Massively^™

Long overland quests are a fantasy staple which migrated into the MMO genre. This blogger remembers when World of Warcraft was first nicknamed World of Walking. It may not have been the first MMORPG to use the model, but it's the most famous: have a huge world that players begin by walking around in, eventually giving them the ability to use mounts to travel much faster. Age of Conan follows the trend, providing glorious landscapes and not allowing players to use horses until around level 40, a full half way through the leveling progression. Even sprinting in Age of Conan can only be done in short bursts.

City of Heroes took a radically different approach. (It could hardly not do so, what with comic book heroes superspeeding and flying all over the place.) The individual zones were much smaller, and characters could take 'travel powers' at level 14, which would get them from place to place in a fraction of the time it would take to run. Later issues introduced temporary travel powers given out as rewards for Mayhem and Safeguard missions, which allowed characters to fly as early as level 5. The flipside is that the game world feels a lot smaller, with no sense of the long trek into the unknown, far from home.

Should games still adhere to the familiar format of walking a long way, taking in the sights, then earning your mount and really appreciating it? Or should characters be able to skip trekking from an early level, and just get to go where they want to go, at risk of missing out on the scenery? Is walking a tiresome chore, or a valid way to ensure players see the world the designers created?

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.

In keeping with tradition, Age of Conan players have found some changes that did not make it on to the official patch notes for today's update. The community's findings have been compiled into one handy forum thread, and here are some of the more significant items on the list (although the thread will likely have more added to it later on):

• Barbarian talent "Cyclone of Razors" has had its damage lowered from 28% to 10% at 5 points.
• Necromancers can no longer send pets to attack while hidden.
• Assassin ability "From the Darkness" animation changed and damage after charge reduced by up to 70%.
• Rangers mez shot seems to not be working properly.
  
• Dark Templar's magic damage coefficient is bugged.
• A bug with casting from your mount, a feature reintroduced today on the official notes. Casters can begin casting a spell while standing still on their mount, and are then free to run around while casting it without interruption, leading to easy kiting.
• Still to be verified: Variety of loot from epic Kheshatta bosses increased, and new blues dropping.

Curse.com has posted a list of patch notes from Age of Conan's test server, which will likely go live in one of this coming week's scheduled downtime slots. You will notice that stat gains from equipment will finally be functioning correctly, and it's going to be interesting to see just how much of a difference this will make to the strength of each class.

The patch notes also feature another round of class tweaks, notably some buffs for Dark Templars and damage changes for Priests of Mitra. Confusingly, Bear Shamans will be getting improved Wreck Armor combo visuals and sounds -- however, this is a Barbarian combo, so is this change actually for Barbs or did they mean the BS combo Crush Armor? Other really good things: lower level mobs will knock you off your mount a lot less (although higher mobs will do it more) and attackers at your sides will have half the chance of knocking you off -- attackers from the front will never knock you off. Finally, player cities will be able to get their Trader NPC at last. Take a look through the full patch notes for some other changes, including quest and item fixes, and perhaps start speculating on what changes will be left off the list this time.

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

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?

A recent newsletter for Warhammer Online gave us a glimpse at the concept art for some of the player mounts that the game will have, and TenTonHammer has posted these up in a handy gallery. Featured are mounts for the Greenskin, Dwarf, High Elf, Chaos, and Empire armies. For some races, we see a Light, Heavy and Medium version of the mounts, and the Greenskins have two different kinds of mount shown, boars and wolves.

The newsletter that these images came from gave us a few scraps of information on some mount mechanics. There will be temporary mounts for rent, aimed at lower level characters, and riding into water will throw you off your mount. Similarly, you can be shot off your mount if you ride into battle (though no word yet on whether mounted combat will at all be possible). Missing from any of the concept art shown was a mount for the Dark Elves. The newsletter promises more details soon on mounts in general, and perhaps we will learn about their mode of transportation at that time.