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.
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