Having bored of the carrot chasing end game of Rift and not having fun on myt alts, I decided to give AoC a try. To my surprise...I'm having a really good experience.

The graphics are great. Their is blood, gore, tits and ass....it's edgy like Conan should be. Combat feels  fun and the animations are smooth. The quests are pretty typical, but occasionaly they do something new. The world is big, with lots to explore. I'm sure the end game will be meh....as all end game's are, hence the name " end game"...but their seems to be plenty of opportunity for some fun Alt action.

The free to play offers ALOT, but I subed up anyways....mostly for the expanded inventory space. I expect to be playing AoC until Rift comes out with some radically new content ( ie...housing, new zones and/or raised level cap) or GW2 comes out.

Call me.....

Pleasantly surprised !

You named it, AoC is still an industry leader in graphics, animations and combat. 

Don't be pessimistic about the end-game, actually it's quite fun. Khitai questing is fabulous (at least for the first run for each faction -- there's 12 factions all together), dungeons are hard and varied, and there's the AA system. PvP on the other hand, is probably something to avoid.

Yea, it is a great Conan game. As far as a video game that brings Howard's Conan stories and the world of Hyboria to life, AoC does an excellent job. I don't think any game studio has handled an IP better than Funcom has done with Conan. The beauty, the gore, the combat, it is a blend that is presented in a way unique to the MMO genre. When you  appreciate what the game offers, it is a blast to play!

funcom and this game does not deserve the amount of hate they get...

I'm playing and loving it, gonna play till GW2 or TSW is out, if I don't like them, I'm going back to this game.

Yeah I'm downloading the client now to give it a fair shake, just a bit irritated that when I started to download fresh from the server the download filesize was ~18GB and when I installed off my disks the download filesize was...~18GB.

Downloading AoC is a chore! I started in the evening and let it go all night. I think in the morning it was done, can't remember for sure, may have taken longer.

AoC will probably expand to a folder of a size of 35GB plus future content increasing it further.
Dont wonder when you first visit a region or instance, it may start to download it that time and your first experience will appear underperforming - that should change after a while when everything has been downloaded and computed.

Have Fun!

I'm going to give it another try.  I can't find a damn thing else to play, and I remember enjoying the starter area in the game very much when it first released.   Since I am giving Funcom the benefit of the doubt when TSW comes out, I might as well go have another look at this game too.

There are to few players to do the end game raids or PvP and no server mergers expected, so not sure why anyone would play this when they can play Skyrim and get a better single player experience.  Age of Conan may be the industry leader of graphics, not so much animations but it is the industry lagger when it comes to gameplay.  There are plenty of MMOs people are playing now days, this just isn't one of them.  Glad you like it though.

OP is probably stil in Tortage.   Tortage is very well done with voice over.  However once you leave that area, all that stop, no more voice over.   At first you might find the combo combat fun, but once you level up and endup having to press 4-5 directional keys to do 1 attack, you'll find that feature becomes more like a huge chore.  

One of the few MMOs i never tried due to it being slaughtered at launch and people saying you can't explore.

For me, i want an open world with a feeling it is living, and amazing atmospheric graphics help create that.

So i am seriously considering trying this out, but i do fear it is a) empty and b)you can't explore.

Originally posted by Aguitha

OP is probably stil in Tortage.   Tortage is very well done with voice over.  However once you leave that area, all that stop, no more voice over.   At first you might find the combo combat fun, but once you level up and endup having to press 4-5 directional keys to do 1 attack, you'll find that feature becomes more like a huge chore.  

I've got several characters from 20-80 and a lot of the new content from Godslayer to present really has made the game a lot more engaging. If you haven't played in a while, it's worth revisiting.

Originally posted by Aguitha

OP is probably stil in Tortage.   Tortage is very well done with voice over.  However once you leave that area, all that stop, no more voice over.   At first you might find the combo combat fun, but once you level up and endup having to press 4-5 directional keys to do 1 attack, you'll find that feature becomes more like a huge chore.  

There is voice acting in all the main story quests through the game and and in a few other spots.

Combat is great fun an stays that way even in PVP as you need to have skill to be able to pull off the combos at the right time.

I think AOC is probally my favorite themepark MMO out there at the moment, not currently playing it tho but played it for well over a year and have a few different lvl 80 characters.

People overlook AOC mainly because of the launch it had, once a game gets a bad rep like that its very hard for it to bring new people in. Its true its not an open world game but there are soem really big zones to explore esp in the enw exp pack so dont think they are all tiny maps the size of a counter strike map or somthing :) last time i checked it was pretty well populated since going f2p

But would tell anyone here give it a try now thats its free and you can see how good it is for yourself..

:)

Originally posted by Aguitha

OP is probably stil in Tortage.   Tortage is very well done with voice over.  However once you leave that area, all that stop, no more voice over.   At first you might find the combo combat fun, but once you level up and endup having to press 4-5 directional keys to do 1 attack, you'll find that feature becomes more like a huge chore.  

Op is a lv 38 Guardian.

Tortage was actually my least favorite part. I couldn't wait to get out of there.

Originally posted by Vegetto

One of the few MMOs i never tried due to it being slaughtered at launch and people saying you can't explore.

For me, i want an open world with a feeling it is living, and amazing atmospheric graphics help create that.

So i am seriously considering trying this out, but i do fear it is a) empty and b)you can't explore.

 It is true there are not a lot of players leveling characters. Most of the population on Set are at max level and doing end game stuff. When I play I usually solo because there aren't enough people around to group up with, although I do see group requests for lower level quests in chat.  There are quests that you cannot take on alone, so if you can't find a group  you will have to pass on those.

Exploring is another matter. This is one aspect of the game I can really get into. It is true the game is divided into zones that you enter via a loading screen. However these zones are not small, they are pretty big. Not only that, they are full of content both on the surface and in dungeons like ancient ruins. The detail of the environment and art work of the world makes it fun to explore. There are a lot of beautiful locations in AoC, and they are all rendered in DX10. If your rig can max this game out at a decent resolution the game is visually head and shoulders above any other MMO out. Presentation, art style, motion quality, lighting, are all top tier. Music and combat are excellent as well.

Originally posted by LuckyDucky

Originally posted by Vegetto

One of the few MMOs i never tried due to it being slaughtered at launch and people saying you can't explore.

For me, i want an open world with a feeling it is living, and amazing atmospheric graphics help create that.

So i am seriously considering trying this out, but i do fear it is a) empty and b)you can't explore.

 It is true there are not a lot of players leveling characters. Most of the population on Set are at max level and doing end game stuff. When I play I usually solo because there aren't enough people around to group up with,

 

Not many are doing end game stuff either http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=3027480&postcount=12

like I said, Skyrim is a better single player game and beats doing the same few raids that everyone has been doing for three years now.

How sad is the new PvP server with only 4 max level players or other servers where no guild is progressing or even able to raid two-year-old content.

Originally posted by Aguitha

OP is probably stil in Tortage.   Tortage is very well done with voice over.  However once you leave that area, all that stop, no more voice over.   At first you might find the combo combat fun, but once you level up and endup having to press 4-5 directional keys to do 1 attack, you'll find that feature becomes more like a huge chore.  

+1

Ive been tryin to tell people for that last 6 months. The game still has the best graphics and is tons of fun. Even if you get bored fast you fot a few month of fun out of it. Khitai is tuff and the 6 man raids are pretty challenging. Some great improvements have been made and it it would have launched in the state its in now it would be one of the top mmo's.

On Crom (EU) I see calls for end game content all the time and every area I visited has players in it. The game has changed massively since launch, the combo system got streamlined so gone are the days of four step combos, if you play a caster that doesn't matter. I rate it highly now as my 2nd favourite online game, plenty of content to keep you engaged until level cap, a great and gritty storyline and beautifully realised.

Originally posted by tares

Originally posted by LuckyDucky

Originally posted by Vegetto

One of the few MMOs i never tried due to it being slaughtered at launch and people saying you can't explore.

For me, i want an open world with a feeling it is living, and amazing atmospheric graphics help create that.

So i am seriously considering trying this out, but i do fear it is a) empty and b)you can't explore.

 It is true there are not a lot of players leveling characters. Most of the population on Set are at max level and doing end game stuff. When I play I usually solo because there aren't enough people around to group up with,

 

Not many are doing end game stuff either http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=3027480&postcount=12

like I said, Skyrim is a better single player game and beats doing the same few raids that everyone has been doing for three years now.

How sad is the new PvP server with only 4 max level players or other servers where no guild is progressing or even able to raid two-year-old content.

Well, we have all played Skyrim. Whether or not you like it more than AoC is really a subjective matter of opinion. I would say Skyrim would be a better choice over raiding the same dungeons in AoC, but for a new comer to AoC, or a long time returning player I think AoC is a better game as far as having fun playing the leveling content. I also think the art style and character animations are much better in AoC. Bethesda still haven't gotten the 3rd person view down very well. The horse and rider are better done in AoC, as well as the combat fatalities. Plus AoC is multiplayer, even though it is not as populated as we all would like, still there are other people to play with. I also prefer the Conan IP to Elder Scrolls.