Age of Conan

Wow! That surreal and mind boggling.

For the current naysayers I can see your trenches has been withdrawn yet another line. When do you accept a defeat? I mean seriously, when? I've ran out of count on how many objections you've touted as fact only to see for myself it's complete and utter bullshit in real life. "Oh no the game runs like shit", "Oh no with Funcom's track record the release will fail miserably", "Oh no the zones are tiny" and so on and so forth. As time progresses and people sees for themselves that you're talking bull you just generate new "facts" for something people can't experience themselves for the moment. Now it's end-game content. I feel sorry for you when people are hitting 80 by the numbers. Then they'll see for themselves your "supposed" facts.

Fact is; AoC has many more end-game dungeons than it's competition like for instance WoW and LoTRO had in their launches. AoC has been in development for over 5 years. It isn't rushed. Fact is that Funcom's in-house play testers has been sieging each other for years. Hell even people on this board has seen that feature. Are you guys saying they just lowered the population cap to 48x48 for something that doesn't exist? Really?

Yeah you can call me a fanboi, but do you know what? Being a AoC fanboi sure as hell isn't being lonely these days. And good on you Deathstiny for admitting you were wrong. That takes it's man - or woman.

People have been playing the same cardbox sized arena WoW instances for months. I don't see the size preventing people from playing AoC.

Five years however is a bit excessive. If I get a good year out of an MMO, I call it a great game. If I get more, I call it a massive succes (for me of course).

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Wait until you reach lvl 40 and find out about peanut sized zones , and lack of content....

No way in hell you've reached lvl40 if you complain about small zones and lack of content at post-40. You should be ordered to take a walk in the deserts of Kopshef to cool of before you talk. Lobotomist... yeah right.

Originally posted by Isane

 

Originally posted by nikle76

nice review. Its nice to see someone admit when they are wrong, its not that common on these forums.

 

Having played to level 40ish I have to 100% disagree with the poster his standards must be low.

Graphics Excelent

agreed

Single player storyline (Good)

agreed

Gameplay (Poor)

why?

Longevity (Poor)

only 1 week and you are out of content? maybe we are defining longevity differently. care to elaborate?

Combat too fast for any tactics button mashing as normal.(Poor) Little skill

wrong, button mash ensures death, but yeah combat is fast which i thougth was good

Quests linear and simplistic zero challenge(Poor)

??? as opposed to? zero challange?

World size has to class as Small and totally instanced(Poor) no massive about this.

yup the horse needs a little more kicking.  some like, some dont. if the alternative is waiting in line for a mob to spawn no thx.

Community and requirement to develop community zero(Poor)

agreed, possible downfall. had a few "thats it" moments myself

*edit* still wondering how i mis-read this part. community is average. above reply is for the funcom support , costumer service. *edit*

Raid and guild endgame just an arena.

not there yet

Mimics a single player game linear to the point it again has no challenge and nothing to explore.

playing with one char only atm but saw the option to skip destiny quest. newbie island is what it is : newbie island

A waste of invested time as there can be no sense of acheivment here,

again as opposed to? if you say WOW we are definitely from different planets.

for people who have too much time or value their own very little.

contradiction. already said no longevity, how can it be for people who have too much time

Very very dissapointing

not for me, i hope coming releases cater for you

Originally posted by Isane

 

Originally posted by nikle76

nice review. Its nice to see someone admit when they are wrong, its not that common on these forums.

 

Having played to level 40ish I have to 100% disagree with the poster his standards must be low.

Nope, maybe yours are impossibly high?

Graphics Excelent

Beyond excellent imo. Stunning is closer.

Single player storyline (Good)

Yeah, this is bout right. The destiny quest line is good, but nothing amazing. It's fun and engaging enough to play through though for sure.

Gameplay (Poor)

How so? This a traditional MMORPG  that evolves some of the concepts (combat for instance) to lift it above the standard whack-a-mole gameplay of games before it.  If you are calling AoCs gameplay 'poor', you must be be calling every other  MMORPG's gameplay to date truly sh*t....

Are you?

If so, why are you even playing this genre of game?

Longevity (Poor)

Of course it is...

right...

So, how long do you think it's gonna take you to...

1. Finish PvE all has to offer...
2. To  try out a few of the varied classess...
3. Fully explore the excellent harfvest/ craft system...
4. To grow bored of mini game/ Border Kingdom PvP...
5. To work with your guild to build your city...
6. To get together with your guild and explore the raid content at end game at your wn speed...

By the time you even come close Funcom will be stacking on the new content.

Combat too fast for any tactics button mashing as normal.(Poor) Little skill

Maybe your just too slow?

I know I don't ever ever button mash.

Again, maybe your just not very good at the game?

Quests linear and simplistic zero challenge(Poor)

This I agree with. The quests are just on the wrong side of easy. I am not a fan of GPS questing though, and AoC is hardly unique for this in todays market. AoC is too easy in the same way all MMORPGs are too easy now.... At least it's quests are well written and engaging though.

Again, if AoC is 'poor', every game out there right now is truly truly sh*t.

World size has to class as Small and totally instanced(Poor) no massive about this.

Massive in MMOs actually refers to the amount of people, not the zone size.

With that being said, the number of actual zones is indeed small, but boy they are usually huge with so  to explore...

Again with the myths...

The game is NOT 'totally instanced' and you are either deliberatly misrepresenting it for some reason, or you dont understand the term properly.

80% of the game is open world. It uses instances to achieve specific goals, and for that I applaud it.

If you want to class the world size as small, then fine so be it. I personally would prefer to have a world this size that is fully developed then a vast open space with nothing in it. I personally think the game is about right.

Community and requirement to develop community zero(Poor) Raid and guild endgame just an arena.

While the tutorial ooc chat (1-20) indeed makes your ears bleed,  this really changes in the real game and I have personally met so many good and friendly people I have no idea why people are touting this bad community garbage. Personally, my guild just simply rocks and makes playing the game a joy.

I play on Crom and I see little to support this myth of 'bad community'.

Mimics a single player game linear to the point it again has no challenge and nothing to explore.

I don't get this at all, past the solo destiny quest.

If you choose to play the game as a solo RPG, then thats your issues, not the game's... I have grouped TONS since I started, and while I would love it to be harder, it certainly isnt any easier then EQ2 or WoW, or any other MMORPG out there.

Anyhow we have covered this above and you are repeating yourself now.

A waste of invested time as there can be no sense of acheivment here, for people who have too much time or value their own very little.

hehe all games are a 'waste' of invested time.... Thats the point... but to say theres no achievement in this game is just ignorant... you obviously just not getting it at all.

I know for dam sure that I feel rewarded when I win PvP, and I know I am rewarded when I see simply stunning environments like the Sanctum, and I know 100% when I see our HUGE guild town taking shape I will feel defitnly rewarded.

Very very dissapointing

Thats not surprising, seeing as you seem to have missed everything that is good in your need to hate this game.

Originally posted by pashapook

They have a good base to work with. The game needs alot of work. They have about 6 months to fix these issues or I forsee a huge exodus to War.

Watching WAR videos , tbh I think Id rather play Aion than WAR.

I guess Im just one of those older gamers who are sick of playing cartoons . Rather zone than see bland.

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Originally posted by Deathstiny

My computer: Dell XPS 630 - Quad core 6600 - 4gigs DDR2 - Gforce 8800 GT 512mb - Windows Vista Premium 32bit. That system currently retails for about $1200 to $1400 depending on some options.

I was not prepared for this. First of all the game looked absolutely amazing. And I don't mean just "good". I mean generations ahead of its time. And the fact that my system runs it anywhere between 40-80fps (city vs. outdoor) on MAX settings is a blessing.
 

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While I am pleasantly surprised with the launch of Age of Conan, the servers are very stable ( WoW is majorly pwnd in this area, remember the suffering we had to endure with the release of WoW ... )
The graphics are indeed very nice and run fine on a high end system.

Overall I agree with most of what you have said.

I have to point out that you can NOT run the game MAXED on the system you mentioned with the frames you said.

Keep in mind I talk about a resolution of 1680×1050, which is a very much used average resolution for a high end system.

Now, when running 1680x1050, setting AA on 16xQ, View distance 3000+ something, and under advanced settings you turn all sliders to the right and put everything on the highest setting, then you will have around 20 FPS on following system :

8800GTS 512MB, 4GB DDR2 800mhz 4-4-4-12 RAM, Quad Core Q6600 @ 3Ghz, 2 x 150GB Raptor HD, Dual boot Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista 64bit.

And before you say my system may not be tweaked right, I run every other game out there on max settings, ( unreal tournament 3, bioshock, LOTRO etc ) except Crysis ( but thats just a beast ) with at least 30+ FPS

I will take this even further and say that I think LOTRO graphics are almost as good as AOC, but ALOT better tweaked and even with DirectX 10 effects it runs alot smoother then AOC.

The engine needs alot of improvements imho, because as it stands now, you need a 8800 series card to be able to run it.

I sold my old PC to a friend of me to run AoC, that one has a 7950GT 512MB, with an Athlon 2,8Ghz and 4GB of ram, and he must put everything to the almost lowest settings on 1280x1024 and even then he gets spikes of 10 FPS.

So again, to enjoy the game you need a 8800 series card.

But besides that, I am having fun :p

Greetz