Owning Exiled Brethren

     So I have been playing on Set. A few Red Nails joined the guild called Prophets, and we started raiding with them (which means I raid 1 day out of the week). So in between that time it is mini games and maybe a pug six man group once in awhile. There was something really missing though. Honestly, sitting in khemi and pretending I can attack someone in the world just doesn't exist.

     We got so bored that we started playing War Z, for the open world pvp. It was there, but that game sucks. I went back to Conan again after a week, hoping that I would find some open world conflict.
     We started playing some alts on Tyranny Server again, where I originated. It has changed so much since I left. I looked to see who was the top guild on the server, and it was a guild called Exiled Brethren. I picked this guild to pvp against because I figured it had the skilled players on the server.
     The first battle was 3 Red Nails and 10 Exiled Brethren. They had no idea what was going on, so we focused targets while they came at us one by one, feeding us kills. They got very upset. The next encounter we had with them they brought a raid force, and we had 6 Nails. They gave us a beating as they teamed up with the Sentinals guild, which has one or two pvpers left in their guild. Yet even with the raid we were kiting and getting kills off the mob.
     Exiled started talking a lot of smack in global one night, and they left their guild city door open. There were a few of them hiding in there, so we went in and killed them. They called in more, we killed them again and again. They did not get 1 kill off us five. Here are the videos of the encounter.

     A few days later we learn that they port from 6 man to 6 man in fear of us engaging in pvp with them. A few of their players also transferred their characters to the Set server, so they can pve unmolested.

     WHAT?

     This is sad to me. There are an average of 3 Red Nails on at a time at this point, and at a peak time we are on Tyranny there might be 6 of us. We have recruited two people from the Tyranny server itself, otherwise its players getting on alt toons. 

     I think our work with Exiled is completed though. They don't want to engage in pvp with anyone. Not only that, they will only do mini games in-guild, letting one side win, then the other side win, essentially pve farming campaign badges. 

     Is there anyway for other players to return to an open world setting on alts for pvp? Or does the pve sustain everyone in the US servers?

The Ghost Server of Tyranny

When Funcom decided to merge Set and Wiccana together people were happy. More population is grate. The thing is though, the timing was terrible. They offered free transfers...which gave people the opportunity to move from Tyranny to Set, which turned out to be the most populated server in Age of Conan. Why?

Because the merge happened right at the release of Guild Wars 2. This was a bad idea. People go look at other games. It's just the way it is. So people went to play GW2...not everyone but a lot of people. Especially people interested in trying something new in the pvp department. This hurt Tyranny a lot, especially with some deciding they wanted to move over to Set. So the population started to decline badly.

Once people started coming back from learning that gw2 wasn't the dream come true it was worked up to be, they came to an under populated server. Welcome home to Tyranny. Half went to Set, a few stayed in Guild Wars (let me sum up the last boss fight of gw2 - press "2" a million times as the boss doesn't damage you until he dies. This after killing trash mobs).

People can't raid unless you were in Aco's or Req Nex - whom had an alliance of sorts to assist in raid efforts. So, the two most populated guilds on the pvp server didn't really do open world pvp.

Aco's decided to move to Set, probably giving funcom a lot of money. Move it another month and here comes Req Nex, moving to Set, more bank for funcom. I myself moved 4 toons over, giving them $80 myself....just to play the game with other people. I mean....it is an mmo.

All the talk about single server tech, won't matter much if there is only one server.

New Crafting System for AoC

The new crafting system for Age of Conan is a much needed addition to the game. You can still get good crafted items necessary to begin your adventures in the Northern Grasslands, but after that there really isn't going to be much use for it...besides the four hour foods and some of the crafted weapons. With the revamp, crafting promises to bring value to every item in the game.

Running T2 raids over and over again are great for guild renown, gearing out alt toons, and hoping your weapon will drop. It also offers ways to get shards, which are needed to help make the Ibis and t3 weapons. (someone help me make an ibis :D). There is always rot gear that can't be used. Not anymore! With the new crafting system we can take the rot piece and break it down for crafting materials.

We will be able to craft pvp gear as well, which means it won't be so bad when first bringing a new toon to pvp. I am not exactly sure on how this will work, but I'm assuming there will be nodes that give pvp stats that you can add to the crafted gear.

Here is the live stream where the materials are talked about to make weapons and armor: here

The people who have spent the time to get all the crafting recipe's should start making gear sets before it is too late. Because soon we will no longer have these items. This includes culture sets. If I had a way to do it, I would make as many sets as you could and bank them until a later date. Then sell them later? Just an idea.

Age of Hacking?

     Yes...someone had to say something sometime about the various hacks that are in Age of Conan. It isn't new to MMO's at all though. Each has it's bots, and combo helpers for people that are bad at gaming. I mean, you really have to be bad and lazy to seek third party programs to help you be good (or pretend that you are good).
     I mean I've encountered people that used the data pack hack, which allows players to port around your screen while you miss combos and they kill you. The excuse will be of course that THEY are lagging out. But in reality it isn't them that is lagging. If it were, then on your screen they would not move at all and you would just kill them. The last person to use the hack that I caught I reported and he got banned for 7 days.
     So why do people feel the need to hack? I think it's because they are friends with people that are good in the game and they want to match their skill. They don't want to learn to play and build their skill up. If people are accused of hacking, the hacker responds "stop being bad" or some other trash to bring the attention off what they are doing. But you can tell...
     Port hackers use a port that enables them to jump across the screen. You see people do it all the time (more on Tyranny than Set). They still die, but the little extra advantage they have...makes them the worst players in AoC. These exploiters hurt the games pvp, and discourages other players for even attempting pvp game play.
     There has been many hacks. It doesn't take much research to find AoC Buddy, or AoC Multihack. There is also AoC Hag which has been pretty popular on Tyranny. When I reported the data pack hacker I told everyone about it. I started getting tells from hackers telling me about this hack everyone uses, which essentially speeds up combos so you don't have to wait. It also allows you to maximize your damage output, and even make it to where three abilities hit you at the same time causing tons of damage.
     I fought this ranger in Kesh who shot me once, and took 90% of my life. I looked in my combat log and saw he hit me with three abilities. I fought him a few times after that, and it was the same. The player was clearly using the hack. You see certain barbs and sins use this hack as well. They are pathetic.
     Some people don't realize these hacks even exist. Or they think people are just blowing smoke up peoples asses. But go ahead and use google and you will see it is true.
     Please don't hack. PLEASE DON'T HACK. Don't you realize you hurt the game? Take the deaths and learn how to play. A lot of the people that use the program are already good and geared out. Don't you realize you are just bad if you hack? Ez mode care bear cowards is how I feel about it.
     I tracked down one of the guys who creates AoC hag. I found out how to buy the hack. I connected with him and then forwarded everything to funcom in hopes that they would be able to do something about it. He charges $10 a month for the hack. That's amazing someone would pay that.
     He sent me two videos that I still have showing the hacks and how to add them to your game. People actually pay this guy? How about send me $10 a month for telling you not to hack?
     I would post the videos but I don't want to promote the hack. If you want to see the videos though I'll show them to you. Send me a tell in game (Ragnarx, Ragnarvor, Wotanvor, Ragsguard on Set) or (Raaquel on Tyranny) and I'll link you.

What do you guys think? Is hacking a problem? Has anyone else encountered this? 

Vanity Whore!

Yep, I am one of those. I have so many vanity pieces on my toons it's insane. But how great is it that we can do this, especially on a game that is as visually appealing like Age of Conan.

Sure other games like WoW included there gear transmorph gem stone or whatever it is. They did this long after funcom established their vanity system. I remember when it first came out, I was able to go to dungeons long forgotten to kill some bosses for gear. Or go to Field of the Dead epic mode to get gear pieces that I liked. It is great we are able to mismatch the pieces to make them look great.

There are some gear sets I don't have completed yet, I need more inventory space. From the House of Crom you get two nice sets, one only available through pvp drops (so it needs to be an open world pvp server).

Social Gear from Pve bosses

PvP Social Gear

Of course there is raid gear and pvp gear you can attain just by playing the content of the game. I don't have complete t3 raid gear yet, but I do have completed t2 pvp gear.

We be raiding now son

t2 pvp gear looks sexy for Assassin Class

I personally like to mix up my vanity with various pieces of gear. You can create anything pretty much, but with just 1 negative restriction. With the Assassin, Hox, and Demo class you can only pick from cloth armor. But if you play a soldier class you can pick from all of them. Light armor class, gets to choose between light and cloth armor and so on. So that is a little restricting if you play a clothie. 

Hi, I need some t3 gear please

But with a game like Age of Conan though, the skins of what you can find are awesome, even if you only pick from cloth gear.

Give me victims

My Bear Shaman in pict vanity

New Conan Movie w/ Arnold

Oh man...this gets me pretty excited. It has been a long time waiting for something like this to be produced out of hollywood. Especially in this time period with too much political correctness demands. A lot of the modern day action stars look like young teenage boys not fit for the action movies they are starring in.

Sure Arnold isn't in the shape that he used to be. The movie will be much better if he starts hitting the gym again. Yes he is 65, but that shouldn't stop him from doing it. If he looks good the movie will sell much better. 

What does this mean for Age of Conan and Hyboria? 

Everything!

Looking at the skins of the game, you will notice a lot of copies of the original movie along with the armor skins of the game. Also, you can almost see the very character classes from the original movie! The game is largely based off of Robert E. Howard's books and this movie.

Dark Templar, ToS, Bear Shaman? :D

The new movie seems to be about Arnold playing as king, ignoring Conan the Destroyer and the Conan the Barbarian remake. He seeks to do one last final battle to reach Valhalla and die a hero. I'm not sure if this is the best twist to put on the movie, but it promises another exciting adventure. Hopefully they won't add too much cg effects to the movie to cheapen the viewing (or insult the intelligence of those watching). The original Conan movie was about strength, overcoming impossible odds, and avenging his slain family. It was also a love story that ended in tragedy. There was a lot happening with the plot, which led viewers to be able to relate to the barbarian and cheer him even while he was a brutal killer and thief. What's not to love!

Will Funcom capitalize on this? I certainly think so. With the remake they came out with the Turan expansion pack, which unlocked one raid, a six man, and a new explorable area. A nice sized piece of content, but really couldn't be considered a true campaign. It is my hope they come out with a compaign, with an enemy as large as Thoth himself. Add at least 3 new mini games or some form of pvp content to show players that all aspects of the game matter. Yeah...a big project that will take time and resources to make. But the return...

All these carebear games coming out will never equal Age of Conan, which still posses better graphics and an intricate combat system that provides a challenge to master. People will return. New players will come when a new generation of people really start getting tired of weakling heroes that weigh 130 pounds.

The real question is, does Arnold still have the star power to make this movie work? Does the movie company have the smarts to make this movie as brutal as the first? We shall see.

I think he can pull it off!

Red Nails Best Enemy Guild of Tyranny

Close to my mind always is the first guild I started out in. The Red Nails. I normally only join 1 guild in a game, and remain loyal rising and falling as the guild grows. This game however, I had to make an exception. I want to talk to you today about the Red Nails and its unique history.

First, Red Nails comes from a short story authored by Robert E. Howard.  You can read the story here. Being a Conan nerd as a kid (and I'm still a Conan nerd) I thought the guild would be a good fit for me. I was right.

The amazing thing about Red Nails is it was a very small guild, a couple guys holding on, joining pug raids and slowly obtaining gear that eventually grew into the number 1 renown producer on the Tyranny server. When the Cimmeria/Tyranny merge took place, the guilds started bumping heads like crazy. It became two servers battling for dominance of Tyranny. So many guilds began to get sucked up by Cimmarian guilds, but only three guilds remained of Tyranny. Red Nails, Mercs, and TaW. 

Red Nails led the charge of being targeted because we produced the most renown. We gained the nickname "Red Fails" by our fans and we soon were sieged every single week. We brought the pvp to Tyranny. We were the favored enemy of all other guilds. This was the best thing that ever happened for open world pvp. We were out geared, out manned, couldn't even complete t3...but we were never about raids. We were primarily interested in the pvp aspect of the game.

Many of our membership didn't like the constant sieges, the fact that if you wore the Red Nail tag, you would be attacked...by everyone. Our only ally at this time was TaW.  We then befriended the guild Unforgiven...and they promptly betrayed us during a siege with the power-house guilds of Cimmeria. (Unforgiven ran to a pve server shortly afterwards heeheehee).

The battles though were healthy and fun. Sure people would get frustrated, but it was lively because you never knew when pvp would erupt in your questing routine.

Here is an awesome pvp video made by Acebane. Req Nex wiped. Subscribe to his page.

Run from the Red Nails vanity cape :)

When SWTOR came out the aspect of the game changed. Everyone started doing their own thing, and the population suffered for it. Red Nails took a big hit, losing our raid leader and many of our other people. We weren't the only guild to lose out, but we were never able to recover and become a "powerhouse" guild that everyone wanted to kill in open world.

We did grow from that, but it was never the same. We started having good numbers again, regular pve content, and we played mini games. The open world was never the same because the sieges completely stopped. We started to lose members when Risen and Req Nex merged themselves.  About six of our members went over, including some long time members which hurt us in a lot of ways. From that, half our officers went and joined the Aco's, while another raid leader quit the game altogether.

We were dealing with this issue when...our entire guild split in half and the Iron Maiden guild formed, vowing to kill Red Nails. It did open up sieging again, but because we easily won, the Iron Maiden guild soon disbanded. The remaining members went to Sentinels.

Soon after we were forced to enter a raid alliance with the mercs. We started doing t3 raids. Our accomplishments there is we had the bottom floor on farm. There wasn't any open world pvp hardly. Some people attempted but could only get...2 or 3 of us. Sometimes the opposition wouldn't be there or we would get zerged down. In any case, it was a large difference.

We be raiding son

Once GW2 came out, we thought it would be a good idea to form the Red Nails on the Sorrows Furnace server, hoping that we could retain some of our membership and keep the guild alive. We formed the guild, started building the members up, but then I went back to AoC, passing lead off to Dag. The people that stayed with AoC...simply quit the Red Nails, joining either Acos or Req Nex. Only a handful stayed playing minis with Red Nails tag.

New Dawn and TaW moved to Set because Tyranny died. The two mega guilds ruined all hopes of open world pvp. All that is left is the pve content, and mini games. To get that you have to play on Set server. So I went and joined the TaW guild, a former ally of Red Nails.

The game isn't dead though, and neither is Tyranny. I moved three toons to Set, but have 2.5 accounts still on Tyranny. The server can be revitalized if people either come back to the game or some form of pvp flagging system is established and they unite the last 3 US servers. I see no other way the former glories of the game to be truly experienced.

The fact remains, you can never have as much fun on a pve server compared to a pvp server.