Decisions, decisions – what to ride…will it be a rabid wolf, look a bit more refined on a war horse, or maybe have a tiger mount? The answer may well lay with one simple answer – what class are you?
Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer, the latest expansion to Funcom’s massively multiplayer online game, has elements that cater to players in two level groups – 20-40 and 80. The purpose of this story will key on one of the elements of the new expansion and pertains to those characters level 80.
Mounts generally become available at level 40, but with Rise of the Godslayer a new series of quests in Khitai become available to characters at level 80 that will allow them to gain a new ride. The quest lines are involved and require some grinding to actually achieve the necessary faction level where the mount becomes available.
There are three faction clans that have mounts available … Ok, that’s only partially right – there are four factions total involved in this particular series of quest and actually 10 total new factions that will provide players with certain benefits. The four factions each have an opposite faction and working to gain faction with one will destroy it with the other. The whole path to the new factional alignment begins when level 80 players enter Khitai, head north to the Great Wall and pass through the doorway and into the Northern Grasslands – part of the new playground for the level-capped players.
The courtyard first in the entry zone is where the first faction quests are collected. Basically, players are asked to travel to different factions, find out about them and then choose the factions that offer what they feel then can benefit from the most. It is totally a mercenary concept, but the bottom line for most MMOs is doing what benefits the player – for the most part.
In the Northern Grasslands, the factions that yield mounts are the Hyrkanians and the Wolves of the Steppes. The two factions battle one another, and the Hyrkanians offer up fast war horses, which might be fine for ranged attackers, while the Wolves of the Steppes yield a quest line that results in a wolf mount (sort of a tank class ride). After visiting the two camps, a choice is made between the factions to fight for – and that starts the grind. And it’s not just mounts that are available for the right faction points – armor and weapons are also available.
Along the eastern border of the Northern Grasslands is a gate that will take players to Chosain Province. The city of Shaulun holds the divergent factions of Tamarin’s Tigers and the Scholars of Cheng-ho. It’s a bit of a no-brainer as to which faction will award the tiger mount. The Cheng-ho group does not provide a mount (this is the fourth faction mentioned earlier), but rather grants the player a pet to use.
Players at the lower levels might not see a lot of the new mounts tromping through the streets of Old Tarantia, or in Conarch Village, and the reason is simple. The quest series are long and takes a lot of time and energy. Perhaps that is a bit of the downside to the new expansion – more grind and less instant gratification in terms of having stuff that can be displayed for all to see. Still, if the end goal is kept in mind, and the grind is broken up with other adventures, the path is a bit easier to travel.
