Originally posted by reillan

Something tells me my lvl 80 guardian I created the first day and played only the first 2 months on is long gone... so...

 Log in and se if he is there. Becouse og server merges you might need to change name and select new server for free.

My launch characters were still there.

The game is a good game period. There is no more issues than any other mmo out there and it runs great ( better than ever)  for me on my old machine with the graphics cranked up to high - smooth and no problems. AOC could have been should have been...yes. So should have so many games, however it's still fun to play ( if you aren't the type of person who needs a game to be something you devote your whole reason for exsisting on ) and now to be able to try it for free it's a no brainer to try it for a first time or come back to enjoy it again. I love just killing stuff in this game it's rewarding enough :)

Originally posted by TSWBETAROGS

 You are werry misinformed. AoC is werry high perority for Funcom, and the have a large team working on AoC improvements and patches. There has been alot of co-operation between Funcom and the team that is making the Conan movie. A large playfield with a number of dungens is to be lanched i august when the movie is lanched.  This expantion/large patch is based on the movie. A large problem for AoC has been the low population lvl upp from 1-80. This has put of new players from playing. Freemium has been good for games like LOTRO and hopefully it will be the same for AoC. And what gamecompany dont whant to make money of a game, that the can make more content for and make it a proud flagship for this relatively smal company. TSW is comming along great and hopefully will lanch with a lot less tech problem as the new game engine has been tested on AoC. And if you dont have the HW to run the game realy stop the trolling, this game has high HW requirements becouse it is the best loocking AAA MMORPG ATM. And people are all free to shop what they whant. The game restrictions is not wors than any othe freemium game.

In my opinion Funcom will funnel enough resource into the game to meet whatever obligations they have contracted for, but I doubt they will do anything more.  The Conan movie has been talked about for a long time even involving people like John Milius at one point. Not once did I hear anything about Funcom and their involvement until the 11th hour.  So how close their co-operation in this project is I don't know.  Seems to me like they have suddenly realised a new Conan movie is due for release.

The issue I have with AOC that I don't have with other MMO's is AOC could have been a world beater, if it had been steered in the right direction.  But rather than play to it's initial strengths like PVP these areas where ignored for what I term as 'fluff'.  Content that nobody wants, nobody requested, but for some reason the GD thought was a good idea.   Funcom have never listened to their users and they had a golden opportunity to produce what could of been a great game. 

Their new skirmish into free to play I don't know if it will work. Personally I see it as quite a cold move to get what remaining cash they can get out of the game.  Their financial report stated they will have a negative cash flow situation until the expected success of The Secret World.  Are they really going to invest time, energy and money into a game that is teetering on the edge of oblivion?  Or are they going to plow as much resource as they can muster into making The Secret World a success.  

As for hardware, my hardware is more than adequate to run AOC.  But for some reason AOC doesn't want to play ball.  The only limitation I still have which might cause issue, for the memory munching game engine, is that I still have a 32 bit OS.

Side note with regard to Hardware - AOC worked better for me on my old machine with a single cpu and a 256mb graphics card when AOC was version 1.6.  I started getting problems when I upgraded hardware to better configurations, multiple cpu's, dual graphics cards etc etc.

You're entirely wrong about the movie.

atleast 4-6 years ago when the idea for the movie was being floated around Paradox who holds the rights REH's material of Conan handed the movie rights to Robert Rodriguez and Lionsgate. Before they made their decison Rob Zombie was also in talks about obtaining the rights to make the new Conan. The only involvement John Milius has on this movie was that he was openly upset about paradox's decision and refered to Rob Zombie (if he obtained the rights) turning the character of Conan into a murderer.

As far as Funcom's involvement. From what I know being a 1st year subscriber to AOC which got me into reading REH's works and following the movies development. Funcom has been involved with the movie from the start. The art director for the game I believe is also the same artist who worked on the movie. After seeing the trailers, the environment and the armor in the movie, they do hold some resemblance.

Originally posted by fallenlords

 

In my opinion Funcom will funnel enough resource into the game to meet whatever obligations they have contracted for, but I doubt they will do anything more.  The Conan movie has been talked about for a long time even involving people like John Milius at one point. Not once did I hear anything about Funcom and their involvement until the 11th hour.  So how close their co-operation in this project is I don't know.  Seems to me like they have suddenly realised a new Conan movie is due for release.

 

 I'd been wanting to give this game a try for awhile now.. but was a bit disapointed in how it ran for me (not that I was surprized by that either lol).

 The video/graphic options are so sparse, if only there were a few more sliders and check boxes I could have enjoyed it beyond the first 15min :(

Originally posted by just2duh

 I'd been wanting to give this game a try for awhile now.. but was a bit disapointed in how it ran for me (not that I was surprized by that either lol).

 The video/graphic options are so sparse, if only there were a few more sliders and check boxes I could have enjoyed it beyond the first 15min :(

I don't think you ever found the advanced graphics options.

Someone posted earlier that they restricted the # of playable classes to 4 (I think he also mentioned that Necro is one of the locked classes too).

What part of "Free" is this?

Originally posted by Jonsus

I just returned from a very long absence from AoC to give the Unchained FTP a try myself, and am about to graduate from Tortage.

Game is fun, and looks solid as ever, though a few of the FTP restrictions are a tad excessive (2g max? Really Funcom?). New vanity armor pane adds a much needed feature to the game from level 1.

All in all, its well worth playing. Though AoC had a very rough time of it in its first year, it has levelled off nicely. I would strongly recommend this game to anyone who is looking for something new to play.

Hope you enjoy your time ingame!

Pros:

Pretty graphics no doubt.  Building a fort is really cool as well.

Cons:

handful of races that are merely cosmetic at best - no immersion, no real cultural zone that is its own unique empire (what this means is there's no real flag.  No one is part of a nation, rather, just part of a guild that has the same hodge podge mix everyone else has).

Lore is forgotten - you won't read about a necro going through cimmeria in the books - here you can. Priests of Mitra group with Tempests of Set - and kill other Priests etc, etc.  This is another huge reality drawback.

BUT IT's FANTASY WHY SHOULD IT SEEM REAL?

Oh I dunno - because the way the world is now, is a very small part of what Robert E. Howard created.  There were empires - proud to their flag, loyal to one culture over another.  Religion as well separated the ancient world.  Factions EXISTED *(not just guilds of random races and classes). 

I actually read the books, attended university, studied the ancient world, etc.  This is just a vanilla version of something that could be great.

Originally posted by fallenlords

Originally posted by TSWBETAROGS

 You are werry misinformed. AoC is werry high perority for Funcom, and the have a large team working on AoC improvements and patches. There has been alot of co-operation between Funcom and the team that is making the Conan movie. A large playfield with a number of dungens is to be lanched i august when the movie is lanched.  This expantion/large patch is based on the movie. A large problem for AoC has been the low population lvl upp from 1-80. This has put of new players from playing. Freemium has been good for games like LOTRO and hopefully it will be the same for AoC. And what gamecompany dont whant to make money of a game, that the can make more content for and make it a proud flagship for this relatively smal company. TSW is comming along great and hopefully will lanch with a lot less tech problem as the new game engine has been tested on AoC. And if you dont have the HW to run the game realy stop the trolling, this game has high HW requirements becouse it is the best loocking AAA MMORPG ATM. And people are all free to shop what they whant. The game restrictions is not wors than any othe freemium game.

In my opinion Funcom will funnel enough resource into the game to meet whatever obligations they have contracted for, but I doubt they will do anything more.  The Conan movie has been talked about for a long time even involving people like John Milius at one point. Not once did I hear anything about Funcom and their involvement until the 11th hour.  So how close their co-operation in this project is I don't know.  Seems to me like they have suddenly realised a new Conan movie is due for release.

 

The issue I have with AOC that I don't have with other MMO's is AOC could have been a world beater, if it had been steered in the right direction.  But rather than play to it's initial strengths like PVP these areas where ignored for what I term as 'fluff'.  Content that nobody wants, nobody requested, but for some reason the GD thought was a good idea.   Funcom have never listened to their users and they had a golden opportunity to produce what could of been a great game. 

 

Their new skirmish into free to play I don't know if it will work. Personally I see it as quite a cold move to get what remaining cash they can get out of the game.  Their financial report stated they will have a negative cash flow situation until the expected success of The Secret World.  Are they really going to invest time, energy and money into a game that is teetering on the edge of oblivion?  Or are they going to plow as much resource as they can muster into making The Secret World a success.  

 

As for hardware, my hardware is more than adequate to run AOC.  But for some reason AOC doesn't want to play ball.  The only limitation I still have which might cause issue, for the memory munching game engine, is that I still have a 32 bit OS.

Side note with regard to Hardware - AOC worked better for me on my old machine with a single cpu and a 256mb graphics card when AOC was version 1.6.  I started getting problems when I upgraded hardware to better configurations, multiple cpu's, dual graphics cards etc etc.

 Have you tryed reinstalling the game ore playing around with the settings. I had e friend of me having less problem after setting the settings higher,mhm yes higher. And AoC was cah flow positive before going freemium.

As for the co-operation, this has been going on before the movie startet filming. Funcom has supplyed conceptart and other info that has been helpful for the movie. If you se the FB for the movie there is info about AoC. And on AoC site there is link to the movie trailer. 

This is what Funcom is working on for the AoC game:

Monthly Development Update - June 2011

I guess I should shortly introduce myself before going any further. My name is Per. I am the Producer for Age of Conan. I have been working for Funcom for several years; mostly with gameplay and content production. Allow me now to talk a little about some of the cool content we are planning to release later this year, after “The Savage Coast of Turan” is released. There is a quite a lot of exciting new content coming your way!

The Upcoming Content

What we’re planning to release during the last half of the year are pieces of content that I believe many of you have heard mentioned before. It is content that we know players have been expecting and waiting for, and it is content we are looking forward to finally being able to give to you.

House of Crom

Yes, really. I know what some of you are thinking: House of Crom is that mythical dungeon they bring up every time they don’t know what they’re going to do next isn’t it? No, this time we’re actually going to deliver it! We want this out as badly as you do – maybe even more so.

What is House of Crom? House of Crom is an instance, well – two instances actually, located in Cimmeria. There is one group instance and one social instance, both intended for end-game characters.

Allow me to digress a little – I’m sure there are those of you who wonder why it has taken us so long to finish House of Crom. I will make an attempt at a short explanation. The initial plans for House of Crom were what some people would consider “extremely ambitious”. Ambition equals risk. We do not work on only one thing at a time; we always work on several deliveries in parallel. Doing that usually means you will reach a point where you have to prioritize one of them over the others – when you reach that point the most risky thing is usually what you have to let go. That risky thing has been House of Crom four times now.

It hasn’t all been for nothing though! The current incarnation of House of Crom is by far the best one. The story being told in House of Crom now is quite possibly my favourite in the game. We have a couple of new cool and very interesting creatures to introduce you to, and there will be types of gameplay that you have never encountered before in AoC. I am very proud of the way the team has taken the challenge it has been to get House of Crom into its current state – it is one of the most difficult things we have done, but the final result will be worth all the hard work.

But let me get back to who we’re making this for. The group instance is aimed at end-game characters; it has several encounters, one of which is an awesome poem! The social instance has a bit wider range. The entry level is quite reasonable; the first encounters should be doable by most level 80 groups. The final encounter on the other hand will require a very well coordinated team of experienced players to defeat. In total there are more than 20 different encounters in the two instances. The most challenging part of it all however will be to get a passing grade on the Atlantean history test.

Tier Four raids

I know there are those who think we have forgotten about them. We haven’t. What happened to the tier four raids is very similar to what happened to House of Crom. You could perhaps say we went “a little” overboard when designing these encounters. They became very difficult, and after seeing how the first two worked out on live, we realized we might have pushed things too far. In addition a few other things happened (including the announcement of a certain movie) that resulted in the remaining encounters getting postponed.

What do you have to look forward to in the Jade Citadel? There are a total of 5 encounters remaining to beat. You will be able to continue and conclude the Khitai storyline. There is the opportunity for an audience with the Emperor himself, but not before you have made a very difficult decision! You will get to explore his darkest secrets, some of which might be buried in your own past. I think those able to defeat the final challenge in the Jade Citadel will find it a worthy ending to the great Khitai story.

The Schedule

As mentioned, we’re working on several things at the same time, let’s have a look at what we have planned for the rest of the year:

Blood and Glory PVP server update – This is currently being tested on our Testlive server. We will open the live servers when the feedback indicates that it is ready.

The Savage Coast of Turan – We will be talking a lot more about this in the next development letter, and in a series of articles and interviews leading up to the launch of this adventure pack. You should start seeing more information about this over the coming weeks. The team is working hard on this at the moment and it is really exciting to watch it come together.

The first major update after “The Savage Coast of Turan” will have a lot of optimization and improvements, it will include among other things:

• Item Database optimisations
• Network message compression
• Server-side PhysX implementation
• Load balancing improvements

House of Crom – We intend to release this in the last quarter of the year

Tier 4 Raids – We intend to release this in the last quarter of the year as well.

Wrapping up

That’s it from me for now. I hope you are looking forward to the upcoming content. The team is working hard on making it all happen, and we are looking forward to see all this make its way to the live servers – and if we can find the time we might sneak in a few small surprises as well. Until next time, enjoy your stay in Hyboria.

Originally posted by Toolfan

You're entirely wrong about the movie.

atleast 4-6 years ago when the idea for the movie was being floated around Paradox who holds the rights REH's material of Conan handed the movie rights to Robert Rodriguez and Lionsgate. Before they made their decison Rob Zombie was also in talks about obtaining the rights to make the new Conan. The only involvement John Milius has on this movie was that he was openly upset about paradox's decision and refered to Rob Zombie (if he obtained the rights) turning the character of Conan into a murderer.

As far as Funcom's involvement. From what I know being a 1st year subscriber to AOC which got me into reading REH's works and following the movies development. Funcom has been involved with the movie from the start. The art director for the game I believe is also the same artist who worked on the movie. After seeing the trailers, the environment and the armor in the movie, they do hold some resemblance.

 

Not saying Milius is involved in this particular film, I was talking that in terms of a 'Conan' film Milius put together a script for another film.   A continuation of the story and not so much a reboot. 

Art Director for the new film is James Steuart, I don't see any reference to Funcom. While Paradox as the rights holders are going to be involved in anything to do with REH's material I can't find a reference to Funcom being an intergral part of the movie.   I can see where they are now trying to make a connection which like I said before seems to be an 11th hour 'hop on the media bandwagon for some free publicity type of thing'.

Originally posted by fallenlords

Not saying Milius is involved in this particular film, I was talking that in terms of a 'Conan' film Milius put together a script for another film.   A continuation of the story and not so much a reboot. 

Art Director for the new film is James Steuart, I don't see any reference to Funcom. While Paradox as the rights holders are going to be involved in anything to do with REH's material I can't find a reference to Funcom being an intergral part of the movie.   I can see where they are now trying to make a connection which like I said before seems to be an 11th hour 'hop on the media bandwagon for some free publicity type of thing'.

The concept artists and art designers seemed to have worked closely together with the movie makers, and I admit, when I saw the trailer I did get more of an 'Age of Conan' vibe from it in architecture and atmosphere than that the movie made me think of the former Conan movie with Schwarzenegger.

Looking at it objectively, it would be curious to me if they'd state such things openly when it's not true especially if it'll turn out that the Turan content update will look almost exactly the same as locations, buildings and creatures from the movie. Seems to me that in order for that to happen you'd need consent and collaboration between the movie art designers and the game concept artists.

Plus the fact that the trailer had a definitive AoC vibe was to me enough indication that the statement of AoC concept artists and movie artists working together.

Originally posted by just2duh

 I'd been wanting to give this game a try for awhile now.. but was a bit disapointed in how it ran for me (not that I was surprized by that either lol).

 The video/graphic options are so sparse, if only there were a few more sliders and check boxes I could have enjoyed it beyond the first 15min :(

Problem with AOC is it doesn't automatically detect any sort of optimal setting for you.   When I first started playing AOC I was told don't use Low settings, instead use High.  Then switch off a couple of the more intense options like shadows etc because it worked better.  There are plenty of options in the 'Advanced' tab - though it is a bit of a minefield, you can spend more time playing around with settings than you can playing the game.

Game is not f2p at all.It have 2 gold cap+skill talents that want specific expansions+4out of 12 classes are free.

Originally posted by DogPeeTree

Game is not f2p at all.It have 2 gold cap+skill talents that want specific expansions+4out of 12 classes are free.

Sure, but all leveling content of the original game is free to play, including half of the dungeons and the L20-40 Gateway to Khitai area of the expansion.

As for the 2 gold cap, I doubt you'll be needing more than 2 gold at once until you start reaching level 50-60 and even then you'd be able to manage quite fairly.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

The concept artists and art designers seemed to have worked closely together with the movie makers, and I admit, when I saw the trailer I did get more of an 'Age of Conan' vibe from it in architecture and atmosphere than that the movie made me think of the former Conan movie with Schwarzenegger.

Looking at it objectively, it would be curious to me if they'd state such things openly when it's not true especially if it'll turn out that the Turan content update will look almost exactly the same as locations, buildings and creatures from the movie. Seems to me that in order for that to happen you'd need consent and collaboration between the movie art designers and the game concept artists.

Plus the fact that the trailer had a definitive AoC vibe was to me enough indication that the statement of AoC concept artists and movie artists working together.

I don't believe a lot of what Funcom say, and Paradox making the connection between the game and the film works for them as the right's holder.   I do see a connection now, Morrison states they are drawing on the weapons, monsters, storyline and characters from the film - for the game.   So in other words they are busy creating the connection it seems to me.  Perhaps the film gathered some inspiration from the game but connection wise I see it as quite lame at the moment.  Of course if somebody wants to point me at specfics and not speculation, feel free.

Originally posted by fallenlords

I don't believe a lot of what Funcom say, and Paradox making the connection between the game and the film works for them as the right's holder.   I do see a connection now, Morrison states they are drawing on the weapons, monsters, storyline and characters from the film - for the game.   So in other words they are busy creating the connection it seems to me.  Perhaps the film gathered some inspiration from the game but connection wise I see it as quite lame at the moment.  Of course if somebody wants to point me at specfics and not speculation, feel free.

Shrug. Well, I'm not going to try to convince you, if you want to believe they're lying and that there's no connection then for you there isn't. Reading your comments, I get the familiar sensation, it looks like to me you're one of those persons that have grown to dislike/'hate' Funcom, and that means that you'll be unable to ever think that they might not be lying and see everything in an as negative light as possible.

Me, I got that AoC vibe from the trailer even before I heard FC people talk about concept artists working together with people from the movie, and when they mentioned it it kind of made sense to me. If it's hard to believe for you or if your aversion towards Funcom won't allow you to believe it, well, you're entitled to your opinion of course.

edit: I did a quick google search and actually found this

"We have worked closely with the Funcom creative team since 2003 and carefully crafted a unique look and feel for Conan's world," says Conan the Barbarian Producer and Paradox CEO Fredrik Malmberg. "Many of the concepts, locations and designs from the game development were utilized by the film team for consistency, and we are thrilled that many elements of the film, distributed by Lionsgate in the US and UK, will feel familiar to the Age of Conan players."

Take it for what it's worth, suit yourself.

Like I said, it explains to me the AoC vibe I got from watching the Conan movie trailer.

Originally posted by lunatis

Can't wait to try this game finaly!

Didn't want to purchase this game, maybe I'll get hooked and love the game and want to subscribe tho, who knows!

See you in game!

PS which server do you guys play on?

I might as well reactivate my account.

Originally posted by fallenlords

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

I didn't have any performance issues, runs pretty smoothly at least for me, the player searching thing I don't get, you mean 'LFG' tool or such, what issues do you mean exactly?

As for the game and player activity, they're still doing a hell of a lot better than a lot of other MMORPG's that are still around, so I'm pretty doubtful why they should close the game down, it's still looking better than most MMO's with gameplay and combat that ranks among the best and most fun in MMO's.

Besides that, with a new hardcore PvP server, a Conan movie and Turan content linked to that appearing, I even think it'd be pretty stupid to retire the game right now.

AOC performance compared to other games I have never been able to figure out. While every other game I own runs well AOC runs badly via DX9 or DX10.  I had hoped that the game engine update would have resolved some of the previous issues but at a glance I saw no improvement.

It's not Funcom's fault you have an old/crappy computer.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Shrug. Well, I'm not going to try to convince you, if you want to believe they're lying and that there's no connection than there isn't. Reading your comments, I get the familiar sensation, it looks like to me you're one of those persons that have grown to dislike/'hate' Funcom, and that means that you'll be unable to ever think that they might not be lying and see everything in an as negative light as possible.

 

Me, I got that AoC vibe from the trailer even before I heard FC people talk about concept artists working together with people from the movie, and when they mentioned it it kind of made sense to me. If it's hard to believe for you or if your aversion towards Funcom won't allow you to believe it, well, you're entitled to your opinion of course.

 

edit: I did a quick google search and actually found this

"We have worked closely with the Funcom creative team since 2003 and carefully crafted a unique look and feel for Conan's world," says Conan the Barbarian Producer and Paradox CEO Fredrik Malmberg. "Many of the concepts, locations and designs from the game development were utilized by the film team for consistency, and we are thrilled that many elements of the film, distributed by Lionsgate in the US and UK, will feel familiar to the Age of Conan players."

Take it for what it's worth, suit yourself.

Like I said, it explains to me the AoC vibe I got from watching the Conan movie trailer.

I think you got your quote from the same posting that I found.  In which it also states

"We're excited to see the movie and the game combined in this brand new content," says Executive Producer for Age of Conan, Craig Morrison. "Being able to draw upon the characters, storylines, weapons, and monsters from the movie is tremendously exciting, and it will definitely compliment the wealth of content that already exists within the 'Age of Conan' game world."

I do disklike Funcom I make no bones about it, for numerous reasons.  I think Craig Morrison as a GD has totally screwed the game - look at his background he is a journalist not a game developer.   While he makes nice eleqouent statements he never answers a direct question with a direct answer.  He is the spin doctor for AOC and he doesn't do a particularly good job at it.

Personally I remember discussing the Conan film on the Funcom forums, I never once saw any indication of Funcom's involvement with the new film.  The new film is due to be released shortly and Funcom are all of a sudden raving about their connection/involvement.  Not so sure I buy it to be honest.

Originally posted by lunatis

Can't wait to try this game finaly!

Didn't want to purchase this game, maybe I'll get hooked and love the game and want to subscribe tho, who knows!

See you in game!

PS which server do you guys play on?

don't get why you would invest your (precious) time into a game you didnt consider good enough to be worth buying a month a go.