Taichu’s quest chain is as follows: Gate and the thief, Common People, Wei-li, Wei-li’s powder, and finally Kang Zai Summoning.

Upon summoning and defeating the Kang Zai, returning to Taichu gives the Phial of Tranquillity which grants the plucky adventurer with one whole Alternate Advancement expertise point! Jolly Good! But there is another one available too!

In the centrally positioned Medudsjin’s Camp, you’ll find a shaman by the name of Dair Usun and he gives a somewhat quicker quest chain than Taichu’s to get another Phial of Tranquillity. Dair Usun sends you on 3 quests to collect hearts from several of the Gateway to Khitai’s beasties, and then finally on to kill the formidable sand Kraken (well, not so formidable if your at 80).

So a 30 minute spell in the Gateway to Khitai gave me 2 easy expertise points. I have heard rumours that there is another NPC that gives an ‘alternative’ quest chain to Taichu but I have yet to try and do that one. The rumour does state you can only do one of the wall chain quests though.

Since launch, my main aim has been to get to rank 4 with the Last Legion faction, which I finally achieved last week. Of course, getting to rank 4 does not mean I can actually purchase anything yet! I need to get around 800 marks of acclaim to buy 1 piece of epic armour. Although I have my sights set on the two handed edges weapon they offer, a worthy upgrade to my Bloodseeker Claymore T1 sword.

The grind seemed a much easier with the Last Legion than some of the other factions. For example, with the Last Legion, I get 4 quests in Northern Grasslands and each give 2 marks of acclaim and 1850 faction points for completion (plus some other generic items I can sell), this, when combined with the poster quests I can do en route means a round trip of the grasslands can net me around 16,000 faction points in total (from the 4 faction quests and insignias from the poster quests), After a few rounds, I developed an efficient pattern which resulted in getting the 16,000 every 40 minutes or so. The key with the Last Legion is that all faction quests and poster quests are all roughly in a logical order, and pretty easy to complete. The Last Legion also has the added benefit of having faction quests in other zones such as Kara Korum and Pai Kang meaning there is variation from the monotony (albeit not as efficient as a refined grind cycle).

Now compared this to the Hykanians, they are based solely in the Northern Grasslands and have some quests that are quite spread out in terms of what you need to do to complete a single quest. The fact they are based only in Northern Grasslands also means there is not much variation to doing the quests and some of them only give much less than the 1850 that all the Last Legion quests have.

On getting to tank 4, I embarked on completing the Last Legion quests in all the other zones which was very enjoyable after the Northern Grasslands grind. Since the other zones are not as active with other people, I even managed to read the quest lines and follow the stories.

I am now embarking on ranking up with the Tamarin Tigers to get the tiger mount and their heavy armour items. So it’s the autumnal splendour of Chosain Province next for me. Only 965,240 to go…

The Age of Conan expansion, Rise of the Godslayer is well and truly with us now. If the loyal kappa is not enough to keep you company, you can also take up MMORPG.com’s offer of a free loyal crocodile pet companion. Funcom and MMORPG.com have teamed up to provide this limited offer, which allows you to get an upgrade key giving you this exclusive Loyal Crocodile pet. The keys are limited in number and there were 1878 keys left as I write this so you’ll need to be quick.

The Loyal Crocodile is a social pet that will stay by your side as your journey through the Age of Conan world. The good news is the new pet can be used both in the original game and the expansion too. Croctastic I say!

Loyal Crocadile Giveaway

You can now pre-order .co domain names so make sure you secure your domain name now before some other scamp beats you to it.

The .co domains can be registered on the 20th of July 2010 but some domain companies are providing pre-orders for domains for as little as £29.99. Why wait! Secure your next domain name now!

So I kick off the game first thing and notice nothing different at first, sure my Mirage UI is not working (which I expected) and Conarch is unusually empty, as is Old Tarantia. Khemi on the other hand is very busy with people all heading in the direction of the Khitai travel point (I swam there). Firstly the plan was to get MirageUI to display the Perk bar, a forum post on the US forums showed how to edit the XML but this didn’t work for me so I left it as is for the time being.

A quick inspection of the Feat trees showed me the Alternate Advancement bars that I had been waiting to see, lots of options but amount of points you need to get them is massive 1,000,000 for the first points for each of the 3 types. I completed a quest on my way to King Conan’s castle (via the claim “Summons” quest) and got 7000 alternate advancement points. So I foresee a  bit of a grind fest here, I’m glad it’s not going to be fast. There is also the time based option which allows you to gain points for each 18 hours played (I assume this will scale as you progress).

On finally making it to the Khitai travel point in Khemi (I needed to swim across the river) I promptly set sail to the new land. On route I am confronted with a Kithan with four eyes talking in riddles. All full speech and very nice animations and movement. I read and listened to all the dialogue and if the rest of the role-play encounters are like this then we are in for a real treat. This four eyed Khitan gave me 2 quests for the new lands.

Once finished talking to old four eyes I find myself in the first zone. Guards appear to have green names now as opposed to yellow and I see the familiar PVP action of people intercepting people on horses. An assassin in particular killed a mage on a horse. So with my conqueror, decided to teach the assassin a thing or two. Thanks to the conqueror Overcome The Odds and the Retaliation (and indeed retaliation), the assassin pretty much killed himself, a couple of Hail of Furious Strikes (HoFS) and he was down. The mage came in towards the end to help exact some revenge on the Assassin.

I walk up a nearby rock, go into hide and log out until after work. So far, Age of Conan Rise of the Godslayer seems brilliant. I cannot wait to explore the world of Khitai later today and begin my journey through this eagerly awaited expansion. Brilliant!

However, a post on the Age of Conan forums titled “Play.com” alerted me to the fact that they had no retail versions in their warehouse. So a quick phone call to them confirmed this, as did a call to both Game and Gamestation. I quickly logged into my Play account and cancelled my pre-order for my Rise of the Godslayer and instead ordered via Funcom.

I’m now the proud owner of a new loyal kappa (of which its Japanese lore is more than funny) and a Ravager of Jhil bird as a fighting companion. Although the Play.com Puma sounds far more “my thing”, the buffs that the Kappa gives seem pretty good. I opted for the Rise of the Godslayer CE (Collectors Edition) which gives some extra double XP pots (I loved them during Funcom’s time limited claim) and new Alternate Advancement pots. A selection of male and female tattoos and a Ring of Dreaming Demons completes the collector’s edition.

Now I just have to wait until launch to enjoy the new lands of Khitai. I don’t think I’ll be doing too much gaming on the launch day though after all, the downtime is scheduled for 4:00am BST and will last for 12 hours. And then the patching can begin, a 3GB download will be needed for all who purchased the digital download so we hope the Age of Conan servers will be able to cope. All being well, I guess I should be online and playing by about 6pm. I hope! I cannot wait!

The really great thing about the Yellow Gremlin feat builder is that it provides you with other feat trees that others have used, together with a description, rating and comments by other users. This also means that if you have built the best feats for barbarian or the definitive best tank feats for dark templar, you can also submit yours for the rest of the Age of Conan world to enjoy.

So if you want to find the  the best one handed eged weapons the game has to offer, or if you want to build a guardian feat tree, Yellow Gremlin is your Age of Conan wing man! Top stuff!

It gets better too, they have now released some now goodies such as the Age of Conan server status page and new syndication tools such as browser plugins and even a Yellow Gremlin Age of Conan search box that you can integrate into your own website. Fantastic!

Webanet provides a whole range of uk web hosting solutions and some of the cheapest domain names in this fine land. Two weeks in and things are working superbly, my site is fast, I have massive amounts of bandwidth and the ability to upgrade to one of their dedicated servers at a later date should by website need something a bit more, erm, dedicated.

The other great thing was, they transferred all of my website files and emails from my old provider using their free hosting transfer option and also, switched over to the new hosting seamlessly meaning now downtime! Brilliant!

The pioneering combat system is what keeps the PVP enjoyable and the brilliant Robert E Howard lore ensures an exciting low level fantasy experience.

So almost 2 years on, we see Age of Conan’s first expansion Rise of the Godslayer. The new expansion is set to be released in May 2010 and of course provides a whole slew of freebies such as buffing pets and extra items.

Set in the eastern lands of Kitai, this Asian themed land was not written about in great detail by Howard and so has been more of a blank canvas for the AOC team headed up by game director Craig Morrison.

One of the features I am most looking forward to is the alternate advancement system, which provides an in-depth progression system which you can customise in line with the way you play your characters. While other MMO’s like to increase the level cap in their expansions, I prefer the approach Age of Conan takes here since it allows me to fine tune what I bring to the battlefield with my characters.

The system allows anyone from level 20 to 80 to progress their character in new ways, earning new combos, powers and abilities along the way.

Each class will feature three new feat trees which adds up to a massive amount of new options for players. Each feat will be rated from one to five so that progression can be made in line with your exact desires.

Firstly, a general tree (which is consistent across all classes) is gained at level 20, while the archetype specific trees becomes available once a players dings 80. The great thing about the general tree is that it scales to the level of the character, meaning that lower level characters will also benefit from this new tree as they continue to level up.

These new abilities are purchased using alternate advancement points which are gained for performing in certain areas of the game. Prowess, Mastery and Expertise points are gained during the main core elements of the game. Achievements in PVP give you Prowess points, Mastery points are awarded for PVE challenges and Expertise points are awarded in line with prowess and mastery at predetermined ratio. The original Age of Conan content will also allow for these points to be gained, however achievements in the new land of Kitai will be higher because of a significantly higher challenge.

The main advancements options that a player can purchase are called Feats and Perks. Feats consist of more passive bugs which are always on. Some feats do provide an associated ability that can be used when the feat is active.

Perks are something totally new, and must be equipped within a new perks bar. Very similar to the way Guild Wars works, players get to choose which perks they want to take out into battle. Some perks are far more devastating than others and so take up 2 spots on the perk bar. So you can update your perk bar in line with your playing style or the situation you about to take part in. The single slot perks are known as Minor Perks while the double slot Perks are known as Major Perks. The Major Perks are class specific and are key elements that can change the outcomes of both PVP and PVE encounters.

This technical element puts the power and control firmly in the hands of the player, and is a most welcome alternative to the level increases which often result in simply grinding your way to the next level cap. As the player advances new perks and options become available to them and ultimately, a myriad of ways they can play their class.

Having been subscribed to Age of Conan since launch, I simply cannot wait for the release of the expansion. The alternate advancement system sounds magnificent and I am sure it will bring a lot of diversity to the world. Brilliant!