Age of Conan

When I first launched the game and my 640mb 8800GTS started to purr, I thought I had found a WoW killer, the game is beautiful, lets get that out of the way right now. The entire Tortage experience and Destiny chain reminded me of Oblivion in a way no MMO had before. My initial thoughts were that this was the absolute best introductory phase of any mmo I have played. Right away I found combat to be enjoyable and immersing, it was quite a change from past MMOs where I could watch TV, eat dinner, talk on the phone, and still grind away decent XP. Lets just say I have about 3 days worth of my favorite shows waiting on the TIVO. The quests in Tortage were delivered with brilliant voice over work, not something you often find in any game, much less an online game. By the time I had hit lvl 20, I was aching to get off the island and find out what the real game was all about, I wanted to explore the world, run through zones, quest, and run about looking for fun and interesting places wherever the wind took me (trying to make a point here.) Doesn't everyone love that new game feeling where you never know when you will find a new zone, a new camp of mobs, a new boss who drops something shiny and powerful? I love that aspect of MMOs, its why I have played almost everyone to it the market. Anyway, back on subject, I made it off Tortage and found a new town bustling with....well...npcs mostly... where was everyone? Off hunting I suppose. So I picked a direction and off I went, eager to hunt down new monsters and get away from the newbie "follow the arrow" games Tortage had been full of. Much to my dismay, I found that there were no rolling hills to explore, rivers to wade through, and quests to conquer, every direction I ran, I was caged in. So back to town. Here I found there wereNPC who could teleport me to specific zones where I could fight and quest. Thinking that at least these zones would be sprawling with different ways to go, and thing to do, I tried them. Again to my dismay I was told to follow the arrows along one of only a few possible routes in every zone and then to return to town to pick up a new quest. "This is an MMO, not pacman, where is the freedom?" I thought. Sadly, I never found the answer. Shrug.

SKIP TO HERE IF YOU WANT THE REVIEW.

Graphics: Brilliant! Climb to the top of any mountain/tall building and you will be treated to the best view in any MMO to date (Vanguard has been replaced....sorry VG)

Sound: Little bit lacking but I'd give in a B+ Good musical scores in some parts, but not much more than crickets for ambiance.

Combat: Awesome combat controls will keep you more involved in the game than any to date. Your special skills (combos and spells) require timing and skill to properly execute....that said, once you get the hang of it, it gets kinda old mashing key combos everytime you want to do a special attack (my finger tips hurt during one extremely long boss fight)

Grinding: Meh, its still an MMO, grinding is fun sometimes, but my biggest problem with AoC is the lack of useful item drops. Grinding gets a lot less interesting when theres next to no chance of getting anything but the kills. Note: this is not your typical MMO. You do NOT pull 1, kill 1, pull 1, kill 1, rest, pull etc... You jump right in and slaughter people, 3, even 4 at a time is no problem for many of the classes depending on levels of course.

Questing: Terrible. Almost every quest you get shows you EXACTLY where to go on your map. If you are too lazy to even pull up the map screen, it even shows u a little arrow on your radar so you can follow that down the road. At some points I found I wasn't even watching the main screen but following the radar and using my peripheral vision to stay on the road. Kinda takes the "quest" out of the picture and turns it into more of an errand. Next, the quest rewards are stupid. Yeah you get XP but the items are mostly worthless, and the ones that are good, you can't even really measure since theres no way to check your stats(in a sec I'll explain.)

Stats: I have no idea if my armor is doing anything, nor do I know what my DPS is before and after equipping all sorts of strength enhancing crap. Where are the detailed character stats? Its all good fun to play dress up in stuff I think looks good, but if I don't know what it DOES, its just that, dress up.

Gameplay/Environment: Ok so this is why I quit. Guild Wars on steroids. Thats all I can really say. Every single zone I found was so stupidly linear that I found myself forced to take the same paths probably 50 times a day. ITs not one big world, its a ton of little worlds that you can teleport in and out of, again, Guild Wars on steroids. The zones aren't even big enough to support the number of people in them so they are all instanced, there could be 300 people there, but you would never know it sine they are spread across X number of instances. That for me, takes the MM out of MMORPG.

Bugs: Its a new launch so I won't even get started, but um....its a new launch so...yeaah....


My point: Not enough freedom in the game, everything is way too linear and repetitive. However, if you like the guild wars style gameplay, please, go buy this game tomorrow....or wait a year  for the bugs to get fixed



*This information is based solely on my own gameplay experience, I may in fact be incorrect on every single point I tried to make and ask that you take everything I say accordingly. This is not a flame on AoC or anyone who plays it, as I give full credit to the game devs and everyone responsible for making a game that I am sure will succeed, it is however, not for me.

**Yes I know I quit the game without seeing all it had to offer. I'm not willing to follow 1000 more arrows to get to whatever level you claim it changes. Thanks for the advice though.

In VG though when you get to the top and see distant things you can go there!

People will tell you that it opens up after level 20. And I think most new MMOs are going to spoon-feed you the objectives for quests now; people just don't have time anymore. I expected combat to get boring for everyone, how long it takes however depends on the person. Good review, thanks for your opinion (I'll say it now before fanbois come in and say "WTF YOU NOOB you can't write a review you didn't get past 20!").

You know what i really hated about WoW and similar games?  NOT KNOWING WHERE THE BLOODY HELL I WAS SUPPOSED TO GO!!!   

Arrows on the Radar (AKA Guild Wars) FTMFW!!!

Originally posted by Ascension08

People will tell you that it opens up after level 20. And I think most new MMOs are going to spoon-feed you the objectives for quests now; people just don't have time anymore. I expected combat to get boring for everyone, how long it takes however depends on the person. Good review, thanks for your opinion (I'll say it now before fanbois come in and say "WTF YOU NOOB you can't write a review you didn't get past 20!").

Actually it was a SHIT review in my opinion. Mentions that he got to level 20 and he felt the same. Didnt mention what level he got to or any so called zones. Try the zones from 55 - 70...

Its limited gameplay experience.. Where is the grouping, the city building .. large scale pvp, the names of the large zones later on... 

Originally posted by Lonesamurai1

You know what i really hated about WoW and similar games?  NOT KNOWING WHERE THE BLOODY HELL I WAS SUPPOSED TO GO!!!   

 

Arrows on the Radar (AKA Guild Wars) FTMFW!!!

See? That's why you had sites like Wowhead and Thottbot. But now companies are putting the easymode right in the games, so hooray!?  

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 

Originally posted by Ascension08

People will tell you that it opens up after level 20. And I think most new MMOs are going to spoon-feed you the objectives for quests now; people just don't have time anymore. I expected combat to get boring for everyone, how long it takes however depends on the person. Good review, thanks for your opinion (I'll say it now before fanbois come in and say "WTF YOU NOOB you can't write a review you didn't get past 20!").

 

Actually it was a SHIT review in my opinion. Mentions that he got to level 20 and he felt the same. Didnt mention what level he got to or any so called zones. Try the zones from 55 - 70...

 

Ah ok well I skipped the first mega paragraph. And who is level 55-70 after 4 days...wow. I guess 7 days with the head start.

Originally posted by Ascension08

Originally posted by Lonesamurai1

You know what i really hated about WoW and similar games?  NOT KNOWING WHERE THE BLOODY HELL I WAS SUPPOSED TO GO!!!   

 

Arrows on the Radar (AKA Guild Wars) FTMFW!!!

See? That's why you had sites like Wowhead and Thottbot. But now companies are putting the easymode right in the games, so hooray!?  

Yeah,I'm a games journalist, so I've noticed this far more and especially for AoC with its "Adult's Only" theme, its for people that want to play regularly but for short time spans than WoW and the likes...  Mainly cos people have kids and a real life that pays them to play this stuff rather than using mommy and daddy's credit card like a lot of WoW players do

Espcially being a journalist too, i need to see as much in as shorta space of time too, so even better, but hell, they could easily make it an option to toggle on/off in the game options for those that don't want it

lvl34