Technical problems with servers

As pretty much everyone else from 4.30 PM GMT, I checked the client constantly. Unfortunately, I was stopped at various stages, like, “Downloading Patch Information” and “Cannot Authenticate to server”. At 5.30, I was quite annoyed and after my post hoping that everyone would get it easy for the 5PM server opening, I was quite pissed.

With the Age of Conan official forums down at the time, there was no way to talk to other players about what happened with the servers. Expecting it all to be sorted out tommorow, I restarted my computer for the 5th time (in case the problems were client side) and was very happy to see this (See Image Below). At last Funcom had released an official note on the matter, and I’m happy that they bothered, instead of letting the community sort out the problems of communication.

Basically, it says that the servers will be back online at 8PM GMT, so be on at that time.

It also seems that the official site and forums are down but I might be wrong, I’m guessing it’s because they don’t want thousands of posts a second, complaining about the servers not working.

Heres what it says if I try to login:

“You have entered an invalid username or password. Please press the back button, enter the correct details and try again. Don’t forget that the password is case sensitive.”

Right now, I’m probably going to put the idea of the “Thinking aloud” plan aside, and try again in a few weeks, probably when I go into a brand new city in game. Sorry for all of those who wanted it, just have some patience, and I’ll try to help you out.

Conan Watch

Release date is upon us…

First off, I personally want to wish everyone who is going to play today, a happy time in AoC. I hope no one can’t connect to the servers or cannot download patched etc. etc.

It’s been a very long wait for everybody and From here on outwards we can all enjoy ourselves in Hyboria.

I wrote this post to tell everyone what I’m going to do in the release. What I’m going to do is record myself via microphone, and basically “think aloud” everything going through my head as I play those first ten minutes. Afterwards I’m going to write up everything I said in those ten minutes and publish it. I also want to say, that it will include from when I double click the icon for Age of Conan.

I’m going to publish the writeup probably on Sunday, so lookout for that.

I hope everyone will enjoy what I want to say, I invite everyone to write in the comments, your most significant thought you had in the first 10 minutes of play.

On another note, I have recently surpassed 1000 hits after a few weeks of being live and I would like to thanks each and everyone of the readers. Remeber that my Digg link is on the front page so don’t hesitate to digg me.

Conan Watch

Age of Conan server names and Early Access Program

Funcom have recently revealed the names, locations, and types (PVP, PVE or RP-PVP) for Age of Conan servers.

All the servers are available for the Early access 17th May players. Find the list here.

I counted about 30 odd servers, quite a lot for a new game, most starting out with maybe 10, or 20, then making more available as more players start coming. I suspect that they will easily fill up the majority of servers, in no time, but there could be a few empty-ish ones.

Quote from Funcom:

“Funcom has been working very hard towards setting up gaming server capacity to launch this game comfortably for all the people who want to play Age of Conan.”

Basically Funcom believe they will have enough space for all players and wanted to make sure that there were no unhappy players. Not being sure how big each server is, it’s quite difficult to estimate what will happen

Xbox 360 and PC Playing Together

In a recent interview with Videogamer.com , Theraldsen, Funcom’s product director, talked about Xbox 360 gamers and PC gamers joining together to experience Hyboria in cross-platform play

As reported from IGN, Theraldsen says that…

” We want them [Xbox 360 gamers] to be able to play with their PC friends if they like to… But obviously the control mechanism, the communication, all this is stuff we are solving on a daily basis. The patching, the install, the footprint, the payment, the servers, the customer service… it’s a challenge. But we will get there eventually,”

I think, this will be a huge challenge and difficulty for Funcom, as mentioned in the quote, they would have to make everything fair between the two platforms, view distance, essential gameplay graphics (e.g. Casting animations) and because the Xbox version is expected to be released a year after the PC version comes out, A lot of Xbox 360 players will be flattened by the experienced PC players. Of course eventually the Xbox players will have the same skill as the PC players, but if the game is not well balanced for the Xbox players it will be even more difficult. This means that Age of Conan could get a bad reputation on consoles for being unfair. To counter this I suggest that Funcom make it optional whether you want to play with the other platform.

Age of Conan talent trees

One of the things that I spend my time on in MMOs is talents and feats. The exact combination that gives me the most fun can sometimes take hours, so why wait for launch? The website http://feats.goonheim.com/ is a great source for every class’ specific feat tree, and are very accurate. The arrows connecting linked feats are sometimes hard to see, but once you know where they are this is a wonderful tool to determine your build for the games launch. (Not to mention that you’ll be able to kill those long hours waiting for tommorow!)

Not knowing exactly how each spell works, or how each talent will exactly affect the spells (some simply say they “increase”, whatever that means) makes choosing difficult, don’t stop to look at them though, because the majority have good information, but you can always look at the end talents and imagine how cool they will be.

Conan Watch - Jake

Ten Ton Hammer release “/emote” videos

Ten Ton Hammer have recently released a new list of short videos showing quite a few /emotes. If you’re not entirely sure what a /emote is, I suggest, the next time you’re in pretty much any MMO, type /dance and press enter. You can find the “Video Emote Guide” here.

Before you do however I suggest you take a minute to think whether you really want to watch them. It’s like that “first 5 minute” experience that I’ve been avoiding the beta for. I want to be able to have that first 5 minutes for proper, in the real game with my character which I could spend years with. You only have your first time once, and it’s a bit like with novelty things like /emotes.

It’s not life changing if you don’t see the /vomit for the first time in game, but for people like me, I’m going to wait for Saturday to mess around with stuff like that. If you’re excited about the game, I don’t blame you for trying to get as much in without actually playing it, but think ahead about if you will be dissapointed for not seeing those things before.

Your call, but I’m the kind of gamer who will get excited about /emotes and similar things, but wants to wait to really use them.

Conan Watch

EU Preorders, Start your engines…

Hey again, just a quick word, I visited https://register.ageofconan.com/ earlier today as I usually do, to check for the pre order download, and was happy to see that Funcom had updated the page to read the following

Welcome to the Age of Conan Early Access Program!

You’ve chosen to be among the select few who can venture into Hyboria to carve out your destiny and establish your name before the masses arrive.

To start your journey you will first have to download and install the client from the link below.

Once installed the client can be patched to the latest version from May 14th, so that you’re fully prepared to start your journey.

The gates to Hyboria will open on May 17th.

Welcome to Hyboria!

One word really, w00t. But seriously, all you need to do is login to your account on the register site and make sure you’ve paid for the early access programme, to begin downloading.

As Funcom said a few weeks ago here, There is a limited number of spaces available so be quick.

You will download a Funcom Download Manager, and from there you can download the game.

At the moment, Im at 0.1 %, It has completely stopped while, when I started it was at 400kb/s. I’m a bit worried but hopefully it should sort itself out. Pausing and pressing play sorted out the problem.

The Funcom Download Manager is trying to download almost 14 GB worth of game and at 400 kb/s it will take a day and a half.

I’m just hoping I will be able to keep my computer on for that long. One problem I do hope isn’t the case, is that on the Mozilla Firefox download, I was downloading a huge file and had to turn it off for the night. I pressed pause and when I turned it back on in the morning I couldn’t find the file anywhere. If I was you I would just keep your PC on all night just in case.

Quick edit, I’m at 5 % and the download hasn’t gone below 390 kb/s and it will take 16 hrs, which is good news for my internet connection. Hopefully it will be the same for you.

If you are having any difficulties or tips for downloading the file, be sure to post them in the comments for other readers who are having problems.

Have a good download!

Conan Watch

Trying not to be a cliche here…

I just like to say that if you appreciate the work I do and want to do something about it I’d be very grateful if you digg me here I know that every podcast, blog and old granny asks you to digg them but hey, it helps with the traffic and I would be very grateful.

On another note, I’ve recently bought an Age of Conan book and will be posting about it soon, so stay tuned (via rss on main page if you feel so obliged) just a heads up you can find the book here.

I will be writing on my views on the book and what kind of stories are inside.

Conan Watch

AoC countdown timer

If you haven’t already seen, A guild (Epsilon Team) have decided to make a countdown timer till the 20th May,

check it out at Countdown

Minus 3 days for the preorder bonus, and plus 3 for Europeans.

I’ve got it bookmarked and even though It’s quite sad, meh.

Conan Watch

What class to choose?

I’ve been thinking a lot about what class I want to be. I mean I’m going to be playing this character a lot so I want it to be something I really enjoy. In other games such as a WoW, I always chose the damage melee classes so the Rogues in the case of AoC. I’m not sure if I still want to go down that route. I’ve been looking at the other classes and none of them seem to appeal to me. The casters aren’t really in the thick of it and neither are the Ranger. I want to be in the middle, decapitating peoples heads off at will. I want to have the killing blow and to have the highest dps. So bollocks to what I just said about me not wanting to be A rogue. Ok, now that that is sorted, do I choose:

1. Assassin
2. Barbarian
3. Ranger

Personally I’m edging towards the Assassin. It sounds exciting and brutal just from the name itself, And according Wiki page on it It sounds quite snazzy.

Hallelujah EU Preorderers!

No more tears now blue hands man person…

Don’t sad, put on a happy face!

Were you quite depressed when you found out that the US preoderers got early access from 17th onwards while we EU’s had to wait till the 20th of May for the 3 day bonus?

Well wipe you’re tears away sister, because on the official site of AoC (here), Funcom have just anounced that registration has just opened for the EU pre-orderers (I know that’s not a word :p) has opened, so everyone go to here to type in you’re preorder codes while supplies last. Run like the wind people, basically. Unfortunately for me, I prordered from Game.co.uk (here) I’m going to get sent the mail on the 10th. Hopefully between now (6th May) to the the 10th the supplies will not vanish.

More importantly than the registration page being opened to pre-order keys, As I mentioned earlier in the post, Us EU-ians get the 17th May preoder like the US-ians do. Now what this means, that the actual game doesn’t release on the 20th (like the americans) it’s still at the time of writing being released and sent to everyone on the 23rd. This means that the 3 day preorder now is the 6 day preorder.

Hello Age of Conan fans!

Hi, Conan Watch is a blog all about Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.

From news to opinions to in game guides and funny shit. You’ll hopefully find it all here.

You won’t need to scower the internet for information and news you just come here.

I hope you enjoy the work I’ve put into the blog and if you have any questions or requests e-mail me at shadow_georges@btinternet.com