Been playing mmos for over a decade.  Have played 30+ mmos and have only had a couple resonate enough to keep me interested for more than a couple of months, those being the original UO, shadowbane, and EVE.  Currently subscribed to WoW but as everyone knows, its just not terribly fun.  Im gonna try a few upcoming MMOs, but I want something that can A) be a holdover till one comes out and B) is fun enough to come back to should the new ones suck.  Was pretty interested in AoC before it released, but was skeptical - when it came out and got all the horrid reviews I turned away and never looked back.  A friend suggested I try it but thought I'd see what the knowledgeable and flame free minds of mmorpg.com thought first :P  Thanks

Not worth it.

I think it is very worth it. I think there is still a free trial out there. Give it a go.

Only if you get a free trial for it. Funcom still needs to deliver many of what they promised, including sieges that never worked and are why I had my interest in the game on the first place. (and they dont really work, by any means)

I would recommend Guild Wars, it is perfect for situations like this since it has no monthly fees, you can just pay once and play whenever you want. I play it for some years and I still come back whenever there are no other better options. The PvE is not great, but it's funny and very different (looks more of a traditional RPG instead of an mmo). The problem is that there are 4 campaigns now (1 is an expansion, but that doesn't matter). Buying all of them is quite expensive and people won't group with you on end-game if you dont have them.

If you like pvp you can buy the pvp pack that is cheap and will give you many hours of gameplay. There are many PvP games, including Guild vs Guild, random arenas, team arenas, 1v1 arenas (each player controls 4 characters), 8v8 arenas, 'faction' wars and many minigames. Many would agree that it has the best PvP on any mmo.

If there is a free trial going, of course you should give it a try. It really isn't as bad as everyone says it is. Most of them have  hatred toward the  developers for one reason or another and go on emo rampages trying to turn everyone else off the game.

Just like every mmo, it has its positives and negatives, and only you can decide if  it's worth playing or something you enjoy.

Free trial = nothing to lose and you might find something you enjoy playing for a few months. Or you can listen to all the haters and skip it and never know if it was as bad as they all claimed it was.

It definitely doesnt play like your average mmo (combat is done a bit differently)  and  looks really nice in the graphics dept.  I can't comment on most of the other stuff since I haven't played in in a long time, but I hear they have added a  lot of content  and quests sine I last played.

Well, was going to download the free trial but funcom has temporarily taken them offline to let returning players come back "to the best possible conditions."  I actually loled when I read it, found it rather amusing :P  I'll keep checking back every week or 2 and maybe give it a go.  Thanks for your insights.

Originally posted by GauteIsBack

Originally posted by iamspamicus

If there is a free trial going, of course you should give it a try. It really isn't as bad as everyone says it is. Most of them have  hatred toward the  developers for one reason or another and go on emo rampages trying to turn everyone else off the game.

 

That is a very dumb thing to say. Using that logic I should try all the games that offer a free trial. Haven't you ever heard the expression "time is money"? No free trial is truly free. You need to invest a lot of time to a game and if you end up hating the game, you have just wasted precious hours of your short human life.

with the time u spend on these forums i would say u arent very rich then!

this guy is pure gold :)

back ontopic: the only thing i liked about aoc was the combat system, it is somewhat innovative and pretty challenging for melee professions when u start playing. it couldnt hold my attention tho

Since you don't like WOW then AOC may not be your type because AOC is WOW clone.

I would try it. i like it better than wow, has blood and nudity. The game play is similar to wow though.

Originally posted by Parameter

but thought I'd see what the knowledgeable and flame free minds of mmorpg.com thought first :P  Thanks

 

if you can pick out that 1 post out of 20 then you r lucky :p

i would give it a try though, thats what i do with all games that slightly interest me.

if there is a free trial give it a go if there is not wait till there is. or try to find a buddy key they still might work, not sure though

The trial is *well* worth trying!

AoC today is far more polished then what it was at launch and the current state should really have been the release state. However this never happened and we all know what happened between. I have a few buddy keys left that can be used for the eu servers, so if you cannot get a free trial I could provide you a buddy key so you can try it out.

If the game is worth playing only you know after you have tested it, however it depends on what you are looking for in a MMO. In many ways AoC is a wow clone, the main difference on the 2 games is that WoW is high fantasy and AoC is low fantasy. AoC also have a combo system for melee players that some players love, other hate them. You have classes and quest based grinding just like WoW, talent tree's and how you control the character also resembles wow and majority of other MMO's out there.

What I found good with AoC was the world and the music. The sounds and music in this game is really good, and worth trying the game out for just the music imo. Also the world has a more gritty and dark look of it compared to many other MMO's. You will find mutilated corpses, nudity, the zones are designed nicely and some of them are truly beatiful to look at. I like the game, and the quality today is not bad. It's far from the perfect MMO as it does miss a few things to become that, but I would say it's well worth the try. If you don't like it you haven't really lost any thing other then your time, but since you already are looking for a game to fill up sometime with until next big mmo arrives I assume it wouldn't be such a waste after all.

try this, its one of better mmos i tried. best was shadowbane, so we have common taste.

i quit aoc only because there was no death penalty, too softcore for me. but otherwise its great fun

Originally posted by roodi

Only if you get a free trial for it. Funcom still needs to deliver many of what they promised, including sieges that never worked and are why I had my interest in the game on the first place. (and they dont really work, by any means)

I would recommend Guild Wars, it is perfect for situations like this since it has no monthly fees, you can just pay once and play whenever you want. I play it for some years and I still come back whenever there are no other better options. The PvE is not great, but it's funny and very different (looks more of a traditional RPG instead of an mmo). The problem is that there are 4 campaigns now (1 is an expansion, but that doesn't matter). Buying all of them is quite expensive and people won't group with you on end-game if you dont have them.

If you like pvp you can buy the pvp pack that is cheap and will give you many hours of gameplay. There are many PvP games, including Guild vs Guild, random arenas, team arenas, 1v1 arenas (each player controls 4 characters), 8v8 arenas, 'faction' wars and many minigames. Many would agree that it has the best PvP on any mmo.

I would have to agree. I'm currently not playing a mmorpg (except for Aion beta) but for me GWs has been a great time while I wait to see what comes out. I may buy Aion but the more I play GWs the more I feel I might just wait for GW2 to hit the shelves.

For me GWs has been a great placeholder in the meantime...especially once you learn the game mechanics and get into some tougher content. Alot of people overlook GWs because its an instanced world, but imo its probly the most uniqe and fun mmo on the market. Pvp/Pve is very addictive, balanced and fun. Just make sure you find a good guild to meet some people to help you learn how the game works. It has a fairly steep learning curve. 

 Did I mention its free to play each month? :-) Good luck!!

Age of Conan was a pretty enjoyable game when it came out up until about the mid 20 levels and higher when the content started to get scarce. Ignore the people that say it is a WoW clone as that is really not true other than it is another fantasy D&D style MMO game.

I've gone back and given AoC a try with the free 14 day trial offer they have made but wasn't able to really get into it again but I think that is more an issue with me than the game plus the fact that I am planning on giving Aion a try. Having said that there certainly were a fair number of higher level players and guild members running about so if you do enjoy AoC the population on the servers seems reasonable.

Originally posted by Parameter

Been playing mmos for over a decade.  Have played 30+ mmos and have only had a couple resonate enough to keep me interested for more than a couple of months, those being the original UO, shadowbane, and EVE.  Currently subscribed to WoW but as everyone knows, its just not terribly fun.  Im gonna try a few upcoming MMOs, but I want something that can A) be a holdover till one comes out and B) is fun enough to come back to should the new ones suck.  Was pretty interested in AoC before it released, but was skeptical - when it came out and got all the horrid reviews I turned away and never looked back.  A friend suggested I try it but thought I'd see what the knowledgeable and flame free minds of mmorpg.com thought first :P  Thanks

 

I would advise you to give the 14 day free trial a try. I would be wary of suggesting you subscribe. Certainly do the month to month option as there is a point where the charm suddenly drops off. There is also the fact that the pace of development and improvement is exceedingly slow and the company behind it is shrewd, uncaring, and only after the money not delivering goods or services.

Give that you've got years of MMOs under your belt, AOC doesn't really offer you anything new. Its a good looking world but the immersion falls apart after Tortage, and going back thru Tortage with subsequent characters is a nightmare. Once you make it to 80 you'll find there isn't much to do so it gets boring and repetitive. It could take you a few weeks or a few months to get there but when you do thats it.

Your skeptism will be confirmed if you play to level 40-60 and it doesn't get better really as time goes on unfortunately. Even today the only things they've have really fixed in AOC is performance and adding DX10. Everything else has not really been touched since launch.

Sure.... if you like a totally instanced world with kinda lots of loading screens (even when you die in the same zone...) then you should give it a try!

I had lots of fun with it from 1-35ish back when it launched.  From there to 80 it kinda went downhill for me, resulting in my cancellation.  I loved the open world pvp as I was leveling, but then again, everyone was leveling so there wasn't a huge population of capped players preying on those half their level.

I've read some changes have been made, but I can't bring myself to get excited about the game again.  I will echo that it'll just cost you some dl time to give the trial a go to see if its your thing.

Good luck!

Worth trying? Yes, if you mean trying the trial. If you still want to play after the trial is over... well, try it for a month. If you still want to play it after the paid month is over... then it's highly likely the game will offer a lot to you. Oh, and some advice - join a guild immediately.

I found the charm dropped away real quick, espicially if you make more than one character, plus the chat channels on every server I tried were just filled with pointless banter all the time, barrens chart everywhere with plenty of trolls and people just waiting to find someone to insult. I also never seen more discussion about other MMO's in any other game, probably put together.

not neccarily the reason to say no, but just throwing that out there, now before everyone wants to say "the community is great" and "I don't know what I'm talking about" save your breath, I played for maybe 48 hours total, with equal time on three different servers, (core rp and pvp) and noticed the same trend on all three, if you do join up, try finding a guild, and turn the world chat off.

Like Morgaren said - join a guild and turn off global chat, unless you want to hear constant bickering about MMOs (yes, in AoC people talk more about other games than AoC itself, go figure) and profanities of all sorts.

I appreciate all the responses - and for the most part, no flames, which surprised the hell out of me.  But, after thinking about it, when the trial comes up again I willl probably give it a go if only to pass a few days - Im going to be picking up Aion when it comes out and I have a feeling that it will be the next shadowbane for me.  Until then, there is no harm in giving some free things a chance ;]  Again, thanks for all the responses.

Originally posted by Parameter

I appreciate all the responses - and for the most part, no flames, which surprised the hell out of me.  But, after thinking about it, when the trial comes up again I willl probably give it a go if only to pass a few days - Im going to be picking up Aion when it comes out and I have a feeling that it will be the next shadowbane for me.  Until then, there is no harm in giving some free things a chance ;]  Again, thanks for all the responses.

Can get AoC free trial here....

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/age-of-conan/trial/

Just need to register. Do NOT have to be a fileplanet subscriber.

Worth the free trail? Certainly. Worth subscribing to? That's your decision. As for me Funcom promised us all a sizziling steak, all I got was last nights stale garlic bread and a can of flat lager with ciggarette ends in it :(

Yes I believe it is worth it. Don't listen to all the wow fanboy naysayers, they have no idea!