Happy Birthday TNGC!

by Firejack at May 24 2008 18:02

Today is 5 years to the day I founded the Myriad Apocalypse Project in Planetside. This was effectively the start of the Community. Never remember the exact date but its between the 24th of May and 11th of July 2003 when I registered our old domain name http://www.thetngc.org.uk .

Pretty impressive to think so many people are still with us. The strong interest shown in Age of Conan by existing members is why I always believed forming a Community was the best idea. Nothing like playing a new game with old friends.

Happy Birthday Terra Nova Gaming Community!

Nemetos Order comes to Age of Conan

by Firejack at May 24 2008 17:56

The Return of Nemetos Order was marked last Sunday May the 18th at 13:25 BST when Theanon, Alastriona, Dismus, Ichimaru, Irricas and Mortarian founded the second manifestation of this Guild.

With the Full European release of Age of Conan yesterday the Community has now reopened Recruitment for the new Nemetos Order Division.

If you wish to apply click the "Join the Community" link in the top right menu and follow the instructions. We look forward to some new members to go with the more established already members in the Guild.

Terra Nova Company Sets Sail

by Firejack at Jan 14 2008 21:42

Monday the 7th of January saw our latest Community division raise anchor and head out onto the dangerous waters of the Caribbean of 1720 thanks to the new MMOG - Pirates of the Burning Sea.

Pirates of the Burning Sea is a fantastic game. Created by Flaying labs Software and published by Sony Online Entertainment. For the benefit of those who have not played the game yet I thoughts I'd write a short review.

Personally I wasn't sure about Pirates of the Burning sea reading the early previews. The game didn't seem to appeal to me. It looked like another MMORPG. Which it is but also much more. The game starts off in the usual third person perspective with a familiar interface with the sounds of a battle outside. Talking to the NPC you soon discover all is not well and the ship you are on has been boarded by pirates!

Heading topside you engage the Pirates in a standard RPG-style combat system of using abilities to attack your enemy. This isn't particularly brilliant. The Avatar Combat system is fairly dull and something you'll learn to live with. As what followed was ship to ship combat and it is superb.

When you take command of a ship for the first time you are greeted by beautiful oceans and a truly awesome looking ship.

The ship combat system is great. You will be battling with currents and the winds to manoeuvre yourself in such a way you are astern of the enemy ship and line yourself up to unleash a full broadside of smokey and noisy cannon fire!

This is me doing a sharp turn away from some Pirates outside New Orleans. And yes I have no ammo.. it takes up valuable cargo space!

Pirates of the Burning Sea (PotBS) looks like having all the key ingredients to make it an ideal game for our Community. There is a very active and passionate Community already built up around the game. The developers are working hard and listening to what players are telling them on how to improve the game which is very promising.

The actual tools for forming a Society (PotBS term for Guild) are fairly basic in game and like the Avatar Combat these are the 2 areas of the game I'm looking for improvements in the coming months.

The game as a whole performs very well even on my ageing computer (Athlon 64 3200+, 2GB DDR-400, Radeon X1950 Pro). The game is very forgiving of those is poorer internet connections also and doesn't require a low ping to compete.

There are problems like any MMOG at release and a certain level of polish is missing from the game. Comparing the release of PotBS to the other MMOG's I've played, PlanetSide and World of Warcraft. I feel PotBS has got off to a much smoother start.

For the new player the game is a bit overwhelming. The learning curve of the actual game play is probably 2 hours. There is a lot to learn especially with the game economy which is completely player driven from the Nails in the deck to the Rum stored below in player made barrels. The economy takes around 5 days to gain an understanding of and is a bit too confusing at the start with so much to take in and some very complicated and long construction chains involved anything up to 8 or 9 people for the bigger ships.

New players don't have to worry about be ganked by high level players as PvP is handled very well from what I've been reading. I've not had any PvP encounters yet as the full PvP system isn't active until the 22nd when the Full game being released.

There are many ways to influence the game world which is a dynamic battlefield with each Nation competing with each other for control of the whole Caribbean and its valuable resources. You can destabilize ports by flooding the local economy with cheap goods or the old fashioned way of blowing other ships out the water.

This is probably one of the best features about the game. Even if PvP isn't your thing there are plenty of ways to be involved.

Being friendly for the casual or hardcore gamer is also achieved. You can easily pickup the game for an hour for some questing, profiteering in the auction house or gathering a group of friends for some pirate hunting.

Being different levels doesn't matter too much. Working together as a team is the goal. Meaning a team will always beat some nobody who plays all day everyday and enjoys ruining your time in the game.

On Saturday night we went out as a gang of ships all under level 20 and were able to take on multiple ships of a higher level and all worked together to destroy a level 50 frigate!

The economy is very well setup. With each player being limited to 10 economic structures which gain labour in real-time and you can only mine or build ships when you have the required amount of labour. This stops people who play 24/7 controlling the economy and brings even casual players onto a fair playing field and able to gather the materials for the best ships.

Levelling is very relaxed. Some is a bit repetitive but most of the missions as easy to get to and often involved nothing more then walking to the end of the Docks to start. The missions themselves are all over in a short time. Lasting from a couple of minutes to no more then 20 minutes in my experience.

Well I hope this has given you some thoughts about giving the game a try and joining us. There was a lot more I could talk about but I'm limited for time. So you'll have to come find out for yourself!

We'd be happy to see you if you wanted to join. Goto the Application page in our Wiki to apply.

You'll find Terra Nova Company playing as the French Nation on the Roberts server (English EU).

More information on the game is available on the PotBS site: http://www.burningsea.com

Kael`thas downed by Nemetos Order!

by xelha at Nov 27 2007 14:11

26th November

Another very hard boss defeated by Nemetos Order! Quite possibly the hardest we have faced! After several wipes and problems when the login server was down we prevailed, meaning we can now advance to the final 2 instances in the game, and a relief it will be after months spent in Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep to finally try something new. Immediately after beating Prince Kael'thas the raid moved to Hyjal and also defeated the first boss Rage Winterchill on our second attempt with only 23 raiders!

Drops(KT): Defender, Hero, Crown of the Sun, Thalassian Wildercloak and Verdant Sphere

Drops(Rage): Deadly Cuffs, Howling Wind Bracers

Great work by all those there and all who participated in the previous wipes. Now everyone who hasn't already must get attuned to Hyjal and Black Temple!

Lady Vashj defeated by Nemetos!

by xelha at Oct 31 2007 10:16

29th October

After many hard raids over a few weeks solely dedicated to this boss (no trash to clear! yay) we finally took her down tonight. This is one of these bosses were anything can go wrong, and usually does. So despite lacking some of our 'key' players and even having some guys who had never attempted this boss before we prevailed! And a hard fight it was, good job to all those there, and everyone else who attended any of the (many) previous wipes!

Drops: Rune Totem's Mantle, Prism of Inner Calm, Defender T5, Champion T5.

Now we get to breath a sigh of relief before working towards our next (and according to most) more challenging boss, Prince Kael'thas in Tempest Keep!