First off I would like to say I am in no way, shape or form affiliated with funcom

I do want this game to do well (mind you I wont be playing it, im an Aion nut), but I am concerned that this game might suffer from what I will call Vanguard syndrome. It seems to me to be over hyped (once again I hope I am wrong) thus causing the game to have to high standards.


Now when I said Vanguard syndrome earlier I didn't mean this game would be as buggy or flop like Vanguard did, but more so I mean that the hype is getting to the point where no matter how good the game is, it wont be good enough.


To compensate for over hype I would like to make a thread in which anyone can post, any fears or concerns about the game to keep people from having overly high expectations.

My fear?

I fear that the game will begin with a core design and thesis that ties all of the game's systems together, and then, at some date not too far off from launch, people who don't have time for games will force changes that compromise the original design and marganilze the original target demographic.

This fear is not born of any specific data I have read or seen regarding this particular game, but rather a general fear.  I would love this game to be the one that draws me in and gives me something to enjoy for years.

I have been looking more and more seriously at this game the past month or so.  I'll be watching this one closely to see if it fits in with my gameplay requirements.

I share your feeling of this game might be over hyped. But on the other hand one reason this game is hyped very high is because of the endless awards they get, from different magazines and other things, so my guess is that it really is a good game that deserves a lot of hype.

And with a hype as high as AoC the launch might get flamed very much, i expect the launch to go anything but smooth, but others might not. So the first impression could be somewhat "faulty"

True, many people tend to get abit too hyped over some coming games, which leads to dissapointments once they experience it themselves. I've tried it myself many many times, but if we weren't, the producers and makers of the games, wouldn't make better and better products. And besides, if you're arent extremed hyped about a game, the game will be an even bigger dissapointment. People tend to settle, and realise even though their expectations were abit higher than what was given, it turned out allright, and can only become better, as the game and time goes by.

Unbalanced classes or classes being very similar to one another.

You have 6/9 classes or so dependant on melee and a combo system, if  the system is the same for everyone the game will suck.

Another fear is that the game will place gear over skill. I want combos to be difficult and powerful, not something fancy to intrest me while I cut an enemy who has worse gear in half.

I don't fear that crafting will be too easy and people won't make money off of it/ everyone will have the best gear because that wouldn't bother me. But I do see it happending and bothering alot of players.

Oh yeah and I fear an endgame where raiding is everything and pvp is something to waste time inbetween raids. Unless you are one of the top pvp guilds- then your game is holding the keep and spamming the forums with how awesome you are, inbetween raids.

I expect open pvp will lead to solo'ing unless your with your guild/ Alliance. I fear one large guild/alliance running a server.

I fear the system requirements and large pvp battles  will kill the new computer I must buy to play AoC. I'm very afraid that the first couple seiges will be a battle over which guild is getting the most bandwidth.

I fear a game filled with kiddies and constant crap talk to everyone in local even though they are 20+ levels ahead of the zone and are really here to take the anger out on someone because it was just done to them all weekend.

My biggest fear is that the PvP system is terrible.  A year ago it sounded like AoC had great potential and every new thing I'm hearing is making this game sound more and more like a cross between Lineage 2 and WoW.  Taking the worst elements from each and tying them together.

I fear that gold sellers will ruin yet another online economy. 

LOL true but gold sellers are a given. There is nothing we can do to stop it.

Originally posted by Tibbz

I fear that gold sellers will ruin yet another online economy. 

So we maybe won't need massive amounts of money anyways. But then again, maybe we do.

wrong discussion, but can you do siege wars between to guilds? I thought it was only cpu vs guild. I think i miss read the website.

I fear that a class will be overpowered and need constant nerfing for the first few months.

Originally posted by Kubush

LOL true but gold sellers are a given. There is nothing we can do to stop it.

Well yea, there is.  DON'T BUY GOLD.  This is worse than Lindsey Lohan getting pissy over Paparazzi.

Originally posted by Tibbz

I fear that gold sellers will ruin yet another online economy. 

I have two fears.

1. This will be a repeat of Anarchy Online and the game will be horribly buggy and non functional especially under load...  The sooner they ramp up beta testing the better as this will put this fear to rest.

2. The second fear is that the combat system will be simplistic and horribly tedious.  I'm keeping an open mind but so far I'm only seeing 8 hotkeys for special abilities and then I need to hit keys 1-5 constantly to either hit the side without a shield or to play out the steps of a combo to make my abilities actually work.

system/server performance

community

all flash/no substance

those are my top 3

Originally posted by ethion

I have two fears.

1. This will be a repeat of Anarchy Online and the game will be horribly buggy and non functional especially under load...  The sooner they ramp up beta testing the better as this will put this fear to rest.

2. The second fear is that the combat system will be simplistic and horribly tedious.  I'm keeping an open mind but so far I'm only seeing 8 hotkeys for special abilities and then I need to hit keys 1-5 constantly to either hit the side without a shield or to play out the steps of a combo to make my abilities actually work.

 

As for how you play the game, that is a matter of personal style.  There can be 1 million skills and you can still spam 2 buttons.

The Fear I have for this game is server/client Stability issue in the Large scale PVP battles. Who can remember the Good Ol' days of World PVP in Old hillsbrad in WoW. From my understanding of this game Zones are going to be instance to prevent this issue. However that's not to say that even with the zone being instanced it won't cause proformance issues due to high system requirement pf the game.

Originally posted by alcapwnyou

wrong discussion, but can you do siege wars between to guilds? I thought it was only cpu vs guild. I think i miss read the website.

I fear that a class will be overpowered and need constant nerfing for the first few months.

Yes you can have siege wars between guilds. I'd say that is the main pvp attraction.

Originally posted by Kubush

LOL true but gold sellers are a given. There is nothing we can do to stop it.

There's actually a really easy way for game developers to stop it.  Don't allow trading money between characters from different accounts face to face or through mail.

Item trading is fine or buying something off of the AH.

There are loopholes, obviously, but it would cut down on the gold sellers easy access to transfer huge amounts of money.

They could also just not allow any type of trading with other players until your account is over 30 days old.  It's harsh, but effective.

There's a really easy way the developers could track the gold sellers as well, any account that has received over X amount of gold from an account other then their own is flagged and investigated.

 It just seems that developers don't want to take the necessary steps to keep gold sellers out...

Originally posted by Dameonk

 

Originally posted by Kubush

LOL true but gold sellers are a given. There is nothing we can do to stop it.

There's actually a really easy way for game developers to stop it.  Don't allow trading money between characters from different accounts face to face or through mail.

 

Item trading is fine or buying something off of the AH.

 

The very next day you can buy "A Bat Ear" for 5000 gold on the broker ;)

 

There are loopholes, obviously, but it would cut down on the gold sellers easy access to transfer huge amounts of money.

 

Not at all. This is common nowadays.

 

They could also just not allow any type of trading with other players until your account is over 30 days old.  It's harsh, but effective.

 

There is a difference between spammer account and seller account. Seller accounts hardly get caught. Especially if they just buy your "A Bat Ear" for 5000 gold. Nothing illegal with it ;)

 

There's a really easy way the developers could track the gold sellers as well, any account that has received over X amount of gold from an account other then their own is flagged and investigated.

 

This is violation western world understanding of justice. Otherwise you just buy "A Bat Ear" for 5000 gold. Its absolutely legal ;)

 

 It just seems that developers don't want to take the necessary steps to keep gold sellers out...

 

The best way is not to buy. There even have been games who tried to make money worthless. People just invented a placeholder currency and kept selling and buying gold.

Originally posted by Orthedos

 

Originally posted by ethion

I have two fears.

1. This will be a repeat of Anarchy Online and the game will be horribly buggy and non functional especially under load...  The sooner they ramp up beta testing the better as this will put this fear to rest.

2. The second fear is that the combat system will be simplistic and horribly tedious.  I'm keeping an open mind but so far I'm only seeing 8 hotkeys for special abilities and then I need to hit keys 1-5 constantly to either hit the side without a shield or to play out the steps of a combo to make my abilities actually work.

 

AoC is already in beta, and for quite a while.  The combat system is not as simple as the one experienced in WoW.

 

As for how you play the game, that is a matter of personal style.  There can be 1 million skills and you can still spam 2 buttons.

heh, I thought this was for posting my fears not debating them :P  Actually weather the combat system is as simple as wow or not is at this point really a matter of opinion.  With wow's systems of buildups and starters and finishers and with abililties that effect mobs differently I disagree that wow's combat system is simple.  Maybe it depends on the class you play but I don't really think that is the case I think all classes have pretty interesting combat abilities.

I'm sorry but I'm not impressed with having to spend a significant number of my keystrokes just playing wack a mole hitting the side of the mob that doesn't have a shield up...  How is that even remotely challenging or interesting?  I'd much rather be doing something dynamic or making real choices during combat other they just playing the flashing lights game on the UI. 

Having played a rogue in wow and a warlock I felt that playing the characters well was something that definitely took some skill and planning.  It wasn't just hitting one of two buttons.  Well I guess you could play it just hitting one button and sit back and let it auto attack but I'm not sure I'd even call that playing and I definitely don't know any group that wouldn't bitch about that.    To date I think that wow is the second best combat system in any game only second to Vanguard.

I've preordered AoC and reguardless of how skeptical I am about the combat system I'm certainly going to give it a try.  But when I think about AoC it's the combat system that leaves me with a big sinking feeling.  I look at the game and say, this is great, this is great, excellent, then come to the combat system and I can't say anything I just hold my breadth and hope it won't suck as much as I'm fearing.  I'm praying they didn't ruin the game for the sake of a gimick.  Pushing buttons for no reason just doesn't impress me....  The one thing I do think about the combat system is that it will be perfect for the console player.

You know I just had another thought.  With all the button pushing this game is really going to need a voice chat system in game.  Is there going to be one?   I've been following the game for awhile and don't recall any info one way or the other on this topic...