Age of Conan: A Year Later
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 993
One of the biggest frustrations for players at launch had been the plethora of technical troubles in AoC, including low frame rates, frequent crashing, and low playability for many machines. While the system requirements remain the same, average systems are catching up, making AoC more playable for the general public. Along with this, performance has greatly improved. During beta I was lucky to get 12 frames per second. Shortly after launch I worked up to 30 FPS. When I had stopped playing a few months ago , I was up to 40+ FPS. Now I can rely on 60+ FPS and much quicker zoning. I still have minor stuttering in the cities when I'm in highly populated areas. This could be a performance thing or simply because there might be another machine on my network streaming YouTube. Either way, performance is nothing like it was at launch and many of the scary technical troubles that so many had to deal with are a thing of the past.
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I'll get more into the crafting changes in another installment but this particular change deserved its own entry. I have a gemcrafter and spent countless hours documenting the gem recipes for player guides. I was outright flabbergasted at the sheer complication! Anyone that has done any gemcrafting knows what an overwhelming feat that was prior to the gem changes and anyone who has crafted or used gems knows how badly this system needed a complete overhaul. Basically, gems made very little sense to the average player and a feature that requires good balance and usability was at times overpowered, underpowered, or completely unusable. This has all been rectified!
The sheer volume of uncut gems has been reduced by more than half. Inventories and banks everywhere heaved a sigh of great relief at this news! There are less gem colors and there is only one gem quality now. Even better, cut gems now stack so they will take up less space once they have been crafted.
