Age of Conan

First, let me preface by saying that anyone that is slightly interested in AoC should not be afraid to try it out.  The Launch of AoC is/was pretty good, with pretty much only the normal hitches and gaffs that are to be expected with any Launch of this size

That being said, there are some serious issues potential buyers should be aware of, especially MMO vets from EQ, DAoC, and V:SoH experience.

*  1st person mode of play is critically broken.  AoC has Bunny-Hop & Twitch elements of play.  When in 1st person mode, the all-important shield brackets tend to be out-of-view.  In addition, mobs often 'dissapear' altogether.  A-D turning is non-functional in 1st person mode.  There are other problems, but these are game-breaking if you play 1st person.

*  AoC is targeted for Console release, and it is evident.  There are many Console idioms in play that totally break real MMO RP immersion.  The worst of them are the cut-scenes related to quests.  Even if you are trying to play in-character, you are yanked out to watch a mini-movie.

*  The first 20 levels were originally designed as a very lonely solo play experience.  Then, a sort of multi-player mode was tacked on to the game to provide an option, but it feels and plays like a last-minute hack. 

*  FFA PvP is critically broken.  If they had not been doing Closed-Beta with Friends & Relatives, they would have seen the prevelance of sociopathic players in this type of situation.   A game really needs non-involved beta testers to find the really bad design decisions.

In summary, AoC will probably appeal to many folks.  Especially 3rd person Console gamers.  This is not necessarilly a bad thing, and may actually be good for the genre.  However, I have found it is not up to snuff in terms of PC based MMORPG standards. 

Just my 2c.
Good Hunting

Erm, what ?

One of your points can be instancely dismissed with a one word answer......Oblivion (that came out on the PC first incase you didn't know)

As for the FPS mode, I agree its alittle "twitchy" however I really do doubt there are many players playing in FP mode other than the rangers. As the environment is so much more rocky and alive there are always going to little problems with FP mode. They could have cheated and basically made everything flat like some MMORPGs but they didn't. So credit to them.

You saying that the first 20 levels were designed as single player with some stuff slapped on the end I consider to be totally unfair. I don't know how high level you are in the game (I am lvl 49 at the moment) but the storyline quests are a added bonus, they are very single player affairs yes, but you take part in massive battles as well as learning more about your class. The rest of the game is multiplayer and I always look forward to my next destiny (aka main storyline) quest is.

FFAPVP is FFAPVP deal with it. If you don't want to pvp, or only want to pvp when you want to pvp, go roll on a pve server. I am on a pvprp server and i get ganked much less than I did in WoW.

are you serious open beta was around for months...... where have you been?

Hmmm I was sure I was in Open Beta....DAMN THOSE DRUGS!

Originally posted by MasterPain55

are you serious open beta was around for months...... where have you been?

The long term  'Beta' was a Closed Beta, available only via invite from Funcom.

I've been around.

Come on Shoal. Aint you going to defend your post ?

Originally posted by Lucasw99

Come on Shoal. Aint you going to defend your post ?

I was not trying to say AoC was a bad game at all.  Just that it had some problems for a certain specific type of MMORPG player.

The first response seemed to me that the person had not even read what I wrote very carefully.  Which is unfortunate.

Funcom did much, much better with AoC than they did with AO, and I applaud them for trying something slightly different.

But, it seems to me that AoC is more targeted to the mass Console gamer market, rather than the PC MMORPG core market.   And, that's ok.  We can use all types of games in the genre.

Good Hunting

Hmm, I've playing in first person a bit and didn't have any problems.  Though I prefer third person so I can see if I'm getting attacked from behind. 

Worst element is the cutscenes?  I actually think this is a great feature but if you absolutely hate them disable them in the options.  How the simple solutions can evade people eh?

The first 20 levels are a mix of solo and group play.  If you absolutely don't like to solo... then don't.  You never have to play the solo night quests if you don't want to.  You can level up just fine in the day quests and then bypass all your solo night quests if you want.  Nothing forced or tacked on about that, they gave you options.

My personal experience is any FFA PvP brings out the sociopathic gankers.  No rules or penalties and the low-lifes and the bullies come out of the woodwork.  They did add a patch this week that gives you a short duration invulnerability buff to prevent corpse spawn camping or ganking people as they load into a zone.  Course if you don't like getting gank then don't roll on a PvP server.

I am very much enjoying my first week of AoC.  I feel that so far it is living up to all the hype surrounding it.

Originally posted by Lucasw99

Erm, what ?

 

One of your points can be instancely dismissed with a one word answer......Oblivion (that came out on the PC first incase you didn't know)

 

are you making an instance joke, or is that a typo?

what does a single player pc game (oblivion) have to do with AOC?

guess i'm not part of the crowd that got what your post was supposed to mean.  lack of words  and meaning and all.

I think Lucas was referring to the comment about AoC being "a console" game.  Which it clearly isn't, IMO.  It's going to be a PC game ported to consoles come September.