General Discussion

Would you trust my opinion on a PvP MMORPG? I can only advise you to take anything I say about PvP-centric games with a large grain of salt, because it is no secret that I don't like PvP. Thus my dislike of PvP could possibly prevent me from recognizing good PvP over bad PvP, because I'd always tend to prefer carebear PvP a la WoW  to any form of impact PvP. If you want an unbiased opinion about a PvP game, you're much better of reading the blog of somebody who really likes PvP. Keen and Graev for example. And Keen isn't happy about Age of Conan , and he doesn't like the graphics. Now that happens to be the same that I was thinking, but Keen is definitely the one to listen to here.

One interesting thought about AoC graphics is the parallel of the AoC / WAR situation to the EQ2 / WoW situation. Of course that is a simplification, EQ2 has other problems than just bleeding-edge tech graphics. But the basic truth that more existing PCs will be able to run WAR than can run AoC, just as more PCs back then could run WoW than EQ2, remains. I haven't played WAR yet, but I'm already pretty certain that WAR will sell a lot better than AoC, just by comparing WAR videos with AoC beta gameplay.

Keen also had a very good list on why I won't be playing on a PvP server in AoC:

Rez point camping - People would literally camp the rez points and gank people before they could load in. This NEEDS to be addressed. I spent 15 minutes trying to get away from the Stygian rez point.

Griefing Questers - Griefers wait until you initiate a conversation with a NPC then gank you while you're stuck in a quest dialog.

Everyone stealths - *facepalm* Much more annoying than I ever thought possible. Having a caster stealth up and drop a nuke on me is?? indescribably dumb.

Ganking - Level 80's can attack level 5's and camp their rez points. In OB today level 26's were camping level 20's. So stupid.

This is *exactly* the sort of PvP I hate to the bone: Ganking, griefing, corpse camping. If a game allows it, these activities will happen. I totally realize that WoW battleground PvP is repetitive and has no impact on the world whatsoever. But I have yet to see a PvP system that provides the impact while simultaneously preventing all possible abuses of PvP for griefing purposes.

If I wasn't bored to death waiting for WAR and the next WoW expansion, I wouldn't even try Age of Conan. Kudos to Funcom , the one thing they got right about Age of Conan is the release date, which is spot on. But when WAR and WotLK come out, I predict AoC will take a big hit

Originally posted by gogo222

Would you trust my opinion on a PvP MMORPG? I can only advise you to take anything I say about PvP-centric games with a large grain of salt, because it is no secret that I don't like PvP. Thus my dislike of PvP could possibly prevent me from recognizing good PvP over bad PvP, because I'd always tend to prefer carebear PvP a la WoW  to any form of impact PvP. If you want an unbiased opinion about a PvP game, you're much better of reading the blog of somebody who really likes PvP. Keen and Graev for example. And Keen isn't happy about Age of Conan , and he doesn't like the graphics. Now that happens to be the same that I was thinking, but Keen is definitely the one to listen to here.

One interesting thought about AoC graphics is the parallel of the AoC / WAR situation to the EQ2 / WoW situation. Of course that is a simplification, EQ2 has other problems than just bleeding-edge tech graphics. But the basic truth that more existing PCs will be able to run WAR than can run AoC, just as more PCs back then could run WoW than EQ2, remains. I haven't played WAR yet, but I'm already pretty certain that WAR will sell a lot better than AoC, just by comparing WAR videos with AoC beta gameplay.

Keen also had a very good list on why I won't be playing on a PvP server in AoC:

Rez point camping - People would literally camp the rez points and gank people before they could load in. This NEEDS to be addressed. I spent 15 minutes trying to get away from the Stygian rez point.

Griefing Questers - Griefers wait until you initiate a conversation with a NPC then gank you while you're stuck in a quest dialog.

Everyone stealths - *facepalm* Much more annoying than I ever thought possible. Having a caster stealth up and drop a nuke on me is?? indescribably dumb.

Ganking - Level 80's can attack level 5's and camp their rez points. In OB today level 26's were camping level 20's. So stupid.

This is *exactly* the sort of PvP I hate to the bone: Ganking, griefing, corpse camping. If a game allows it, these activities will happen. I totally realize that WoW battleground PvP is repetitive and has no impact on the world whatsoever. But I have yet to see a PvP system that provides the impact while simultaneously preventing all possible abuses of PvP for griefing purposes.

If I wasn't bored to death waiting for WAR and the next WoW expansion, I wouldn't even try Age of Conan. Kudos to Funcom , the one thing they got right about Age of Conan is the release date, which is spot on. But when WAR and WotLK come out, I predict AoC will take a big hit

IMO, unless there is a harsh death penalty, it's carebear PvP. The only games that I can think of that don't have carebear PvP are EvE, L2... and yeah, PoTBS... even though it blows. I'm sure there are others, but these are the more popular ones. I'm not sure what kind of death penatlies WAR or AoC have... but if it's not harsh (which I'm sure it's not), then it's carebear PvP imo. Nothing wrong with that though, and I'll take any kind of FUN pvp... even if it's carebear.

EDIT: regarding rez point camping, ganking, etc... if the game had a steep death penalty, people wouldn't want to wait around after they gank you (I mean, you are playing a PvP game... so you are going to get ganked eventually right?) Most likely you'd call in the calvary and the ganker may face death as well.

From what I have seen of WAR I think it will face the same problem as Lord of the Rings mmorpg did, it is too similar to WoW. Age of Conan will not suffer from "I have seen this before" syndrome that makes players quit after a short time, to such degree.

That said it also means that AoC and WAR will have slightly different player bases. WAR will attract Dark Age of Camelot players and probably a bunch of Games Workshop usual playerbase that hasn´t played mmorpgs before.

Both games will attract WoW players but not enough to actually threaten that game, but I am pretty sure that AoC will have a more lasting appeal than WAR. It will be intresting to see how many EQ2 and Vanguard players will quit their games and start with AoC. Those player  are used / spoiled with  a more realistic graphic than WoW players.

Anyway, by the many posts that are trying to talk down AoC, it certainly looks like  the competion really is scared to death.

A side effect if AoC becomes really popular is that it will be a "killer application" for better hardware. We will see how much hardware manufacturers like Nvidia will help AoC to be a success.

Actually, I do NOT think it will be at all. The reason EQ2 and WOW had a lot of adversity is that those are both PVE games. WAR is a PvP/RvR game, whereas AoC is more based. The only reasons that these two games are often compared is because they are both NOT WoW. Not being WoW is what a lot of players are looking for these days.

I wrote a quick comparison of WAR Vs AoC. Read it HERE
I wrote my review of AoC. Read it HERE

Naturally a PvP game will have "carebear" death penalties. How else would they supposed to work at all ? If you give players a hefty penalty for every death, such that they, for example, have to kill 30 opponents before they compensate the penalty, nobody could possibly level, like, ever.

(Unless theres other ways to gain xp without killing opponents, of course)