So I just got a DT to 30 and a ToS  to 24 and have to say I am really enjoying this game. It is early on but I have to say it is one of the best MMOPRGs I've ever played. Granted I am low level and haven't seen the dungeons nor PVP/Seige stuff yet but so far it has a lot I like and some of the things it has I don't like are overcome by the atmosphere and setting.

Setting: I'm a big ancient history buff and the Conan setting mirrors my glamorized view of ancient civilizations. The Beauty of the world combined with the brutality of the combat gives you that new world Roman empire/Egyptian Dynasty vibe. In many games like EQ2 and COH, instancing really bugged me. In Conan I really haven't minded it. I enter a dungeon and get a loading screen with gorgeous art.  I enter a bar and get a loading screen complete with actual text from Conan books. It's not to bad unless my internet is going slow. Overall the zones are large and get bigger once outside of Tortage. I dig the realistic look in games and the characters and world not looking cartoony aid with my immersion and help the instancing not be a game breaker for me.

Combat: I played EQ in the early days and you basically hit an attack and went a made a sandwich if you were a tank class. In EQ2 You spent most of your time clicking buttons to combo with someone else and not even watching your world. Conan is a nice in-between. You have combos and directional hits but it's not 4 bars of stuff to control where you don't even look at your character or the world because your so busy. The animations are nice and they make your character look like a bada$$ swinging the sword and jabbing in different directions instead of constant overhand swing. The fatalities are sweet also and they help overcome another of my dislikes.; You ever get a quest to kill Chieftan Boss mob but 90 of his minions have spawned and you have to fight thru them all? Worse than that are the "Get 10 Bear gizzards" quests but you end up killing 1000 bears to get them due to aggro? These quests are in Conan just like in WOW or any other MMORPG but now you stand a chance of decapitating said minion or gutting the bear all over the ground complete with Dragonage like splatters. In other words combat makes some of the less exciting quests still feel fun. I removed four heads including the boss and ran three more thru clearing out a underground cavern. Definitely felt less grindy and more like "High adventure".

Characters: I was a bit worried on characters. I love games with Monsters for characters. In D&D I always play something besides human. If it has a tail, scales, horns then even better. Suprisingly, the graphics and animations made my guy feel cool even though everyone is some variation of human. My main guy looks like a cross between the bassist for Anthrax and the Marvel comics version of Conan. My Tempest has tatoos and the Egyptian goatee. He looks like he could be an evil priest in one of the Mummy movies. They just look cool and it becomes obsessive to log in and try and get them from the starting diaper to some of the cool armors and weapons of the end game. The servers are populated enough to that at lvl 20 when you get to your home city you get to see those high lvls wandering around and you definitely want to chase the carrot.

Story: So far the story has been excellent. Tortage was as fun as Dragonage or Neverwinter nights to me and although the next area lost voice overs, it still had a cool feel to it.

Overall it was a nice gem I found after the fact. I was bored of MMORPGs and this lit my fire again. Definitely recommend it to anyone that likes a little darker fantasy, a little violence and a cool world that mirrors our own lost civilizations. Enjoy!

I agree, AoC is more of a leveling MMO and WoW and EQ are more end game MMOs....but WoW and EQ do have more leveling content and had it at release....like more areas and way more grouping instances and zones.  But the graphics are pretty and animations are nice.

The combat is the same as WoW or EQ2...both games have sequences of which button order to press to optimize damage or healing and utility....AoC made it so you have fewer abilities and choices and added arrows as fillers for a console port but IDK I kind of prefer more abilities as it gives more options..all MMOs have that global cooldown and AoC does the same with arrows but in the end you use much fewer abilities and have choices, mainly in PvP choices are nice....if combos where better geared towards direction and shielding worked better it would be nice though but it was pretty dumbed down from what was intended at launch and even more so now.

 I had to press 25 abilities with my BS in order to be effective in combat and barb and conqs had the same. Fillers? You really should have tried the game ...

[Mod Edit]

Originally posted by Abraxos

So I just got a DT to 30 and a ToS  to 24 and have to say I am really enjoying this game. It is early on but I have to say it is one of the best MMOPRGs I've ever played. Granted I am low level and haven't seen the dungeons nor PVP/Seige stuff yet but so far it has a lot I like and some of the things it has I don't like are overcome by the atmosphere and setting.

Setting: I'm a big ancient history buff and the Conan setting mirrors my glamorized view of ancient civilizations. The Beauty of the world combined with the brutality of the combat gives you that new world Roman empire/Egyptian Dynasty vibe. In many games like EQ2 and COH, instancing really bugged me. In Conan I really haven't minded it. I enter a dungeon and get a loading screen with gorgeous art.  I enter a bar and get a loading screen complete with actual text from Conan books. It's not to bad unless my internet is going slow. Overall the zones are large and get bigger once outside of Tortage. I dig the realistic look in games and the characters and world not looking cartoony aid with my immersion and help the instancing not be a game breaker for me.

Combat: I played EQ in the early days and you basically hit an attack and went a made a sandwich if you were a tank class. In EQ2 You spent most of your time clicking buttons to combo with someone else and not even watching your world. Conan is a nice in-between. You have combos and directional hits but it's not 4 bars of stuff to control where you don't even look at your character or the world because your so busy. The animations are nice and they make your character look like a bada$$ swinging the sword and jabbing in different directions instead of constant overhand swing. The fatalities are sweet also and they help overcome another of my dislikes.; You ever get a quest to kill Chieftan Boss mob but 90 of his minions have spawned and you have to fight thru them all? Worse than that are the "Get 10 Bear gizzards" quests but you end up killing 1000 bears to get them due to aggro? These quests are in Conan just like in WOW or any other MMORPG but now you stand a chance of decapitating said minion or gutting the bear all over the ground complete with Dragonage like splatters. In other words combat makes some of the less exciting quests still feel fun. I removed four heads including the boss and ran three more thru clearing out a underground cavern. Definitely felt less grindy and more like "High adventure".

Characters: I was a bit worried on characters. I love games with Monsters for characters. In D&D I always play something besides human. If it has a tail, scales, horns then even better. Suprisingly, the graphics and animations made my guy feel cool even though everyone is some variation of human. My main guy looks like a cross between the bassist for Anthrax and the Marvel comics version of Conan. My Tempest has tatoos and the Egyptian goatee. He looks like he could be an evil priest in one of the Mummy movies. They just look cool and it becomes obsessive to log in and try and get them from the starting diaper to some of the cool armors and weapons of the end game. The servers are populated enough to that at lvl 20 when you get to your home city you get to see those high lvls wandering around and you definitely want to chase the carrot.

Story: So far the story has been excellent. Tortage was as fun as Dragonage or Neverwinter nights to me and although the next area lost voice overs, it still had a cool feel to it.

Overall it was a nice gem I found after the fact. I was bored of MMORPGs and this lit my fire again. Definitely recommend it to anyone that likes a little darker fantasy, a little violence and a cool world that mirrors our own lost civilizations. Enjoy!

 

Thank you for the write up of impressions, good to keep tabs on current feelings.

Shame poster # 2 didn't read what you wrote.

Originally posted by nihce

 I had to press 25 abilities with my BS in order to be effective in combat and barb and conqs had the same. Fillers? You really should have tried the game ...

[Mod Edit]

The well played bear shaman usually just used the "BEST" abilities which is maybe 3 and then a couple heal spells if they need it and maybe a few boosters with LONG cooldowns.  The bread and butter damage and healing list was pretty short as those abilities would refresh and the filler arrows spent time to make fewer choices..

IDK why you would use so many, I know for a fact conq and barbs used even fewer because they would use 2 ranks of the same ability and cycle in a quick cast ability and start again so 3 abilities and the 4th and maybe 5th where a starter from stealth or charge or something...but most the time is spent pressing filler arrow keys in the same sequence in the long drawn out fights of today that PvPers enjoy or while beating on Mobs in instances for a couple hrs a week.

My point is in 5 minutes of combat or PvP you pretty much cycle through the same 3-5 abilities including down ranks and each time you do the same exact filler arrow keys with a few boosters/buffs or the new shields that every class gets with much longer cooldowns...but even EQ 1 had buffs and short term boosts.  The amount of abilities and decisions is no where near what you have in WoW or EQ, but that is OK as this is built to be a console game. Oblivion was built to be a console game and it had fewer abilities and an easy to use system so people can be effective with a controller...it would have been better built for PC imo but console games can't be to complex, no judgment there is just not my personal taste for an MMO game.

i was the best bs back in the day on wildsoul and in top 5 on fury. yes, we used only 2 or 3 combos - but there were SHITLOAD of dps and some debuff abilities one had to cast 

Most modern game's combat consists of  button mashing. I was just saying that the feel of the world, the graphics, the fatalities, the animations were nice to make it feel fresh. Most MMORPGers have tried that first "great game" and then jumped around to 20 others so anything that makes it feel different and exciting in my opinion is cool.

The main point of my original post was that the game world kinda grabbed me. If the expansion opens up more of that world then I could see myself playing for a while.  I didn't play at release but what I see now feels pretty polished.

The game is really top notched compared to other games out there right now.  Complaints (imo) on the combat system are petty and silly at best. I believe that most of AOC complaints are people who cant get over the launch problems. The game has come a long way since then. Glad to see your enjoying the game.

(BBBBWWWWWAAAHHHH shows Thoth Amon the plunger/lightsaber combo. Thoth Amon flees in terror!)

Of all the games I quit shortly after lauch, AOC seemed to be one that really did have 'potential' to be good.

Were I to go back to level based PVP games again I'd probably give it another go, but I've sort of moved away from that design model.

I have to agree with the positive comments here. I unsubscribed six hours after I bought the game (just after launch), resubscribed last summer and played for a few months (alt-oholic...) before un-subbing to try out a few other games. I re-subbed last night (new machine...oh how I love thee DX10) and I'm really enjoying myself again.

True, the combat system isn't for everyone but it makes a change from simple button mashing - even if it's a case of it being complicated button mashing. I've spent the last few hours trying to remember the best sequence of combos for my 71 Bear Shaman...tricky.

Tonight will see me mashing a few villas quests, maybe trying to find a group for the Amphitheatre and enjoying some light RP. Good luck on your adventures, OP. Try and get a group for Black Castle or Sanctum or level up a bit and visit The Pyramid of the Ancients (just get a few beers in first and put a few hours aside...) - there is lots more fun awaiting you!