Age of Conan

After being in beta and not too thrilled - but not totally hating it either - I made a break and decided to wait. When a few of my friends went in, I followed their doings for the last weeks since launch, and  a week ago I decided to hop in. I rolled a Barbarian on a PVP server, had great fun in Tortage... and as soon as I left it my fun fell into a bottomless pit. I mean Tortage was a blast... but it felt like the rest of the game was a year away from launch still.

I can only half put my finger on it. For once, even when I reached later 20ies I had hardly grouped, and it felt like a big single played RPG with chat room. I am sure the vast instancing added a lot to it, because when I went to the cities of LOTRO, EQ2 and the like I always had the feeling to meet everyone. There, I meet a few and most I never saw besides in chat because every damn place is copied a dozen times; I mean, heck, EQ2 at launch had 3-4 copies of the quest areas, but not the CITIES! and not so many!

Somehow had a bad LOTRO deja vu. Since the levelling is VERY fast - way too fast imo - many people RUSH through the game. I mean sure there are always the few mad people, but WTH! the game is how many weeks old and already lotsa level 80 players? Whoa, how many new MMOs per month do they PLAY? That a game ENABLES such rushing just means something went VERY wrong.

Also the lack of a line of events missing after Tortage and the sudden silence of the quest givers add to the feeling of hollowness. But I guess nothing depressed me more than finally entering GRAND city Tarantia, walk into an armor store and see ALL damn armor up to high level is the same, mindless sack-cloth! I mean, sure Conan is not Vogue... but who the heck made such gear? NOTHING to look forward, even high level chars walked mostly in brown sack and oh more brown sack.

Sure, the PVP is thrilling, but after a few days the combo thing strangely lost the appeal, and now... I feel the combat is from my point of view way LESS exciting than the skill based of EQ2/LOTRO/WOW - whatever. And THAT really surprised me. It becomes routine very fast, and then you usually only do the same 2 or 3 combos over and over, thats usually enough, so I dont find it difficult or challanging at all... I found the combat, once gotten used to it, repetitive and considerably more boring than the skill based EQ2-type most other MMOs have.

I am surprised how fast I felt quite boring now, really. I mean, I didnt expect AoC to be a killer game, but I DID expect it to catch me for a few months. There is a BIG LOTRO deja vu in many ways, looking flashy but hollow in the inside, in all terms of complexity, of catchy feeling, of small things to gain. I mean, generally some quests have fun stories, the world looks great... but I am so... underwhelmed, like its just a plastic world, a theatre stage. I really cant say exactly why 100%, but it feel so much like LOTRO, catchy a short while, but essentially a fast food game. Where are the grand visions of WOLRD? Games like Vanguard aspired to be? Games like UO or EQ and in a part EQ2 have been/are?

Pls spare me the flame, this is MY personal feeling about this, if you have a blast in the game, thats ok. I just wanted to say how I felt about the game atm. I see there is MUCH MUCH to do to make this game appealing me. As ever some hope it comes fast and is "almost ready", but I heard this often enough in MMOs lacking essentials to easily believe it. I sure linger around a while and see, but I am not waiting another Vanguardish one year until magically many great things come - which in VG never came btw.

EDIT: I know this pic isnt entirely fair, there IS more, but thats the vendor armor, and there isnt MUCH more there.

Elikal I LOVE YOU! 

So what are you playing now? Can I play with you?

Originally posted by Kenze

Elikal I LOVE YOU! 

So what are you playing now? Can I play with you?

I am basically playing EQ2. It has faults - like all games - but it has at least a good diversity of things to do and a good overall balance.

EQ2 is a good game, but the population is the problem with me.  On my pvp server (the more popular one) I often log on during my 60 day vet playtime to find like 44 people playing, 65, 120 maybe.  I checked Antonia Bale and some others and maybe it got up to 350 or so players.  It just always turns me away especially with how solo friendly they are making it.  I just feel like it's a ghost town at most times.

I had a decent amount of enjoyment through the 1-20 Tortuga part of the game, but it definitely grew stale soon after leaving the island. I managed to drag myself through 30 more levels to near 50  hoping that the pre-20 quality might return, but it never did. Actually it just became worse the higher I got.

I think the reason they set it up so skewed where the lower levels were fun and the higher levels were near empty was because of how they wanted to get people to subscribe, and eventually allow the buddy accounts. Buddy accounts and casual players would just stay in the low levels and get lead into thinking that the whole game was like that, so they would fully subscribe past the end of the first period. They would never know about all the problems and missing content at the high end because they couldn't get to that point - at least not until they had invested more money.

Another reason is, they can focus on the early stuff and buy themselves more time to actually implement the rest of the game as everyone else is working to level up through what IS in place.

But whatever the reason, it results in a poor experience for the gamer and is not something I want to see repeated in other mmos so... I cancelled. Grats to those that think its a good thing for the genre though.

Just another still-born MMO made by westerners.  I don't understand how Asia can so out-do American/Euro designers in this genra...

Originally posted by Blomi

Just another still-born MMO made by westerners.  I don't understand how Asia can so out-do American/Euro designers in this genra...

How have they done that then?

Elikal I completly agree. Firstly it's the heavy instancing, I'm level 45 now over halfway into the game and only now am grouping with people as of level 39 (Sanctum). This partially due to the lack of group quests. So far I've gotten 99% solo quests I can hammer out myself easy and then 1 group quest for a named boss out in the field will drop in my lap. There's no drive to push people to dungeons, nor establish community centers.

WoW did an excellent job of pushing players to community hubs like dungeons. Scripted experiences they would be sure to do because they recieved a slew of quests with enticing rewards to accomplish them. THe rewards for most of my quests in instances have been sub-par to the loot from the bosses themselves. If I looked at the rewards for those quests I might have skipped them all together had I not found a group. Warcraft did a good job of providing 70% of the zones quests for the overland and 30% for the local or adjacent instance of that level range.

Also the way the world is chopped up dosn't help. There's no purpose to hang out in town, all items purchased from town are available elsewhere and drop armor often is better then anything from the stores.

Zones themselves are so heavily instanced that I rarly see 1 or 2 people run by me. I know there's alot of people online but the zones always feel barren.

Some of the flaw is in the zone layout and design, quest breakcrumbs and rewards don't push you twards the more memmorable locations and experiences. And the more interesting stuff dosn't begin till yer 1/2 way through the game. It's not like WoW were at level 20 you're in deadmines or blackfathom and already experiiencing a memmorable adventure.

Likewise these instances are few and spread apart level range wise as well. Some zones span 14 levels of play while some dungeons span.. 2? Sanctum is listed as 37-39.. sure you can go in after 40 but at that point you've already begun to item-farm the boss's for blue armor drops.

I also don't get a sense of an over-arching storyline or plot developing. Individual people are suffering individual problems I help with but I am not slowly uncovering a plot or drawing closer to some archeevils master plan. I just don't feel like I'm progressing in a story.

Originally posted by Bladeinhand

Originally posted by Blomi

Just another still-born MMO made by westerners.  I don't understand how Asia can so out-do American/Euro designers in this genra...

 

How have they done that then?

Yeah its mind blowing isn't it.  I guess Asian game companies see gaming as an art and work hard to make something good.  While westerners just see it as a comfy job that has little responsibility.  So Asian companies make strides while the western companies just kick back, relax, and say "screw it, who cares, just release another pile of crap so I can get back to my beach house."  

Originally posted by Blomi

Just another still-born MMO made by westerners.  I don't understand how Asia can so out-do American/Euro designers in this genra...

Huh? Every Asian MMO I've played has been just as shallow if not more-so. They focus on graphics and repedative play far more then immursion, atmosphere or story. Eastern players simply grew up with differant games and have differant expectations and things they look for. They don't care as much about involved quests, affecting the world, or sandbox type play over time. THey don't want slow play-pace, they want lots of sparkaly rewards, pretty graphics and will grind to get them. It's not about right or wrong, it's about what you and your friends grew up with and want from a game now.

Also remember that alot of players in asia do so in cyber-cafes. Mmo's are not a solitary experience, they're a communal gathering where friends hang out... like a ton of lan-parties. In some respects it's more healthy, but it also means they want simpler rewards for simpler tasks and want to enjoy the comradery of playing with friends less then the escapism of immursive solo play.