Customer Reviews

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Official Strategy Guide (Official Strategy Guides (Bradygames))

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Age of Conan has a lot of minute details from crafting to quests to building your city to a variety of common and not-so-common ideas in MMOs. I had pre-ordered this book before the game came out and after spending time in beta. Basically, my intent in the purchase was to have a one-stop-shop for things like the crafting system, how to go about building a guild city, where to get quests, maps of areas and, at the end, information concerning the raids.

This book has basically none of that.

Classes

Let's start with the classes. This book spends a good deal of time presenting feat trees, class skills, etc. but it never does a good job of dissecting the information. After reading this book, you will know nothing that you didn't know prior to reading your skill list and feat trees. The skills are simply taken word for word. So if you're wondering what exactly that particular feat does or if it's worth it, this book will not help you.

It also uses image placeholders instead of the actual spells at times. For instance, all of the beta placeholders for summoning minions are intact...meaning there's no picture. Just a little dash. With a lot of the pictures and content looking like it's from beta, I wonder if the spells themselves aren't different since I've noticed changes moving from closed beta to release.

Zones

There's a lot of details here concerning Tortage and the beginning levels. After that, you're given a few pages per zone...but not every zone is here! It breaks it down to Cimmeria (Conall's Valley and Fields of the Dead), Aquilonia (Old Tarantia, Noble District and Tesso...along with a couple of the instanced zones) and Stygia (Khemi and Khopshef). Obviously there's more zones than those above for questing. There's a ton of content that's not even here! Where's the higher level areas like Eiglophian Mountains? Or the resource areas, for Crom's sake?

Quests

The zones that are actually included in the book have a quest breakdown, but the information isn't really very user-friendly. They list the name of the quest and if there's a quest prerequisite. They don't list the level you can get the quest, what the rewards are, or anything, you know, useful. Complete waste of time, you're better off exploring the world and discovering them on your own than you are reading the name of the quest.

Crafting

Here's the area I had most hope for. And it's the only area where it does above a crappy job...it even verges on mediocre! The Strategy Guide breaks down the five crafting professions and tells you what you can create during each of the crafting levels. Good so far. It even tells you the names of the crafting levels. Then it gives the "helpful" advice that you move between the crafting levels based on your level, not on spamming the recipes like in most MMOs...but it doesn't tell you when those levels are. It doesn't say, for instance, that you can start crafting at level 40. Or that you can start harvesting the first two tiers at 20, but you don't rank up until level 50.

Additionally, while it does tell you what you can make at each crafting level, the book doesn't always explain what it takes to make things. For instance, as an architect you can draw up plans to create your guild city. You'd know this, though, by playing the game. Once you've drawn your plans, I would think you'd like to know how many joists, for example, it takes to build a keep. Won't find that information here. No sir. It'll tell you how much Ash goes into making one joist (10, in case you're wondering), but it won't tell you how many joists (among other parts) make a keep. Useless.

End Game Content

Finally, those looking forward to participating in end game raids, the Border Kingdom's fierce PvP, sieging or other PvP minigames will discover this book doesn't even mention them. There's no talk about the raids. No mention of the Border Kingdoms, nor sieging. There's a "PvP Primer" of sorts based around PvP minigames but that is absolutely not helpful.

The end.

This books is absolutely useless, a complete waste of $17 or $25 or however much you end up spending on it. It doesn't have one piece of information that's helpful. It's incomplete and feels completely rushed (with is ironic, since it was supposed to come out three weeks ago), lacks crucial information, doesn't address any content after level 40 or so and completely ignores end game content. I have never seen a strategy guide this incompetent.

Do not waste your money on this product.

Save your money! There's nothing in this book that you won't know after the first time you've played the game.

Just as an example, it has the expected Map section - - but they are unlabeled! There is absolutely nothing of value in this book, whatsoever.

I'm sorry that I can't give it less than 1 star.

I really can't add anything to what's already been said, this has got to be about the most useless "guide" I've ever seen or purchased. Useful for starting fires, that's about it.

Any MMO hint guide is, at best, a dubious idea. After a few months, its textual contents are redundant due to ready access to other players, assuming no balance or design changes. If it's released with the game, odds are it's a book based on a mid-beta design, and missing and misrepresenting major portions of the game. This is often countered by releasing detailed maps (which are unlikely to change significantly), presentations of core concepts which have remained consistent throughout beta, or even waiting until a few months out to have rock-solid understanding of what's going on. Sometimes, too, the developers and the hint book writers work so closely that the information is almost wholly accurate, and remains useful.

Or, you could do as Brady Games did, and gloss over everything. With the exception of the early level content information, which may be useful to players seeking to eke the most out of Tortage and/or decide which race may present the most enjoyment, everything in this book is a waste. Skills? Just like what they say in game, without further mechanics breakdowns. Feats? Hit the N-key once you logged in, and you're looking at the same information the book provides. Crafting guides tell us how to make items, but not what they're good for beyond knowing that, yes, indeed armor is worn on various bits of the body. We get page after page of maps without any markers or content, cheap filler in a book already content-poor.

I've seen badly done hint books before -- the City of Villains hint binder was legendarily useless. It still provided more information than this book. I am, frankly, amazed that this book isn't shrink-wrapped, as anyone who flips through it should likely realize what a phenomenal waste of cash this is.

Either Funcom or Brady Games really ought to review what happened here, and make certain to avoid it in future planning. Hint books are already considered iffy expenditures. The people producing them should try to change our minds.

No discussion of inherent powers. The layout of the class abilities makes it extremely difficult to locate anything without leafing through several pages back and forth. I'm going to see if I can return it tomorrow.

Ok so I read a lot of guides and most of them are help even for mmos at times. But this one is useless.

Lets start with the characters page. After coping ghe skills and feat descriptions iut of the game they explain the class in about half a page. Yep all the skills,armor,and strategies all in half a page. next they well cover the first 20 well and r about done there. the crafting section is junk and so r the maps. you can find better guides right of the forums which r free.

I was shocked at how useless this is.
Just a few problems with the book:

1) Not all zoned are covered. All of the 50+ zones are missing.
2) Most feat descriptions are vague like the tooltips in the game itself and provide no numbers.
3) A lot of the information they do provide is simply incorrect.

This is the worst strategy guide ever published. There are no words to describe the levels to which it fails other than to say any basic expectations you might have for a strategy guide, such as learning how do you do things, will be sadly missed.

This book could have been better written, I have seen a website that has more information on quests, crafting, classes. This was nothing more then a waste of $25. Good game, lousy book. Bradley Games should know better then publish junk like this.

The majority of the feats are wrong, and some are even not the correct name. It is clear this book was written from a version of beta. It is a shame that they could not even use the initial release of the game to base the guide on. I know mmo's change, but you can not write the book based off a beta and not release.

Very Very disappointed. Do not even buy this... will not help you at all.