Age of Conan

First of all, my name is Marshall and I have been around these forums for a while now. I don't post a lot, mostly because the flaming is ridiculous, and opinions mean next to nothing here. However, as I have been looking through the forums lately, I have seen a lot of AoC reviews that were.. lacking. Or at the very least extremely biased. I have been playing MMO's for the better part of 10 years. I am a programmer myself, and what I offer you is an unbiased, realistic view of AoC.

One thing I want you all to know is this. MMO's are like children. We all have differnt experiences with our kids. That said, yours may not, and hopefully IS NOT, the same as mine. What I say I see and feel about the game may not be the same as you. Thats ok. It's just a viewpoint. Your welcome to yours, and I appreciate any constructive criticism. However, for the average player looking to get into this game, I think they will find this helpful and informative. It will be long and thorough.

In the beginning, in Tortage, things seem easy enough. The quests, while somewhat old, are still refreshing as you are in an "awe" period. They are easy, compact, and you can quickly progress through the first 10 levels or so. Most of this from my experience is almost 100% solo, although you can group, but its not really any faster in this area of the game. You soon start doing your "destiny" quests, which is a solo questline to try to remember who you once were. Once you hit level 20, and move away from tortage, the newbie area, you get into the real meat of the game. My view of Tortage, actually, is a good one. I enjoyed it, and found it refreshing. However, I would be lying if I said I wasnt ready to get the heck out of there by level 20. I think that 20 levels is... a bit much, and that this could have easily been scaled down a little bit. The replayability, while there is some, its definately not much. I've been through tortage twice now, and I can't say I'd want to go through it a 3rd time.

This game as others have stated, is very taxing on the system. I have a pretty good system and get 35-40 fps. People trying to play this game on a subpar system are definatel not going to have a good experience. Please, know your systems capabilities before you rush out and drop 50 bones on this game. You may find that what you thought played WoW at 80fps wil play this barely at all. Its definately a possibility.

Moving on into the 20's, I leveled through an area called the "Wild Lands". The graphics for lack of a better term were stunning, even on low or medium. Far better than WoW, or anytihng else out at the moment. But something was missing in it for me. The immersion didnt seem to be there. Granted this was during early release, so the majority of the player base hadnt been implemented yet. It seemed very cold, very lonely in what actually is a huge zone. There were times I would rarely come across someone else, and this of course if you have followed the game, is because they use "instancing". Now before the haters get all up in arms, understand that this is NOT like WoW's instancing.  It's not a dungeon, where you go in, do your thing and leave. Its just a copy of the same zone. So, while I was in this "Wild Lands" zone, there were 5 more copies of the zone running on the server. I eventually found a copy with more people, and it looked more alive, but having to do that really is a nuisance, even if it is just a couple clicks of a button. No, it didnt ruin the immersion. its just one of those things that make you scratch your head I guess. On the bright side, however, quests were VERY quick to be finished. Kill 10 of these? sure. Get this from this mob? no problem. Less people means less competition for mobs etc, so it definately had its advantages. But.. I still think there could have been a better way. Or, maybe there wasnt, and I just WISH there were a better way. However that said, I think it was  an acceptable solution to the problems they would have had if everything had been in a single "instance".

On to level 30. Right around here is where I felt my PoM come into its own class. As a priest I was killing things like Flash Gordon, but around lvl 30 that started changing. My heals got better, my armor no longer provided the same protecion, and my dmg spells no longer did 65% of the mobs hp in 1 hit. I still was a ruthless killer, with 0 downtime, but it wasnt blazing anymore. So please, anyone, get to lvl 30 with your toon before deciding if you like it, or screaming on these forums that your ovepowered as a level 20 ranger. Overpowered compared to what, a bunny? Uh... sure.

By the time I hit lvl 50, as a priest I really needed to start grouping for a lot of my quests that were of medium difficulty. Killing things is much slower, but still very fast for a healing class. However, the amount of Dmg I take is ridiculous, and this definately needs changed. At times, I can be 1 shot by a mob of my own level. Granted its a crit, but that shouldnt happen, and I know they are aware, and I know they will fix it, but for now its a pain when trying to level lol. Also at lvl 50, I find myself grinding approx 1/2 of each level I get. And that is still the case at level 60. OK, so now you know what the early and mid levels are like. Lets talk about some miscellaneous things.

Travel: They absolutely have to do something about this or people wont survive past for the first 30 days. My guild city is in Poitain. I grind  and quest in an area that, no kidding, takes me almost 40 minutes to get to if I try to get there the way it is intended to do so. Instead, I death port across zones (die, and rez at the closest rez point to the exit of that zone that I need to take). This is NOT how this is intended to work, and they have acknowledged this and will be putting in a system to try to deter death porting in the future. However, at this time the death penalty is so neglegible thats its absolutely laughable. Literally. Horses and mounts arent much faster than regular character speed, if any at ALL. Some are even slower.. the mammoth comes to mind for obvious reasons. This has to be fixed. WoW's world may not be as large, but EQ's definately is, and it doesn't take 45 minutes to get ANYWHERE in either of those games.

Traders: Traders are either innovative, or retarded, depending on which side of the fence your on. The good part I suppose, is that the trader acts as a place to sell your goods (aka auction house but no auction), a personal bank, and a guild bank. Also all mail is sent/received from the trader. ALL from the trader...I have to be honest and say that I am on the retarded side of this fence. All of those things are responsible for by one single set of NPC's? Imagine WoW having no mailboxes, banks, or guild banks. Imagine the Auctioneers being the only ones who do it all. Now you get my drift. How often has the auction house gone down? I think your getting my point now. IF ONE OF THESE THINGS GO DOWN, THEY ALL HAVE TO BE BROUGHT DOWN. If one breaks, they all break. We didnt get a means to sell , get mail, or anything else until just 2 days ago, simply because the personal BANK didnt work.. everything else was fine. But could we send mail? no. Sell things? no. Largely in part of this , there is no economy to think of. It's just starting to get going. A minor inconvenience atm, but later on far more important. Again, this is just my opinion on the matter, dont flame me for it please.

CRAFTING: I am an architect for my guild and as such, dont really craft for money. But from what I have heard from others, its extremely expensive right now, and the stuff sells for nothing. I vaguely remember a post a while back about how Gaute I believe said "we dont want people making 50 useless widgets just to be able to make a bigger widget" or.. something like that anyhow. But thats exactly what it is. A lot of people I have talked to simply said they throw their stuff away. Heck, until a few days ago there was no way to sell it anyhow. It is however on the whole a decent system. But you can tell it wasnt the main focus.

Combat system: OK,I think I will appease everyone when I say yes, it is innovative. Fanbois are right. But, is it REALLY anytihng new? I'm with the haters on this one and I say no. Could it be? yes. I'll explain. Yes there is active blocking. Yes you can set shields up around you in different orders etc. Yu can even dodge in real time. Now the real question.. does anyone actually use it? NO. I mean I'm sure a few people here will say yes they do, but on the whole I can guarantee you most people leave their shields even, dont change them, and rarely try to dodge. They think they are a warrior in wow lol. Yes, combos are fresh and nice. And the finishing moves are 1337. But what good is all this innovation in a combat system if NOBODY IS USING IT? This of course is not Funcoms problem. Its the players. And in all honesty, I think the players are right. Theres just too much going on. Changing shields, dodging, pulling off long combos + your other abilities is.. tedious. Its not so much hard, as it is that it gets old really fast. Is combat good? yes. Does it feel more like combat? for sure. Is it innovative? Most definately.Is it any BETTER? I'm not so sure.

Guild Cities: These can be amazing. And in reality they dont take NEARLY as many resources as I had initially been led to believe. I can aquire all the mats MYSELF for a level 1 keep, in a few hours. A little too easy as far as I'm concerned, but I understand that there will be a lot of guilds out there with around 25 people, so its completely understandable. HOWEVER... at this time, there is a bug where sometimes your building wont BUILD.. it will take your resources, and not put up your building. Because of this, my guild and I hve decided to hold off on building anything else for the time being. But the system is very user friendly, not ard to learn, and feels very natural. GJ with this one to Funcom in my opinion. Great addition.

GROUPING: Wow... (no pun intended) where to start... let me just say.. its garbage. I hate to say that about a game I want to love, but the truth is grouping is in some cases worse than just soloing. Not funcoms problem though. The problem I have had is getting group balance, makeup, and ability all to mesh. People have a lot of ideas about what a great or perfect grp makeup is in WoW... of course they have had 4 years to decide that. Because this game uses "instancing" in its zones, it is possible that you only have 6 tanks to group with.. or, 5 dps'ers and a healer... you get the point.  You can always invite someone and then summon them to your zone, but it doesnt always work, and there arent always the players togroup with, yet that is. Most people are still in te 30's, I'm in the 60's, but getting a COMPETENT group has been hard for me. A group of mid 50's in good gear going into a low 50's instance should blow it away. We got wrecked because we either had too much dps, to olittle dps, too many tanks, no tank, etc... but like any new game, we had to TRY.. and I think thats where the bad taste comes from. Until everyone learns their classes, etc, its going to be rough. It is , however, harder in this game than most because the learning curve is far more steep than say.. that other game I wont mention again. At level 60, I feel that I barely have a firm grasp on my class, and I have a lot of improving to work upon, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

In Conclusion.....

Its a fun game. It does get drawn out at the later levels, but I think thats because of a lot of factors. For the first 40 levels its a blast. It does take time, there is a steep learning curve, and gear doesnt account for what skill you lack in this game as in that other game. Combat is innovative but overwhelming at times, and the system requirements are high. City building is awesome, crafting is mediocre, and the immersion is awesome. How long will it hold your attention? I think that depends on you. For me? A year or so, considering they come up with content updates. Without them? 3-4 months on the top end.. I am almost already at level cap, and I think theres still a lot of work to do. Some people on these forums say they dont want to pay for an "open beta". Well.. like all MMO's at release, its gonna be bumpy. But I will say they are making great progress, nearly daily patches, and things look good. As far as actual MMO releases are concerned I have been around for a few dozen.. and I think this is one of the better ones. Is it all the hype has cracked it up to be? Not a chance. But then again, is it ever? In the end, give it a shot if you can get a buddy pass or if you got the dough to spare. If your on the fence about it then I hope this helped you out. But in all honesty if you dont REALLY want to play this game, and your on the fence, then I would say this game is not for you. My 2 cents. I'll leave you this some ubber awesome numerical values that I give the game, and you guys have a great afternoon.

Sound: 7/10

Graphics: 10/10

combat: 6/10

immersion: 9/10

guild cities: 9/10

crafting: 4/10

world travel: 1/10

replayability(at this time) 6/10 the first replay, 1/10 thereafter.

OVERALL: 7.5/10