Robert E Howard wrote the original Conan material in the 30s, and it is a damn shame to see his brilliant storytelling butchered into this clumsy, lackluster, unoriginal grinder.

After playing AOC for a month, thinking it couldn't possibly be this bad, I went back and read some of my favorite stories in the Del-Rey books. After refreshing my memories of REH's work, I can say with confidence that I was right.

Here we have a canon world rich with violence, strife, warfare, all the action that would provide the perfect setting for an open-world video game. But instead of taking AOC in the sandbox direction, they opted for an unapologetic theme-park.

So instead of feeling a part of the Conan experience, we get a treadmill. Instead of creating our characters from the myriad races and nationalities described in meticulous detail by REH, we get two races and the Jedi race of Cimmerians of which only one was ever written about: Conan! Instead of focusing on actual professions as described in the stories (a skill-based system would be excellent here), they force us into choosing from twelve classes, at least half of which are ridiculous eccentric make-believe classes (how many Herald of Xotlis were there int he original material).

I mean really, go back and read any of the original Conan stories. Write down the main characters and a brief description of them (ie. Hadrathus the Asuran Priest), then try to line them up with their AOC player character equivalent. Having a hard time? Maybe because AOC player characters are aliens to the Conan lore.

Funcom is rubbing it in our faces that they care nothing about REH's stories or providing players an opportunity to experience the Conan world. They are just humping the WOW big franchise model hoping to cash in on the disposable incomes of anyone remotely interested in the Conan universe, except they're missing the point entirely. WOW held true to the Warcraft world, it didn't piss on the grave of its creator.

I see all these threads claiming how AOC is lining up to be a huge failure, and I hate to wish ill upon anyone but for the sake of us all I hope they are right, AOC fails, and the brilliant IP is stripped from Funcom and placed in the hands of someone with 1) an appreciation of the source material, 2) vision, and 3) the backbone to try something new.

In the UK a full collection of the Conan works was released about 2 years ago, it's a huge bumper volume and well worth the £15 I paid for it.

Not seen it advertised in the US though.

One of my favorite settings since I was a kid ... Initially when they announced it, and for about a year or two, I was sure it will have the sandbox pvp approach. Most of the people on the boards at that time were also keen on it .

The only really sad thing is that we probably won't see another conan MMO any time soon or even never.

---

Originally posted by adrianemery
In the UK a full collection of the Conan works was released about 2 years ago, it's a huge bumper volume and well worth the £15 I paid for it.
Not seen it advertised in the US though.

---

It's been released in the US. Coming of Conan, Bloody Crown of Conan, and 1 other book. 3 volumes encompassing the entire collection of REHs works. I'm on the 3rd book myself right now.

Although you are probably more than right OP, I find many mmos have to butcher content in the quest to well... make an mmo. I find WoW, although not really story focused was a butchery of the warcraft series, in that respect I completely disregard most of it's lore and only follow up to the W3 expansion (W3 + expansion has a beautiful storyline) and when they release W4 one day, i'll keep following it. It's much the same way that I disregard the latest Star Wars movies, to me they have nothing to do with Star Wars and never will.

Though, you having read the books, I don't blame you for being pissed off.

---

Originally posted by Moodah
One of my favorite settings since I was a kid ... Initially when they announced it, and for about a year or two, I was sure it will have the sandbox pvp approach. Most of the people on the boards at that time were also keen on it .
 
The only really sad thing is that we probably won't see another conan MMO any time soon or even never.

---

I thought the exact same thing. First year or so it looked like a sandbox MMO heavily focused on the source material. But the closer and closer it got to release, the more and more it started to look like just another bland boring grinder. And that's what it turned out to be.

/sigh

But honestly to any of you who haven't read any of REH's stories, go pick up any of the Del-Rey books, they are 10x more exciting than this game.

I agree with OP completely...

By old-time RPG definition: low fantasy = skill based and high fantasy = classes and levels.

If ever there was a big name fantasy IP that would support and thrive in a skill-based sandbox game then it would have to be Howard's Conan.

This is an awesome fail of imagination and lack of vision on Funcom's part. I don't mind the bugs and glitches that much - it is the core design which is rotten on so many levels.

... and as poster above me said, it really looked like it would go gritty sandbox way at the beginning.. and that is probably why we had such a rash of otherwise intelligent and discerning players turned rabid fanbois in those months before the release. Sometimes wishful thinking can completely cloud your judgement.

I read all the original Conan books in college, which was a while ago, I don't remember much about them really.  One thing that struck me at the time though was how much I enjoyed them, because usually I'm not a big fantasy genre fan.  I lean heavily toward Sci Fi.

So the fact that I liked them so much, and I remember plowing through them one after another, they had to be pretty good.  I should probably go back and reread the series, but usually when I try to do that I start to remember as I'm reading and it ruins the ending for me.

As for AOC and living in the Conan world, I didn't really feel it.  Maybe others do though.  Like you said, it had more of a themepark feel to it.  No immersion was to be had.  Part of that was all the zones with loading screens, multiple instances and poor performance that I had, which never really allowed me to get into character. 

Originally posted by isurus

Robert E Howard wrote the original Conan material in the 30s, and it is a damn shame to see his brilliant storytelling butchered into this clumsy, lackluster, unoriginal grinder.

After playing AOC for a month, thinking it couldn't possibly be this bad, I went back and read some of my favorite stories in the Del-Rey books. After refreshing my memories of REH's work, I can say with confidence that I was right.

Here we have a canon world rich with violence, strife, warfare, all the action that would provide the perfect setting for an open-world video game. But instead of taking AOC in the sandbox direction, they opted for an unapologetic theme-park.

So instead of feeling a part of the Conan experience, we get a treadmill. Instead of creating our characters from the myriad races and nationalities described in meticulous detail by REH, we get two races and the Jedi race of Cimmerians of which only one was ever written about: Conan! Instead of focusing on actual professions as described in the stories (a skill-based system would be excellent here), they force us into choosing from twelve classes, at least half of which are ridiculous eccentric make-believe classes (how many Herald of Xotlis were there int he original material).

I mean really, go back and read any of the original Conan stories. Write down the main characters and a brief description of them (ie. Hadrathus the Asuran Priest), then try to line them up with their AOC player character equivalent. Having a hard time? Maybe because AOC player characters are aliens to the Conan lore.

Funcom is rubbing it in our faces that they care nothing about REH's stories or providing players an opportunity to experience the Conan world. They are just humping the WOW big franchise model hoping to cash in on the disposable incomes of anyone remotely interested in the Conan universe, except they're missing the point entirely. WOW held true to the Warcraft world, it didn't piss on the grave of its creator.

I see all these threads claiming how AOC is lining up to be a huge failure, and I hate to wish ill upon anyone but for the sake of us all I hope they are right, AOC fails, and the brilliant IP is stripped from Funcom and placed in the hands of someone with 1) an appreciation of the source material, 2) vision, and 3) the backbone to try something new.

 

QFT

I've mentioned this before also.

Got flamed, but it seems others "get it".

The books are conan, AoC isn't.

The problem with MMOs is that they are forced into the healer/nuker/tank/cc/nintendo dynamic that none of their source material ever had (or ever WILL have).  Until the game devs wake up and stop cloning EQ, it's going to be hard to be 'immersed'.  LOTRO was a step in the right direction but there was still way too little ability flexibility after you picked a class and that game lacked the 'fun' factor of real pvp.

As for grinding, that too is built into EQ1 and so we have it here.  I think game makers are concerned that if players don't feel compelled to play 50+ hours per week then they will lose subscriptions.  And grinding is possibly the only way to keep people busy for 50+ hours per week.

A non-linear, non-quest-focused, non-instanced, non-class-based, non-grinding sandbox game is a bit of a tall order.  I agree that it could work, but people with real money would probably need a lot of convincing before they invest since we haven't seen anything like that yet.

I've read most of the books (even those that REH didn't write), comic books and the Savage Sword mag.

I do like the attitude/atmosphere of AoC more than any other game so far.  In what other game are you asked to get revenge by an old guy on someone who sold him something to fix his pecker but that didn't work?  We get sent on assassination missions (kill a guy in his sleep) .  We get asked to slaughter wounded soldiers.  We work with and against slave traders that aren't all obviously "evil" people.  The language and some of the NPCs and story lines do make me remember some of what I read 20+ years ago.