Opinions and ideas.

Just a way to rant and get opinions and ideas out there without really taking up a giant page on the forums which people won't read if it's too long anyway.

Author: samuraislyr

So I've played AoC since open beta. Can't say that I  absolutely hate the game but nor do I hate it.

Now I've played numerous MMO's starting with Everquest back in the day. I was young (well younger anyway) and didn't have a job or anything so a pay to play game was not exactly great to my parents and the fact that I would sit there for hours. Well I started to get bored with EQ a bit anyway...and so I hated P2P for awhile.

Didn't really play anything until Guild Wars. Absolutly loved this game... it wasn't grindy, it had a story to it to guide me into the world and it was fun. Only problem was after about a year and a half, most of my friends got bored with the game for awhile and so it got lonely. Really need friends to play the game.

I went to try WoW and well I like it for about 40 levels if that... then it just got boring. Something about it just was boring... quests didn't give enough exp (quest grinding felt like quest grinding) and well it felt like it was destroying one of my favorite RTS series and the story behind them. It just irked me and even when I try to play it again since some of my younger cousins play it... I get bored within a week.

I am now a lifetime member on LOTRO. I love this game, it feels like guild wars 1.5 in a way. Guest grinding feels about right and the quests are interesting enough to not be terribly boring plus Turbine is only strengthing my love of the lore and not destroying it. Also since I'm a lifer I don't feel as if I have to play everyday.

Ok, *phew* now that that is out of the way let us talk about AoC.

Honestly my laptop is not a beast. A Macbook Pro 2.4 Ghz dual core, 8600GT, 2 GB ram but it can run AoC on medium averaging about 30 FPS. Not bad plus even if the game dips, for some reason the game still runs pretty well.

The graphics are pretty and fit the lore of Conan nicely... I've just recently started reading the Conan stories since this game made me want to read them and I really apperciate what the Devs have done. Enough about graphics though, everyone has heard they are nice.

Gameplay is confusing..(not like hard or anything but hard to rate at this point and time). I'm a bit of a quest whore so my first time through the game I love to do just about every quest I can possibly do. I'm not sure really how many quests there are but there is a pretty good amount for one that would rather quest grind then just grind mindlessly. I think this game is actually a roleplayers paradise. The close-up with dialogue options to NPC's is a very nice touch for an MMO. It reminds and plays much like RPG's such as Mass Effect and KOTOR. Now there is not a lot of consequences for your actions or choosing to call an NPC a spineless weakling which sort of is bad and it would be awesome if Funcom implemented a alignment system where depending on what quests you took and what dialogue options you choose you could get special emotes or something.

I feel as if this game as many now a days is more about the journey rather then the end... you read the quests, you become your character... you feel sadness, anger, etc. for various NPCs. Some of the Tortage quests were fantastic for this. Now the journey is a bit flawed, I will admit and that is why I feel I can't fully apperciate or rate the gameplay yet. I've cancelled for now but I'm watching what Funcom updates and if they fix at least The Missing Child quest I will probably resub. That will make the game go to about level 38 or so before running into some more serious bugs. Actually I might wait till they fix that quest and the instances in Khosphef :P.

I like the journey in this game, I'm just sad it's flawed at the moment.... it is fun to just relax and learn about the world of Conan, to become my character and to see many things. I even got to enjoy writing a small fan fiction of my character... it's not fantastic but it was fun to do anyway. Honestly I almost never roleplay but for some reason, the lore for Conan even moreso then Lord of The Rings makes me want to roleplay a bit and with the dialogue options with NPCs it seems like fun. I do wonder if there is enough content to skip quests if you roleplay a vicious character (seems like there would be to about 40 or so) After that it gets a bit sketchy. I think people that don't mind the grind that appears and the people that do mind the non-quest grind are really just complaining about the fact that they have no choice on the matter. They are FORCED to grind. Most MMO's give you the choice, you can grind mobs all day if you wish and get pretty good exp or you can quest and level or both. To not have the choice makes many people angry.

What about combat and instances you say? Don't instances make the world seem small and the community as well? Yes and no. The world does seem a tad bit small at this point but hopefully Funcom releases that new content soon and it should feel comfortable at least. Honestly the community is not affected by the instances at all... unlike Guild Wars where you are all by yourself and not connected to the town chat channels, each area has a chat channel like an MMO. I play on a PvE server and most people are pretty friendly and cool... I've made a few friends already. There are a few occasions where jerks pop up but that happens.

Combat is fun... it's not the most evolutionary system in the world but it is a step up from most MMO's. It's fast-paced and the animations look good. I hope more MMO's will take this system and fine tune it as technology improves. I won't say too much since I believe most people get how the system works. I'm not on a PvP server and since I've been stuck in the PvE story, I have not tried PvP and so I can't comment on that.

So what do I say for all those on the fence? Wait a bit... probably give it another month or so to really commit to the game. If you can't wait though... take it slow. Don't rush to the end game... that's not where the enjoyment is. It's the journey from 1-80 that can be fantastically fun. Write a background to your character, read the Conan books if you haven't already to get a sense of the world some more... try a few classes out to see which is more enjoyable and such. I'd give this game about an 8 right now and if all the bugs were fixed and the new content put in the game would probably be a 9.5 or 10. This game is basically an Online RPG (they got the RPG part down very well) and the massive part is maybe a bit skewed. It's still a fairly large game and it sounds like it will get bigger but most companies only really get the MMO part right and the RPG part is pretty much left behind.

*phew* Long entry but I wanted to get that opinion out there for anyone interested. I know the hostilitiy towards AoC is pretty harsh but the devs did a pretty good job, no matter what anyone says.