Massively^™

If you've been planning to buy your first horse in Age of Conan, you might want to sit on that hard-earned gold for a few more days. An update to the patch currently on the Testlive Server has slashed the price of regular mounts from 2 gold down to 75 silver - a cut to less than half price. This should make mounts available from a much earlier level, allowing many players to get saddled up at the kinds of level originally envisioned by the designers.

While this will be excellent news for first time horse buyers, several of those who have worked hard to earn the gold for their horses before this potential price crash are fuming. Joining them in their anger are some of those who purchased PC Gamer to get the Totem of Origins, a recall-to-home-city item which will now be dropping from 'select bosses' as a piece of loot, and as such is no longer exclusive.

One universally positive change is the removal of a previous unpopular nerf. Quests that have gone gray will now give XP again.

If you already own a horse mount in Age of Conan, you are probably extremely unimpressed with your new companion's speed -- it almost seems like you don't move any faster at all. According to this post at AoC's official forums, this is in fact the case. One of the game's designers has confirmed that, currently, even the mighty horse trots along at regular run-speed. A proper fix for this is coming in a future patch, but a temporary workaround is shared for now (which a lot of people in the community had already figured out): simply sheathe or unsheathe your weapon while mounted, and enjoy the mount's speed boost as it was intended.

Also included in the post is the fact that the speed boost itself will be increased very soon. Horses will be slightly faster, and Mammoths and Rhinos will get a smaller boost. As well as this, to address a complaint that those with Mammoth/Rhino pre-order privileges have, the riding skills (charging, attacks, etc.) associated with these mounts will be given automatically with the "/claim" command after a future patch, and those who already have the skills through buying Basic Riding will need to perform the command to receive them again.

EDIT: Going by this forum thread, the mount speed increase is already in effect as of today's patch. Some in-game testing of our own shows that at the very least, the bug requiring weapon sheathing/unsheathing is fixed. More on these other undocumented patch changes shortly.

Funcom went to some lengths to make Age of Conan's horses seem realistic. The game's mounted combat system even makes it possible to use a horse as a weapon. But despite all the thought they put into this aspect of the game, Funcom probably didn't predict that a rather devious AoC player could use his horse to take out opponents as depicted in this video. Check it out to see an entirely new type of mounted combat, and learn why you should never stand behind a horse.

Via WanderingGoblin

With gas prices skyrocketing through the roof these days, it's nice to know we have other options in store. Luckily, there is no war over horses in Middle-earth, so the price of travel tends to stay consistent. But when it does change, TheBrasse.com is here to help keep us informed of the changes.

In the latest, most updated stable route chart, you can see the exact routes from stable to stable, as well as the price in silver and minimum level requirements for each one. This chart includes the latest from the Evendim update. Each route is also color-coded for regular overland travel, swift travel and there's a separate section for the Ettenmoors PvP travel. So next time you're scraping together some loose change for gas money, think of the horses!

Videogamer.com is featuring a new developer diary for Age of Conan, presented by Erling Ellingsen, all about the mounted combat that will be found in the game. Rather than going into fine details about the system, Ellingsen elects to describe some of the cool things that will be possible when engaging in mounted combat.

Players will get to either fight while on their mount, or actually use their mount as a weapon. With the former, the faster you are moving, the more damage you will inflict upon a target, making old fashioned drive-bys the order of the day -- Ellingsen says that you can lop someone's head off as you zoom past, if you're going fast enough. It will also be possible to make your mount attack, and these attacks vary depending on the animal you're riding. Check out the roughly two-minute video to see the mounts in action, rearing up and knocking crowds of enemies to the ground.

We have to say, one of the things that we've enjoyed in games was watching the evolution of travel systems. Now, this isn't to poke too much fun at the old way -- after all, a lot of friendships were started while sitting in Butcherblock Mountains or Qeynos in EverQuest and waiting for the boats to show up. (You know, when they actually worked.) But there's something to be said for having your own personal way of getting around quickly -- be it a horse, a super travel-power, a spaceship, or a pirate ship! As games evolve, there are more and more options; Warhammer Online has some pretty cool-looking mounts coming up. On the other hand, games like Perfect World do utterly bizarre things with them like piling people on top of tigers on top of giant flying manta rays like the one in the picture above. Today we'd like to know what your #1 personal method of travel has been in your game? Are you addicted to Flying or Super Jump? Is the Skeletal Warhorse your pick of choice? Is there nothing better for you than a high-end spaceship or a nice heavy pirate ship? How do you get around?