Age of Conan

I've been beta testing mmo's since UO, generally with my skill set as a programmer and systems administrator and long history beta testing I get in during beta2. I've done beta tests for most every major game on the market and quite a few who never became major but were interesting niche games. I've probably beta'd 20-25 games... *shrug*.

The interface is pretty much stock wow with a few neat added features (for instance the in game map is pretty slick looking, fits the feel spectacularly) The in game help needs fleshed out quite a bit but it looks good and is integrated well into the interface itself... I like the way it works. Unfortunately, the interface doesn't seem particularly mod-able or configurable... you can move most of the items to some degree but you're not looking at WOW or even EQ2 level of mod-ability. Somewhat reminds me of the pirates interface in a lot of ways. There are some particularly bad design issues with the friends list and a few minor chat problems with emotes, but those I'm fairly sure will be corrected before release. 7/10.

The sounds are pretty good, the ambient sounds are appropriate the npc's sound ok, the music isn't hideously annoying (although I turned it off after about 15m to turn on real music.) I can't say anything bad here really, better than a lot of MMOs. 8/10.

The graphics are good, I'd say they're more a mesh of lotro and vanguard appearance wise, a bit more realistic and quite a bit more diverse than lotro but you don't have the problems of getting fugly chars like you do in vanguard. The flora and such is pretty fair also. Which brings me to my first real issue with the game, the loading times are spectacularly long. I have a system that is well above the minimum requirements (processor, graphics, and ram all above recommended specs running on xp) and once the game is loaded it performs admirably well. I generally run between 30-60 fps at all times... but I've had it take 10 MINUTES loading. On average I'd say I sit 4-5m on high... the fix for that seems to be lower the settings to Low and then it loads quickly but of course the game doesn't look spectacular anymore either. I settled on medium which looks "good" and yielded 1-3m load times generally. I've had two client side crashes that were random out of no where and of course since this is stress test particular instances are ping ponging up and down and that catches you ever now again. They've got some bugs to fix and some performance increases to make unless they want to go the way of vanguard. 7/10. (If they fix the issues before release, I'd say 8/10)

That brings me last but not least to the gameplay. The story is fairly interesting at least as much as you can see over 2 chars hitting 13 (limit in this phase.) There are quite a few quests available and they're fairly diverse (as much as mmo quests ever are.) What I don't like is the single player "nighttime" instancing. It feels a lot like guildwars or ddo in the way its using instancing... which is a pretty massive turn off to me, yes, I understand the story driven pieces that they're doing with it, but I just don't like it. Instancing in small amounts helps with population congestion, instancing like this just turns me off. The actual combat is pretty repetitive and greatly reminds me of AOs combat when I last played it (about 3mo after release.) There are combos for melee classes but they share a lot of basic powers as far as i've gotten which means leveling a second toon up isn't going to be tremendously interesting. I'm not a huge fan of pvp so the game has to stand on its own in pve which is what I did for the most part. 5/10.

Overall with the current state of the game (which is beta nearly at release) I'd give the game a 6/10 because I weight game play far higher than interface, graphics, or sound. I'm pretty disappointed, I had high hopes for this to be my next major fantasy game. The chances of that at this point are very very slim. I think a lot of the issues will be resolved by release with the interface, graphics, and client... but that doesn't solve the largely fairly boring game play for me.

When I beta'd AO and MxO I frequently pushed hard on the beta forums for them to push the release back to give more time to add polish to the game. I think they should do that here also... otherwise they're going to lose subscribers in the long run they might have kept.

Shrug, my $.02 YMMV.

I agree with you in most of the points. The graphics are indeed stunningly beautiful if you got the rig to run it but the game play is far from revolutionary like it was hyped.

For me, game play > pretty pictures

6.5/10

You would think that you would have more combat options past level 13. At level 40 you get 2 extra directions and the interface changes. Way more combos etc etc.

Different archtypes have different quests. Your on Tortage one massive noob island too.

If the OP would be so kinda to do a review of the finished version, maybe from a buddy key? would make a nice read I think.

This is kinda of review i'm looking for right now. not bunch of i hate this game or this game is peice of sh*t, or this game is going to rock!

Thanks for the review OP. i strongly suggest other beta testers can write review similiar to this review.

This is pretty much the way I feel about the game, although he seems to be a bit more forgiving than I would be. I am not impressed with the game, but it did have a few strong points.

Good review although I think it is unfair to mention the "V" word (Vanguard).  Remember new MMOs are like a baby.  They have to grow and mature into a solid product.  I see a good foundation here.  With Vanguard I knew it would tank from Beta 3.   I can not believe Vanguard is still alive.  AoC will be strong and be around a long time.

I have to agree with the OP. The graphics are good, and the quests are pretty interesting.

But the load times are terrible, the instancing is lame, and requires a really high end comptor to play.

I'm still underdecided about buying it

2 things you should know.

1)The devs have said mods, for the most part, will not be permitted in AoC. Quite frankly, I like this as the line between a mod and a cheat has certainly been tested in past games like WoW.

2) People were told ahead of time that this is a STRESS test, far moreso than an open beta. That said, its is done on older servers where they purposely stress the servers b4 1 player even logs in.  The lag is there for a purpose, and it will only help make the release smoother.  Its unfair to even comment on the "performance" of a stress test because it in fact, the opposite of the effect they are striving to achieve.

im not sure if that nighttime instancing is only for the first twenty levels or funcom decided to let us do all our destiny quests up to 80  in an instanced zone. either way not my cup of tea. and yeah i couldnt figure out the emotes either, only did about 4. apparently youre supposed to be able to script them together or something.