This past July, Age of Conan went "Unchained", or free to play. Lots of players have been checking back in to see what's new with Age of Conan: Unchained, including MMORPG.com's Daniel Owens. Daniel has a complete re-review of Age of Conan: Unchained that's well worth the time to read. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Age of Conan: Unchained is your typical MMORPG and functions essentially in the same manner, you quest, raid and PvP all the same. The differences are in the improvements on these traditional systems to provide a completely different take on how MMOs are played. Set entirely in the lore rich world of Conan the Barbarian, players are able to explore a world crafted to a likeness that even Howard himself would approve of.

Read more of Daniel Owens' Age of Conan: Unchained - You've Come a Long Way, Baby!

Link's not working for me.

Yep, link's dead.

I tried it once but could never dte into it, I think I got to level 25 or so.  The main things I didn't like was the armor design (I realize it fits in with the story, etc but I just didn't like the models) and the the crafting (hated only being able to gather/craft only in one place). The combat was OK but it was still button mashing just like any other MMO, Graphics where nice, especillly the water affect.

Is it Tortuga or Tortage... I thought Tortuga was Pirates of the Carribean.

It is still a button mashing game and for me it's gamebreaking.  Having to press 5-6 keys to do 1 move is annoying to me.

I keep thinking how whenever the amazing combat is mentioned people forget to add that it's true if you're playing a physical damage class. How convenient that spellcasters are often forgotten when combat is mentioned.

Edit: rangers

So, here's a question. The title says: You've Come A Long Way, Baby!

This takes me back to my ultra-whitebread suburban upbringing when men were men, women were women, and the cigarette companies could still push their brand of poison as natural, even healthy.

So, speaking of cigarettes and clumsy segueways, wasn't that the motto for Marlboro cigarettes? Or some brand of cigarettes? So my question is...did Marlboro (or whoever) rip that motto from sometime further back in pop culture history, or did they pioneer the You've Come A Long Way Baby motto?

Yay Conan!

Age of Conan is the only MMO that does NOT feel like a kids game to me, besides EVE.

Originally posted by Talthanys

So, here's a question. The title says: You've Come A Long Way, Baby!

This takes me back to my ultra-whitebread suburban upbringing when men were men, women were women, and the cigarette companies could still push their brand of poison as natural, even healthy.

So, speaking of cigarettes and clumsy segueways, wasn't that the motto for Marlboro cigarettes? Or some brand of cigarettes? So my question is...did Marlboro (or whoever) rip that motto from sometime further back in pop culture history, or did they pioneer the You've Come A Long Way Baby motto?

Yay Conan!

 

Virgin Slims (clicky) and an Album name of Fat boy Slim's second album (clicky) which i think is where i remember it from, not old enough to remember the cig's and it was probably and american brand that we never saw in blighty.

Originally posted by Aguitha

It is still a button mashing game and for me it's gamebreaking.  Having to press 5-6 keys to do 1 move is annoying to me.

 

Yep, I'm with ya.  The problem I have with it, is that it takes what's always been a negative about past MMO's(you spend less time looking at the action on the screen and more on cooldown bars and effect icons) and makes it FAR worse.  What good is having a bitchin' move where you rip a dude's heart out of his chest and laugh when you're busy UI staring, trying to set up your next combo?

Originally posted by mbd1968

I tried it once but could never dte into it, I think I got to level 25 or so.  The main things I didn't like was the armor design (I realize it fits in with the story, etc but I just didn't like the models) and the the crafting (hated only being able to gather/craft only in one place). The combat was OK but it was still button mashing just like any other MMO, Graphics where nice, especillly the water affect.

Is it Tortuga or Tortage... I thought Tortuga was Pirates of the Carribean.

It's Tortage. Tortuga is a real place in the Carribean, and Tortage is influenced by it.

The combat in this game was hailed as being innovative. It was half way there. Darkfall and Mortal Online were fully the way there.

Age of Conan was always a half way there game for me. 

Innovative combat is where you can actually swing your sword around regardless of targeting some enemy. It is where if something comes into contact with your sword it hurts them. Physics not button mashing and auto tab targeting.

Conan failed on this level. It still does.

It is also just a mass of instances. It does not feel like a coherent world. Nothing open to it. Sure some of the instances look big and open but they are just levels in a level based game.

Levels, classes, instances, button mashing ... no thanks. I have had enough of that crap to last a lifetime. 

However I will say it did the levels, classes, instance, button mashing very beautifully. You could almost perve on your female avatar if you were sad :)

Originally posted by Xondar123

Originally posted by mbd1968

I tried it once but could never dte into it, I think I got to level 25 or so.  The main things I didn't like was the armor design (I realize it fits in with the story, etc but I just didn't like the models) and the the crafting (hated only being able to gather/craft only in one place). The combat was OK but it was still button mashing just like any other MMO, Graphics where nice, especillly the water affect.

Is it Tortuga or Tortage... I thought Tortuga was Pirates of the Carribean.

It's Tortage. Tortuga is a real place in the Carribean, and Tortage is influenced by it.

 

Yeah oops, just finished watching the new Pirates of the Carribean movie (terrible) the other day, thanks or picking it up ;)

Originally posted by Cacophanist

Innovative combat is where you can actually swing your sword around regardless of targeting some enemy. It is where if something comes into contact with your sword it hurts them. Physics not button mashing and auto tab targeting.

Conan failed on this level. It still does.

Actually, that's exactly what was possible as everyone who really, actively played AoC for a duration of time would and should know: regardless  which mob you targeted, you swung your sword and every mob that was in its range got hit even if you hadn't targeted those other mobs. Smart players manoeuvered in such a way that each hit of them would hit several mobs at the same time.

So yes, your melee attacks and hits were a PBAoE cone, not based upon tabbing to your target, and it was even the case that if you had a longer weapon like a polearm, then also the range within which mobs would get hit would be larger.

Conclusion: AoC didn't fail in that aspect, it is ingame for melee combat, and that's the example you were talking about with the sword swinging comment.

Originally posted by Cacophanist

Innovative combat is where you can actually swing your sword around regardless of targeting some enemy. It is where if something comes into contact with your sword it hurts them. Physics not button mashing and auto tab targeting.

Conan failed on this level. It still does.

And that's exactly how AoC works for melee characters. You can swing your sword and apply combos, they'll land if the enemy is in front of you and within range regardless of wether you have targeted them or not. Actually when playing a melee character a big part of the game is to position yourself and your enemies so that most (or all) of them are in front of you so your attacks hits them all instead of just one. The reason you usually target your enemies in melee combat is to see which direction their shields are facing (so you can attack in different directions), but as a melee there's no need to even target anyone ever (well, maybe for the charge ability)

No it is not just a button mashing combat... and no it is not just for melee...

Of course you have to press buttons (how could you combat without it?), but positioning is crucial; crucial to avoid damage on yourself and to maximize your damage output in one or multiple mobs; in AoC there is splash damage wich means that a single target attack can damage multiple mobs (again positioning) and this works with casters and melee.

And as said before, your weapon will damage anyone in its cone (and if your target isn't there he won't suffer any damage).

Originally posted by Evile

Age of Conan is the only MMO that does NOT feel like a kids game to me, besides EVE.

 This I have to admit is true.

I am trying to figure out what exactly some people are looking for when it comes to combat. Do they want some kind of mind probe so they do not have to touch their keyboard? Do they want to play a PC game using a console controller?

What the hell?

Of course there is button mashing!

AoC had the most realistic type of combat for melee AND caster types over all other MMOs I have played. If an enemy was within range of the player's intended target, it was struck by the player too. I was able to kill several at once even though I was only targeting one. One of  my favorite classes was my Polearm DPS Guardian. I could do massive damage!

Age of Conan was a real pleasure for me to play. I was in Early Access and played for 3 years straight. I just might return as I wait for another MMO am I looking forward to.

Lots of people complaning about the buttons for styles.  Once you played your character for more than 10 levels the styles were second nature, and it felt like you were a part of the combat.  Rather than just pressing 1 button moves.  

Having several 80s (Demo, Bear Shaman, Guardian, and Hox) the game is as shit as ever, PvP is still ruled by the top 5% elite, PvE is a joke and still broken (Wing 3 is still broken to this day) and open world PvP on Deathwish is an awful joke of Anvil of Scrub and other zerg guilds who suck simply using 20 on 1 tactics.

It's worth the DL to goof around leveling and check out the scenery, but it has 0 longevity.