Age of Conan

I have some things to say on this particular issue.

I'm one of those hated "hardcore" gamers. Partially, it's because I like to absolutely murder the hell out of a game, and partially because I like to know what I'm talking about when I write reviews. That's why when I write them, they're very detailed, reflect many personal experiences, and are generally praised by the people who read them.

It took me around 12 days to hit 80 before, and that was what I accomplished having never played the game in beta, or knowing where to go or what to do. I have every bit of confidence that, if I wanted to, I could grind a new character to the cap in a few days, maybe 6 or 7.

Now, by no means am I suggesting that a developer should ever cater to the hardcore crowd; we're always going to finish your game faster than you expected, and we'll always be the first ones to point out every design flaw, in-game issue, and balance problem on the forums. However, hardcore or not, when there are full guilds, and I mean 5-7 guilds that are completely capped out to 80, with 50-100 members each, and in less than a month... well, that's just stupid.

I think the problems with Age of Conan are simple.

1) It's too linear. I saw a forum post describe it best actually. ! -> X -> ? -> ! -> X -> ? (x) 10, 000 = insanity. Not to mention the fact that you're herded through content all the way to 80. There's no incentive to explore, few special leveling areas, and zero "extra" content.

2) There's no point in being a high level. Most, if not all, of the end-game content is missing, broken, buggy, or pointless. Raids are severely impaired, and the loot tables absolutely suck there anyway. Sieges are wildly FUBAR'd. With recent patches, you can't even go back and pimp out your alt, because mini-bosses that are 40 levels lower than you are dominating your face for no good reason. So why level? All it really does is prevent you from getting ganked and drawing agro.

3) It's too easy. I shouldn't be able to grind out 30 levels in one day, period. That's poor design.

4) There's really not anything to do EXCEPT level. Crafting restricted until you're a high level, and once you are, see point #2. There's no fun side-quests, or mini-games. Seriously, you couldn't even include fishing? As stated earlier, there's no reason to explore. Farming mobs for loot is pointless, because loot absolutely sucks in this game. So you can log on and level, or if you're into it, RP, but other than that? There's nothing here.

5) They made it too casual. I would like to say I am *not* a trend of the casual play-style. I've always believed the more time you dedicate to a game, the better you should be. Funcom wanted everyone to experience everything. I've always thought a good time-line for a game would be 2-3 months for the hardcore players, 4-6 months for the dedicated players, and a full year for the casual players to experience an MMO in it's entirety. When your timeline is 1-3 weeks for a hardcore player, 2-4 weeks for a dedicated player, and 4-8 week for a casual player.... well, you just sold yourself too short.

Having said all that, I hear my guild talking about how no one logs in anymore. There's nothing to do. They can farm gold all day, which can sit in their inventory since there's nothing to buy. They log on to raid, hoping it will work. Some of them have 2-4 level 80 alts, and they just can't be bothered to even look at this game anymore.

However, I can't imagine paying another site or service to level for you, that's just pointless. Log in, do it yourself in a few weeks, and save your money. Or, if you want a real chuckle, take the 10-day challenge yourself. Start a character, get him to level 80 as fast as you can.

aoc has the potential to be great if it were more like ultima online and everquest 1

a mature related title needs difficulty to go with it

It should be IMPOSSIBLE to reach max level in 10 days, or 10 months.

World of Warcraft created a standard for dumbed down kiddie games that everyone can play and this is the result.

A string of developers from other companies trying to emulate their success by copying their formula.

an mmo on easy mode, where dying is an asset (like traveling quicker), and getting to max level is childsplay.

Originally posted by PoopyStuff

aoc has the potential to be great if it were more like ultima online and everquest 1

 

a mature related title needs difficulty to go with it

It should be IMPOSSIBLE to reach max level in 10 days, or 10 months.

 

World of Warcraft created a standard for dumbed down kiddie games that everyone can play and this is the result.

A string of developers from other companies trying to emulate their success by copying their formula.

an mmo on easy mode, where dying is an asset (like traveling quicker), and getting to max level is childsplay.

 

I hope you realise that when op mentioned 10 days it means 10x24 hours = 240 hours. So according to you reaching cap in a mmo should take more then 10 months. 10 months is like 300x24 hours = 7200 hours.

Originally posted by Arcken

Originally posted by grunty

Originally posted by Arcken

Originally posted by grunty

Providing a link to a power leveling website is against the RoC of this website.  I'd suggest you delete it.

Virtual Trading

• MMORPG.com does not allow the purchase, sale, or trade of in-game assets, accounts, or powerleveling services.

Forum Police! Open up or we'll ban your door down!
 

 

Yup.  I like this place.  I want to stay here.  That means obeying the RoC and seeing that it is enforced.  You too can do this.  Each post has a Report button over there on the right.

Yeah, but Ive never really been the apple polisher type. I love it when people stick it to "the man".
 

Arcken rocks...

Now thats out of the way....

Max level should be finished on day 1.........

Originally posted by PoopyStuff

aoc has the potential to be great if it were more like ultima online and everquest 1

 

a mature related title needs difficulty to go with it

It should be IMPOSSIBLE to reach max level in 10 days, or 10 months.

 

World of Warcraft created a standard for dumbed down kiddie games that everyone can play and this is the result.

A string of developers from other companies trying to emulate their success by copying their formula.

an mmo on easy mode, where dying is an asset (like traveling quicker), and getting to max level is childsplay.

 

I've really become tired of World of Warcraft being blamed for every failed MMO that has come around in the last 2 - 3 yrs. I for one never leveled to 60 in 4 days simply because i was able to move around and explore other area's and to craft/proffesions early on.

As far as AoC being as linear as it is with all the quests pushing you in one direction with no other place to go, that wasn't necessarly WoW.

WoW's crafting may not be fantastic but AoC's sucked. I can't even sell the gems I make to a vendor. WTH is that about?

I really wonder if you dont understand why so many companies are trying to emulate Blizzard. It was the first company/game to cater more to the casual/console gamer instead of a niche (  hard core gamers ).

I never played Ultima Online but I did play EQ for over 4 yrs. The reason I never PL or Grinded my way to max level wasnt that I couldnt but because I had so many other things I could do. There was so much to explore in EQ.

Im not trying to say that WoW is some fantastic game but it filled a void that no other developer was aware of at the time. Its Niche just happens to be 9 million subscriptions.

Also, just because a game is Mature rated, what does making it a 10 month grind have to do with that? If its mature its going to cater to 20+ crowed I'd hope. I dont know about you but most of us have jobs and family's and it doesnt mean I can or want to grind out for 10 months to play the end game.

I dont make it a point to post very often but I have grown weary of the WoW bashing because some FanBoy is upset his game isnt exactly as he imagined and decides to blame someone for it.  Yea, you may not be a FanBoy but that is a general statement that I'm sure hold's true.

I'm not a fanboy of aoc

I just hate to see more of the same in an industry already populated with cookie cutter leveling and death penalies

Dying used to suck

Traveling to the other side of the world used to take a good amount of time, and rightfully so...

Getting to max level, used to be an achievement, not the norm where you go into a populated area and everyone wears the same equipment and everyone is max level.

All these reasons are why I play eve-online.

Now some of you might say that game sucks, and your opinion is based on what you feel sucks about it

that's fine...  But dying hurts, there's no level cap, and traveling to the other side of the universe takes time.

I just wish the fantasy genre had a game more catered to the hardcore user, rather than the casual.

It's a shame too, cause gone are the days of legends like everquest and ultima.

Part of the culture too, everyone wants things easy, handed to them, and no consequences.  Guess its only natural that mmo's follow the weak trend of human behavior.

If you get lvl 80 in 10 days you missed the whole point and most of the fun.

Why would you buy a game for 50 $ and then grind the whole day, killing the most xp-efficient mob 24/7 ?

Do the quests, read the dialogs, enjoy the background story, and it will take you months to get there, hundreds of hours of entertainment instead of few days mindless grinding.

Never understood why someone would pay 50$ for the game, then pay even more so that someone else plays it to lvl 80. And then what, "enjoy" the game at 80 ?

Originally posted by Wagrof

If you get lvl 80 in 10 days you missed the whole point and most of the fun.

Why would you buy a game for 50 $ and then grind the whole day, killing the most xp-efficient mob 24/7 ?

Do the quests, read the dialogs, enjoy the background story, and it will take you months to get there, hundreds of hours of entertainment instead of few days mindless grinding.

 

Never understood why someone would pay 50$ for the game, then pay even more so that someone else plays it to lvl 80. And then what, "enjoy" the game at 80 ?

you also missed the fun because they left a lot of "fun" out. And the quests, meh, so repetitive. repetitive. repetitive. repetitive.