives them added fire resistance. Every 25% of her health that she loses, a massive wave of minions are spawned. These minions can be crowd controled. Once a raid group gets a handle of the stun timing, it should be a manageable fight.

Yahkmar is a worm of the Dune variety. Currently the hardest if the Tier 1 bosses, so much so that many guilds are skipping him completely. He spawns a group of additional mobs every 20 seconds or so, overwelming most raid groups.

I have not done any “Tier 2″ dungeons so cannot say much about them. They are all wings of the Black Ring Citadel, which is in the middle of Kheshetta City. There are eight “Tier 2″ bosses, some are said to be easier than “Tier 1″ bosses. Currently “Tier 2″ gear seems to be recolours of “Tier 1″ gear with better stats.

Besides the raid dungeons, there are a number of endgame group dungeons. Aztel’s Fortress and Halls of Eternal Frost are in Aztel’s Approach. Scorpion’s Cave, Onyx Chamber and Caravan Bandit’s Hideout are in Kheshetta. They have multiple bosses and follow the trend of the group dungeons of lower level. Onyx Chambers is a public dungeon like Cistern and Main System, and suffer the same problems.

Besides PvE content, there is PvP content. Currently there are only two types of PvP minigames: Annihilation and Capture the Skull (Flag). There are three maps, one larger outdoor map, and two indoor maps with symetrical twists and turns. The other PvP content is the Battlekeep Sieges.

Lots of endgame stuff to do, right?

I believe that this is where Age of Conan is at its most disappointing, and as a result has lost a lot of their subscribers. They completely mishandled their endgame. Age of Conan endgame is unrefined in many ways and I hope to list them all here. The biggest complaint from players is that there are not much to do at level 80 and here is why.

About one month into the game, the guys at FunCom realised that some classes were powering through the levels too fast. They also realised that everyone was grinding their way through the level 70s too fast. This resulted in a few classes being nerfed, a few game mechanics being tweaked, and level 70+ mobs being buffed. The byproduct of which turned level 70-80 group dungeons into complete nightmares. The trash mobs are tough and tedious, which turned the group dungeons into three to five hour affairs.

If that was not discouraging enough, players started to realise that the level 80 group dungeons does not actually drop anything unique. Everything on the loot tables there, particularly the “Tier 0″ armour are also available in world bosses. So farming Elite bosses in Epic Mode Kheshetta was a much easier and faster way of getting “Tier 0″ drops.

Yes, there are a number of group dungeons, which might be fun if their trash mobs are moderated so that they do not take 5 hours to clear. On top of that FunCom needs to give the players a reason to raid these dungeons. Some drops must be unique to these dungeons as an incentive. I propose that all level 80 “Tier 0″ armour as well as level 80 flawless gems be only available through these dungeons.

Guilds are supposed to raid Kylikki and Yahkmar for their “Tier 1″ armour and then proceed to Vistrix for their “Tier 1″ weapons and to unlock the “Tier 2″ raid dungeons. But because of the imbalance of Yahkmar, almost everyone skips it. Getting a few piece of “Tier 1″ from Kylikki’s Crypt, they clear Vistrix for the “Tier 2″ unlocks and proceed to raiding “Tier 2″ as some of the bosses are easier.

FunCom needs to moderate the difficulty of the various dungeons, perhaps to add more variety to the trash mobs. The ironic thing is that the group dungeons are fun and have some variety and interesting mechanics, but the raid dungeons must be the most boring part of the game. They can be spiced up a little.

My main problem with endgame raiding and elite mobs is that only the Guardian is a viable tank for these situations. The Conqueror and Dark Templar fall far behind the Guardian for the purpose of tanking. The Guardian is superior in not one, but every single department when it comes to tanking. They have more hit points, they have faster hit point regeneration, they have higher invulnerabilities to all forms of physical and magical damage, and they have higher defence rating.

Conquerors and Dark Templars will not be selected for tanking while Guardians remain tanking on easy mode. This blackmails guilds to only raid when their Guardians are online. To make matters worse, Guardians tank much easier with a suit of armour dedicated to a particular damage type. This means that guilds have to wait for a specific Guardian to turn up for raids, or spend heaps making multiple sets of armour.

FunCom needs to break the monopoly of the Guardian for tanking and reduce the difference between the Soldier Classes. All Priest classes can heal equally well, all Rogue and Mage classes can dish out the damage, its just Soldier Classes that are not balanced. “Tier 1″ raid dungeon mobs and bosses should be moderated so that ungeared tanks can do their jobs. The reason why they go to raid dungeons is to get geared up.

Another issue is with Gemmed items. Players realised fast enough that the most worthwhile gems to put in their armour is a physical damage gem. Any class that can use physical damage weapons can effectively treble their DPS with a full suit of gemmed armour. This lead to physical damage classes one-shotting almost everyone else in PvP. The result had many people despairing about the state of PvP, and must have lead to quite a number of people dropping their subscription.

In the middle of this was an exploit that allowed gems to be duplicated. FunCom did not stop the duping for two weeks, destroying the gem economy. It finally sealed the exploit but did nothing to dupers or the duped gems. I know of other games who would be on top of such a situation within days, and would roll back the servers and be prepared to ban hundreds of players for duping. FunCom showed that it either does not have the means or the will to take such strong measures to protect the interest of their player base.

Of course, PvP against fully gemmed players was a brief affair. They take 2 seconds to kill you, while you need 10 seconds or more to kill them. If there was no incentive to play the PvP minigames before, there was even less now. World PvP also left a bad taste in many people’s mouths. All these might come to an end soon, as gems are being nerfed to the point of worthlessness as a temporary measure to ensure some semblence of balance before they introduce PvP experience points, levels, PvP gear and PvP Notoriety.

Arguably it is impossible to perfectly balance classes for PvP but with all the issues that FunCom has in their in-tray, they have barely started working on class balance. Hopefully with gems taken out of the picture, they can finally start working on class balance.

First, they allow victims of one-shotting to be marginalised by their inaction about gems and duping, then they will now marginalise those who benefited from gems and duping. I hope when all these issues are long forgotten, that their player base can grow again, but these memories are fresh, there will be a downward trend.

Currently the game is in the stage where people are quitting because their server populations are low. People usually start quitting when they dislike this or that aspect of the game. But when people quit because others are quitting, the domino effect of player loss can be quite serious. FunCom needs to stop the bleeding and fast. Buggy and exploitable Battle Keep Siege mechanics do not help. This is their centrepiece and it is not working.

My biggest worry is that FunCom has not shown that they have any masterplan for class balance for PvP or PvE. They have not demonstrated that they are in control of their game mechanics and are able to tweak them to balance the game. The temporary fix to gems is the case in point.

The only encouraging thing for me is that FunCom seems to be able to do low level content reasonably well. Leveling from 1 to 80 is quite enjoyable, and the low level dungeons are fun. As they slowly patch and improve their content up the levels, hopefully they would get to a point where they improve level 80 content.

Age of Conan: Renewed Subscription

The free month is up, and I have renewed my subscription for another two months with a prepaid card. I got my first character to level 75, so I think it is time for another look at the game. Of course, countless reviews have come before mine, whether they are premature or not is for the readers to decide.

The first thing that I rather quickly realised was that the community in the game, and the community in the official game forum seems to be totally different. Of course, that is not possible because only active account holders can access the forum. The community just seems schizophrenic, the forum is full of doom and gloom, while in-game, despite the constant annoyance with lag, bugs and imbalanced features, the players seem to be enjoying themselves.

Yes, the countless bugs and imbalanced features at launched have only started to be fixed, most are still around. To make matters worse, every single patch seem to introduce old or new bugs into the list. My hypothesis is that either a large number of the developers in FunCom quit upon launch, like they did in World of Warcraft, or that FunCom had a pitiable small crew to begin with. With their warchest filled with the initial game sales, they are recruiting, but these new employees are too few and/or need to get up to speed.

If you want doom and gloom and an endless list of bugs, I am sure you can find them either in the official forum or reviewed elsewhere. I am very aware of the bugs, but they have not really dampened my playing experience so far, apparently I am playing just behind the patching curve so am not bearing the brunt of sniffing out the more game breaking bugs.

Despite people announcing their cancellation of subscription on the forum, I am enjoying my game, and most of the people that I have played with are still playing. Having said that, at last check, 34 people in my guild had not logged in for the last 20 days. FunCom needs time to fix this game. Players can either choose to cancel and resubscribe in 3 or 6 month’s time, or pay and play the game to be at the top of it when these people resubscribe. To those who think that it is only “fanbois” that are soldiering on, I must say that everyone I play with are enjoying the game, and not merely putting up with it, our spare time are more precious than that, and one month is not enough to make an addict of anyone.

Level 20-40

Lets continue where I left off with the last post. After being rather impressed by the starting area that is Tortage, the players will have to complete a series Destiny quests to leave the island and enter the mainland. Destiny quests are the primary story quests of the traditional RPG mould. You get a new Destiny quest every 10 levels or so.

I hung around in Tortage and did all the quests I could find so I left at level 23. The player would find themselves in the three major cities depending on their race. Conarch Village for Cimmerians, Old Tarantia for Aquilonians and Khemi for Stygians.

If you are on a PvP server, you will probably have gotten used to getting ganked in White Sands and Under Halls. Those irritating level 20+ that gank everyone they see. That will be what players encounter as they get into their level 20-40 zones. My observation is that if you are in the lower end of the recommended levels of a zone, you will get ganked more, it almost stops as you approach the higher end of the recommended levels. If you feel bothered by this, you either have to try avoiding it, or quite frankly, play on a PvE server. Do not let ganking ruin your enjoyment of the game.

There are three corresponding zones for level 20-40, Conall’s Valley in Cimmeria, Wild Lands of Zelata in Aquilonia and Khopshef Province in Stygia. Conall’s Valley lies in an icy mountain where you fight Vanir invaders and their Ymirish half-giant allies. Wild Lands of Zelata is a sub-tropical grassland invaded by Nemedians, Khopshef Province is a desert zone beset with bandits and wild animals. These zones are pretty standard by gaming terms, the quests are nothing special and they yield enough experience points to level quite nicely. Definitely a lot less grind than many other MMORPG that have come before it. That is what attracts me but it is also a double edged sword for people who power through and find the endgame unevolved.

Doing all the quests of one zone should get a player to level 35 or so. This is also when people start discovering the Elite mobs and Epic mode. Where mobs hit a lot harder, die a lot slower, and give not a lot more experience points. The loot is better though. Grouping is not really necessary for most of the zones, but are needed for these Elites and the quests around them.

With not enough quests to power a player through to level 40, I went to the corresponding level 20-40 zone in another country to continue questing. This is when one irritating game feature is discovered. There is a rather small limit to the number of quests you can have active, and if you are jumping between countries and taking quests, you will reach that limit. I hope the limit is removed, but it will not bother me much soon as I am nearing level 80s.

At level 30ish, the player can start getting into the first group dungeon, Black Castle. This is an enjoyable dungeon with intriguing boss fights. Pyramid of the Ancients and Sanctum of Burning Souls are two fun dungeons for the late 30s. This is likely to be the first introduction to the players of rare “blue” items. A nice introduction to how group dynamics work, but since tanks are not great at grabbing aggro at this level, it is not a complete lesson. These are fun short dungeons with multiple bosses. A couple of these dungeon runs should push a player up to level 40 and ready for the next zone.

At level 20, you start getting access to Gathering professions, you can have all the gathering professions. Gathering involve cutting trees, mining rocks, harvesting plants, and killing monsters for drops. There are three harvesting zones, which double as Guild City zones in the game. The idea of the game is for players to mark their maps along the way, so they will know where the resource points are, but it is quite annoying because it took me forever to find the lowest level trees I need to chop.

At level 40, you get access to the Crafting professions. You can choose two professions. Alchemists for making potions and food, Armour and Weapon smithing for making socketed armour or weapons, Gem-cutting to cut gems to customise your socketed armour and weapons and Architecture for building Guild Cities.

Level 40-60

While there was three zones to help you level through the 20s and 30s, there is only two zones for the 40s and 60s. Tarantia Noble District and Fields of the Dead in Cimmeria. Fields of the Dead is similar to Conall’s Valley, this is where the Cimmerians bury their dead, and evil forces are disturbing this sacred place. The Vanir and Ymirish are here despoiling the cairns, joined by werewolves and undead. New factions in the form of the White Hand and their Ghanaki allies, and Aztel’s bandits are introduced.

The Tarantia Noble District is a strange one. Apparently the Nemedians have broken into the city of Tarantia and Conan’s Black Dragon guards are barely containing them in the noble district. Part of the zone seems to be business as usual, and Conan’s castle seems peaceful enough, while the other half is overrun by Nemedians and the undead.

Tarantia Noble District houses perhaps the worst dungeons designed for this game. Cistern and Main System are two linked sewer dungeons for level 50s. The problem is that they are public dungeons, and because they are not max level, higher levels can go in there and gank players trying to quest. And because of their public nature, the mobs respawn every five minutes or so, making the entire place extremely grueling. I have not met anyone that likes Cistern or Main System and its hard to get a group to do them. There is a level 60 dungeon called The Catacombs, and it got an update in August. It is now a very enjoyable dungeon with multiple bosses and simple puzzles. Some of the bosses have simple but neat mechanics.

Another nice feature in the otherwise small zone of Tarantia Noble District are the Villas. There are four Villas, each with a repeatable quest. The quests are repeatable after some hours. The Villas are solo zones that scale to the player’s level. That makes the Villas a good place to grind experience, drops and gold in peace, all the way till level 80.

A similar concept to the Villas are three outdoor group dungeons. They too come with repeatable quests and scale to the level of the first player that zone in. They are accessible from the three resource zones in the game. Frost Swamp in Lacheish Plains, Imrian Ravine in Poitain, and Oasis of Zaara in Purple Lotus Swamp. They are filled with elite mobs and drop blue gear from the bosses. Great for getting lower level blue gear.

By FunCom’s own admission, they are aware that there is a gap in quests in the level 50s, and they are planning to address that in an upcoming update. The only zone for the 50s is Eiglophian Mountains, a picturesque place snow mountain that has a small village and a few hunting lodges. The zone seems to be overrun by cannibals and the White Hand. The latter controls an elite area up in the mountains. The coolest thing about Eiglophian Mountains are the extremely massive mammoths. All in all an enjoyable zone.

Age of Conan: First Impressions

These are my first impressions of Age of Conan, first written in a forum on 02.06.2008. I have changed the format a little here, and made some additions based on more time spent.

Character creation

Characters in Age of Conan are incredibly pliable. You can tweak the thickness of limbs, waist, hips, torso individually, although the change in bust size is not out of this world, so no porn stars for you. While this feature might get Western players excited, those of us used to Korean or Japanese games are quite used to inhumanly huge breasts perched on tiny waists that the amount of tweaking we can do in Age of Conan seems limited. This realistic limits to the tweaking of a body shape, has its downsides, everyone in-game looks like of similar. You cannot even reach the human extremes of a sumo wrestler and Kate Moss.

My main problem is that the faces are hard to make beautiful. Korean MMO and Guild Wars have beautiful faces, but in AoC, you can only make people who have gone through some harsh suffering in their lives, such as being a slave on a galley. Almost all the female faces are wrinkled especially at closeups.

I do not like the one word name system, although it is the least likely to be abused to make weird names. Korean MMO style “xXxOoOxXx” type names are out. “Xxxoooxxx” is how it will turn out. I am partial to the Guild Wars multiple word names, so one word is a bit of a crimp. So no “Conan The Librarian” for you.

There are three races: Aquilonians (Greek style), Cimmerian (Viking style), Stygian (Egyptian style), with 12 classes split into four archetypes: Priests, Soldiers, Rogues and Mages.

Priests
Priest of Mitra (Healing + Holy Damage + Crowd Control)
Tempest of Set (Healing + Electricity Damage + Crowd Control)
Bear Shaman (Healing + Melee Combat + Crowd Control)
Soldiers
Guardian (Melee Combat + Tanking + Crowd Control)
Conqueror (Melee Combat + Combat Buffs + Battle Resurrect)
Dark Templar (Multi-target Melee Combat + Anti-caster Combat + Combat Hexes)
Rogues
Barbarians (Stealth + Multi-target Melee Combat)
Assassins (Stealth + Single-target Melee Combat)
Rangers (Stealth + Ranged Combat + Crowd Control)
Mages
Demonologists (Summon Demon + Magic Damage)
Necromancers (Summon Undead + Magic Damage)
Herald of Xotli (Melee Combat + Magic Damage)

Since I rolled on a PvP server, I had feared that everyone else would be rolling Barbarians and Assassins so they can stealth and gank, but that fear was not panned out. Although in my early stages, I did not see a single Priest of Mitra, although I did not go around clicking to check people’s classes. Until they start to cast spells, all casters look the same. Conquerors and Barbarians can easily be mistaken for each other as they still both wear Medium armour at that stage. Later stages, the classes seem more well spread, with Herald of Xotli, Dark Templar and Bear Shaman being the slightly rarer sights, and no wonder since they are the hybrids.

Game play

The unique play feature of Age of Conan is its ultra light arcadey style combat. There are three (later five) attack directions and attack skills (similar to most other MMO) have follow up swings that you have to tap on those attack directions to follow and complete the combos. There is no such thing as Autohit, you have to tap every swing of your weapon through the fight. It is quite engaging. There is a blocking and dodging mechanic in the simple three directions, which can be ignored at the start, but gets more useful especially in PvP. I am playing at about 350ms pings to the US servers, its still quite doable.

Skills and spells are unlocked when you gain level automatically. There are feats which is pretty much the same system as Talents in World of Warcraft and other games before that.

I do not like that the skill and feat descriptions are ambiguous. Being more used to competitive games, I feel that skill descriptions must be concise and specific. In Age of Conan, the same skill might have two different descriptions in different places, they need to iron that out. Obviously not designed for competitive PvPing. This is the part I most hope would change.

The game world is split up into zones, each zone has several multi-group instance. This means lots of loading screens, but it also means no overcrowding. You can change your instance to meet up with friends, although currently that is bugged, it had worked before the last update. I feel that the benefits outweigh the hassle of the load screens.

Ganking is not as bad as I had feared, of course individual experiences will differ. It is worse in the weekend daytimes and in certain zones. I noticed that the evening crowd is generally more civilised. It could just be national stereotyping on my part. Of course, every instance will have one or two buggers, still enjoyably realistic: You have a bunch of armed mercenaries walking around, they are not all going to be pally with each other. I stop and am cautious when people are around, and 99% of the people are not griefers.

It was a bit overcrowded on the weekend daytimes. The spawn was not sufficient, as a result ganking increased. Might have been a better idea for everyone in the instance to party up so they can share quest kills. The population size and spawn rate got better in the evening, and perhaps as a result the amount of ganking reduced.

There is definitely a curve, when you first start an area as the lowest level, be ready to be griefed almost immediately. When you’re mid-level and run of the mill in that zone, there might still be a bit of cut and thrust, especially in zone exits to higher level zones. When you’re at the top of the pile in that zone no one messes with you, but its time to move on to the next higher level zone and start the process all over again.

Currently, the classes are not balanced for one on one combat, or will it ever be. Team synergies start to show quite nicely once you have two to three people together. Especially if they cover each other’s weaknesses. Monsters are generally manageable one on one, with your level and perhaps a handful higher. It starts getting sticky when you aggro a few higher level ones. Quests are marked with a Group icon if they require you to group. Those are generally fun, I hate playing alone.

Environment

The big selling point of this game is that it is an MMO with nearly FPS graphics. Textures are in high resolution, there is plenty of foliage, and the water is just simply amazing. I saw an incredible improvement with the graphics when I turned on anti aliasing. If you graphics card can take it, put on some AA, even 2x would make the game look so much better.

I love the water in this game. It is highly reflective of the environment, and there are actual 3D waves, that are not textures. If you take a dip in it, you can see ripples form behind you as you swim. The swimming strokes are realistic, including a back stroke, however, entry and exit from the water is too fast and not quite realistic. It must be said that not all water is created equal in this game. There are zones where the water is great, and there are zones where the water is one or two generations ago. They need to bring all the zones up to the high standards of their best.

The envrionment is very navigable. Of course there are terrain that you cannot pass, but it is a lot less than in many games out there. You can jump along the mountain sides that you cannot walk along, this allows you to jump quite a distance. Bashing through the woods lets you avoid gankers. You do not automatically walk off a cliff, it holds you there, although you are allowed to jump off to your death. People have tried but failed to push monsters off the side of a cliff. A bit too much walking around, but that is to be expected from a subscription based game. The cheaper horses do not help much.

In the starter zone called Tortage, every quest is accompanied by a voice over. This is hugely immersive, so much so that when you leave the starter zone, and start getting quests without a voice over, you feel like you are deaf. The main quests in the game will have voice overs but majority will not. There is a problem though, because of the voice overs, the game changes to a head view every time you have a conversation, in the traditional computer RPG style. This works great with the voice over, but is really odd without. Also, this view encourages people to gank you in the middle of a converstion, I would suggest that quests without voice overs should not have this head view.

The character design of their NPC tends to have droopy glazed eyes. No one is pretty or handsome in this game, it might just be a Norwegian thing. Hire some Koreans for head designs. Some character designs and animations like the drunken sailor and prostitutes are quite animated while others are very stiff. Voice overs are a little over dramatic and gives me goosebumps, but I’ll live. No one beats Rockstar Games at realistic voice overs.

Interface

The interface is currently very buggy, and quite frankly, not up to standard. Hopefully better UI will be created soon enough. There are so many awesome World of Warcraft user made UIs out that I do not understand why FunCom ended up with their Primitive and quite frankly, ugly and unwieldy one. After experiencing Guild Wars, not being able to “ping” or draw on the mini-map seems like caveman days.

Conclusions

All in all, very similar to many popular MMOs that have come before it. Familiar feature. Mostly taken a lot of good things. The M18 rated-ness is not too obvious. Yes, there are fatalities that splash my screen with blood, and you can make your female toons completely topless. Not over the top blood like Ninja Gaiden 2, and certainly not as pornographic like some salivating 13 year olds might expect.

Immersive quest givers (in the starter zone), luscious graphics, managed population, acceptable pings and load times, and a combat system that has a bit of a twist to the usual click on icon style MMO gaming. However, still full of bugs, and class balance needs to be addressed, or at least a clearer vision of class balance communicated to the players. FunCom has one gamecard’s time to rid themselves of the glaring common bugs that affect everyone, start to include more higher end content, and clean up the individual classes. then hopefully this game can go the distance. It is more niche than World of Warcraft, so subscription numbers would not be able to compare, however, it has got a healthy start, and hopefully that money is well spent on making the product good.

Creating a culture of complainers

I believe one of the reasons why Singaporeans get bad service and dangerous taxi drivers is because we complain to the wrong people. Singaporeans love to complain to each other in a coffeeshop over a cup of coffee. But you know what? Complaining like this does not change anything.

Complaining is a powerful tool that we are not harnessing in our fight for safety on our roads and for good service. All Singaporeans must start to complain through the proper channels and to complain often. Only then will the service providers have a database of complaints, and with that they can see trends, and hopefully take action to improve. Am I living in a fantasy? Probably, but if we did not try, how would we know?

Here is the thing, when you complain about a dangerous taxi driver in a coffeeshop, or the lately, in an internet forum, you will get many sympathetic and empathetic ears. But these complaints are generic, and they tar all the people of that profession in the same brush. There are no specifics, so it becomes discrimination. Complaining through the proper channels, however, is targeted. If that same taxi driver starts getting complaints thick and fast, I am quite sure that the LTA and the taxi company will take action.

Singapores hate making trouble, but what are we talking about here? Human lives. Do we wait until those taxi drivers actually kill someone before we take them off the roads? If a taxi driver is not fit to drive a taxi, he needs a new job. Simple as that. Too bad that taxi driving is a dignified occupation of last resort for Singaporean who are downsized. People should not pay for their lives for someone else’s dignity. There my Utopian syndrome kicks in again.

When complaints are targeted, the few bad eggs are identified, and the rest of the law abiding and hard working taxi drivers can continue doing their jobs with less discrimination. Good taxi drivers should encourage a culture of complaining properly, otherwise they are marred in the same brush stroke when we complain in general. Only bad drivers should be worried.

Here is an excerpt from LTA’s Taxi Driver Vocational License Point System

“How To Lodge A Complaint Against A Taxi Driver?
A commuter can lodge a complaint against a taxi driver by the following means:
1) By Phone :
Call to LTA Hotline – 1800-Call LTA or 1800-225 5582
2) By Email :
Access to LTA Internet Website – http://www.lta.gov.sg
3) By Letter or Fax :

Bus & Taxi Regulation Dept
Land Transport Authority
10 Sin Ming Drive
Singapore 575701
Fax No.: 6553 5329

Information You Need To Provide When Lodging A Complaint

To lodge a complaint, a commuter has to provide the following information:
1) Vehicle registration number of the taxi (with prefix and suffix) e.g. SHA1234Z
2) Date and time of the incident
3) Venue and/or origin-destination of the incident
4) A brief account of the incident

Additional information that will help in the investigation include:
1) Type and colour of taxi
2) Fare paid
3) Sign displayed
4) Brief description of the driver
Commuters may have to appear in court to support their complaint.“

Also can give feedback about bad service to the companies themselves.

Comfort Transportation Pte Ltd (ComfortDelgro)
Tel: 6555 1188 Fax: 6452 7742
feedback@cdgtaxi.com.sg
http://www.comfort-transportation.com.sg/survey.asp

CityCab Pte Ltd (ComfortDelgro)
Tel: 6552 4525 Fax: 6552 4125
feedback@cdgtaxi.com.sg

SMRT Corporation Ltd
Tel: 1800 3368 900
CorpComms@smrt.com.sg
http://www.smrt.com.sg/contact_us/contact_us.asp

Trans-Cab Services Pte Ltd
Tel: 6555 6666

Premier Taxi Pte Ltd
Tel: 6476 8880 Fax: 6473 9339
http://www.premiertaxi.com/commuters-feedback.htm

Smart Automobile Pte Ltd
Tel: 6485 7700 Fax: 6485 7711
http://www.smartcab.com.sg/html/feedback.html

Prime Car Rental & Taxi Services Pte Ltd
Tel: 6741 9292 Fax: 6746 1555

Is it so hard to belt up?

Following the death of Russell Koh in April 24, after he was thrown out of his school bus in a traffic accident, there had been calls for a law to make it compulsory for school buses to have seat belts. “Enough is enough. No other child should die.” was a particularly emotive rallying call for this implementation.

However, reality on the ground, is that the cost is going to be so prohibitive that some school bus operators might decide to leave the industry if such a law is implemented. They might then be replaced by large conglomerate bus companies who are likely to hire Mainland Chinese drivers, and charge a much higher premium, further eroding the lower income Singaporean’s sense of being a stakeholder in their own country.

Questions are now being raised about why Land Transport Authority has taken two years to study whether it is feasible to implement this. Surely it is a straight forward issue, how can the LTA let another child die?

I have a suspicion if a law was enacted to enforce the installation of seat belts on school buses, there would almost immediately be a new round of letters from the public that might go something like this:

“My child travels to school on public buses, is his life not as valuable as the lives of richer children traveling in school buses? Do we have to wait until a child dies in a public bus traffic accident before we act? Enough is enough. No other child should die.”

Already the question is being asked about foreign workers on lorries. Are their lives less valuable than a Singaporean child’s? Is it racism or nationalism that motivates our refusal to give them decent and safe transport? Or are Singaporeans too money minded? These are human lives we are talking about!

What about the elderly on public buses? What about pregnant women? And teenagers? And adults? Are they worth less than a child whose parents can afford the school bus? Is standing room safe on public buses? These are all possible questions that can be raised, and they can be equally emotive when case studies are dragged out of history and plastered on the front pages.

In the end, it is all about whether it is economical for the operators to implement the rules, and how these rules would change the competitive landscape of the industry. With inflation being the keyword of the year, whether this is the right time to hammer the final nail into our wallets.

It does not help the case of the transport operators that they are currently complaining that high fuel costs have driven their profits down. ComfortDelgro, parent company of SBS Transport, saw net profits fall 9.4% to $50.2 million in the last quarter. $14 million of which was made by SBS Transport. Bear in mind that in our tiny nation of 4 million residents, ComfortDelgro is the world’s second largest land transport operator.

It is understanable why your average Singaporean might see where the problem lie with this industry. If a law to install seat belts is passed on school buses, and it does indeed drive the business into the hands of ComfortDelgro, it would look worse. If a similar law is not enacted for public buses, it might be deemed that the LTA can arm wrestle small bus operators but is impotent against the juggernauts.

Are the lives of individual Singaporeans worth $14 million a quarter? Maybe we need to ask Russel Koh’s mother. Should what we ostensibly consider our “public transport” company be profiting enough to be the world’s second largest land transport operator? At the expense of our lives? It is easy to make an emotive argument, but there is a reality to life.

Motor Insurance in Singapore

Insurance companies in Singapore have lost three times more in motor insurance in the first quarter of 2008, than they have at the same time in 2007. They were still profitable in 2006. So what caused the big change? GIA Motor Insurance Statistics.

The Police has stopped handling non-injury motor accidents since 1999, so that should not be the reason for the sudden spike in insurance fees.

A quick glance at the Singapore Police Force website shows that there were 6,845 fatal and injury traffic accidents in 2004, and 8,323 in 2007. Quite an increase, definitely much higher than the population growth percentage. 94 motorcycle rider and pillion deaths in 2004, and 103 in 2007, close to a 10% increase. Drink-driving accidents have moved from 237 in 2004, to the high of 288 in 2006 and dropped to 188 in 2007 even though it had the high of 4,009 arrests. Traffic 2007 Overview.

The specifics have not really changed dramatically, but the overall situtation has seen an increase of 21% of fatal and injury traffic accidents. Of course, missing from the Traffic Police statistics are the non-injury accidents, which must have had a significant increase as wel.

The government adopted a policy of allowing more people in Singapore to fulfil their aspiration of owning cars by releasing more Certificates of Entitlements. This policy change might have been derived from interviewing Singaporeans emigrating, many whom cited the fact that they cannot own the car of their dreams as one of the factors for leaving. Of course, increased cars means more drivers are buying insurance, it should all even out, unless the quality of drivers have reduced.

The market situation that encouraged cars to be scrapped early also ensured that Singapore cars are mostly new and in good condition. The economy and sentiments were kept bouyant with the money generated by new cars being bought. The pros of this situation is that the air is less polluted, and there are less breakdowns. Newer cars are also better able to cope with emergency situations with brakes and steering in better conditions. The downside, however, is that it is very expensive for insurance companies to pay a claim against a newer car because it is worth more. If you own a third-party insurance, you are not paying your premium for your own vehicle, but for the vehicle you are likely to knock into. If the overall value of cars on the road rise, your premium will rise.

Has the population mindset changed enough that more people now have the “claim them for every single cent” mentality, as opposed to the old “I do not want any trouble” mentality? Anecdotally, I would think so. “Suffering a whiplash” to call for an ambulance, so that the accident is classified as an injury accident seems to be a favoured tactic. This allows the scope for claiming for medical costs as well as vehicle damage.

Owners also take the opportunity to upgrade their vehicles and workshops bloat the claims. It is not uncommon for them to claim $700 for a little scratch to a bumper that would take $70 worth of paint work. Here lies the conundrum that the insurance companies find themselves in. I would believe that the vast majority of motor vehicle claims, as well as medical claims, are below the $5,000 mark, and another large chunk are below the $10,000 mark.

Insurance companies are left with this difficult mathematical problem: Do they pay $700 of blatantly fraudulent claims, or pay $5000++ to their lawyers to dispute those claims? And so they all add up to $35,300,000 loss in the first quarter of 2008.

Foresight, anyone? The General Insurance Association, and the authorities must know very well that the most motor insurance claims are below the cost of opening up a case file with a lawyer. For them to ignore or overlook this reality is irresponsible. They need to work together to create a legal framework similar to the Small Claims Tribunal in the Subordinate Courts, to pursue legal actions against fraudulent claims without the need for lawyers.

Of course, there is the other side of this solution. Firstly, the need for more judges, but more importantly, because we, the customers, do not trust the insurance industry. We will fight tooth and nail if they resist paying out our claims. However, I feel that this is the best situation in the long run. A few workshops will be closed down for fraudulent claims and contempt of the courts, and the rest will tow the line. It is the most realistic solution, and hopefully can seperate the true claims from the fraudulent.

There is a conspiracy angle to this as well. More cars means more import taxes, and more mandatory insurance bought for them. The operating costs of owning a vehicle can shoot sky high, and still the authorities can say that we are now able to fulfill our dreams of owning a car. But the reality is this, those emigrating out of Singapore are dreaming of owning a BMW, not a Chery QQ.

Vehicle thefts in Singapore

There was a small article in the May 3 2008 Straits Times about an IT consultant who lost her car having parked it four days ago. Ordinary enough an article, but it came with it a few statistics.

“Accord to the police there were 63 cases of car thefts last year and 72 in 2006. This compares with 818 cases of motorcycle thefts last year and 647 in 2006.”

If you had told me that one car was stolen every 10 days in Singapore, I would not have believed it. I think Singaporeans are so sold on the low crime image that we forget sometimes. Yes, I am quite sure its a really commendable statistics compared to other cities, but its still noteworthy.

Compare that with 2 motorcycles stolen a day, car drivers can be quite relaxed about not buying their Third Party, Fire and Theft insurance. Motorcycle owners tend not to buy TPFT because the premiums are quite ridiculous and they come with many clauses that are stacked against the owners.

Motorcycles are a lot easier to steal than cars for a variety of reasons, starting from the fact that a couple of guys can carry a motorcycle up a lorry if they so pleased. Forgetting your keys in the ignition of a motorcycle is also more obvious than for a car. Drivers must have forgotten to lock their cars occasionally and have seldom been punished for their carelessness. It is also much easier to hide a motorcycle than a car.

I also found a Ministry of Home Affairs speech by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Home Affairs Mr. Wong Kan Seng dated 21 April 2008.

“Over the last 5 years, an average of 590 cases of bicycle theft were reported each year, with a peak of 790 cases in 2005 and a low of 580 cases last year. For the first two months this year, there were about 80 cases of bicycle theft reported, which is the lowest number when compared to the corresponding periods from 2005 to 2007. Bicycle thefts have been on a downward trend since 2005.”

The numbers are suprisingly similar (to me, anyway) to that for motorcycles. Considering that there is, in theory, more theft deterrence in a motorcycle. I guess the relative different values play a big part.

This is relevant to me because I am thinking of getting a motorcycle, and if I get a new one, I would prefer to get a TPFT insurance for it, at least for the first few years. Combining that with a higher premium for being a new rider, might make the insurance prohibitive. So I might opt for an older used bike for the first year.

Stuff I have never looked up before

Having started on my motorcycle course and hanging out in the motorcycle forums, I had encountered a few threads about concerns of motorcyclists. Apparently these should be concerns of all road users, but they have never been forefront in my mind before as a driver or a cyclists. Of course, all this information is only relevant to Singapore.

Injury Accidents

I found this link about when and how an accident will be classified as an injury accident. The main reason is this, an accident with an injury has to be reported to the police, while a non-injury accident need only be reported to one’s insurance company.

http://driving-in-singapore.spf.gov….q.htm#accident

Generally speaking, if one party is sent to the hospital in an ambulance from the accident site, and secondly if one of the parties get a 3 days or more medical leave from work.

There are subtle things at work here, because by calling an ambulance to an accident site, there is a very high chance that a traffic policeman will arrive as well. If a party believes that he would be in favour when the responsibilities for an accident is handed out, he might well want the traffic police to assess the site and write a report in his favour. The truth is, there are always two sides to every traffic accident, and often both reports are poles apart. That ends up with a 50:50 split of insurance claims.

So the funny business begins, drivers might complain about a whiplash and request an ambulance. While after visiting your vehicle workshop, some people might advise you to see a doctor to get a 3 day medical certificate. There are positives about this, motorists who know the law and their rights will less likely be bullied by other motorists.

Motor Insurance

One of the motorists in the forum encountered a situation where he had reported his accident to his insurance company, while the other party had not, and the other party’s insurance company has a policy of not processing claims if their insuree has not reported it. In theory that seems to be a good idea, but it opens up a huge can of worms. People would be thinking, no one can claim from me if I never report it to the insurance company.

http://www.getformesingapore.com/Inf…_accidents.htm

“Motorists are advised to report the accident to their insurers as soon as possible. If one of the drivers does not report to his insurer and the latter comes to know of a claim by the other party involved in the accident, the insurer has to contact the insured and request him to lodge a report. If the assured still refuses to lodge a report with the insurance company, the matter will be referred to the police.”

It appears that the insurance company has the responsibility to get the insuree to file a report, but it is not in the interest of the insurance company for that to happen, because they would end up having to settle the claim. There is a conflict of interest in this matter.

When is a traffic offense a crime?

Some guy was worried that he might get a criminal record for being brought to court for a rather serious traffic offense. From a quick reading of the Singapore Penal Code, I believe there are only very few circumstances of that happening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Penal_Code

Causing death by rash or negligent act. This seems to be the most common circumstance, if someone is killed in a traffic accident, the responsible party might be charged under this.

Contempt of the Authority of a Public Servant. This charge might be placed if the motorists commits contempt of court by refusing to submit to its ruling. Might also involve situations with law enforcers.

False Evidence and Offences Against Public Justice. Pejury, essentially. Lying to the police and the court about an accident situation.

Passing on

For all my years of driving and cycling, I have never thought about dying on the roads, but apparently it is a situation familiar to motorcyclists. They see their friends passing on, and they worry about their loved ones. I found a few links about how one’s assets would be distributed upon one’s death. Since I have not got too much assets nor any dependants at the moment, I have not put much thought into this. I must in the future however.

http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_versi…st&method=part

The Intestate Succession states how my assets will be distributed to my remaining dependants and family if I do not have a will. There are plenty of lawyers happy to show me how to write my will. This Act does not apply to Muslims.

http://www.lawsociety.org.sg/awareness/faraid.htm

Muslims are covered by the Faraid or Muslim Inheritance Law.

http://www.lawsociety.org.sg/awarene…ing_a_will.htm

Here is some guidelines to drafting a will. Also has specifics pertaining to Muslims.

http://www.iras.gov.sg/irasHome/page03.aspx?id=1186

How Estate Duty is calculated to one’s assets, might be scrapped soon though.

The vicious cycle at neighbourhood schools

I had a chat with an 18 year old lady yesterday who was waiting to start her University life, and so was fresh out of Junior College. I asked her what she was doing in the meantime and as it turns out, she was a relief teacher at a neighbourhood Secondary school. I was quite surprised to find that they were hiring Junior College graduates to be relief teachers, but my shock did not end there.

Apparently, she was being made to serve the full responsibilities of a full-time teacher. Essentially, she was a relief teacher to a non-existent teacher. The Ministry of Education has found such a loophole to plug their manpower shortage. She is paid S$60 a day, had to contribute CPF and had no perks or medical coverage whatsoever. This is wrong on so many levels that I do not know where to begin criticism.

I know a teacher at a prestigious Junior College and also know someone else who left the teaching career at a neighbourhood Secondary school, and their students that I have encountered and the tales I have heard are completely poles apart.

Some of the students that I have met at the prestigious Junior College was highly self motivated, enthusiastic and eager to learn. You know they would not do too badly in the workforce because their organisation skills are already at a certain level at their age. Who would not want to teach children like that? In stark contrast, the tales I heard from my other friend, I can fully understand why he decided to leave the teaching career.

While I would hate to stereotype neighbourhood schools, the reality is that many of them end up with students who are less interested to learn, have more personal problems and are less obedient. The job of a teacher involves marking the attendance of his class in the morning, and calling the homes of those who have not turned up, to know their whereabouts. For my friend, that involved making up to 10 calls every single school day, such was the prevalence of problem students he had to deal with.

He had three students from China, whom he has never seen before in his life on his student roll. Even into three months of the school year, he has never successfully gotten through to these students over the phone. Even when SingTel started announcing that the number he has just called in no longer in use, his Vice-Principal could only tell him to keep trying.

Inundated with too many calls one Friday, he missed out calling one of his students. It completely slipped his mind until he got a call on Sunday. Apparently the student has not been to home since Friday. Fortunately, he had a bit of a rapport with that student and had his mobile phone number. He called and arranged a meeting on Sunday and had to convince the child to go home. I am not sure if this was the last straw, but when other issues overwelm the main reason he chose the career in the first place, I can fully understand why he decided that enough was enough.

I once had the fortune of being at my hairdresser’s when a jovial and talkative retired teacher was also there to do her hair. She brought curry puffs for the hairdressers and I was swept up in her generousity. In that 45 minutes of a haircut, she had shared countless stories of her career. But her parting shot stood out. She was putting off applying to the Ministry of Education to register herself as a part-time teacher. Apparently that option was open to retired teachers. Her reasoning was that they would definitely send her to schools with the most troublesome students because of her experience. She would rather spend a few years enjoying her new-found freedom first.

This is what I used to think about the difference between neighbourhood schools and prestigious schools, I had believed that the quality of the teachers were the same, only that in a prestigious school, the normal mentality of the students is that their studies was important, and there was an atmosphere of studiousness at least up to a certain extent. This was how I got through the education system. I have always been in decent schools where everyone else at least spent some time focusing on their schoolwork, that even playful and lazy students like myself was swept up in it enough to barely manage to scrape through.

Of course, even back then, I was aware that the schools I was in were an entire tier above some other schools. We have had students, both in my Primary and Secondary schools who were kicked out for being the lousiest students, only for them to join another school nearby and end up in the top class, sometimes getting the best grades in school. Back then, I always wanted to go to a lousy school and be the best there, instead of languishing in the nether depths of a top school. I had not yet realised how much the environment made a difference.

It was a rude shock when national statistics during those days revealed that only 40% of Secondary students progressed to Junior College and Polytechnic. I looked around me, and at the schools of my siblings, and could not see how that statistic could be real. The schools that my siblings and I were in probably had 99% to 100% of students who end up continuing their education. I barely made it into Polytechnic myself, so naturally thought of myself as the stuff at the bottom of the barrel. It was only when I got older when I started meeting people who came from Secondary schools where their top 5 students managed to get into Polytechnic. That completely blew my mind.

A friend who is currently in the public relations department of the Singapore Armed Forces recently illuminated me that the National Service system is the glue in the fabric of our society, it is the only place where top prestigious school graduates get to meet middle of the road guys like me, and others who have had much shorter education life. While the rest of us still sniff at those high and mighties who end up as our Officers, it was the only chance for those guys to see lowly peasants like ourselves and suffering together with us apparently gives them a much needed reality check. Which I daresay, ladies from top schools need a dose of.

Perhaps they can get a dose of it by being exploited as a relief teacher in a neighbourhood school, that would certainly shatter any Mother Theresa delusions they might have. Apparently the state of our education system was worse than I had thought. Even if the Ministry of Education was to send top teachers to the weakest schools, the environment in which they need to operate under would just bleed them dry. The end result is that fully trained teachers choose to leave the career for a more lucrative shot as a tuition teacher, retired teachers reconsider and choose to stay away, and untrained and under qualified Junior College graduates are corralled into playing full-time teachers, teaching some foreign students who are older than them.

I am glad I ended up in decent schools, and also glad that my niece and nephew are in good schools. Good schools have an environment where there is a minimum standard of interest in studies and even weaker students are bouyed by it and make it through. No wonder there is such a charge during Primary 1 enrollment exercises, and such acrimony with placements into Secondary schools. It is a conundrum that the Ministry of Education cannot solve. So the best schools get better, and the worst schools get worse.

Lhasa Olympics

It started as the Pollution Olympics, governments and sports bodies around the world saw an opportunity and took pot shots at the Beijing authorities about the pollution issues, some threatening boycotts and withdrawals for health reasons.

Then it became the Darfur Olympics, with Steven Spielberg and Mia Farrow failing to get any public notice of their protest against the Chinese government for their perceived complicity in the Sudanese government’s oppression in Darfur. The West in general is completely ignoring the genocide in Sudan, much less an indirect link to its arms supplier. Unfortunately, the failure of the association of the problems in Darfur to a bigger news issue has relegated the Darfur problem even further back into obscurity.

But how fast it became the Lhasa Olympics. Whether the riots were instigated by outside forces, or a spontaneous reaction of the population would take some time to come to light. But the fact of the matter is that at least 13 innocent civilians were burnted and stabbed to death by the rioters. I would like the people of the world to get off their high horse and claim that their own government would not put down the riot in a similar way given such a death toll. While I am not a big fan of the Chinese Communist Party, I find the hypocrisy of the Western media to be quite laughable. All this in a time when the human rights record of major Western powers are highly suspect.

Whatever credibility the rioters had died with those 13 innocent civilians. While the Western media is not trumpeting that aspect of the facts either because of an inherent bias or their yearning for more juicy news, Asian media, particularly Chinese state media regularly reminds their population of it.

The television images of protesters in Paris “attacking” the poor wheelchair-bound girl has been a PR windfall for the Communist government with its own people. Now, as far as the Chinese population is concerned, Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel and Nicolai Sarkozy are not so much boycotting the Olympic games, as are being banned from attending. The picture only made less dramatic because the poor girl did not fall of her wheelchair. She has now gone home to China as a hero, a defender of Chinese pride and the Olympic spirit. Looking at the map of the rest of the torch relay, I believe that most of the remaining legs would be relatively smooth sailing. But who knows what conspirators will cook up.

This issue shows the existence of a deep rooted bias against China. It is not about issues anymore, it is cultural discrimination. Many in the West are no longer able to differentiate between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people, and that plays into the hands of the party. Politicians and business people in the West now not only has to deal with intransigent Chinese leaders, but an angered Chinese population. This chain of events have allowed the Communist leadership to move to a position much closer to the people, they can now all sing the same tune, which makes future regime or policy changes even harder to force on them.

Bravo, boycott and protest all you want, the Chinese government, as well as the people are taking notes. They know who is naughty or nice. The heads of states that will attend the opening ceremony, and the legs of the torch relay that will go on smoothly, are going to be a clear defining line of alliances moving into the future decades. I have always loved this quote which I cannot remember whom by: The West never remembers and the East never forgets.