Mounted Combat coming to WAR?

During part 2 of the G4 video (about 1:50 in), Jeff mentions that they have plans for RvR mounts that do "interesting special things." While it isn't necessarily in their plans for the Land of the Dead... it is something they may do. Could this mean that mounted combat is on its way to WAR? Maybe, maybe not. It is fun to speculate though. Here are some possibilities:

Armored. In the video he did say armored, that could be looks or function. An armored mount should be more difficult to be dislodged from. This would actually be nice, as it is very annoying to be riding along and someone pops you off the mount. Since it's armored, it may be slower. Not sure if they will actually put in drawbacks, as they are not 'fun' (I think the choices are). No one likes slow travel either.

This one seems the most likely, as it is the easiest to implement.

Melee Attack. Think of traditional mounted combat, the rider has to get into melee range. This would likely be similar to Age of Conan, where on your mount you have special abilities. As fun as it would be, it is hard for me to see it fitting in WAR. What can the mount do that current melee cannot? It needs a drawback or eventually everyone will be using them. Did AoC mounts have negative aspects?

As nice as it would be to see cavalries going at each other, it doesn't seem too likely to me.

Ranged Attack. The mobile siege cannon. This would be a steam tank or something similar. This mount could come in many varieties based on speed, defense and attack power. Maybe it could even be used to break down keep walls someday. There is a lot of potential here, but it may not make a whole lot of sense. One of the biggest complaints about WAR right now is the amount of AoE and this would just be adding more.

Seems more likely than a melee mount.

Defensive. During World War I, tanks were mostly used to get troops across the trenches while providing cover from machine gun fire. In War, ranged attacks can be potent, so maybe a mount could provide similar defense.

Unlikely that this will be implemented, not sure any fantasy game has such a beast.

Stealth. Imagine a stealth enabled mount. Ok, so this doesn't really make much sense and would probably be very overpowered. Just an idea :)

So what else could Jeff have meant?

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Conan the canceled!

A few days ago I canceled my subscription to Age of Conan. It appears I am not alone. It was not long ago I was excited for AoC to come out. I read up on it, I pre-ordered it, I even started reading the Conan books! I do recommend the books regardless, they are very good. I never did get to the place where the Conan MMO is based off of (2nd volume). I will eventually. The cheap person that I am did not want to pay for a chance to play 3 days in advance. So I eventually got to play a few days after launch.

Looking back, I did have an inkling that this would not work out. There were many signals, from the NDA to the messed up pre-launch. Beta leaks pointed to trouble as well. Then when i finally got to see for myself, I was not impressed.

The graphics are not all that good. I was playing on high and getting 50fps, but they really didn't look that good to me. Not a big deal, as gameplay > graphics... but it was a selling point.

The combat was a nice change from WoW, but not enough to keep my playing the game.

The main reason I canceled was that it is not sufficiently different from WoW. AoC has 80 levels, Battlegrounds, raids and Battlekeeps*. Battlekeeps is the big difference and it seems that for the moment it is poorly executed. Only a very small amount of people will actually get to participate in them, which likely leaves me out. WoW does all of the other things better and has more of it to do... so why would I play AoC?

Now AoC is a MMO, so it will evolve. Maybe in 6 months to a year it will have matured. I will keep watching it and probably give it another go down the line. the Conan lore is quite interesting, so I do have AoC to thank for getting me started reading those books. I hope AoC does well, as competition is good! Hmm, that is the 2nd post I have said that.

* It has other things like mounted combat, but those are the big ones.

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