Age of Conan

When I heard about AoC, I was excited about an alternative to the MMO garbage that's out there right now. Lineage II was ruined by botters, UO is long dead compliments of EA, SWG was beaten to death by its devs, and anything or everything that has ever been a genuinely amazing experience in this industry is dead. AoC promised to relieve that with world PvP, mature content, and a compelling storyline. Great. Right? Well, sing us a dirge for poor implementation.

Let's start with the implementation of the game world. You start in Tortage, a large island that plays very much like an interactive movie. The content is rich and engaging but not very liberal--Tortage does not feel like a real MMO. Consequentially, the island and its zones don't give you a good feel for the zones, but they do give you an opportunity to learn the fundamentals of the game. Once you get used to character movement, combat, and NPC interaction, the game is much more fun. But still, until you leave Tortage, it just feels empty, like a single-player game.

After Tortage, you find a bigger, badder world in front of you. This world is more like an MMO than your noob streak was, which is great, because it makes it easier to find people, group up, and socialize. Not so great are some of the "features" that probably didn't bother you so much early on. Age of Conan, you see, isn't really an MMO. It's set up similar to a combination of Guild Wars and EverQuest: the game is heavily zoned AND heavily instanced. The consequences for this, when mixed with world PvP, are incredibly frustrating. Here are a few:

Instanced zones means that a particular zone is allowed a maximum number of character inside of it. When the maximum capacity is reached, another "copy" of the zone is created, so you can have six or seven different instances of your favorite hunting forest. It also means that you have six or seven different places to look if you want to group with a friend who doesn't know what instance he's in. It seriously impacts the social aspect of the game, too, because you will very rarely see the same people in PUGs (pick-up groups) while leveling (which means you won't be making as many in-game friends or allies).

Instanced zones also give PvP gankers or fair-game attackers six or seven different places to run and hide. A favorite tactic of griefers in games like this is to sit at a zone line, gank someone who just zoned in or is on the way out, and then slip through the zone line. Your only hope to track them down is to pray that when you zone through to look for them, you enter the right instance. Good luck! Odds are you won't find him no matter how long you look.

Another frustrating aspect of PvP is fixed resurrection points. When you die in AoC, there are fixed points in the zone where you can revive, but these points are not guarded or secured in any way. Thus, many griefers have taken up the hobby of rez point camping--which basically makes it impossible for you to bring your character back to life until a GM or higher level player intervenes. The staff have deemed this tactic illegal, but it still happens, and often. Support response takes awhile, too, so by the time you get an answer from a GM, the attacker will probably have vanished. Still, even if he gets caught, you could spend a good half hour or longer just wanting to get your character back to life. And this will happen more than once. A lot more. GG.

The graphics in the game, however, are very pretty. The world is beautiful, the animations are smooth, and the item and character models are very well done. Combat is fluid and involved--you can't just sit back and button mash--but this can be a detriment for some people as it is a serious deviation from even active combat games like Dungeons and Dragons Online--nevermind traditional MMOs like EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, or WoW.

World gameplay feels a bit lacking, too, as many previous posters have noted. Your best leveling methods are killing eight hundred million mobs or doing quests, which incidentally require you to kill seven hundred million mobs and acquire one hundred million pelts. I mention this in contrast to games such as Lineage II and, again, WoW, which in their mid-level ranges introduce enhanced encounters such as raid bosses and scripted dungeons. Because AoC is a public world like EQ's Norrath, dungeons are bland (in terms of gameplay--graphically they look awesome) and accomplishments are few and far between.

Consequentially, this game gets a thumbs down from me overall. Even if the issues with mid-game accomplishment and rez camping are somehow fixed, I can't stand this world's heavy instancing. Yes, it is necessary to maintain good performance with an engine as taxing as this game's, but this does not feel like an MMO to me--more like a successor to the Diablo series. My advice: if you buy the game, don't hope on the AoC band-wagon. Play it, see if you like it, and if you don't, stop playing it. Warhammer Online will be out soon, and after it, Aion will be released. I have high hopes for both games. Those of you who are truly enjoying AoC, congrats on your new home. Those who aren't--well--you're not alone. Not by any means.

very nice review

I see the game the same way. Good-Honest review

What's the difference between "sorta" and kinda"?

I don't think that all of the games are dead at the moment.  City of Heroes even seems to be having a bit of a renaissance - new/more powersets, zones and new costume pieces, etc.. -  I wouldn't be surprised if their subs have gone up a little over the last few months.  That might have something to do with the Hulk/Ironman movies...

But yeah, we're still waiting for the next evolution of MMO gaming and AoC is in many respects a step back/away from that. 

AoC's melee system is maybe the best out there right now.  I would like it a lot but it isn't fair; while a barbarian is winding up his super-duper-high-level ability which takes a long combination of timed key-presses (and requires the barbarian and target to stay still during them), casters are doing point, click and insta-wammies - sometimes without bothering to point and click, depending on the class.

Accurate for your experiance and opinion.
 

Very one-sided to be called a review. Meaning you kinda talked about it as if it's a single player game where you should have explained that when people enter Tortage they have a mainstory plot that people can play in NIGHT TIME and NIGHT TIME IS the single player part, BUT.........when people play in DAYTIME at Tortage the can group if they want, only problem with today's gen. of players is they often don't want to group to have fun but pure NEED to group when they need help with something. Grouping just to have fun together is something that doesn't happen freqently, but it does happen, often in guilds more then with the new gen. solo player.

Also understand you only spoke of the PVP side of the game where the game has so much more to discus.

So like i said very accurate for expressing your opinion, but it can not be called a review cause it aint that. Hope you understand what i meant with this.

Originally posted by Reklaw

Accurate for your experiance and opinion.
 

Very one-sided to be called a review. Meaning you kinda talked about it as if it's a single player game where you should have explained that when people enter Tortage they have a mainstory plot that people can play in NIGHT TIME and NIGHT TIME IS the single player part, BUT.........when people play in DAYTIME at Tortage the can group if they want, only problem with today's gen. of players is they often don't want to group to have fun but pure NEED to group when they need help with something. Grouping just to have fun together is something that doesn't happen freqently, but it does happen, often in guilds more then with the new gen. solo player.

Also understand you only spoke of the PVP side of the game where the game has so much more to discus.

So like i said very accurate for expressing your opinion, but it can not be called a review cause it aint that. Hope you understand what i meant with this.

I titled the post 'A Review' with the intent that it be looked at as one critics opinon.  That is a definition of review:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/review

I will concede that my explanation of Tortage may have been a little misleading and I appreciate your input. 

I'd also like to amend a point about the instancing.  After rereading my review I made it seem as though it was impossible for people to meet up.  It is possible to find friends by clicking on the little arrow in the upper right corner and looking to see what instance you're in, notify friend(s) and coordinate a resurrection point.  However, that process (for me at least) diminishes the feeling of a vast MMORPG world. 

don't forget about the bugs (did you? i don't know)

Great review and I agree a lot with what you said.