Welcome to the 4th Generation of MMORPGs  
By AA0K5SAXOD6WU on 2008-05-01
Age of Conan is a well-constructed, beautifully-rendered, multi-layered MMORPG that includes features for every playstyle in the genre.
For those adventurers who prefer to explore solo, the world is vast, beautiful, and dangerous! In addition to the creatures, beasties and wild humans providing nail-biting combat with a fantastic AI, on two of the server types (FFA (free-for-all) PvP (Player vs. Player) and RP (roleplaying)-PvP), there is the added danger of edge-of-your-seat combat with player characters. There is, of course, a Player vs. Environment (PvE) ruleset on some servers that will allow the more reticent to get their game on in style without the added fear of being ganked.
Solo gamers who join AoC will find that all of the classes are solo-friendly to some extent. Funcom has included robust potion play for those OMG moments, though it's not so over-powering that it feels like going into god-mode.
Though Solo play is encouraged through many game-mechanic devices (such as the level 1-20 "destiny quests" which are 100% solo), the real meat of the game is in the group and guild play. The character classes compliment each other well - none is so overpowered as to have the proverbial "I Win" button. Healing is mostly over time, so priests can get into the fray and smack it up with the best of them without having to stand back and spam heals. Caster, range, stealth and melee classes round out the options, with choices offered being determined by race.
PvP, in addition to "out in the world" fights, can take place in "mini-games," similar to the Battlegrounds of WoW, but at a much faster pace. The options available in the beta were "Capture the Flag" and "Annihilate Opponents," both of which were engaging and fast-paced. The learning curve isn't too steep - We found with a little organization and an understanding that thr group needed to stay together, we won more times than lost.
There is crafting at level 40 (the cap is currently level 80) but I haven't seen that part yet. Crafting professions include armor, weapons, gemcutting, architecture, and alchemy. As crafting is one of those things that can make or break a game economy, I'm really looking forward to getting involved in it as soon as possible.
Questing is really rich in this game - dialogues are played like cut scenes, and the voice acting is top-notch. The quests include single runs and long storylines. Rewards are appropriate and always helpful depending on your level. The cities are teeming with NPCs, and most will have somethign to say to you or some quest to offer.
All-in-all, a fantastic game with a lot of potential for deep involvement. My final score, heading into launch, is 4.5 out of 5 stars, with .5 off for restricting crafting to the later levels.
****UPDATE****
I received the collector's edition from Gamestop yesterday, and I am overall very pleased with both the presentation and the contents! The art book is not hardbound as advertised, which is a disappointment, but both the artwork and behind-the-scenes storytelling are phenomenal.
The leatherette map is a nice touch - it's not really readable for the small fonts, but it's nice looking is a cool piece of Conan memoribilia.
The soundtrack, on the other hand, is the real gem in this collection. Atmospheric, often moving, sometimes even heartwrenching, this soundtrack is fantastic. We've had it in heavy rotation since we got up this morning, and it's lovely.
I recommend this collector's edition for the true fans of the genre - it's a great immersion into the AoC world, and I'm glad I spent the extra cash on it.
Thanks for reading!
Not your Kid's Next WoW
By A2CK5W41BZJXXU on 2008-05-21
First off, there are several folks upset about not getting the advertised 3 day early access but there are a few logical reasons for them not getting into the program. The biggest reason is the folks who had the ability to get into the program didn't because they waited too long to act on the offer. The second falls onto the shoulders of the online companies where the game was pre-ordered from - the companies did not provide the pre-order keys to the customers until EA was already closed out. Amazon provided the keys right away so there wasn't much worry with Amazon falling into this group.
On to the game..
For those used to clicking on a target and letting your avatar doing all the work, you are in for a bit of a learning curve. Age of Conan (AoC) is more action oriented. The player must click on a directional attack button for each swing of his sword. The directional attack comes into play as the opponent has directional shielding. In mini game terms, the player needs to attack the opponent where the opponent is least sheilded in order to inflict maximum damage. The player can also adjust his shielding to minimize damage from his opponent.
Although most MMORPG players are used to eating popcorn while grinding away and such a method detracts from eating said popcorn, the whole method ties into the games ability to draw the player into the game and present the felling of making a difference in the outcome of a battle. For those interested, sword swings do cary onto opponets in the sword attack arc, two handed weapons have more reach, and yes, the rumors are true that a properly timed combo will send a head flying.
This brings us to combo's. AoC does use a combo - most folks would call them buffs - attack system. There are the 3 non-combo attack directions complimented with various combo's that deal more damage, knock opponents back, cause bleed damage, or a mix of both. It is possible to win a battle without using combo's, but combo's do help speed them along. Unlike WoW, AoC combos seem more complimentary than required in battle.
With 12 different classes and 3 different factions (more like origins), there should be at least one to fit the play style of any player. Be it a mage, rouge, priest, or warrior, there is a flavor for you. Of note, AoC has gone a long way in helping clothies (cloth armor wearing classes, such as mages) survive combat. Starting off, clothies usually deal more damage than melee or other ranged classes, have a good chance of not dying 10 times before making level, and are actually not a burden to play.
Overall, the game is graphically amazing, the quests make sense, and the gameplay (including pvp) a rush. If you are tired of your bored, stale, and kiddie infested MMORPG give AoC a try. Note, there are slightly beefy system requirements to fully enjoy the game.
Great game
By AC1Z1P13DPZFU on 2008-05-13
I've played many, many MMOs over the years and AoC has definitely provided some of the best synthesis of previous MMO gameplay and new and innovative gameplay. All of the classes are soloable and are more interactive and at minumum subtly different than classes in other MMOs.
The graphics are beautiful, but I'm truly only rating the game high because of its well-thought out gameplay.
Entertaining game, unprofessional service from Amazon.
By A1LKNTDGILSYGE on 2008-05-23
Allow me to preface this by saying that I have been a loyal and steadfast Amazon customer for over 10 years now. Despite a few bumps in the road, they have remained as paragons of exceptional service in virtually all of my dealings.
Until now.
For those who are not aware, Amazon accepted pre-orders of the Collector's Edition for months. And yet, after the projected ship date of the game, I have now received an e-mail stating that they overestimated demand for the game and my order is going to be held indefinitely while they get their act together.
Meanwhile, I'm unable to claim my special items from my Age of Conan account, because I don't have access to the code on the manual. FunCom is e-mailing me to let me know that my account will be suspended for not entering a retail code in short order. The odds that I will receive what I ordered (the CE) diminish by the day, with no follow-up other than a meekly-presented $10 gift certificate and reassurances that this does not happen very often.
The game itself is rather fun. It lacks flavor and is overly instanced for the first 20 levels. It runs clunkily and needs more optimization for anyone not running it on a late 2007-2008 computer. But the atmosphere is great and some of the features are truly innovative.
That, however, is not the point of this review. The point of this review is to warn anyone and everyone who is considering using Amazon as a pre-order service on any item that is either (a) time-sensitive, (b) in limited supply or (c) reliant on physical hardcopy for access to online features. As of now I will be moving all of my future business from Amazon to several of their competitors. Why? Because Amazon messed up, and they had so much information prior to this that they could have easily avoided this entire fiasco with a little more careful planning and a little less greed.
Sadly the old Amazon where I received personalized service is dead. I'm left with a series of form-emails offering me ten bucks to shut my mouth and suck up their mistake as my own. It's beyond disappointing, it's an irrevocable and final severance between myself and a once-great company.
Caveat emptor.
A New Age MMO
By AOYL9IEFOZ92K on 2008-05-19
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.
- Wait, or expect frustration
By A2NSUKR03QYDCI on 2008-05-07
I just cancelled my pre-order of this game. Have been (trying) to play this product in beta and it is the most buggy software I've ever seen. In addition, Funcom is providing 0 technical support at this time. I'll wait until the product has more polish if I purchase it at all.
- Much to Offer
By A24GC8G21XYYVZ on 2008-05-16
At this early stage AoC has much to offer gamers especially if they have the hardware to detail its graphic glory.
There will be hiccups in the first week, so if your frustation level is low just begin later. The weakest at present of all the classes as far as innovation are the Necromancer and Demonolgist. Without access to combos you are like casters in any other game. Not a bad thing for many and the easiest way to sample and learn the game. Spellweaving as I understand it at present will not be available until perhaps level fifty and it will have limited PVP uses as the animations can be VERY long and you need to remain still. Casters will be powerful and although I always play one, I will play a hybrid in this game to have access to combos also and from my open beta experience a more involved experience.
I suggest finding a good guild and picking a good server for your playstyle (PVP vs. PVE).
- Amazon sucks
By A1ODDMV57BDFFY on 2008-05-21
The game appears to be very nice in every way. Amazon just informed me today that "it could not find the product I ordered". So nice to inform me of this after the game has come online. The purpose of pre orders is to get the game when the game comes out (or within the 3 day early access period). Thanks for nothing. Now apparently the price is about 50 bucks more than the pre order price and I don't see any hint of the bonus stuff I was promised...... I ordered it over a month ago and they wait until today to send me an e-mail.
- This game is NOT ready for prime time...
By A3D8SD5O2TYJKX on 2008-06-06
As beautiful and innovative as this game is, its not ready for prime time, and you should save yourself a tremendous amount of heartburn by waiting a few months until it is.
As of this writing (6/6/2008), these are the problems being experience by myself and the 80+ members of my guild on a regular bases.
1) People can't log into the game at all after the patch (a week ago). They try to play the game, and it just goes to a black screen. Some have used the Windows task manager as a work around to get logged in, but the game is unstable afterwards. FunCom has made no effort to provide a solution, they simply say they are monitoring the reports. There are people who have everything from the minimum configured PC, the the "uber" PCs.
2) Its an instancing game ... that is, x number of people play in a zone, when there's too many, a new instance of the zone is created and players are put there. This approach works only if players can change instances to meet up with friends. Right now, changing instances is broken.
3) For the PvP environments, there are absolutely zero mechanics to deter level 80's from hunting down and harassing level 20s. And because so much is broken at the moment, that's all the 80's have to fill their time with.
4) Zones/Instances just stop responding, and there's nothing you can do but exit the game. Before we could change instances, but since they don't allow that anymore, you have to quit the client.
5) Group mechanics are totally broken. Group members are randomly dropped, or players are not able to see they are in a group when in fact they are. Sometimes they is a simple log-out and back in. But sometimes you have to completely shut down your PC and do a cold boot.
6) The Guild City mechanics don't work, or are turned off by FunCom. The players don't know which because the Developers won't tell us.
7) The crafting system is broken. If you make a crafted item and fit it with a socket, it doesn't match the data structure used by the rest of the inventory system ... so every time you mouse over it, or anything that compares itself to it, the game crashes.
8) Harvesting of resources is broken. Resources are "tier" based and you are required to complete the gathering of one tier before moving to the other ... but the items needed don't spawn the in the game.
9) They have a volunteer GM corps that handles all the petitions for problems in the game. But this corps is under trained, over-worked, and pack a huge attitude towards the players. It can take days to get get a response from a GM to your petition. But the average seems to be between 12 and 16 hours. There are some GMs that are stellar, but the vast majority are rude, short, and usually can't help you with your problem because they don't have the privilages needed. But rather than escalating your petition, they clear it and you have to start all over. If you are offline when they get to your petition, too bad, they clear it anyway and send you a message saying, "Sorry we missed you."
10) This game takes you from level 1 to level 80 fairly rapidly. Even legitimately people can get to 80 in about 3 weeks. This is fine, because the game is about the "end game" not the level grind. The problem is, there's very little content for the 55+ range. What content there is, is so over camped its simply an exercise in frustration to try and get quests done. If their instancing system worked, that would be a partial solution, but it doesn't. There needs to be much more content in the 55+ levels.
11) Quests are broken. You can't complete them, or if you do them with a group, you have to reset the instance and do it over for every member of your party.
12) Bugs in buffs and debuffs that allow exploiters to just grief people while remaining immune. They either stack far beyond what they are supposed to, don't expire when they should ... allowing the player to add another. Or, in the case of a debuff, they won't expire when they are supposed to and you have to log out and back in to clear them.
13) The trading system (Auction House) does work, but its so 1970s by design the Developers should be ashamed. Its not really an auction house, its just a system where you post an item and set a price. It always breaks items you put up for sale ... because if they don't sell and you decide to vendor them instead ... they won't show up in your list of items to sell at at the vendor once they've been listed on the trader.
14) The vendor system that looks like it was a complete "after thought" ... we have a better vendor system in MMO's 12 years ago. Its simply a list of everything in your inventory (except equipped gear) presented in a list. If you accidentally sell the wrong thing, you can "undo". But once you close the vendor, the undo goes away, there is no "oh crap" and going back and getting it. Also, there's no what to flag an item as a "no sell" item, and they all use very common icons ... so you're constantly sorting through your inventory for what you want to sell and what you don't.
15) There is a bug where if a zone crashes, or you are apprenticed when you level ... the next level's (or even the current level's) total experience requirement doubles or triples. And there is currently no fix, and the GM's just tell you to gut it out, because again, they don't have the authority or privileges to fix it.
In the two years that I've had this computer, I'd never seen a blue screen on it. Sure, I'd seen crashes, but I'd never seen a blue screen. I see at least one a day while playing this game. As does viturally everyone else in my guild.
I, like many others, had great hopes for this game, and still do. But right at this moment in time (again 6/6/2008) the game is nothing more than a broken version of "Guild Wars" on steroids.
And unfortunately, we get little from FunCom except the acknowledgement that there are problems in two sentences, and then paragraphs of what they are going to do for us in the future.
So my recommendation to my friends here; Wait for the future before you buy this game. Stay in touch with someone in the game who you can trust, and when they say its actually ready, get it it. If it weren't so broken, it is definately worth playing.
- Chaos
By A3NBT33UGS60R1 on 2008-05-17
So far all I've seen is false advertising. The benefits of pre-ordering the game were advertised as 3 days of play before the official release and an in game mount. It turns out, that contrary to the early game play advertised for pre-orders, you also had to register and buy the extra time. That wouldn't have been a problem if they had mentioned it. Instead I found out when I set up my log in and found out there were no early play spaces left. From what outside sources have written, it looks like you also don't get the mount they promised if you pre-order from certain sites like Amazon - from Amazon it looks like you get a bow instead. I don't think they meant to falsely mislead folks, but if they can't communicate well enough to get people into the game, what is game play going to be like? Heaven forbid if you need to talk to someone. You can't even get to their site now because they redirect you to their community page because of heavy volume. Even if you'd bounced through their unmentioned hoops early enough and were set up to play the early play, you couldn't reach the site to play at the moment.
- Worth all of the Hype!
By A2999AJ25AOYL6 on 2008-05-19
I started playing this game the second servers opened up for Early Access, and I must say this game is simply amazing! I played WoW for 5 years, and countless MMO titles prior to Age of Conan, and this game leaves them all behind!
While it does require an up-to-date system to run, it was worth every cent I spent upgrading my computer, and I already know that this game will keep me more than happy for years to come.
Playing on day one of early access, May 17th, this game showed no signs of any problems at all. You'd think this title had been up and running successfully for years. No server lag, no buggy feel, no crashes, for me at least, a few have mentioned problems, but their systems met only the bare minimums to play this game.
I have an SLI setup with two 8800gts 512s, and a quad core system with dual AMD Windsor processors, and 4gigs of ram, and am running Vista Ultimate 64bit.
I play the game in 1920x1080 on my 40" Sony Bravia HDTV, so a system not as good as mine can play this game perfectly with high frames per second on a smaller monitor, and/or in a lower resolution than mine.
It is without a doubt the best looking game I have ever seen in my life, and the combat is the best thing to happen to this genre since the conception of MMOs! Buy this game now! You will not regret it!!!
- Best MMO I've seen
By A1Y9EK4VSWFK93 on 2008-05-21
Hands down Funcom has really come through with The Age of Conan. If you've played The Longest Journey and enjoyed the story line component you'll love this game. There are two components to the game. Day mode in which you can pick up quests fron NPC's that do more than pull up a dialog box and let you click "Yes" or "No". The video cut scenes pull you into the game. If you're the kind of person who doesn't care about content or story line, you won't like the PVE portion, maybe PVP is something you like. This isn't a game for the impatient.
Combat--awesome, not like D&D Online where all you do is Auto Attack and face the mob, you can actually perform combo attacks, attack a mobs weak spot.
Graphics--They will have DX10 support but now they only have DX9, just something they're dealing with and are honest about it, but even at DX9 the world is truely a work of art.
Character Generation--Based on Conan Lore, so you're going to be a human of three races, but the individual characterization is extremely detailed, you can change the angle of your ears (how far they stick out) to the location of your lips, chin width, etc.
The only cons I can find with the game, and this is just because I'm used to other MMOs. The chat function could use some improvement, you don't know when someone sends you a PM.
I've played Dungeon Siege, Diablo, Guild Wars, D&D Online and by far The Age of Conan blows them all out of the water.
On a note about Amazon, I pre-ordered the collectors edition a month before the pre-release and on the release day got an email saying they're delayed in shipping my item. If you can find it in the stores, to that and don't take a chance on Amazon, I won't get my gamebox until the first week of June, and hopefully before my "temporary" key code expires.
If you see people complaining about long drawn out clip scenes, it's probably somebody who is 13-17 and only cares about chopping heads off in combat. This game has a Mature rating.
- Age of Conan- Next Generation MMO
By A1XC6SDKFES9UT on 2008-05-21
(I posted this review on the regular version of the game as well, so if you are reading it and it sounds redundant, that's why... I did add the part about the Collectors Edition though!)
This 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.
The Collectors Edition is an amazing package- from the ingame items that can be given to all your characters, not limited to just the first one you have claim them to the package that you receive. The map, I have to admit, I am not certain what I will do with, but it is a nice addition. The score is beautiful and I can't wait to play the cd that they give to hear it all. The art book is also great value. If you can get your hands on one, I recommend it!
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 10/10: 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. :)
See you all in Hyboria!
- AoC: A Refreshing Addition to the MMORPG genre
By ADZBYUKCMYE6U on 2008-05-21
Age of Conan is hands down the most beautiful MMORPG on the market, and most likely will be for the forseeable future. Funcom has pushed the tech envelope with this game, which will cause some people heartache because they may not be able to run it with all the bells and whistles. I am running AoC on an Intel C2Duo e6600, 8800GT with 3 GB on Vista 32 on high settings and getting 40+ FPS and no lag. Here are the features that set AoC apart from the other MMORPG leaders:
-Incredible voice acting
-Excellent Celtic soundtrack
-Best visuals of any MMO, and even bests most non-MMO RPGs. Spell effects will floor you.
-Character creation that rivals Oblivion
-Great classes unlike you've seen in other MMORPGs. Priest classes in this game don't sit back and heal. The Priest is on the front line with the tanks basking in the glory of combat. Rangers, Assassins, Barbarians, Tempest of Set, every class unique and fun to play.
- Mature rating makes for some great quests. The quest system is great and the quests very fun and dynamic
- Combat system is the most involving in the genre. You can't get up to use the bathroom in the middle of a raid in this game! Fatality animations are INCREDIBLE and really make for a fun PvP experience
-You can choose to solo (best do that on a PvE server) or run raids and PvP matches in group. Great content no matter which type of player you are
- Creates the true feel of Robert E. Howard's world. Conan lives on in this game!
Needs work:
- UI a little clunky, Zboard or G15 keyboard is recommended but not necessary to enjoy the game
- Crafting system is a little weak
Good news is both of those issues can eaily be addressed. I have not had this much fun playing an MMORPG for many years. If you are a fan of the genre and have the PC to run it well, you don't want to pass this game up.
- good start
By A9OV5T9N4RTFF on 2008-05-19
Ok, I've been playing in the early access for 2 days now and havin a good time. Much cheer to Funcom for a really smooth start.
It took me a day and a half to decide on what class to play, once that was done i really started to enjoy myself. I'm finding the combat system to very engaging especially once you get to level 15 or so. Combo's become more complex you start training your feats( those start at lvl 10 ). The graphics on high setting look beautiful but not everyone's system will be able to handle it. I've left mine on medium to keep my fps up.( I have a mediocre Radeon 1900XT 512mb. )
The game play so far consists of the usual MMO fair. Collect so many of these or kill so many of these, I think thats to be expected in an MMO. But so far the combo system has made it fun for me anyway. Some people may not like it but I think that will be a minority. It's gonna take some practice to get of the right combos at the right time.
Some of the story elements are unfolding in the early levels and you can see how this is going to work into the progress of the game, I'm sure becoming more complex as you go along.
As for the interface, the game really shines, you can tell funcom put alot of thought and MMO experience in the Minimalist design.
The complaints I have for the game are minimal but Ill mention them here - 1. I would have liked to see a broader set of animations for the mobs and races and such. THe difference between a Cimmerian running and a Stygian running look the same to me.( one example ) Tigers, Panthers, Croc's should have more variety to there movements. THis is a weakness that should be corrected down the line.
thats it for now, I'll update as I get farther in the Game.
- The Game is great..Amazon Sucks!
By A1INI5WCFBJQ54 on 2008-05-21
The game is aeverything it claims to be. Amazon's business practices leave a lot to be desired. First off, if you are considering preordering anything from Amazon DO NOT! Amazon does not hold up their end of the bargain and will leave you less than satisfied in the end.
BUYER BEWARE!!! DO NOT PREORDER ANYTHING FROM AMAZON!
- Why do people write reviews based NOT based on the game???
By A1O0GDI1A42GTE on 2008-05-22
First off, I would like to say that I am having a blast playing this game. This is the only MMO that has held my interest (beyond the first 30 minutes) other than LOTRO and Guild Wars.
Yes the combat system takes some getting used to but I am actually finding it more fun than in the other MMOs. Instead of mindless icon clicking, you need to know which direction to attack and which directions to attack to pull of your special abilities. I used to be a Ranger in all my MMOs (Guild Wars, LOTRO) and would avoid hand to hand combat at all costs, but I have found with this new combat system I actually enjoy getting into the mix of battle and taking down enemies. This all stems from the new combat design. I no longer have to worry about "oh do I have to do this skill first, before I do this one" and such, Now I can get in there, start hacking things and use my skills I have set up.
As for the people that are giving it bad ratings because of Amazon and Funcom, you are all retarded. They have nothing to do with the game play and how much fun it is to play. Yes I was one of the people that got burned by Amazon with the shipping of my Collector's Edition, but mine did get shipped out and I will receive it today. So how does this verify you giving the game a bad rating? It doesn't. Oh so you whine because you didn't get into the Early Access, I did get in, and Funcom's statment on closing the early access was they did not expect so many people to be siging up for this game. WHICH IS A GOOD THING!!! Why would you want to play a MMO with no people? They actually had to have downtime in order to throw up a few more servers in order to handle it all. They also have ordered more servers which are on the way. Amazon should take down all the ratings that are based upon peoples opinions of Amazon and Funcom instead of the actual game itself.
- Haven't recieved yet
By A245S6N5ECIQAJ on 2008-05-22
I ordered this on April 28th and yes I was one of the stupid ones that did not register immediately (did not think I had to). So I'm sitting here on May 22nd waiting for a game that should have shipped on the 20th and it still has not shipped. Never again! I was told by customer service that they had not received enough copies...
- Entertaining game but still feels like you're playing a Beta version
By A3FJMQ2VXGBF82 on 2008-06-04
I've had this game for a couple weeks now and I've played it fairly regularly during that time (70+ hrs. accrued), so here are my thoughts on it:
The Pros:
This game is very entertaining. The graphics are very good. Engrossing storyline.
The Cons:
1. Still very much a work in progress with system issues. At the time of this writing, there are still major problems with the game. (Ex. Gemcutter profession causing crashing to the desktop.) While FunCom is working to address these, these should've been handled prior to release. When you first install, expect to spend literally hours or days (depending on your connection speed) to download the updates to fix them.
2. Playability issues - I've only had experience with the Necromancer class, so I can only report on that (as well as general issues):
A. Resource Gathering - At level 20, you become able to gather resources, but if it comes from anything other than fallen enemies, it comes from a resource node. These nodes have terrible recharge rates (ex. I went to mine Silver and needed to wait for the node to recharge. I waited an entire 45 minutes and the node was at less than 30% capacity after that). Expect to spend tons of time waiting for resources.
B. Boss/Quest Item spawning - Like resource nodes, these have terrible spawn rates. Also, be wary of other players present, because if you need to kill X, the game only recognizes the first player (unless you are in a group) as to damage X as the "killer" of X. Ex. People A & B need to kill monster Y. B hits first for 1% and then gets slain by Y. A finishes it off. B gets the credits (and spoils) where A gets nothing and will need to wait for Y to spawn again.
C. Unreasonable targetting - As a Necromancer, one gets to summon undead minions to help you (obviously). Well, once you send your minions to attack, the adversary immediately tracks and attacks you, and ignores your minions. Why? I don't understand this aspect. I've sent various minions to attack at extreme range, and then I go around a corner to hide, and yet, I am still targetted. Why? The monsters have no way of seeing me or detecting me. (There are skills that reduce the auto-targetting, but these generally are worthless (1% reduction of being attacked automatically = useless in my book).) I guess I'm expecting more of a realistic approach (like in Guild Wars), where one's minions are treated as valid targets for attack just like everyone else.
3. Very poor documentation - A lot of aspects of this game are not covered or are just plain wrong in the manual. Ex. "Spells can be acquired from merchants" - no, they are acquired by levelling up or spending points for feats which grant spells. There are no skill/spell merchants (as in Guild Wars). Ex. Item distribution in groups. If an item is acquired by a group a window pops up showing the item with buttons of "Need" and "Greed". Nowhere in the manual is this discussed. So, one is often left wondering what the heck to do. (Yes, you can go online and check various forums to get the necessary info., but documentation should cover basics and be accurate).
4. Ambiguous quests - This is mainly the resource tree quests. You will be given quests like "Gather Tin". Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you where to get tin. Only through trial and error (or looking at the online forums) you find out that it comes from a copper resource node, and hope that while you're collecting copper, you'll get a tin drop.
General Overall feeling:
This game is neat and the storyline is intriguing, but feels like that I'm playing a beta version of the game. While I fully believe that FunCom will address all the issues (system and playability alike), these shouldn't have even arisen in a "live" version. (Especially with a subscription-based model.) The various extras that came with the Collector's edition are nice; I especially liked the soundtrack.
- Over hyped and over rated.
By A1S47L25MFS35Y on 2008-05-19
I have been playing the early access for about 3 days now and I have already decided to cancel my subscription and return my pre-order on Age of Conana as soon as it is delivered. Why... you may ask? Here are a few specific things which I really dislike:
- horrible combat system, (I know it is supposed to be so ground breaking but I personally hate it).
- boring and long winded speeches form quest givers, (not to mention the "choose your own answer" aproach which I find really iritating and time consuming).
- completely average graphics, (nothing better than maybe Two Worlds).
- boring and uninspired character classes.
- too much ganking, (yes I know there is a PVE option, but it is already happening in the early access game where gankers will just camp out at resurection sites and whack you as soon as you respawn).
Well, there is probably more I could say but these are the basics. I'm sure some people will love the game, this is just one person's opinion. I'm gonna hold out for Warhammer Online and return this one while I can still get my money back.
- SCAMAZON - Beware
By A26GW8JO15JR54 on 2008-05-23
This is a great game, but very unprofessional service from Amazon. They have promised to deliver the game in time for the early access registration period. Now they can't even give me a date when will my CE would ship. Since I wont have a retail key, there is a chance that my level 40 character will be deleted or frozen, ruining my gaming experience. And for all this toruble, a freaking 10 dollar gift card?
I'm a prime member, and I think Amazon lost 1 good customer today.Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Collector's Edition
- Fool me once shame on me.....
By A2G0J3QGSY54VZ on 2008-05-23
I guess it is a bit unfair to give the actual game 1 star but there is no where to review Amazons total blundering of thier handling of the AoC CE pre orders so Funcoms AoC review here reflects my reaction to Amazons lame attempt at being in the PC game market. I did recommend in an email to FunCom that they may want to take a closer look at who they partner with on pre order deals.
- Amazing graphics, a MMO worth trying!
By A1GCUUIJ31LFF7 on 2008-05-18
On a whole this MMO is well put together, it has the look of LOTR but with much more content and depth. Graphics are amazing, combat more complex and involved than point and click. The game still needs a little more polish on the interactive side for PVR, but PVP is really good. If your new to MMO's or just looking for something less-grind-like than WOW this is the game for you.
- Thanks for nothing Amazon
By A2LLPNYB2D9D8M on 2008-05-21
As the person before me said... the game is great... Amazon is not.
Thanks for nothing amazon. I preordered this weeks ago and now you "cant locate the item"?
Buyer beware... DON'T TRUST AMAZON WITH YOUR PREORDERS
Worse still is that since the limited edition is sold out I may never be able to get my hands on it due to Amazon's incompetence
- Do not order from Amazon
By A2QDJO0OP58B7B on 2008-05-23
DO NOT ORDER FROM AMAZON IF YOU'RE GOING TO GET THIS GAME. I pre-ordered this game March 13th, 2+ months before its expected release from Amazon and today is the 22nd of May and they still have not shipped it. They still do not have an ETA on when the game will be shipped.
Now, on to the game.
Sure- this game has amazing graphics, but its a waste of time and money. The current state of the game is more like a beta testing then it is an actual release. There is no player economy as of yet because they have had the 'trader' NPC disabled for quite some time now, and have not given an ETA on when it will be enabled. Many quests are bugged and cannot be completed, and one of the zones, Field of the Dead, has a stability issue which causes users to crash every 5-10 minutes. I've been unable to log into my character for more then half the day now because every time I try to load in, the game crashes. My computer exceeds the minimum requirements sevenfold, and even with my settings set to low, the game still crashes. The user interface is a joke, players are unable to see where their group members are on the mini-map unless they are within ~50m of eachother- even then it is still a hard task because group members show up with a minuscule dot.
All in all, this game was released waaaaaay too prematurely. I don't know what the heck Funcom was doing during their 'beta testing'... I could only guess they were too busy focusing on what in-game items players would receive from buying the game from different locations. This game gets a C+ at best.
Thinking about buying this for somebody? Do yourself a favor and save the money, and do them a favor by saving them the frustration and wasted time.
- Dissapointed and Upset
By AY45PTM9HYOBH on 2008-05-21
The second falls onto the shoulders of the online companies where the game was pre-ordered from - the companies did not provide the pre-order keys to the customers until EA was already closed out. Amazon provided the keys right away so there wasn't much worry with Amazon falling into this group. (This was stated by someone else)
Yeah right, I pre-ordered back in March, never received any pre-order key. Amazon still hasn't responded to any e-mails, and I might receive something by June 9! WOW, this is horrible service. And because of this I will never order thru Amazon again.
- The Age of Conan has not yet Arrived!
By A1WE5OV6LC9SU5 on 2008-05-25
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Collector's Edition
Don't waste your time or money! I expected somes bugs and glitches but this is downright UNPLAYABLE! The bugs - nonfunctional trading posts make an economy impossible. The glitches - constant gray outs on the minimaps and incredible lags on every server I tried (4 - both PVE and PVP)make gameplay difficult!
What really finished it for me was the crashes! Everytime I changed from night to day/ day to night - CRASH! Almost everytime I sold items to a vendor - CRASH! And even sitting there waiting for the lag to catch up so I could continue - CRASH! Not just a simple crash either - 50% of the time I had to reboot my computer!
- Sad, So much promise...
By A2KBD1UW414PH2 on 2008-06-22
I bought the collector's edition and if you do too, you can have the enjoyment of not playing the game like I did. Don't get me wrong here, the game plays after a very lengthy scan of the local data files. But all those "in-game" exclusives aren't on your character. You'll hit the [...] wesite and find that there aren't any useful support options. I recommend you do what I did and Google your problem. With any luck you'll stumble across some 3rd party message board where you'll find a post about the "/claim" command that gives your character these items.
Sadly, the support infastructure is soooo bad on this MMO, that you'll spend a lot more time trying to fix stuff and looking up solutions then you will playing the actual game. The forums for the game do exist, but there hidden in the subpages of AgeOfConan [...]... good luck. It's like a quest in itself.
Now I haven't even touched on how buggy half the game content is, and how broken the classes are. These aren't unique problems, like a bugged quest here or there. That kind of stuff is expected, no MMO escapes that. But this is a whole new level of bugs. For example, it is quite noted that the assassin's hide spell (stealth) is a 50/50 hit and miss affair. When I say hit and miss, I mean, you'll get all the fancy annimation and to the player you'll look hidden. The annoying fact, comes when you realize that the MOBS didn't get the memo...
"Dear Facemelting MOBs,
Yes all 5 of you, please note that player "RogueGinsuDeath200" is stealthed, please do NOT attack him unless he unstealths, or gets too close to you. He should not be detected from 6 game meters as his "Hiding" skill is maxed out. to do so would greatly embarass the game developers, and they in turn will convert all of you into neurtal NPC squirrels."
If you're stealthed, you should not be detected in the same manner that you would be if you weren't "stealthed". A rogue that can't hide, that's like having a warrior that can't swing a sword.
While this game has a lot of potential, there is NO doubt in my mind that in it's current state, it should not have been released. I'm not new to MMORPGs; you will get bugs here and there, regardless of the title/developer. But this is the first time I've seen the actual character/class set fundumentally flawed. That said, if you want to give it a shot, go for it. Who knows, maybe they'll fix it up enough to make it enjoyable.
In the meantime, here's a pointer keep the sercret "/petition" slash command written down, you'll need it to contact your GMs.
- Very nice start
By A2MZNWHW3IRIXP on 2008-06-10
I've been playing Age of Conan now for a little over a week and I have to say - I'm having a blast.
The Good:
The quests are interesting both in execution (ie - what you do) and in story. The voice acting is good though it gets a bit sparse once you leave Tortage. The game is easy enough to get the hang of but as you gain levels and skills, new options open up to you, which in turn lead to new challenges.
I love the skill system - allocating skill points as you level to customize your characters strengths and weaknesses in addition to the customization allowed by feat selection. It's little touches like this that really make the game feel fun.
Character creation is extremely nice - quite a few options and a VERY editable face make sure you don't run into too many people that look just like you. I do have a minor quibble about it (see below under The Bad)
Graphically the game is awesome - sprawling wilderness, cliff faces, water that moves like water should, bustling villages and cities... prey animals that aggressive mobs will stalk, attack, kill and eat. In addition to LOOKING alive the game FEELS alive to me as well.
The classes are all pretty interesting and take a slightly different approach to some of the traditional roles. I can't say I'm an expert on these as I've only played a few classes past 20 but, looking at the feat trees it seems that every class has, in addition to their primary function, some sort of utility as well - usually in the form of supplimental DPS or a group buff. This is nice - hopefully gone will be the rogue of WoW that's essentially a 1-trick pony (3 trees to determine how you'll DPS in melee). I say hopefully, because I honestly don't know how it plays out at higher levels.
The Bad:
First and foremost - despite the M rating a majority of the players that I've encountered so far are ANYTHING but mature. I'll leave it at that. That is my number one gripe and, in my opinion will do more damage in the long run than any botched patch, laggy interface or any of the other things I'm about to list.
Tortage - It's great at first. It's interesting, draws you in and, as mentioned before, feels alive... at first. By level 19 I could hardly wait to leave. I felt chained to that damned island and wanted nothing more to do with it. That's not to say that the areas were bad - if they WERE I never would have made it to 19 but you're essentially stuck there until you're done there.
Character Creation - Weird huh? Both good and bad - this is really more of a quibble than a full up 'bad' point. You get to pick these really cool body markings and facial marks as character options. But what you don't get to do is pick their color so far as I can tell. If you can, I wasn't able to figure it out. Some of the markings just look silly in their default color but would look quite nice if you could tweak that. That's basically it. Oh - and when you're done making your character you automatically go to Tortage - see above.
The other 'Bad' things are a grab bag of the usual things that plague an MMO on release - sketchy servers, questionable initial class balance (they seem alright to me, just some tweaking here and there should put things right), certain skills don't seem to work quite right and performance issues. It's very strange to go from 40 fps to 11 fps and you don't change anything. You run around, things are smooth, you keep doing your thing for about an hour... suddenly you chug down to 11fps... and then 20 minutes later you're doing 40 again... I'm not techincally savvy enough to understand the whys and hows.
Anyway - I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a good solid MMO. Note - based on the community though, come with thick skin and a healthy stomach for toilet humor. Lots of it. All the time (unless you leave every public channel in the game).
Oh - one more thing. The Bow that Amazon gave us is just about useless to EVERYONE in the game save rangers. Whereas everyone that preordered this game from ANYONE else got an awesome mount. I'm feeling pretty pissed about that to be honest, but that's not the game's fault - I blame Amazon for being lame, overselling their preorders and not even shipping mine out to me until 2 weeks after it was supposed to be here. In short - the bow is as lame as Amazon.com preorders.
- normal edition & collector edition
By A3FWEMQFGGS0SP on 2007-10-27
whats different between normal edition and collector edition ? I wish you can put some information about it.
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