Age of Conan

Alright so I've been a WAR fanboi for quite some time and I've been bashing AoC on numerous occasions on these boards (see my posting history if you have any doubts). I didn't bash AoC because I knew anything bad about it (I was not in BETA). I simply wanted MY game (WAR) to "win". I know that is not a mature reason but I'm sure many here can relate and I wanted everybody to understand from what perspective I'm writing this. Further info: I am currently in WAR Beta but won't compare AoC to WAR as I'm respecting the NDA.

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.

Alright, so Funcom huh? Ouch I was there for Anarchy Online Launch so I was prepared for uglyness. But I was bored and since I pretty much buy every single MMO that comes out I figured meh! May as well give the competition a try so I can "bash with experience".

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.

Alright, so I didn't hate the graphics. Big deal, the servers will probably crash every few minutes and there will be hours upon hours of downtime right? WRONG! The servers have been up almost permanently (one 5 hour downtime exception that bothered me). For a release that is quite a feat. Of course I may just be lucky and servers are only up when I'm playing but considering I'm playing a lot I can safely say it's been a smooth lauch (as smooth as launches go).

Alright, so the game looks great and is stable. Surely there must be tons of broken quests. Wrong again! I've done dozens of quests and they are working just fine. Plus many of them are actually quite entertaining and tell a great story.

But the community is full of tards right? "Sadly" no. OOC is the new barrens chat but other than that I have met lots of great people already. The player base is defintely more mature than WoW and that's great news all around.

How about the classes? All crap right? I've tried 9 out of the 12 classes so far and besides the Dark Templar I like em all. WoW a priest that nukes so he can heal better? What a great concept. You mean I'm no longer forced to spam 1 button and play healbot? Who would have thunk? Seriously the classes are great. Sure some balancing is required but honestly WoW has been out for what 3 years and classes need balancing. Or hey! Ask an EQ1 wizzy (9 years game life) how their class balance is compared to zerker and rogue dps on raids. Yeah, Funcom is doing alright ....ack can't believe I said that. BLASPHEMY!

Alright, well combat must really suck then right? Well, you probably have guessed by now how this review is going. Sorry! I will NEVER EVER play and autoattack MMO again. Combat rocks! After level 10 a whole new world opens up and boy oh boy I can't believe we played MMOs the way we have all these years.

Okay, I'm not going to bore you much longer. I just need to say a couple mroe things. First of all a big sorry to my previous attitude towards the game. A big congratulations to Funcom. AoC will be my MMO for years to come. THQs WH40K is the only thing on the horizon right now and that's at least 3-4 years away.

As for WAR. I won't be playing it. I'll keep testing it here and there and fullfill my duties as a beta tester and I do hope it will do well as I like the license but my home is now Hyboria.

I can't believe I'm about to say the following but ... THANK YOU FUNCOM !!!

im happy you like it :)

Seems pretty typical of the initial impression of the game.  By level 40 more people are a lot less optimistic about things so make sure to post back then and see if things have changed for you.

I plan on sticking with it to 80 but right now I think it is more of a stopgap until WAR and not a replacement.  Things can change in 6 months though.

I too am a WAR fan. In fact I had really only heard of AoC a few months ago, But when WAR got delayed again and Being so bored with killing Illidan (WoW) over and over I had to try something different this summer. I've rekindled the inner hard core gamer in me With the purchase of AoC I just hope the endgame content is there to keep me going once I reach 80. Only time will tell

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

The genre needs the likes of Warhammer and AoC to do well. They don't need to be huge successes but merely to recoup their dev costs and make a profit so that the small incremental innovations we see in both games continue in future games. Funcom and Mythic are both decent and respectable developers (even if they're PR depts 'gild the lilly' from time to time) and both are responsible for two truly innovative and memorable MMO's in the past.

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

Single player storyline (Good)

Gameplay (Poor)

Longevity (Poor)

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

Quests linear and simplistic zero challenge(Poor)

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

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

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

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.

Very very dissapointing

That was one of the most impressive reviews of what AoC offers yet. I like that you went in as a skeptic but the things you saw  were beyond doubting impressive to you. I too have been blown away by this game and though I was hyped about it, the way beta performed for me (no textures loading in detail, no view distance, crashes repeatedly, glitches, etc) I was more than a little worried, boy was I wrong about my fears! Flawless stuff, graphics are intensely good and the combat has made all my best mmo experiences dull a bit simply because of how well done it is and involved you get being a combatant.  Long live Hyboria!

Originally posted by Deathstiny

Alright so I've been a WAR fanboi ...

I can't believe I'm about to say the following but ... THANK YOU FUNCOM !!!

 

Same damn thing happened to me.   I love it and I won't be playing WAR.  RVR is way too safe compared to FFA PvP.

AoC is one hell of MMO.   

And I talk to many people in game who love it.  People in guild are always bringing up "oh sh*t that was awesome" moments on vent.  Don't remember that happening in another MMO I played.