Cancelling WoW Account, off to Age of Conan!

So I cancelled my WoW account. I've done it once before, and I ended up coming back once things were fun again, but right now I'm just not enjoying it anymore. It's nothing against the game, really, I've had a lot of fun with it and I wish it continued success.

I'm always fascinated with the angry posts in this regard. The whole "F U BLIZZARD I CANCEL", as if one bad thing has suddenly completely negated all the fun they had with the game beforehand. Ah well.

I tried out the Age of Conan beta on a whim. Before this I had rather large reservations involving any other MMO out there, so I wasn't expecting much. What I got, however, was a shock to the gaming system of my mind. I was having FUN with it! The combat, the casting, the healing, the graphics, the world... it all combines rather nicely.

I don't think it'll dethrone WoW. Then again, I can't really imagine ANYthing that will dethrone WoW. However, I do think it'll be a fair success, and I don't care if I'm playing the most popular game or not... I want to be playing what I enjoy, not what everyone else likes.

So why am I going to Age of Conan? Oh, where to start...

How about combat?

There is no auto attack in AoC. None at all. Every attack requires a button press, and even then there's no "attack" button. There's left attack, middle attack, and right attack in melee. There's also a shielding system, where you (and your opponents) basically defend one side more than others. If your opponent is protecting his right side but leaving his left open, for example, you want to use attacks that hit him in the left. Simple for normal attacks, though that in itself is surprisingly enjoyable compared to just sitting there and watching auto-attack.

Then there's the combo system. Basically you hit the combo you want to perform, then hit the followup attacks to it. For example, my Herald of Xotli has a combo called Molten Steel Slash. To perform it, I hit the Molten Steel Slash button, then do a left attack, then a middle attack, then that triggers the actual move. The opponent's defenses will dictate how much damage the combo does, depending on what the final swing to activate it is. So if they're leaving a certain side open, you want to use a combo that attacks that point. Conversely, as people get more knowledgeable about all the classes, they'll put up their defenses to try and deflect the most powerful combos of the class they're facing, if they want to get that fancy.

There's also no targeting system for melee attacks. You run up at things, you smack them. This also means if you line things up right, you can send your sword sweeping through multiple enemies at once.

Healing works in another fun way. There's no select target, cast Flash Heal, rinse, repeat 498534 times. The vast majority of healing is on a HoT system. My Priest of Mitra has an AoE HoT that heals ALL friendly targets within a rather large radius. It's completely regardless of what group you're in. Yay for making sense! The HoT is powerful, but needs to be applied early. You also get a cone-shaped heal, which again will heal everything friendly. Keeping both up in PvP is an adventure to say the least. The PoM also gets one direct heal (by level 20 at least), which is an AoE flash heal essentially. It causes a debuff that makes any target healed by it unable to be healed by it again for 30 seconds, regardless of the source. Basically it's an "oh crap" button.

Healing like this has a huge impact on gameplay. There's no "Ok he's almost d- oh wow that one heal got him back to full, back to square 1" in PvP. This in itself makes me VERY VERY happy. As far as I know, there are no Mortal Strike effects, so healing is an equal threat against any class, rather than being gimped against a few while being extremely powerful against others.

It's also just plain FUN to be a healer now. While you'll glance at bars, you're far more concerned with your positioning to get the most amount of people affected by your cone heal possible, keeping up your big AOE HoT, knowing when to toss in the AoE flash heal (named Radiance for the priest btw), and then filling in the rest of the time nuking. That's right, healers are actually required to nuke to be at their full effectiveness. The Priest's Lance of Mitra (through talents) will deal damage to a line of targets and heal anyone around the targets damaged. Nuking with it means you're healing as well. Talents also focus a lot on giving you bonus damage or bonus healing when you heal or nuke, respectively. The entire game HIGHLY encourages healing-centric priests to nuke, and nuking-centric priests to heal for maximum effectiveness. The Bear Shaman, for example, triggers its AoE HoT by going into melee. No paladin in full plate sitting in the back lines. Brilliant!

Then there's the stealth system. It currently needs a bit of tweaking, but as it stands all classes can stealth. The rogue archetype does it far better than everyone else, but priests and mages and even soldiers are able to hide effectively if they spend enough skill points to do it.

Talent trees offer a VERY wide range of options, and make a bunch of subtle changes that have a large impact. For example, here's a priest build I was fooling around with: Talent Tree

Take a look at all the various talents in there. It was actually difficult to choose, and I could see a ton of different ways I could go for other builds.

Each class has access to its archetype's "support" tree, and two trees specific to the class. The support tree for the class tends to have things useful to that archetype. A rogue archetype class has access to better stealth, aggro reduction, and increased damage. The priest and mage trees have mana regen talents, and healing/damage buffs among other things. The two class-specific trees also complement each other for quite a few classes, opening up more options and encouraging diversity.

Collision between players adds a whole new element to PvP. As a healer, I could often run behind my group, and people would actually have trouble getting to me. Or I could stand between someone trying to get to an ally that was hurt and delay them long enough for the HoTs to heal them up.

CC? There's not much, and that is very refreshing. There are knockbacks and knockdowns, short duration stuns, some roots, etc. However, they're all on long cooldowns, and most classes only have one form of CC. There are no spell interrupts. In fact, spells aren't interrupted by damage at all when you spend skill points on concentration. A caster getting attacked can actually get spells off, whether it's heals or damage. Yay! Combat so far seems to be a lot more centered around damage, well-timed CCs, and smart healing. A great balance overall between the three aspects.

Anyway, this is turning into a ramble. The game certainly has its flaws, though I've enjoyed the beta a ton and can't wait for the game to launch next week.