Age of Conan

I must admit that I never thought that Age of Conan would launch smoothly and with screaming success, but look at this review over in the Age of Conan forums -

maybe Age of Conan is the real deal huh?

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/180042

Note that there are plenty more intelligently written threads and posts which seem to be scoring AoC very high so far and telling us they are having a blast with this game.

The substantive reviews won't come out for atleast a month after AOC launches.

I like the game, but I think it' s a little premature to call it a big time success since the official launch date is 5/20/08.

Yeah...game actually hasn't technically launched yet. This is early access.

And always give it at least a few weeks before you take any review seriously.

As everyone else has stated you really cant judge a game from the first few levels, it really is just the tip of the sword.

But its good to hear that there is finally another MMO worth playing!

Wow you call this a success?! Hate to ee your version of a disaster. Granted everyones experiences will be different but after three hours of game ply ll i get is the downlaoading patch information... Are the servers up or down at he moment.

So far, I'm impressed.  The game plays smooth as silk (on my 2 year old system), and after the initial three hour delay I played for 11 hours straight with no crash and no disconnect.  Obviously, it's too premature to call the game a complete success given that I am only level 15 and that a more substantial launch will take place on the 20th.  But as far as releases go, this is the best I've been a part of, by a very large margin.  You can tell that funcom put a LOT of work into this game.  Whether or not it's your cup of tea, you can't deny the dedication and polish that at least went into the starting areas, arguably one of the most crucial areas of MMO development.  If the mid and end game are as good as the beginning, we may just have a hit on our hands.

That being said, AoC so far is a wow clone (or eq clone if you prefer) as far as gameplay elements are concerned.  The true test is if they can offer a more complete endgame then raid raid raid.  If indeed the "raids" take an average group 1-3 hours to complete, and the pvp is as interesting as it appears it may be, and they are able to add "more" to the game for socializers and crafters, then AoC has a chance to become a truly great MMO.

Most of the "excitement" is coming from people who have played WoW for a long time and are insanely bored of it's style and just want a different playable game. If you look at AoC by itself it's really mediocre.

But have no fear there are many solid mmo's in preproduction atm.

Originally posted by Dursereg

Wow you call this a success?! Hate to ee your version of a disaster. Granted everyones experiences will be different but after three hours of game ply ll i get is the downlaoading patch information... Are the servers up or down at he moment.

Not to belittle your unfortunately negative experience, but one of the people I was gaming with has an obviously bad video card that hangs and bsods on him about every half hour to hour (happens in other games as well).  Despite all the disconnects, he was able to immediately connect each time, never spending more time then a reboot and a reconnect to get back in game.  I don't know what's causing your unfortunate problem, but it does not appear to be a common issue.

Any reviews that come out for AOC for the next few weeks are not worth reading really. As with all MMO's it takes time for sufficient people to level up and try the higher end content which is where most of the game is at. Then we will begin to see how AOC really is.

Word of caution about your enthusiasm.  The game looks about as good as the initial comments say, BUT the client has very high end requirements.  Most laptops simply won't play it in any acceptable manner, and a lot of desktops won't either.

You need a high end graphics card, especially if you intend to pvp and lots of memory and a decent processor.

Because of this you will find many that buy the game and try it will find the client performance unacceptable and either leave after the free 30 day period or upgrade their system.

I don't see this game challenging Wow at all, they ignored the reason for Wow's success, the Wow client runs on practically anything.

This game won't hit the 500k mark because of this.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Word of caution about your enthusiasm.  The game looks about as good as the initial comments say, BUT the client has very high end requirements.  Most laptops simply won't play it in any acceptable manner, and a lot of desktops won't either.

You need a high end graphics card, especially if you intend to pvp and lots of memory and a decent processor.

Because of this you will find many that buy the game and try it will find the client performance unacceptable and either leave after the free 30 day period or upgrade their system.

I don't see this game challenging Wow at all, they ignored the reason for Wow's success, the Wow client runs on practically anything.

This game won't hit the 500k mark because of this.

Agree 100%  I don't know why SOME MMO company doesn't emulate Blizzard's KISS formula- Keep It Simple Stupid- when it comes to system requirements. They made WoW so it could be played on a  5 year old PC with no upgrades needed. They were SO SM