C minus

Design failure in not recognizing the MMORPG genre is NOT an off line RPG. Let this be a lesson for all those who want "ultra high and realistic animated graphics" in multi mass on line games.

Pixels prime everything and it lets the game stumble under its own (resources) weight in not even needed graphics.

Let this game have LOTRO kind of graphics and you would have seen a far better performance.

The PvP end game is also very poor: building a castle with only 3 gathering professions that everyone has, isn't exactly the end of the world. Doing one battle and then losing it and rebuilding it is very poor.

But all of the problems of this game (fps drops, locked into walls mechanisms, poor development after level 20, fixed respawn points, copies of zones, lag in combat, etc ...) is ALL due to the use of far too heavy graphic resources which really isn't needed.

Still pictures say nothing in a video game: it is the animation and fluid gameplay that counts.

LOTRO was better with a B- and has been the only MMORPG with a B rating these last 2 years. I place Conan even under TR (C) and Pirates of the Burning Sea (C+). All the rest  - exept for the D of Vanguard - was published longer than 2 years ago.

These results are kind of shocking (well, not so much).  Where are all the fanbois giving it A's and B's?  They've either given up or come to some sort of realization.

Graphics: B-

A B-?!?  How so?  Flowing water isn't convincing, and waterfalls are the worst.  It's like they gave up on waterfalls.  Consider that you do see them quite a bit, they stand out badly compared to the rest of the well done landscape.  Equipment... while some of the equipment looks very nice, there's a major problem... there's very, very little variation as to how equipment looks.  It's like they all borrow from the same handful of models / textures.

Sound: A+

Hard for me to find faults here.  Lots of various sounds, especially in combat.  There's more sounds of steel biting into flesh and bone than you can imagine here, as well as some bloodcurdling death cries.

Gameplay: C 

PvE is okay, but as you progress, it thins out with quests, which sucks bad, considering quests drive this game and grinding isn't quite as efficient as it could be.  PvP?  Lack of "end game" implementation or refinement.  Also, PvP is quite adversely affected by the patches (get into that later).  PvE is affected too but not as badly as it directly affects PvP.

Patching: F for Failure.  While FC puts out lots of patches in a span of time, many severe class issues remain.  Despite the severe whining in the o-forums, many class issues HAVE been brought forward, yet still remain.  FC has been VERY eager to nerf classes (Rangers nerfed to oblivion for PvP purposes in less than 2 weeks from game release, yet nothing has been fixed for them).  Oh, and there's still the lingering end-game content problems that have yet to be fixed.  But look at the bright side, the color of traps layed down by Rangers have been changed!

Dev Communication / Interaction: No Grade

**You can't grade something that's non-existent.**  This is how bad it is... when a new patch comes out and players realize an ability to their class is now acting weird or broken altogether, they simply do not know if it was a nerf or if it was broken by FC while fixing something else.  The patches are full of undocumented fixes / tweaks / nerfs.  Not to mention issues brought forward long ago have yet to be acknowledged, much less fixed. The devs refuse to comment at all with anything.

Community: C

The playerbase is pretty sizeable.  And with that are the number of idiots.  This of course can readily apply to any MMO.  Anyways, you can get by with some player help, but you still get moments where it's hard to group for group oriented quests.  The official forums?  It's torn apart right now with fanbois (pick a side) and alot of disgruntled players about the actions (or lack of?) of the devs with their patching.

There's good info to be found in the o-forums, but there's a civil war going on there now  Since I have major gripes with the game and with my class (Ranger), I'm better off for the moment with the best mini-game for AoC.

The Official Forums.  Better than the game right now.  Intense, FFA PvP.  New content EVERY MINUTE.  Nerfs are rare.  Large player participation.  What more can you ask for?

I give it a C.

Due to all the times this game has ticked me off.

Don’t get me wrong…I “ Liked it.” now im just like….yea im going to start a new char on NWN2.

I haven’t logged on in about a week and a half.

So now im debating if I should keep my subscription or cancel it. It’s kinda hard to decide for some reason…

I honestly think it just lost my attention.

Originally posted by Thradar

C for the game itself.  Meh.
D- for readiness at launch.

Originally posted by Jackdog

I give the game a C, was torn between C and D and there was no C-. Graphics, music and first 20 or 30 levels of quests are awesome. City layout and population is outstanding.  If I was grading Funcom I would give them a D-.  CS, community handling, patches etc suck big time

Makes me giggle when even the pitbull thinks that 1-30 was awesome

Everywhere even the worst haters agree that 1-20 was awesome.

I think it was not.

It was disneyland for me, not a dark and gritty world. Ever been to Temple Street in Freeport ? Thats what i think is dark and gritty.

Loved it all the way to 50 then not so much, and the PvP system is still not in the game  so its a C to C-. and for any one that gave it a F they never played it and is so then they must not have played many of the other MMO's out there.

Before i tried the game , so thats before OB, I gave the game a F- as most things I read where things I never looked forward to, overall I never looked forward to AoC, till OB.
 

During OB I'll give the game a D, as I notice'd many of those things I read about didn't stand in my way of finding other things I started to enjoy, but due to pretty bad performance I give OB a D.

Then release time came and I entered the game which made me feel better then it felt in OB, so my grade goes up again and I gave it a C.

Before the last patch I was feeling sort of B- , but since last patch they have put a dent into my niche gameplay (searchig and discovering resource nods, is not needed now we all can simply look at the markers on the map, so exploring together with our new blindwalls everywhere the game at this moment carry's a minor C-

Originally posted by eugam

Originally posted by Jackdog

I give the game a C, was torn between C and D and there was no C-. Graphics, music and first 20 or 30 levels of quests are awesome. City layout and population is outstanding.  If I was grading Funcom I would give them a D-.  CS, community handling, patches etc suck big time

 

Makes me giggle when even the pitbull thinks that 1-30 was awesome

Everywhere even the worst haters agree that 1-20 was awesome.

I think it was not.

It was disneyland for me, not a dark and gritty world. Ever been to Temple Street in Freeport ? Thats what i think is dark and gritty.

Course Temple street is nasty, its infested by Ratonga!
 

ROFL a perfect stepping ladder(results).

D

I read a few threads on the AOC boards about how Vanguard is better so I tried it and totally agree.

AOC is way too linear to be a MMO. It's like a smaller, better looking but more buggy version of wow.

When i first got the game in my hands i gave it a B. That was a couple of days after launch. I was hoping patching would move the game towards A- but Funcom's incompetence in maintaining the game makes me think the game deserves even worse than F.

I would rate the quality of patches themselves a solid W as in worst patching ever. They create more problems than they solve, last patch made my UI disappear, how worse can it get? No wonder they have not adressed the memory leaks, random lag spikes every 5 mins, sending error codes in the background, grey maps etc. They simply fear they will make things worse....