Age of Conan

 A  Sand Box mmo is EvE online but i dont understand how  this poster said that AOC isnt sandbox where

u can actualy take land and build  your cities and pvp? I mean even in EvE tehere are zones that npc will defend and will kill you if u  try to kill another player. You can take space in  0.0 security too I cant think of any  mmo thats pure sandbox  I mean the only mmo thats still in the making that sound like total sandbox is Darkfall but that might be vapor ware .

Originally posted by openedge1

I agree in that the point is missed..

What we see is what ALL MMO's are and will be...

We must enjoy that ride while we can, because the next time it may not be as fun..

All I know is right now AoC feels like a brand new Porsche...

Until it ages...and then I will be driving a clunker...

Good points indeed

Not so. All MMOs are not linear. Its just a recent trend brought on by the success of WoW. Now mainstream MMOs like to focus on boring repetative quests and item based content. The best MMOs were the earlier ones with experimentation in various designs, and the most sought after, the sandbox. Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, and SWG were great sandbox games. We'll return to the trend someday hopefully, but MMOs are too mainstream right now, and developers like going the boring safe route and make games like AoC that are virtually the same game that released last year with better graphics.

AoC is not a sandbox. Its heavily instanced and regulated. The PvP zone is an instanced branch where you need permission to attack eachother and the numbers are hard capped. Player cities are nothing new, they've been around since 2001 and are also separate from most of the content.

Again, on level advancement vs skill/gear advancement.

 Look, I've played games that were very skill based (EVE, anyone? Others as well). In everey one, no matter how varied your potential is, there's always 5-6 major paths that everyone steers into. These essentially become classes. Ditto with weapon/armour sets. Certain sets become fotm, and then all that veriety gets funnelled down into a couple small groupings. It's classes by another name.

And challenge in battle? It's the same thing. Sure at x level I know I can take down x mob....but I ALSO know with x skillsets/gearsets I can take down X mob. One thing is the same as another, just worded different.

Originally posted by jiveturkey12

 

Originally posted by Blackbandit9

 

Originally posted by admriker4

Originally posted by 46ntool

You need to quit worrying about the future and enjoy the moment!!! you will never be happy if you dont enjoy the moment!!!!!!!!!! This is the key to life!!!! and no im not high!!!!!!

I am enjoying the game (or moment as you stated). However that moment will quickly be over since its a linear game. Had Funcom made it sandbox style, I might be around to enjoy the "moment" for  years and years

 

Thank you for your attempt to explain to these people that another type of MMO does indeed exist.  Not having an NPC standing there telling these people what to do, I don't know how they would survive to enjoy themselves.  Age of Conan was hailed as some to be the game that would kill WoW.  Fifteen minutes into the game I found myself crying.  Crying I was laughing so hard at these people (myself included) that put their faith into this.....below par game (sadly WoW has established itself as the par).  I feel screwed, but alas... I will take some of the above advice and continue playing before writing a complete novel about how bad the game is.

I've recently started playing EVE and while their time-based progression system isn't very newbie friendly, for veteran players I can certainly see why it is appealing and I am playing the game because it appears EVE cares more about their veteran community than attracting a new audience.  The game is appealing because you can choose to have missions given to you or you can choose to go about your own way of making ISK.

WoW was a good game.  I don't believe any linear MMO will ever compete with WoW as long as Blizzard doesn't screw it up.  WoW seems to have everything pretty close to perfect for those that enjoy that gamestyle (which I did for over a year).  After going through my third character however, I realized I was replaying months and months of my life all to simply change my class - something I can do in a sandbox MMOsin weeks, days, or even hours.

Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU and even a little post-CU) was the ideal example of a sandbox game.  I knew a guy who played the game for 2 years and guess how many mobs he killed in his entire time playing?  ZERO.  Most of you can't even fathom the idea of being able to spend hours a day tending harvesters, factories, and your shops, stocking them with armor, weapons, food, buildings, and more and enjoying it.  The idea of obtaining a special weapon and not having it last forever, most of you would've quit right there.  I got excited about Conan's player cities until I read further.  Even player cities, something that sounds like a perfect "build it how you want to build it" have huge restrictions on location placement of buildings.

I played SWG from a few months after release until the day the NGE was released.  What is sad is the state that SOE released and left the game in.  Lie after lie, change after change, I watched the life get sucked out of that game.  I know most of you are sick of the SWG sob stories (myself included) so I will save that for the Refugee forum.

It is terrible but most of you will never even realize that  there... is... another...

 

Nice way to sound like a complete tool, to even a person who loves sandbox style games. Even with my love of pre-cu, and how much i did enjoy the few months i had of EvE, sandbox games are in no way or form more "Elite" as you seem to be describing them as level based games. By comments like "most of you will never realize" who do you think you are honestly?

 

Yes its true in SWG, i had a 8 hour stay inside a cantina where i just talked and listened to the music and had fun. Singing jeepers creepers to the tune of an in game song.

Yes its true in SWG i built a city, I stood from the top of a hill and looked down on it and it was wonderful and my creation. I raised a good amount of people only to see it crumble a month later by someone elses doing, standing atop the same mountain with no city below.

Yes it was the most real world experiance i had of another world that "I" created, by having my own weapons i made and armor i crafted.

 

But then at the same time you have a game like WoW

 

Were I went into the deadmines for the first time, and after i got out, i thought "Man that was a "Real" adventure", like nothing i had ever seen before.

Or the time i went to Tarren mill with my guild and watched a group of 25 horde come up from the road at us full bore and we charged into battle giving me the feeling i was in a smaller versiuon of braveheart.

Yes once i tricked my asshole guild leader into thinking that the whole guild was against her and that she was going to loose of all friends, leading to the demise of my guild of months and causing her to quit the game.

 

 

Yes there is other things out there, but you can enjoy both equally, just dont burn yourself out by playing a game style you dont like for months at a time.

 

-Jive

You seemed to answer your own question about why I feel sandbox games are elite, or else you obviously don't understand the point of most of these posts.  You enjoyed the deadmines your FIRST TIME through.  You probably had fun runs 2-5 as well.  What about number 6?  You probably enjoyed run number 15 because it was much different than the previous 14, right?  Wrong.  If you enjoyed running the same instance, over and over (which is the basis for the game - involving end-game PvE content) then you really do indeed belong in WoW and should not try to dabble in another.

By the way, if you think you're good at tricking people, EVE online is the game for you.  Aside from pirating, there are a lot of people who make a fortune off getting into corps, gaining trust, then walking away with the bank.  The beautiful thing about this, it is not only allowed but encouraged to keep people on their toes.  If such a thing happened in WoW, 50 people would petition, a GM would investigate, and the guild would be returned their gold and told "to be careful."  It reminds me of a mother/child relationship.

Originally posted by admriker4

 

Originally posted by Blackbandit9

 

Originally posted by admriker4

Originally posted by 46ntool

You need to quit worrying about the future and enjoy the moment!!! you will never be happy if you dont enjoy the moment!!!!!!!!!! This is the key to life!!!! and no im not high!!!!!!

I am enjoying the game (or moment as you stated). However that moment will quickly be over since its a linear game. Had Funcom made it sandbox style, I might be around to enjoy the "moment" for  years and years

 

Thank you for your attempt to explain to these people that another type of MMO does indeed exist.  Not having an NPC standing there telling these people what to do, I don't know how they would survive to enjoy themselves.  Age of Conan was hailed as some to be the game that would kill WoW.  Fifteen minutes into the game I found myself crying.  Crying I was laughing so hard at these people (myself included) that put their faith into this.....below par game (sadly WoW has established itself as the par).  I feel screwed, but alas... I will take some of the above advice and continue playing before writing a complete novel about how bad the game is.

I've recently started playing EVE and while their time-based progression system isn't very newbie friendly, for veteran players I can certainly see why it is appealing and I am playing the game because it appears EVE cares more about their veteran community than attracting a new audience.  The game is appealing because you can choose to have missions given to you or you can choose to go about your own way of making ISK.

WoW was a good game.  I don't believe any linear MMO will ever compete with WoW as long as Blizzard doesn't screw it up.  WoW seems to have everything pretty close to perfect for those that enjoy that gamestyle (which I did for over a year).  After going through my third character however, I realized I was replaying months and months of my life all to simply change my class - something I can do in a sandbox MMOsin weeks, days, or even hours.

Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU and even a little post-CU) was the ideal example of a sandbox game.  I knew a guy who played the game for 2 years and guess how many mobs he killed in his entire time playing?  ZERO.  Most of you can't even fathom the idea of being able to spend hours a day tending harvesters, factories, and your shops, stocking them with armor, weapons, food, buildings, and more and enjoying it.  The idea of obtaining a special weapon and not having it last forever, most of you would've quit right there.  I got excited about Conan's player cities until I read further.  Even player cities, something that sounds like a perfect "build it how you want to build it" have huge restrictions on location placement of buildings.

I played SWG from a few months after release until the day the NGE was released.  What is sad is the state that SOE released and left the game in.  Lie after lie, change after change, I watched the life get sucked out of that game.  I know most of you are sick of the SWG sob stories (myself included) so I will save that for the Refugee forum.

It is terrible but most of you will never even realize that  there... is... another...

 

thanks for the post in support ! You got me rethinking of trying EVE again (i played it once for about a week 2 yrs ago).

SWG will always be a painful reminder as long as developers refuse to make us another virtual sandbox world. I often think about my old shop and the events held like weddings, pvp contests with prizes, it was a real-life community and I miss it

The things people did, it encouraged creativity, cleverness, and teamwork to accomplish some of the player ran events.  Games like WoW and AoC sadly don't even allow someone to think outside the box.  I remember going back after a few months of the NGE for a day to check my friend's list.  It was a sad sight to see my once large and active list, show everyone I knew as "offline" and I knew that mean't they were gone.

I too tried EVE awhile back and thought I would enjoy the game but realized how much time had to be invested in training the skills before you could really experience the game so I stopped playing, but kepting training.  I guess the money invested and time spent is paying off, now that I'm enjoying getting past the simple beginnings.

Originally posted by admriker4

 

5/19/08 4:46 PM

right now Im lvl 23 PoM on Wiccana

5/19/08 4:42 PM
I finally got in last night to play Age of Conan.

5/19/08 2:05 PM
from what Ive read, the mirrored instances are invisible.

5/19/08 11:14 AM
I dont want to put up with the silly griefing / gankfest in 2 days when amazon finally ships me my copy.

5/18/08 2:34 PM
I pre-ordered from amazon.com 2 months ago. They sent me the CD key code yesterday so obviously I didnt get into early access.

How did you get into EA? And you already played through so many times that you feel the need to throw up? Wow, you're fast.

This is probably one of the best reviews i read, expressing the current sad state of linear fetch quest mmorpgs pioneered by blizzard. Unfortunately based on all the replies from the wow-era players, most dont have a clue what the author was even talking about.
 
Admriker4, i agree only 3 mmorpgs that came close - UO, SWG, and EVE. Imo UO achieved a true free market player driven world before it was ruined by the later expansions. SWG had so much potential to be the next UO, before soe completely killed it. Eve is great, too bad i am not that into space type mmorpg either.

It's really sad the current state of mmorpgs, once the developers see the success of WoW, every single mmorpg since then is a copycat of the quest driven linear progression model of wow. But it's only a great system the first time you play it (part of the reason why wow was so popular). You basically going through the soulless game quest after quest like a zombie, until maxed out in a few months, then just sit around doing raid/pvp until the expansion or quit from boredom.

There is nothing on the horizon that suggest any change either, the next big thing warhammer looks to be exactly the same type of game with a better pvp/raid system at the endgame.

Is it too much to ask just to have 1 free world sandbox mmorpg for the old players who desire long term character development and progression over instant gratification?

---

Originally posted by admriker4

 

I finally got in last night to play Age of Conan. It reminds me of every single MMO Ive played recently. Lots and lots of quests (too many to be honest), interesting storyline, fun combat, great soundtrack, and beautiful graphics.
Having said that, AoC is just another amusement park carnival with fixed rides. Its amazing the 1st time you try the rides. Its a blast the second time. The 3rd time, meh its okay. By the 5th time your throwing up that cotton candy and hot dog you bought from that seedy looking carny.
This will nearly always be the case with this type of MMO. Linear focus with a high concentration