MMO Gamers

I felt obliged to defend Pyramid of the Ancients, or at least cover the points made over at Simple Complexities.  PotA is a dungeon located in Khopshef Province, with mobs ranging from 37 to 38 boss mobs.  Firstly, let me say that I respect this blogger and this is not a “conan r00lz and u sux0rz” post, just my interpretation of what he sees as flaws.  Here we go.

you begin to realise what a buggy piece of garbage it really is

I’ve only come across one bug, a glaring one mind you, and that’s with one of the quests.  I was able to get into the room which has Sektep, a boss mob, in it when I shouldn’t have been.  I killed this boss mob, then later on I finished another quest in there and was then instructed to kill Sektep, whom I’d already killed.  So I have to go back out and reset the entire dungeon and run it again in order to kill Sektep and complete the quest.  I’m yet to do this so I don’t know if it will work.

then I found the tunnel of poison…yes, seems they are flooding the halls with poisonous gas…I think…ok…this is cool..
But…uh, why is there no way to turn it off…like a trap or something..
And then after running the maze…I die.

The first time I entered PotA was at level 30.  I had no quests for there and was too low to share any quests.  I went in there with two other higher players solely to provide heals to run through the gas tunnels.  You don’t need a healer, but it does make it easier.

The next time I went in to PotA I was level 35 and had a bunch of quests for it.  I could solo the level 37 mobs but couldn’t get past the bosses.  I ended up in a duo with a guildy and managed to get through a few of the quests.  I like the fact that PotA isn’t a solo dungeon.  I don’t think it requires a full group, unless you’re of a much lower level, but it does require a duo or threesome.

why am I way back at the beginning? It seems the only res spawn point is way at the beginning (entrance…)
 
Okay, this is annoying.  Though you’ve already cleared the instance along the way so it’s merely a matter of running back but it still is a little annoying.

upon spawn, he attacks…then out of nowhere 8-10 other guys also attack…WHAT!

The last time I was in PotA I went solo at level 40.  I encountered the same boss mob and the same adds and I also died.  I thought WTF?  I did manage to take down a few of the adds before I died, so I headed back there and this time I was better prepared.  The boss spawned and attacked as did the remaining adds.  This time I was successful in defeating him.  This isn’t supposed to be a solo dungeon.

it worries me as there are also many discussions about how a majority of the quests are bugged somehow

I’ve completed all the quests which I’ve had for PotA, there might be other ones that I haven’t found yet, with the exception of the one requiring me to kill Sektep.  This is the only quest that was bugged for me.

There are plenty of solo quests available up to level 40 and I’m glad Funcom is forcing or at least encouraging some grouping.  Thursday night’s patch was meant to fix problems in Pyramid of the Ancients and also Treasury of the Ancients, another dungeon in the same zone.  I haven’t been to Treasury yet so I’ll have to pass judgement another time.

There are other concerns such as crafting, which I haven’t touched so can’t comment, and the lack of the mini games that are supposed to be in the game.  But for me, Age of Conan is a gem.  There are things about AoC that I would’ve preferred were done differently, but nothing that I hate or are game breaking.  Perhaps I’m just lucky and I haven’t experienced the bugged quests or lack of content or performance issues.  For me, everything has gone remarkably well and I find AoC to be a superb and polished game.  Perhaps if I’d been faster getting off the ground and raced to the level cap I would’ve encountered all these things but it seems Funcom is fixing them before I get to them.  My only complaint is the fluctuation with the ping speed, which seems to jump up to 2000 and 3000 ms quite often.