So, everyone and their mother has a thread like this going, so I thought I'd add mine to the mix.

First a little background: I played AoC at beta and despite the many problems with the game, I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning levels in Tortage and couldn't wait for the actual release. The game launched and I began play excited. Levels 1-20 were just as much as a blast as beta, and then the game began to open up. My first glitchy steps into Tarantia were filled with excitement. The large city looked amazing and I couldn't wait to get playing. Within a week, I hit 45 and continued play, only to realize a lack of quests and content. The game slowed down, and the bugs that I had been ignoring began to catch up with me. My month of time ran out and I didn't renew.

Then Funcom launched the 10 day trial and I thought that I would try it out. Sure enough, creating a character in Tortage is fun, but not when you've already played it once. I played enough to notice that most of the small animation bugs were fixed, but I didn't feel like playing Tortage again, so I quit.

Finally, I get to reactivate my account. And I am happy to say that AoC is significantly better than when I last played. Not only does the game run great without giant memory leaks, but I noticed an increase in content. I havn't yet moved into Ymir's pass, but I did notice an increase in quests in pre-existing areas (such as the Fields of the Dead). Though I am not sure I like the criminal system and I seem to die to casters a lot, I am enjoying AoC a lot. The new item chatacteristics are much more understandable (the first thing I noticed was that my gear sucked XD) and this new rush of players allows for very easy grouping.

So far the only bug I've encountered is that when I get killed on my horse, my corpse goes flying in a random direction, but this doesn't bother me that much. I am currently deciding what I want to roll my new level 50 as (which is great because I can skip Tortage).

Without getting into too many specifics (I gotta run to the store in a sec), overall, this game has improved a lot, and for those of you who used to play, I urge you to check the game out again. I am pretty impressed and I think I will continue playing AoC after my 2 weeks of time is up.

Too bad my concern was and will always be the chopped to bits gameworld. All the zoning and channeling really ruined 'mah immershunz' while playing it. Bugs and lacking client stability are almost always post launch issues which get adressed eventually. Structural flaws or bad decisions in game design sadly are not.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Too bad my concern was and will always be the chopped to bits gameworld. All the zoning and channeling really ruined 'mah immershunz' while playing it. Bugs and lacking client stability are almost always post launch issues which get adressed eventually. Structural flaws or bad decisions in game design sadly are not.

So i dare ask, for someone who actually enjoys zones/instanced games like Guild Wars and DDO, could I enjoy AoC?

Originally posted by DarkPony

Too bad my concern was and will always be the chopped to bits gameworld. All the zoning and channeling really ruined 'mah immershunz' while playing it. Bugs and lacking client stability are almost always post launch issues which get adressed eventually. Structural flaws or bad decisions in game design sadly are not.

This is one of my other concerns with the game. While the loading screens do seem to interrupt the natural flow of the game, they do not bother me as much as they used to because the loading bar does move significantly faster.

Originally posted by rev_lazaro

Originally posted by DarkPony

Too bad my concern was and will always be the chopped to bits gameworld. All the zoning and channeling really ruined 'mah immershunz' while playing it. Bugs and lacking client stability are almost always post launch issues which get adressed eventually. Structural flaws or bad decisions in game design sadly are not.

 

So i dare ask, for someone who actually enjoys zones/instanced games like Guild Wars and DDO, could I enjoy AoC?

 

Yes, you sure could. Actually it is much better than guildwars in my book since you at least get to share the channel you are in with random other people. Combat, animations, graphics, sound, all are pretty good in AOC.

Originally posted by rev_lazaro

Originally posted by DarkPony

Too bad my concern was and will always be the chopped to bits gameworld. All the zoning and channeling really ruined 'mah immershunz' while playing it. Bugs and lacking client stability are almost always post launch issues which get adressed eventually. Structural flaws or bad decisions in game design sadly are not.

 

So i dare ask, for someone who actually enjoys zones/instanced games like Guild Wars and DDO, could I enjoy AoC?

 

Well, I have to say, Guild Wars is probably one of my favorite mmos (I have also probably spent the most time in it), but there is a radical difference between AoC and Guild Wars instancing. Whereas the instancing in Guild Wars just seems to fit, you can't help but feel that AoC was meant to be completely seamless. Not only that, but the GW loading times are literally like 1 second waits.

At 26gb this game is a joke, the free trial is a joke.  No wonder they are looking for ways to reduce the footprint of the game on your system.   That is a minimum 2 day download for most of us.

Since downloading is out, finding the game is neigh impossible to find on store shelves. Have not seen it anywhere lately at all.

/edit

Never mind, the quote function destroyed my post.

I Will brimg thih up another time!!

Originally posted by Ozmodan

At 26gb this game is a joke, the free trial is a joke.  No wonder they are looking for ways to reduce the footprint of the game on your system.   That is a minimum 2 day download for most of us.

Since downloading is out, finding the game is neigh impossible to find on store shelves. Have not seen it anywhere lately at all.

Hmm, well I've seen a few copies at Gamestop and Bestbuy within the past week for extremely cheap. And yes I agree the file size is large, but I have the CD keys, so patching only took me about and hour and a half :)

AoC for me was always missing something, i never could put my finger on it. I played for about 3 weeks and quickly left without a hesitation. The overall world seemed unpolished I guess? Or the pvp/siege part of it bores me? Too much ganking? Too many dirty apes rolling naked girls maybe? I love crafting as well and AoCs crafting is literally a crapfest. I'm not sure what it is but my g/f and I pretty much wasted approx. $70 trying it before a trial was out. AoC would need a major overhaul and then some to make me come back. Well, maybe if they paid me to play I'd return....      /shrug