It’s not dead Jim!

Star trek Online is back from the dead, as per this announcement from the Cryptic Studios official website for the game. As a fan of the franchise I am thrilled to see this title returning to life and I think that the coming of Trek to the universe of massive gaming was long overdue. I think few settings can potentially offer as many avenues of gameplay types as Star Trek’s, being easily adaptable towards satisfying the straight-up roleplaying and story-telling oriented players, those interested in exploration and discovery or  those looking for a game that provides some compelling military conquest, ship to ship or straighforward avatar combat centered play. Now if Cryptic will include and develop to a decent level all or just some of these elements remains to be seen, but I think that the Trek Universe easily allows them to pursue all of these avenues, each one being perfectly plausible and consistent with the lore and feel of the Trek setting. In short I think that adopting Trek as a backdrop for a sci-fi MMO is an excellent decision because of the flexibility and diversity that it can offer from the game design point of view, which is what excites me the most about Cryptic’s announcement.

Oh how I am so looking forward to going to red alert and putting my shields up, or better yet setting my phaser to stun for the first time. Geek heaven I tell you!

Age of Conan : gets me in the mood.

Well, I’ve hit level 30 and have seen what the game has to offer out of Tortage and I thought I would comment briefly on one global aspect of AoC which has really struck me so far, which is the game world and it’s atmosphere.

AoC’s game world is relatively small compared to titles like Vanguard and even WoW, but this isn’t a bad thing in my book since I prefer quality, well fleshed out zones, as opposed to endless tracts of often generic landscape. AoC’s zones are quite well rendered and beautiful to look at, and I only play on medium graphic settings.  I especially like Tarantia, a truly epic and majestic city, although with a bit of “civilisation past it’s zenith” grit thrown in. Cimmeria and Stygia are also very well presented and I think that overall, Funcom has succeeded in capturing the essence of Howard’s Hyboria. This being said, there is one area in which I have noticed a surprising lack of effort on Funcom’s part when it comes to the cosmetics of AoC and that is the utter lack of variation in male NPC faces, which, when compared to the attention to detail that is exhibited in other areas, is rather astounding and disappointing. It may be my imagination, but it does seem that at least for minor male NPCS, such as vendors and caravan drivers, the same basic face was used with only minor variations being done to differentiate them. This spoils a bit of the atmosphere for me and I hope they would take a look at this in the future ( not likely I know).

If the whole look of the game overall definitely contributes to giving AoC a compelling atmosphere, I think it really takes a back seat AoC’s in-game music, which I find extremely atmospheric. I rarely leave game music on when I play, I will usually listen to a podcast while doing my MMO thing, but AoC is the exception for me. I leave the music on and often stop to enjoy a particularly moving piece, which is something I have not done in a long time in an MMO, the one exception being CoH / CoV and it’s gnarly techno-future soundtrack.

Age of Conan is a very moody game in my opinion, and that is a good thing so far as I am concerned. I like it’s feel and it’s look, the in-bred vendors excepted.

I am weak!

Yes I broke down and activated my Age of Conan subscription. So much for me adopting the “wait six months rule”…

I’ve just got my toon to level 21 and have left Tortage. I opted to roll up an Aquilonian Guardian, seeing as I envisioned this new character as a Roman legionary type sword and board front-fighter.

I love the facial customization options in this game which let’s you choose what kind of expression your toon typically has. I chose the “disciplined” expression, which actually kind of makes him look like a zombie at times. Heh. I spent about an hour trying to find him a suitable latin name to go with his imposing physique and his rock-like demeanor. I was surprised that some of my first choices were already taken, I guess a lot of people like giving latin names to their characters. I ended up calling him Firmus, which means “solid, steadfast”. Just like a good tank should be.

I will not get into an in-depth review of the game here but here I will say that overall, my first impressions of AoC are favorable. Prior to playing it I had read the forum threads about the game on MMORPG.Com as well as listened to many other people’s impressions of the game on various podcasts, so I had a few pre-conceived notions about the title going in. That being said, I found that many of the negatives often pointed out about the game didn’t seem that bad to me, the instancing being a good example. Maybe the “shiny new toy” effect has skewed my perception and has artificially smoothed over my initial contact with AoC’s flaws. In any case for now, I am glad I bought it and feel this game will be a keeper for me.

We’ll see How I feel about it in two months.