Amazing Game- Ignore the negative reviews on Amazon 
By A1XC6SDKFES9UT on 2008-05-20
I look to Amazon not always to buy, but also to get reviews on a product. When I looked at the Age of Conan review, I was shocked to see that there were only two stars as this game is absolutely amazing... and then I read the reviews. Folks, if you are against Amazon for whatever they did, that's one thing- but don't blame it on the game itself. It's neither constructive, nor is it helpful to those of us coming on here to make a decision on the QUALITY of the actual video game. Now, me personally, I pre ordered from Amazon on the 27th of April, knowing full well that this game was going to be amazing, got my pre order code off of my account page, and was in EA the first day. Did Amazon send me an e-mail explaining where I could find my code? No, which is definitely a shame on them. However, I did look through every post with regards to Conan on the Amazon site. Sometimes, when we really want something, we need to be proactive and get it ourselves- not expect it to be handed to us.
Anyway- about the game. The game is unbelievable. It is definitely the next generation of MMO's. Beautiful graphics (yes, an upgrade on the computer was necessary in my case) amazing storyline and game play. No lag, and the combat system is fantastic.
Graphics 10/10: Though they have announced that DX10 will not be released till later on this year, I am extremely impressed with the graphics in their current state, and can not wait to see how much better they get once it is released. The scenery is beautiful, the rendering and overall detailing is amazing. You really FEEL like you are there in the jungles- and the character movement itself is smooth. In this game, you run into actual characters- not like a lot of games out there where you run through them. The collision detection enhances the overall experience, making it seem more realistic.
Character Creation 9/10: Amazing. I can spend hours just doing this part of the game. Similar to EQ2, you are able to customize a great deal- body type and size of certain parts of your body, as well as facial reconstruction. You can even make your nose appear as if it had been broken and healed incorrectly. The only thing lacking in this department is hair styles. There aren't a great deal of them. Also, depending on the race you pick your colors are very limited i.e. Complexion, eye and hair color.
Story Line 10/10: From the moment your slave ship crashes, and you are washed up on an island, the game takes off immersing you in the world of Conan. You have to help escort someone to the major town (a lot easier than other escort quests) and right away you feel a sense of urgency with making certain you get out of the jungle. Once you arrive in the town, you have a series of quests that you need to complete in addition to your own class questline. Once you complete this, you move on to your home area... I unfortunately have not yet gotten this far.
Game Play 10/10: The combat system does take a little bit of figuring out, but once you do- wow. Not only does the AI (Artificial Intelligence) respond to what you do, but its amazing how you are able to effect multiple opponents with a single hit of your weapon. The spell casting graphics are quite impressive as well.
In the game play, when you converse with the characters, you're perspective changes and the camera angle zooms into the conversation, making you feel like you are actually there. I really like this about the game as it incorporates the player right from the start. You do have to listen to the dialog and make choices which I know will not appeal to some gamers who don't really care about the lore of the game, however when I play a video game I tend to immerse myself in it... and this game definitely allows one to do that.
Sound: The score in this game truly sets the scene. At night as you run around through the jungles outside of town, the music makes you sit on the edge of your seat in anticipation, waiting for something to jump out from around a corner and grab you. The character voice acting is wonderful- the speech inflection makes you believe that you are actually talking to a live person. You CARE about what happens to the characters, versus them just being paper dolls just standing there doing the same thing over and over again.
So as a recap, I definitely recommend this game, however, I suggest if you don't meet the minimum system specs to a T, to upgrade your system to the maximum specs. The minimum will get you there, but if you upgrade, you may as well go for the best of the best. Gaming is my hobby and I have already realized that I have a very expensive hobby. :)
I hope this helps others and clears up the negative reviews for this game... the ones that really are negative reviews about Amazon.
See you all in Hyboria!
The Game-killing "Feature" 
By AUAWPV7UYOZES on 2008-05-28
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.
Finally an MMORPG not aimed at the teen/tween market
By A35XVO00Z0H5E on 2008-05-20
I'm glad that a corporation is finially taking note that people over 18 enjoy MMORPG's too. from my experience, most MMORPG's are dumbed down, or are cutesy, like the cartoon feel of WoW or the over simplified Guild Wars. Conan is a bit more complicated. The combat systems feels like an RPG, meaning it makes players pay attention to which physical attacks they use-- unlike the typical auto attack you can get by with in many situations in other MMORPGS.
Thus far, i haven't been to impressed story wise due to Age of Conan using a rather trite plot device to begin the game: warrior with lost memory slowly regains skills. But, then again, most MMORPGS have odd convoluted plot, if they didnt the game wouldn't strech for 80 levels.
The Conan world is vast, and it has been worked on by many authors: [...]
I am looking foward to playing more of this game for the following reasons: it seems to be inovative, compaired to most MMORPGS; it is designed for adults; it is designed to give players more single player options; and finially, who wouldnt want to ride a mammoth that can knock your enemies away with it tusks.
As a side note for those who own/buy this game, the JuLY issue of PC Gamer Magazine has a code in it for a free Age of Conan item.
By Crom!! What has happened??
By AOYL9IEFOZ92K on 2008-05-21
EDIT: I'm editing my review after over a month of playing AoC. This is mainly because the higher in level I get and the more "content" I've explored, my opinion of the game has dropped.
After reading and waiting for months for Age of Conan (AoC), I finally was able to get into Early Access (EA) on Saturday, May 17th.
On Saturday morning, imagine my disappointment when Funcom delays opening the servers by 3 hours! 3 hours?? What am I supposed to do now? Well, I got over my delay disappointment and on the specified hour, I promptly logged in, chose my server (Set) and started creating my character. I had no idea what I should choose so I went with a Stygian Ranger. The character customization is OK in AoC. I spent about 15 minutes constructing facial features, tattoos, scars, hair, and body type. Unfortunately there is a limit to the body and hair styles and there are some of the ugliest facial defaults I've ever seen in my life with one good looking one. Guess which one most people will be choosing? There is a lack of a color palette to choose from as well.
As the intro played, my poor Ranger washes up on the beach of Tortage and is greeted by a creepy old man. Here is where I learned the basics of fighting and interacting with the environment. While combat is tricky at first, I eventually got the hang of it. The main thing I like about combat are the fatalities. I've already had the pleasure of gutting and cutting off the heads of my opponents. I've also gotten some sweet fatality deaths from my bow and arrow. It does my heart good to see enemies fall with an arrow in their throat and blood spewing from their mouths!
This leads me to the "mature" content. Granted, by the end of the weekend I was just level 21 but the mature content is really negligible. The most risque stuff I witnessed was in general world chat (or OOC). Sure, the blood and decapitations are cool and the half-naked women rock, but AoC would get a PG-13 rating instead of an R if it were a movie. EDIT: After a month of playing, there are some topless women and toons which would earn this game an R-rating.
Back to my first day, it was tough. While I had no problems with lag, fps, or any of that stuff (I have a relatively top shelf computer), dealing with so many people scrambling for slow spawning mobs became a chore. Imagine trying to gather 40 hides of crocodile leather and you are competing with twenty other players in one small section of an island where maybe 15 crocs spawn. Remember when I wrote "slow spawning" well, yeah, there you go. I eventually completed these tasks as well as my destiny quests and moved on to my homeland starting area.
As for the environments of Tortage, they are rich and detailed. There is a lot of eye candy and you can move around fairly easily in it though you are limited to specific zones. More on that below. Cons movement wise can be filtered down to a "climbing" skill. I'm not particularly sure why this is here and why it's not user friendly. I have to hit "U" or right click on a ladder or vine to scramble up it. If I don't keep my eye on the chat window and catch the alarm "YOU CAN CLIMB HERE!!" I would have missed climbing opportunities.
Zones. The bane of my existence! AoC is instance/zone heavy. This is a bit disappointing especially since you may find yourself repeatedly going back and forth between them which eats up real time of watching a loading screen. What I would do was gather all the quests I could find and just head to a specific zone (White Sands for example) and stay there until all my quests were complete. I'm sure this is what most people did. EDIT: The more I play this, the more I hate instance/zones. Sometimes they load fast but more often than not lately, they load extremely slow which makes me a frustrated panda and more disheartened.
Anyhoo, toons don't just walk through each other like ghosts but can actually block you. This may prove to be very cool when higher level PVP kicks in as formations would actually mean something. Imagine a bunch of conquerors forming up a shield wall to prepare and defend their battlekeep. God that's awesome. Not to mention that line of sight issues appear to be right on track so far. I can get on high ground and fire down into my enemies without LOS errors or those annoying "evades" you'd always see in WoW. This would make for excellent ambush opps in PVP play as well as full scale battles. I'm really looking forward to it! EDIT: The latest is that full on battlekeep PVP is still borked limiting organized PVP engagements. Another disappointing item that makes it seem that Funcom really did rush this out without completing the Beta.
So far from what I've seen, despite some of the cons I pointed out from my own perspective, this is a fun game. I look forward to discovering more features of AoC as I progress because I know I'm just at the tip of the iceberg! EDIT: As of this date (July 2, 2008), the playability and fun of the game is decreasing for me. Big patches are now being released once a week but some of the updates I've seen, seem irrelevant to the big picture. Fixing the look on an NPC's face over fixing the obvious memory leaks which causes crashing even on high end computers makes me scratch my head in puzzlement.
I'm going to continue to play, but come September, if nothing has significantly changed, I will probably be quitting AoC and moving on to Warhammer Online. If Warhammer turns out to be a stinker as well, I guess I'll head back to WoW and wait for the expansion.
Worse MMO I've ever played
By ANHXZW7N6ASYK on 2008-06-02
It has great graphics, and the combat system seems unique and like it might take skill - at first.
But as you get into the game, you find that many things are actually completely broken, and other things just aren't well thought out at all. If you like to gank people, you might like this game, because the combat system is setup in a way that makes ganking extremely easy.
All damage is AoE damage, which makes combat sloppy. Unless you are grouped with someone, you damage them. Thus, it is near impossible for people to team up against a ganker without making a formal group, because if you attack the ganker, you also attack the guy who is getting ganked and would be your temporary help at dealing with the guy. There are no single target spells that all you to control your damage. AoE is great a good bit of the time, but in some situations it downright is awful and crowd control and other things which require working together are non-existant. If you are a healer, you do not have any single target heals. You have only group AoE heals. Thus, you can't heal anyone not in your group at all. Again, all these things work in favor of gankers, and if you are a ganker you will be in hog heaven.
Which btw, my first time stepping into the game outside single player mode is exactly what happened. I spent the first hour of the game getting camped by groups of people 10 lvls higher than me. It does however get better after lvl 20 for the most part. But if you can't handle being ganked repeatedly while trying to level, make sure you roll on a PvE server. Even those who come from other MMO's and play PvP servers might want to do so. Yes, it is that bad because of the way the system works that promotes it.
Extremely immature community as well. I think that might have a good bit to do with the time of the year, and the promoting of gankers.
The forums of the game are extremely monitored. Not for bad language, trolls or anything that makes a community suck. But rather for anything they think makes them look bad. Even mentioning you've cancelled your account in a thread will result in the thread being deleted, and the person possibly banned.
I've played MMO's for years, dealt with many releases and understand the problems. I'm also a developer, and thus also have an understanding from the other side. Current release is what you would likely expect to see in beta testing 6 months to a year before release. Even the stats on items don't half way work, so getting gear doesn't even do much of anything.
Don't recommend it at all for atleast 1 year.
- Bleh - Nothing Special, Let Me Explain
By A14NA0W8ESGDSI on 2008-05-28
You may not agree with my review but for those of you who want an honest and objective look into it please stick around.
There are several things wrong with this game that make it generally not quite as great as it could have been.
These issues are: easy of leveling, tedious collection styled quests, massive empty zones, problems with resource skill gathering, lack of voice content, few zones, lack of a decent travel system, ease of travel between starter cities, darkness, generally bland armor, dumb AI, lack of a good faction system, guild creation, instance zones, and weapon selection.
I probably have heated a few of you up so feel free to respond to my comments if you disagree but I'm honestly hoping some of these issues are addressed within the next few months as the game begins to grow stronger.
Ease of Leveling:
One of the most unique aspects of the game, I believe, is the ease of leveling I've found within it. I understand that with 100 possible levels there is room to allow quick leveling but when your character can handle 3 or 4 same level enemies at once he tends to level much faster than he probably should. I don't know but this is my first week (I got it Friday) and I'm already in the high 30s.
Tedious Collection Styled Quests:
I understand I can ignore quests altogether but the game seems to focus in on collection and kill count style quests more so than anything else. Why not kill 50 of a certain type of enemy? How about the same quest in a different zone with similarly level enemies? It's just very very repetitive. Not to mention, for the most part, on non-collection quests, you'll be forced to run through dangerous grounds to light something on fire or break something only to find all the enemies in the area are dead from constant farming. Farming is an issue with newer games but I think when you ask your players to kill 50 of a certain type of enemy you encourage it more than anything.
Massive Empty Zones:
For the most part, when you don't find farmers at every corner, you'll find yourself running alone. The game world is huge! It's just most of the time you'll find yourself running through the huge world. For instance to get to a secondary town in the barbarian area you have to run through a zone that has all of the same level enemies but takes nearly ten minutes to run through. It seems like, yeah, it's much larger than games like WoW but it isn't the size that matters but rather what you do with it?
Problems with Resource Skill Gathering:
Alright so you're allowed to gather resources from level 20 on. The thing is the resources only exist in this barren zone full of no enemies (from what I've seen) so you can spend an hour running around and find nothing at all --- no people, no resources. The good thing though is while you may not find one resource you may bump into a different type. With Age of Conan anyone can gather any of the resource types removing the significance of the gather role of resources.
Lack of Voice Content:
When you start the game on the newbie island you'll quickly be amazed to find everyone has voice content. You'll be equally surprised that when you leave the newbie island no one has it anymore. The developers say they're going to add it in over time but I don't really see their incentive given by the 20th level a higher majority of people are likely to stick around regardless of the sound if that's the only thing that bugs them.
Few Zones:
Again, as a mentioned above, there are massive zones but there are also very few of them. This means that as a level 20, let's say, you're stuck going to any of the level 20 zones setup for each of the different starting cities (3 of them). That doesn't leave people who like to explore (or find a variety of monsters) much to do. If you like the idea of running around endlessly looking for an enemy to fight or camping a certain enemy this won't bother you but I think there is something about variety that this game lacks in general. I also found it unlikely I'd be wandering into the higher level zones until I did hit some barrier level that made it easy enough to handle a few enemies. So I'm stuck with 3 choices (which I stick to one because it takes me a half hour to run to any other through the barren zones).
Lack of a Decent Travel System:
Binding yourself to a main city is allowed but besides that there is a general lack of a travel system. There are way points in the game which, when you die, you spawn at whichever you select so people often get themselves killed to save time instead of running. The death penalty is laughable so it's not worth wasting the time running.
Ease of Travel Between Starter Cities:
One of the strangest things about this game is how easy it is to travel between the starter cities. From the minute you leave newbie island you can quickly jump from one city to the next for free making it possible to explore all the cities in the game with little effort (besides a 20 minute walk through the barren cities) almost instantly.
Darkness:
This is more of my own complaint than something that really should be fixed I guess but the game is way too dark and there are no items (torches please) to turn on the lights. I've known scores of people who actually turn off the game during the night-time parts of it just because they can't see anything. The deserts are the worst with this because it just is so dark. I think it's brighter in the dungeons than it is outside.
Generally Bland Armor:
The armor doesn't really stand out. You get a new piece at level 30 let's say and it'll look almost the same way as the level 20 one. The only difference will be a +4 to the armor rating. It just feels like the armor lacks variety and it doesn't have a good way of really standing out. Also 'good' armor pieces fall so frequently from monsters I've come out of a run of an area with 3 or so of the same chest pieces. It's just bleh.
Dumb AI:
I've pulled enemies standing directly next to each other, on several occasion, and watched as the enemies did nothing to alert their friends I was fighting them directly behind them. For the most part there is no real AI and you never really get the feeling it would be all that hard to fix a pull to your liking. Yeah, once or twice a bad pull will happen, but as long as the enemy initially sees you, or walks over to you while you're fighting, they tend to ignore what's going on around them. Doesn't seem realistic.
Lack of a Good Faction System:
I feel like each quest I'm doing is for the few copper they'll give me and not to award myself any form of faction with a group. Just seems like as soon as I kill whatever 50 things they want me to kill next I move on to the next group of 50 things (from the same quest giver) that were sitting next to those 50 things. It's really this tedious and it doesn't make sense why they made it this way. Not to mention most of the different types of enemies look almost identical so there is little variation between monsters besides location and name.
Guild Creation:
There is no real control on the process of creating guilds (which may be alright I guess) so there are tons of one person guilds out there. It just seems like the process isn't as well developed as it should be considering a portion of the game is centered towards it. It just seems like a fancy grouping system as opposed to anything significant --- yeah you can rank people but it seems bland at least so far. Perhaps later on it'll get more interesting.
Instance Zones:
The zones are all instanced including the main cities. This makes the load times really fast, yes, but you rarely see people and it makes group in zone much harder. I tend to group at the dungeon location so I find myself trying really hard to find people with no luck when I need them. You'd think this would stop the camping but it's still there. I can hardly imagine what the world would look like without the instances because the camping would be that much worse. It just seems like to deal with issues like this they need a world with more variety, less collection quests, no instances, and more servers.
Guild Cities:
I've seen that the guild cities are also instances. I'm unsure how this will affect gameplay and will have to keep an eye on it as more people join but it honestly sounds somewhat stupid... Why build a city if it's within a closed environment?
Weapon Selection:
The weapons in the game seem to just get a little better each time and you tend to get rewards with weapons of your level or higher so there really isn't a reason to worry about finding a new one. It just seems trivial.
I don't know the whole game seems like a good idea but it's just nothing compared to some of the others on the market. A little more time developing a stronger system of travel, the trade skills, and other aspects would have made it more interesting. Cutting down on the size of zones in favor of quality of zones would work as well. Hopefully at the higher levels things get more interesting... I just hope Conan doesn't ask you to kill 50 dragons or something tedious like that.
I like the game it's just I don't like it enough to keep paying the fee as it stands now.
Also, one last note, funcom has released mounts with some preorders (or Amazon curved bow from amazon). It also releases other items with orders of things like keyboards and mice... It just seems like it's trivializing its own item system to release items that should be gained by normal processes as a reward for buying from them. It's like they're mixing the cost structures of a pay for play with a pay for upgrade which may hurt the internal game economy depending upon how excessively they continue to do so. Who wants to work hard for an item when you can buy a keyboard and get it that way?
- Stop the "Amazon Reviews" instead of the AoC reviews please!
By A1LUZO9SQV7AD9 on 2008-05-20
All the existing "reviews" are of how poor the amazon customer service is, its got NOTHING to do with how great this game is, amazon, please delete the "reviews" so people wont mix the stars of AoC with your own!
- Totally overhyped, shiny outside, shallow inside
By A2QIURINS218DG on 2008-05-25
Sure, never has a MMO world looked greater, sure the new, "harder" atmosphere is thrilling when you start AoC and sure, the combat is interesting with it's action.
But that's were the good ends. With AoC it is like with the mighty wizard of Oz; he seems to be strong and great, but once you look closer its just a thin man behind a curtain.
First off, the steep technical demands will likely rule out a lot of potential players right away, adding the still frequent crashes, lockouts, and the plethora of bugs, it is clearly still beta.
Funcom has advertised their character generation as "you could identify another by appearance" and the reality is far from it. Most faces look more or less the same, women all barbie-style and men... men all look like they fell into a lawn-mower headon. The one halfway acceptable face is usually taken by everyone, and the sliders dont substantially change the face, not in the way other MMOs like SWG or EQ2 allowed to look really individual.
The good beginning in tortage with its 20 levels of more or less soloing through a story is neat and obviously it's were the greatest work went into. Outside Tortage you will find a lot of browns and grey and oh more brown and greys. The regions of the first levels after 20 didnt look so stunning to me. Sure, technically up to date, but little that caught me. Its a bit the Vanguardian soulless-ness in the later landscapes.
In terms of gear (armour/weapons) the game is outright underwhelming. Most clothing looks like a potatoe sack or tailored by a blind, not that a MMO must be a fashion club, but a fantasy game could really have shown a bit more to be excited to have someday. So dont expect many stunning cool armor or robes anytime in time game. Also in terms of loot... you better forget hoping for cool loot at ALL. I thought I had seen the worst in Vancraps endless loot list of skeleton bones, badger livers and other vendor trash. In AoC you will never loot anything to make your 2 hours evening worth the grind.
And grind it is, since after level 30 (of 80 levels!) the number of quests dwindles dramatically! Often you will find yourself with no quests at all, so you need to grind mobs to the next level. Outside the fantastic quests of Tortage, the quests are dull and uninspired, the most mindless Fedex of "kill x of these" or "fetch 20 of z" ad nauseam.
Action combat seems nice enough at the beginning, however, there is a trick. First, once you are around 40 you have the skills you ever get, and then its only the skill tree which keeps you going. So more or less, the game exists only up to mid-level and beyond that... the game is in a more or less alpha-state. Since the progress is always the same lines over Tortage and the rest is also quite streamlined, the replayability seems to be thin. While this action combat feel refreshing and exciting at first, in the long run you realize it is always the same clickfest. Just apply the strongest 3 combos to key and you will click just these three button all over, and its easy win. The entire shield and defense thing is rather superfluous, given the fact that in those fast paced fightings you'll rarely be able to react in time shifting shield around you. So all in all, what feel like cool action feels like a very redundant clickfest over time. Since in every combat a few slashes usually decide the outcome of the battle, there is little time - or need - for tactic anyway. But at least Funcom honestly described AoC combat as "like Counterstrike", so there wasnt much to exect anyway for a MMORPG-player.
One of the most annoying features is that AoC bring instances to new heights. EVERYTHING is instanced and zoned, so if you leave the instanced capital of your race, you come into a copy of the next outside zone, and with bad luck your group gets split all over the copies, since they dont seem to hold many players. It kinda takes the MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER out of the MMORPG.
If you are faint of heart you also are advised to stay FAR away from PVP servers, since they are, at least atm, a gankfest. Nude women running around killing everyone as far as they eye can see. All in all the level of immaturity is surprisingly bad, given the fact the game is only legal for ppl 17/18+. With the lack of a RP-PVE server the roleplay is narrowed down a lot and doesnt give much diversity in the possible roles you may play in this dark and nasty world. Not that I mind dark and nasty, but if EVERYTHING is dark and nasty, it gets old very soon. In asmuch an IP with only humans to select, only 3 cultures and lore all narrowed down to "brutality" and "barbarians", the world feels a little too limited and shallow to me, at least in the longer term when the novelty wears off.
Overall the game has some interesting aspects, but nothing to keep the serious MMORPg player for long. Once the initial hype wears off it will be seen for what it is: more show than substance.
- Bloody Amazing
By A1PDYLMK08HZAO on 2008-05-20
Pros:
-Beautiful Graphics
-Fun Combat System
-Huge World with memorable Quests
-Mounted Combat
-Guild Cities/Castles with Sieges
Cons:
-Interface needs serious work
-Requires a fairly decent machine
-25GB (and growing)
-Group combat is very fast paced and often descends into chaos
Overall the game is insanely fun to play. The combat is spectacular and eliminates the constant 2-2-2-2-2-3 that other MMOs are stuck with. The quests are engaging, though some people might not like having to read so much and make choices. PvP seems fairly balanced so far (level 26) though one or two classes need some tweaking. The interface is absolutely horrible at times, but this is something that can be fixed. Bottom line is that while there are definately some issues with the game, they are not serious ones. The core gameplay is fun, entertaining, and in my opinion far better then anything you will find in WoW, LOTRO, Everquest, or any other fantasy MMO out there. If you have a machine that can handle the game you should go pick this one up as soon as you can.
- If your system can't quadruple the minimum reqs don't bother
By AXX8JLUSGKVTD on 2008-06-01
My husband and I bought this as an alternative to the monotony of WoW. Our systems meet the suggested requirements (and doubles the minimum req's) even when setting everything to lowest detail possible, the video lag was crippling.
Unless you have better than a 512MB video card and 4 Gigs of RAM, you will likely be disappointed in the experience. Most of our friends had the same problems and quit as well.
- Age of Broken Things
By A251VMI2QP32IO on 2008-06-13
Age of Conan could be THE example of how underwhelming a new MMORPG can be. A lot of promise a lot of hype ....and simply no delivery.
It begins with the first 20 levels (of which half are played solo in ... solo instances) which are very very nice to look at ... IF you have a hi end graphics card and play on medium settings. If you don't have at least 2 Gigabyte of memory and a sub 7900 GT card. Forget it. The game will play the ON line part at a stuttering 15 Frames per second or far worse.
Problem is ... underneath the good polished beginnings of this game there is absolutely NOTHING but NOTHING in gameplay value.
The gameworld is closed. You do NOT seem to live in a seamless open world, instead you live in an uploaded series of closed boxes. Walking into a door even gives you "loading screens" of about 5 to 10 seconds. Walking into another zone or even a part of a "dungeon" makes you have loading screens of about 20 to 45 seconds (depending on hardware)
Age of loading...
Age of Instances (copies)
Because IN a zone (even open zones like cities) the game creates instances (copies) of that zone. Meaning you only see a handful of players at a time (mostly between 30 and 40). This is a very OLD technique in MMORPG's to handle the stuttering of your character. Why? Because the graphics take up so MUCH computer power (even on hi end cards), MORE players can not be handled without .... loading.
The worst is that each zone has to be entered at a FIXED entry point. That point of course being camped by complete guilds to prevent you to enter that zone. See PvP below.
In an age where LOTRO and WoW/TBC have open seamless worlds to live in, this is a BIG failure as an MMORPG. Even if you would dislike Wow/TBC(2007): in Outland you can fly your personal acquired mount and fly ANYWHERE over the continent (mountains, lakes, forests, cities) you want AND land ANYWHERE without ever seeing a loading screen. Instances in the latest MMORPG's are only being used for gaming purposes (dungeons or balanced battlegrounds), NOT for the open seamless world.
Personal vs Personal Combat play (PvP): simple: there are NO rules at the moment. Everyone can bash everyone even in your own guild. While this may seem fun for about .. 1 hour, it makes the game broken... because there are NO rules. You don't get punished, you don't get rewards. Nothing. The makers said at the end of the 80(!) levels there would be Siege battles, but they didn't include them. And even when included they would be worthless since everyone plays in his own instance of a zone.
Death is a FIXED respawn point nearby, you can't choose to walk up you body. Just FIXED and meaning you get ganked near those FIXED points when your debuff fades.
Age of noobs PvP.
The battles themselves are nothing but bashing the keyboards with certain fixed(!) combos. After 3 weeks everybody knows the trick ! You either bash the keyboards and use (the same) combo's or you .... MOVE. That's right you heard it. FunCOM found a system where you can't hit with combo's and move!! Casters can't move either when casting.
Age of hampered Combat.
Last but not least: after level 20 everything comes down in PVE: no more polishing and .... no quests enough after level 45 to keep going. Meaning you have to grind: killing mindless everything you see to get some experience ... to get to the next level where you do exactly the same...
In the level 55+ that means killing 700 mammouths to just keep playing.
In the later levels you need MILLIONS of points to reach the next level. just by killing beasts. Fun ???
Worse: on PvP servers most FIXED entry zones are being camped by guilds so yo can't even enter the zones with the most wildlife.
Age of Lost PVE.
Next is the loot: would you believe that most players at level 50 have some gear that's the same as level 1's? Even the stats hardly change and some substats are even BETTER at level 1???
Age of broken loot.
Dungeons: since the FUNCOM Director himself said in an open letter after 2 weeks they would change the dungeons, I wouldn't even comment on that part.
Age of broken dungeons.
Interface: How difficult could it be JUST to (right)click on a person and whisper?; Not with Conan! the interface is - next to Tabula rasa - one of the worst seen ever.
Age of hedious interface.
I don't mind the bugs, the broken quests or the unfinished nature of the game. The problem with this game; it had fatal design decisions from the beginning: choosing graphics that aren't suitable for an on line role playing game (hence the loadings and copies of what should be a world you LIVE in) were even MORE important than basic GAME design.
What could be WORSE for a computer game?
Age of lacking ...game design and polishment.
- My new vacation home
By A3KMPFG12FC1VT on 2008-05-21
Having played Funcom's first MMO title, Anarchy Online (and having been through the most horrible launch period of all times) I have to congratulate Funcom with a job well done.
First impressions:
The class system seems to be ever developing and interesting - and avoiding focus on the classic stereotypes of MMOs (as getting stuck with a healing priest - which makes it virtually impossible to solo effeciently..coughwowcough)
Having played for a few days, the main things appriciate so far is:
*Kids free zone (at least seemingly so)
*Great character creation (the male avatars are actually good looking)
*Solo-storyline as well as team based play, creating content which is both challenging and interesting for the casual, solo based player.
*Great potential for different builds of a character, more based on preference than "must-haves" making it virtually impossible to make an individual choice of feats(for you wow'ers -read talents)
*Active combat system involving the player more than the passive button mashing style. You actually have to strategize your combos and normal hits depending on the area your enemy is focusing his/hers defense.
*Great graphics - comparing this game to a single player mode game is retarded. For a MMORPG this is beyond anything else you have seen.
The creators and marketing of the game are quite honest of the fact that this game is not for gentle souls. Blood, gore and skimpy outfits (if wearing an outfit) are part of the universe in the first place, and thankfully Funcom had no desire to change it. Hopefully they have means to deal with gold sellers and other exploiters when they turn up.
As for the later stages and of combat and levels, well I havent seen it past newbie island - but I am definately looking forward to it!!
- Disappointment
By A3ERQ8VYGYMK8W on 2008-05-30
I tried several classes and really attempted to like this game as my friends are playing it. I simply could not get past the constant zoning, instancing, and loading screens. By the time I finally go where I was going my patience for bugs or other issues was gone.
Character specialization is about impossible right now as none of the tooltips give any values for your "feat" points. Most list something like this: Improves Spell X. No values, completely vague description of how it improves it, nothing of use there.
More importantly, I run a pretty nice PC (it meets or exceeds recommended stats to play) and had to turn alot of the graphical settings off and/or down in order to get my frame rate over 15FPS (which got it up to 30)
Overal rating: -$50.00
- Review of the service
By A37AWDLAKI4FMP on 2008-06-02
I paid for a preorder and then $5 to download the client early and do the free preview. So the day comes to start playing the game and I cannot download the patch. So I go to the store to pick up my copy and install from the disks, same problem, the patch is a no go. So I go to the website expecting a little technical support, however none of the topics really covered my issue (which is the 620 gig patch getting to between 20 and 150 gigs and then no longer downloading at all). So I check the main forums and there are quite a few people there having the same issue, but there is no post from any sort of official source about how to resolve the issue. I disable my virus protection, open all the ports on my router, download updates, plug the connection directly to the computer, nothing works. I e-mail billing but by the time anybody gets back to me 6 days of my 10 day preview have gone by. I ask for some form of refund and they tell me they can't do that. Finally after two or three e-mails asking why I should be expected to pay for "Preview access" when I have not been able to log in, somebody finally credits my account for another 10 days of time.
In short the support for this game is terrible, and while I was not entirely nice in my e-mails to Funcom, they made no effort to be nice or give me more than three sentences of their time. Frustrated players who would like to log into your game but can't, are not people you should be snarky to in my opinion. In any event, I never got to actually play the game, which I hear is fun if you like PvP. So take my review for what you will. I never got into the game because of some issue on my end or their end, and I never received any real assistance, so I just gave up.
- Disappointing
By A39YBEK5BJ7CRZ on 2008-06-17
I was all excited about this game, but it was a major letdown after I left Tortage (the starting city).
Here are some of the things that annoyed me the most:
- unbalanced classes - not having a class may be better than being a Dark Templar for example, plus any class may be nerfed suddenly at the moment, with or without it being in the patch notes
- horrible bugs that still haven't been fixed - for example: don't roll a female char - your weapon speed is 1.46s, males are 1.2s - this means female chars combos take longer
- heavy instancing - unless you are staying in the same zone and in the same instance of that zone, I hope you like looking at the content loading screen
- lack of community and ways to communicate with people in-game - its like playing Oblivion, but online and laggy
- gathering and crafting system - most boring and tedious of any game yet (including EQ2) - that is the parts that are working, because a lot of it is very buggy or missing
- combat system - combat is not really enhanced by mashing 5 buttons with a small pause between each, the pause drives me insane
- stats and gear - tests have shown that, in most cases, you might as well be naked, or are indeed better off naked
- traveling - most people travel by suiciding, that says it all
- bag space very limited - have fun going back to town to sell things far too many times, and I pity you if you didn't get a promo bag to start
- help - need in-game help? you need to stay logged in while petitioning, good luck person #492!
Fun stuff:
- great graphics for first areas
- more adult themed than most mmos - small amount of swearing and nudity
Check out the forums too - it is mostly a bunch of people saying "I really wanted to like it, but I am leaving and here is my constructive criticism," followed by fanboi rants about how no mmo is good when it comes out, funcom is doing their best to fix things, aoc is trying to be different, etc.
- Greatest MMO-fun in a long time
By A10FQ7GNMBOPSI on 2008-05-20
This is the greatest fun I have had in a MMOG since Ultima Online back in 1997. The game looks great, plays smoothly (I got a high end PC) and has the most immersive combat in any MMOG I have ever played.
It is also really nice to have a game for adults, abandoning the cartoonish child-friendly environment.
Think this game will keep me entertained for a long, long time.
Fantastic job Funcom!
PS: For all the people using the review to complain about Funcom running out of early access codes, here is a humorous cartoon reply: http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20080519
- Fun and violent!
By A1H87UOICIM76Y on 2008-05-21
I've been playing MMOs for a long time and have a fairly bad habit of trying every title in the genre: DAoC, WoW, Everquest II, Guild Wars, etc. None of them hold my attention longer than a month or so. We'll see if Age of Conan is any different but so far I'm REALLY enjoying the game. It's fun and violent - a perfect escape from the real world. It sort of has a way of bringing out your inner beast!
- Not a WOW killer but something new
By AMO0QM3N91U8A on 2008-05-21
Entertaining but... Takes a while to figure out movement. Movement is frustrating because it is jumpy and you can get stuck a lot. Memory requirements and system requirements are large. I found holding down mouse buttons is much smoother than arrows.
I died at least 25x in 1st day so soloing is not very friendly but I didn't mind too much. Camping an issue in PVP area rez points w/ no chance to rez. The help page says you can petition a game master and this type of camping will be punished. I logged out for a while and they were not there when I got back on.
No crafting or auction hall / trading post in early levels (negative).
Parents be warned there is nudity and lots of blood (Mature rating).
Good game but WOW is better. I will update review after some more time (level 9).
- What isnt there to like about this ? except the UI
By A9EESTY68GMM2 on 2008-05-22
Firstly about a couple of reviews i have seen here, likely by Blizzard staff.
The graphics in this game are the best of any MMO to date, but if you put everything to max, your going to need something decent in the Video card area to support it (especially in group and PVP play).
The first 20 levels in Tortage, each NPC has speech which is very nice.
In fact i would go on to say this is the best intro to an MMO i have ever played (first 20 levels in Tortage).
PVP is optional, yes there are certain areas where its unavoidable, but you do not have to go to those areas. They are meant as PVP areas, where you can also PVE if you so wish (give the PVPers something to do in between wiping out enemy groups i guess).
The game itself is the best feel to any MMO in history. Graphically its brilliant, storylines are very good, and combat as i am really becoming to realize is second to none (im currently a level 30 barbarian).
Combat is based on three basic attacking strokes, front, left and right (2 more come at later levels). Combine these attacks with special attacks, to string combination attacks together for big damage and special effects.
Shields are controllable, by shields i mean defensive. For example, you have 3 shield points, you can put 1 or all in left, right or center. You get to defend against where your opponent attacks most, reducing damage and effects.
Similarly, your opponent has graphical shields shown, the heavier shielded in an area he is, the more you want to avoid it. Special attacks also use left, right and center attacks, so you have to pick your special attacks based on how your opponent is defending.
In summary, combat isnt just mash some keyes, you have to pay attention to the fight and act accordingly.
Now for the mature rating combat, if you like to have fatalities where you chop off body parts of your opponents in a killing move, or break their neck, or plunge your sword through their body and scream at them (a bunch of others for caster's and the like) then go right ahead.
If you DONT like it, or you dont want your kid to see it, you can turn it off in the SUBSCRIPTION website. So, if your paying for your kid to play, you can control the level of gore he gets to see.
Now for the bad points. The UI, User interface. It really is very poor compared to MMO's of the past couple of years. Cannot move popups around almost at all (a couple of exceptions). The map shows where quest items/people are, but not all quests pop up on the map, and there is nothing in the quest blurb to tell you where to go. In a group, little black dots appear on the map showing where your groupmates are, yet they are so hard to see.
But, you can really look past this and just play the game and have some serious fun.
- Pretty but needs Extensive Work
By A3MHYM3K232XRG on 2008-06-02
As others mentioned this is a very pretty game, when your able to run it. This game was obviously a rushed release to beat WOW's new release. If your systems specs does not include a Nvidia 8800 series card you are looking at getting 10-15 FPS. Not to mention that the Tech support are so busy chasing down bugs that they will not respond to any ingame help or out of game emails. Do yourself a favor look at their Tech forums before getting the game and see if its worth your time.
- lackluster
By A1LL07JIGO2V4L on 2008-05-28
This game feels like a console game, not a pc game. That probably makes sense since I think they're going to release it for xbox eventually.
If you have played World of Warcraft or Guild Wars, don't expect anything like that. I'm not sure if its 'lame' or 'sucks' but it was ceratinly a big disappointment to me all around. Wish I didn't spend my 50 bucks on it.
- Worst waste of $50
By A20JN8NMLY40XB on 2008-06-02
So I wasted 50 bucks on this game, that was touted to be "revolutionary". They can't even get their updater working properly. You waste an hour and a half installing the game, then run the updater... I'm now past 72 hours of installing updates, and the server is officially down for MORE updates, which I'm not even past 50% of the original ones. You can not get technical support, if you go to the forums you're told by the most immature community I've ever seen that you're completely wrong and the updater works just great, (of course there's no actual suggestions on how to fix it), and how dare anyone criticize the game.
FunCom kept this game in beta for almost 3 years, it should have stayed there.
- Technically Poor - No Support
By A1M2IIGXF67BM8 on 2008-06-11
The gameplay of Age of Conan really has potential, but unfortunately the entire experience is marred by the most technically inept implementation ever. The installation goes refreshingly fast, but that is where everything starts to fall apart. While the program occupies 2 DVDs worth of content, you will immediately log online and download almost 3 DVDs worth of patches that take HOURS to install. Pray you have a fast fast fast computer and really high speed broadband.
Once the system is installed things start out OK. It is not as user-friendly an introduction as World of Warcraft (the current "gold standard" of RPGs), but you'll figure things out quickly if you've played an MMO before. Continuing to play, however, is hit-or-miss. I have about 6 friends trying this game. Every one of them has had frequent crashes. On my system, the game freezes after about 5 minutes of play , guaranteed.
There is NO customer support for the product. You can e-mail FUNCOM, but don't expect to get any reply at all. I've posted in the forums and no one has reported ever getting any reply to a question, whether its about a technical issue or possible fraud capturing passwords. This is just unacceptable.
The game advertises on the bos to be "DirectX 10" compliant, yet its been announced that DirectX 10 support will not be implemented until the fall.
This game is not worth your time, money , or frustration.
- Game is great but Amazon is disappointing
By A2UQO6EC1O3OCR on 2008-05-21
The game is really great. Nice combat system that requires skill and practice. It has the potential to become a competitive MMORPG game without the pain of endless item grinding (if they are going to follow this path in the end-game contents). I am giving 5 stars for the game based on my current experience.
However, Amazon has really disappointed me with their handling of the launch of this game. I pre-ordered the game almost two month ago through Amazon because I have been a long-time customer and satisfied with their services. Then it really went south. First of all, their pre-order bonus is a stupid lv 25 bow, which may not be useful at all for some classes, and will be ditched soon given that the max level is 80. Compared with nice mounts and bags offered by other venders, it is basically trash. Then the early-access emails were apparently sent out later than the other venders and gave those who ordered here less chance to get in. I was among the lucky ones that got in but I know quite a few guys did not make it. Now two days after the release, my game box is still not shipped yet. Without the box code I can not claim that stupid bow and I am already above lv 25. Worst of all if the box does not arrive before my early access expires (27th), my account will be frozen and I won't be able to play anymore. Guess what, just when I decided to get a box from local store instead, I found that it does not allow me to cancel this order now on Amazon.
- Should Still Be in Beta
By A1XBDONAA7JI0J on 2008-05-23
Anyone who remembers the launch of Anarchy Online knows what a debacle it was. Broken infrastructure, missing features, persistant bugs, massive downtime and non-existant customer service. Sadly, it seems Funcomm learned NOTHING from the experience. The repition of "All launches are like this" from Funcomm and it's supporters are getting tiresome, since I can think of at least four major MMORPG launches in the last few years that were virtually trouble free.
If Age of Conan actually provided everything it claims to it would be a five-star game. Possibly six months from now it will be an awesome game and a wonderful, immersive experience. But if you buy this game now you're paying a Funcomm to beta test their product, when it should be the other way around.
There's certainly nothing here that has me rushing to cancel my Lord of the Rings Online subscription. If you're waiting for a "WoW killer", this ain't it.
- Not as bad as many think (Opinion laded review)
By A3GTEW9LBO4YNI on 2008-05-31
I'm actually a good deal disheartened by some of the reviews here, as they seem a bit harsh,premature, and some(not all) a bit pretentious. I'm not here to say AoC is the be-all,end-all but it is not the steaming pile of crap so many seem to want to pronounce it in opening week.
Since I'm on the soapbox, I'd like to take a moment to remind everyone how god-awful WoW was its opening week, with longer crashes and many more issues in a much smaller world. I recall losing a few days that first month due to a need for massive overhauls.
Now back to AoC....and let's address some of the other issues. I'm not here to gripe back and forth but at least offer my OPINIONS and a bit of facts that i anchor them on...
The size of the world, for one, seems to be a tremendous problem for many people. While I do understand the gripe that it takes a long time to get around, this world was NOT made exclusively for the game, but rather the stories,novellas, and epics that made Conan so beloved a character to so many. As such, the span and breadth of the world couldn't realistically be tempered and abridged to less a scale without forsaking some areas that are already established in print. Would a Star Wars fan be happy if you cut out Tattoine or Dagobah? Would a Civil War reenactor/historian take it well if you conveniently omitted the battle of Gettysburg? For this reason, the world of AoC is large and its a hard pill to swallow, but there's no way around it.
Instancing/Zoning issues:I admit, it can be a pain for the load screen to eat up some time, but it makes those large chunks of the world flow smoothly and seamlessly, rather than "go thirty feet, stall, new area". The determinations of what is PvP and what is safe do seem a bit skewed however, and I won't argue that much of it is...a pain in the rear to say the least.
Crashing issues: Many of the bugs that caused AoC to crash out have been fixed. I've been on since a later stage of the Beta and this game has nowhere to go but up. If you're still crashing, maybe you need to reevaluate your equipment. I was running bare minimum gear for a couple days, then i upgraded the video card to a 8600 GT and saw a marked improvement. Just a suggestion/thought.
Weapons,Armor,Equipment: Yeah, I'll give you all this one, a good deal of it looks all the same kinda cruddy in Tortage....there's about 6 to 10 possible armor suits, the weapons don't show much variation, etc., and this is all true...for the first area. I don't know how much everyone's played recently, but after coming off a marathon gaming session with my brother and his wife, we all agreed there's been marked improvement with selection. Most likely, with more patches, there will come more content and variety. Time will tell.
This doesn't address all the issues, but I'm tired of crapscreaming and doomsaying. Time for the GOOD points.
AoC, like all MMORPGs, does make it fairly easy to group up and talk to folks, the channels are divided according to what *should* be being discussed (In a general sense,ie Out of Character chats on RP servers...should be getting our RP-PvE server soon too!), Many bugs that were present in the opening day are being repaired and addressed now, the ganker problems are being mitigated by Funcom's use of the ban-stick for camping spawnpoints and other offenses, and all in all attempting to answer what the players call for. We're asking a LOT of Funcom and DEMANDING more from AoC....the least we can do is give them some time to try to answer SOME of our prayers!
The creation is in depth and only 'limited' in some areas by nationality/race....it makes some semblance of reason that a Cimmerian shouldn't look the same as a Stygian, doesn't it? These races are supposed to be "Pure-blooded" as it were, being a pseudo-prehistoric setting, before great travel and large scale mingling of heritages.
The quests, while many accuse them of being overly monotonous(without really offering any suggestions as to what to do DIFFERENTLY...), can vary from mind-numbling simple to brutal for single players and the group dynamic DOES come into play a bit...my advice for really seeing this? go to a PvE server or one of the RP servers...the situation IS improving and more and more gankers are getting removed or penalized.
There's a reason the big magazines are NOT reviewing this game yet...let's do the same and suspend our final judgments and damnations a bit so Funcom can give us the whole game.
And if you read all that and didn't like it, hey, just my opinions!
- Not worth $50
By A2XZV6PPUFMXKN on 2008-06-03
This game sucks after tortage, the storyline goes poof and the beautiful voice acting follows. end game content doesent exist yet, hopefully it will in the future, siege battles suck because the walls.. your able to walk right through them. player buildings are useless, World pvp doesent exist. Every zone is instanced, theres no open world every area is very linear which leaves little room for any kind of organized tactics.. so far pvp is a mindless camp fest. Combat fails.. its just a button mash like a single player action game, think pirates of the carribean legend of jack sparrow or that old lotr game.. I bought it on newegg for a few dollars less..most of the classes are so bugged they nearly arent playable.. i actually feel like im playing a no budget cheap asian mmo.
This game is not worth $50 I think funcom ran out of money thats why they released this.. its still like playing a game in early beta. Now now.. i know wow was pretty empty when it was first out.. but at least it had world pvp.. it was playable it didnd feel like i was playing an early beta game.
It takes along time for npcs and textures to load too. i might stand there for 5 minutes before the game will load the npcs so im able to finish a quest etc. I just built this computer with top of the line parts theres no reason for this. In Crysis with all settings maxed out 1280x1024 res my fps never goes below 35 in the heaviest combat.. in AoC im lucky to get 25 fps just standing around and 15 during combat. This game is a train wreck that should not have been released for at least another year.
Seriously spend your $50 on mass effect pc or assassins creed, give this game a few more months, if it hasen't been shut off by then it might be patched enough to be playable.
Let me just say im forever grateful i came to my senses before buying the collectors edition... Iv canceled my account before they had a chance to swipe away $15. Im still using my free 30 days.. Once that runs out im gone. I may return in a few months to see if anythings changed.. but honestly id be surprised if AoC is even still online by then and funcom isen't bankrupt.
Waste of $50, 3 hours install time, 2 hours patch time, 30gb hd space.
- Paying to beta test an xbox360 game
By A1IYHGV3QIIXE7 on 2008-06-07
This is the worst MMO ever made. It is very heavily instanced because it is primarily an Xbox 360 game. Anything they add in the future will always come back to if it will work on the 360. This is not a real MMORPG.
- Wait for a trial or a better game
By A240HIGT7YQWAY on 2008-06-18
This game is lacking in so many aspects. Almost every feature that is listed above either dosnt work properly or was very poorly added to the game. There is nothing being done in this game that hasnt been done before and been done better by another game.
It seems as though nothing was tested except the first 20 levels which is only the starting zone and since there is only one starting zone for everyone it gets old fast when you try to play a new character. I have never written anything about a game before but I truely cant beleive that the developers feel that people would be fine paying for this game in its current state.
Yes it can and will get better in the future as it really cant get any worse as far as it stands right now. I would pass on this as like I stated earlier there are several other games out there now that have way less problems and does what this game does but better. For a fantasy type game having only one starting location and one race with three different names is a bad way to start off. I mean how many games can you play where playing a human is the only option.
WAIT FOR SOMETHING BETTER!!!
- Best MMO in Years
By A2YAV89DFWH361 on 2008-05-23
I played beta. I played early access. And I've not played from launch. This is a great game with lots of potential. Is everthing perfect? No. But neither was Week 1 of World of Warcrafter either. I love the setting and the fact that the graphics are not all cartoony.
Give this game a try! I word of warning--you really need at least a 8800 GT to play this well.
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