MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood has been playing the first twenty levels of Funcom's Age of Conan. Today, he presents this review of the game to this point, telling us what worked in the game and what didn't.

A great game that has some issues to work out. That’s how I would describe my experiences so far in Funcom’s Age of Conan.

When getting ready to write this review of the game’s first 20 levels, I had some trouble getting my thoughts into an order that would sound and look good on paper (or on your screen, as the case may be). On the one hand, from a personal point of view, these first twenty levels were some of the most fun that I have had playing an MMORPG title. On the other hand, I did run into a number of problems and customer support, at the time that I used it, was a bit of a mess. In the end, my fellow MMORPGers, I hope to address both the good and the not-so-good elements of the game.

Read the whole reivew here.

A fair and honest review of levels 1-20. Good read, thanks.

Great !!! good stuff .....cant wait for your review of next 20 levels!!

Looks like a review I would write if I had to write one. 

It's too bad the best AoC has to offer is levels 1-20. It is downhill from there.

not true, for me the game is way more beter from 20+.

Some of you may be surprised to find that Role-Playing garnered a score of seven, but from my time on Hyperboria, a US RP server, even the gankers took the time to RP, giving my friend and I the opportunity to “join them” before their 23rd level assassin came out of hiding and slit our throats. -From page 4

This comment has me a bit confused. It sounds like you enjoyed the RP on an RP server, so why would people be surprised by a score of 7? Is one of the biggest complaints lack of rping? I ask because I'm acutally surprised that you ranked it so low (the rp with the NPCs, while it doesn't affect anything, is still the best rp I've seen in a game, and that's not even taking PC rp into consideration).

It's the new trend now to only reviewi 1/4th of the game ? Yeah today I bought a new car and the car salesman had me sold when he only showed me 1/4th of the car. The rest of the car is missing though. No wheels, no engine, no brakes and the transmission needs a complete overhaul but other than that I am a happy buyer. If people are going to review the game then review ALL of it or don't even bother ya know ? 

Originally posted by SaintViktor

It's the new trend now to only reviewi 1/4th of the game ? Yeah today I bought a new car and the car salesman had me sold when he only showed me 1/4th of the car. The rest of the car is missing though. No wheels, no engine, no brakes and the transmission needs a complete overhaul but other than that I am a happy buyer. If people are going to review the game then review ALL of it or don't even bother ya know ? 

Actually, with the unique nature of the 1-20 campaign, a review on that aspect of the game is appropriate.

Also, given the amount of time that it takes for someone writing a review to move through all of the content of a game is quite substantial, we wanted to provide our users with something opinion-wise until we can do a full and complete review of the entire game.

MMORPGs aren't the same as single player games and shouldn't be reviewed in the same way and certainly can't be reviewed in the same amunt of time.

Hope that clears things up for you.

I pretty much agree with this review.  I've had more technical problems (falling through the ground is particularly annoying when you are in a city built over water), but I still find it largely enjoyable in the 1-20 range.  I won't continue to play, mostly because I am a lousy PvPer, and not because of the game itself.

From the last page:

Value is also a category that I felt needed at least a paragraph to explain: I think that the different approach that this game takes to the contemporary MMORPG makes it worth the box price to try (keeping in mind that you get your first 30 days free). I ranked it a seven because I know that some of the decisions that the developers made will not sit well with some players.

On the rating list though it's rated 8 for Value.

Looking forward to a review on the post-newbie area game.

Oh, dear Jon. I congratulate you on enjoying the first 20 levels so much. I am afraid you've seen the best of the game so far, and it's going to decline rapidly downhill for the next 20 levels. It get's worse and worse for every fifth level.

Originally posted by chuckdiesel

Originally posted by SaintViktor

It's the new trend now to only reviewi 1/4th of the game ? Yeah today I bought a new car and the car salesman had me sold when he only showed me 1/4th of the car. The rest of the car is missing though. No wheels, no engine, no brakes and the transmission needs a complete overhaul but other than that I am a happy buyer. If people are going to review the game then review ALL of it or don't even bother ya know ? 

 

It's a new trend caled learning to read that it says 1-20 review!

PWND

Anyone see the irony in this?

Well I think he did a great job and I only read a quarter of it.

Now after reading the next 3 pages It appears that Ill give the game a little more time to mature,

And then give it a try.Im already playing two other mmorpgs and it would be nice to find that single

Quality peace of work that draws all of my attention and my cash.

Oh Yeah, I still think its a good report.

Thanks for the review. You have confirmed my decision to stay with DDO where I enjoy great combat AND a great community, so once again, thanks.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by SaintViktor

It's the new trend now to only reviewi 1/4th of the game ? Yeah today I bought a new car and the car salesman had me sold when he only showed me 1/4th of the car. The rest of the car is missing though. No wheels, no engine, no brakes and the transmission needs a complete overhaul but other than that I am a happy buyer. If people are going to review the game then review ALL of it or don't even bother ya know ?

Actually, with the unique nature of the 1-20 campaign, a review on that aspect of the game is appropriate.

Also, given the amount of time that it takes for someone writing a review to move through all of the content of a game is quite substantial, we wanted to provide our users with something opinion-wise until we can do a full and complete review of the entire game.

MMORPGs aren't the same as single player games and shouldn't be reviewed in the same way and certainly can't be reviewed in the same amunt of time.

Hope that clears things up for you.

You going to write a review of EQ2's trial of the isle then? Or is this just a new thing, perhaps unique to AoC? Becuase thats all the 1-20 zones are, a noob isle.

All you need to do to review the game post 20 is explain the fluidity of quests, the problems that can, could and are arising. You dont need to write a life story. Infact you would find it conveniantly short as the game runs out of things to do half way through.

Its pretty obvious this is a PR stunt for AoC, you write how great the starting zone is to lure the punters in. I wonder how much Funcom is paying MMORPG.com.

6 for support? I wouldnt have hesitated to put in a 1.

Originally posted by Stradden

MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood has been playing the first twenty levels of Funcom's Age of Conan. Today, he presents this review of the game to this point, telling us what worked in the game and what didn't.

A great game that has some issues to work out. That’s how I would describe my experiences so far in Funcom’s Age of Conan.

When getting ready to write this review of the game’s first 20 levels, I had some trouble getting my thoughts into an order that would sound and look good on paper (or on your screen, as the case may be). On the one hand, from a personal point of view, these first twenty levels were some of the most fun that I have had playing an MMORPG title. On the other hand, I did run into a number of problems and customer support, at the time that I used it, was a bit of a mess. In the end, my fellow MMORPGers, I hope to address both the good and the not-so-good elements of the game.

Read the whole reivew here.

Dear  Jon

Quote from the Technical issue,

"I should start by saying (as I will say again in the graphics section of the review) that Age of Conan is one of the most visually appealing MMOs available. The developers placed a clear focus on having high-end graphics to bring the world of Howard’s Hyboria to life. While graphically this is a huge boon for the game, it has left players with lower end machines to either play on the lowest possible settings or, in some cases, not at all."

After reading your review on AoC i found most of it spot on. then i came to one issue you didnt highlight that is impacting a lot more players than you realise.

The Frames Per Second issue has now offically become a living legend of a joke amongst ATI card users.

Take this thread,

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=23864&page=61

Quote: Originally Posted by SalvoSalvoSalvo Famine said in the patch post that theyre working on a fix and that its been tricky to fix, so at least theyre working on it. However, I'm afraid that if my 3850 performed any better it would outperform nvidia cards 2-3x more expensive :P Yeah, I got some more info on what I sent out a few days ago. This is true but I'm currently waiting on more info. So it's a sign things are being worked on with this report. As many have mentioned already this has to due a lot with a lot technical aspects with ATI itself but we are working on it. Sorry for the delay, wanted to post this in the morning.

__________________

And then this thread,

http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=25454

Originally Funcom didnt even bother to let the Player base KNOW of these issues, myself came to the conclussion that this game (and funcom) were paid a TRUCK load of cash to give ATI users very poor and terrible FPS.

This in my view has been proved, as this GM has now basically said the issue is ATI and not funcom. Now stop me here, isnt the game supposed to run on all available cards as possible??? or is there more to this conspiracy theory??

So i would basically say to anyone thinking of trying Age of Conan, First get your PC specs checked out, if you have an ATI video card, i would recommend staying away from this game until you see an offical (and judging by their lack of customer service) post regarding a solution to this serious issue. If you want to waste £25 quid on buying it, then please by all means go for it...

After all i did, and got a nice coaster.

I thought it was a good review of 1-20.  The game does look great.

A friend has a computer just barely above the minimum specs and he took the game back after finding it unplayable on his computer.  Another friend has a system that is just a bit better than the recommended specs and while he could play his performance did suffer in some areas.  Since we were playing on a pvp server, he had definite issues at times.  I would recommend having a much better PC than the recommended one if you are going to pvp. 

I do think you are being extremely kind when you rate support a 6 as many of us have found it is not even marginal.  A 2 or 3 would be the best I could give for their support, but then again it is Funcom and anyone who has played one of their games knows that they have always had very weak support services. 

Their entire chat interface is very weak compared to other MMO's and that is critical for a MMO to have a decent one.

Personally the higher you get the less finished you find the game.  I have already stopped playing, I feel like a beta tester and I do not pay to test others games. 

This game has potential, but it is at least 6 months to a year away.

Jon,

What a great review and it is pretty accurate.  The only thing I didn't have to experience was bad customer service as I had a reply within 10 minutes of me reporting a gold site already selling 1 gold for $7!!!  I knew the US $ was bad, but holy schmolly!

Anyway, I have a few questions for you:

- What is your take on the User Interface?

- What is your take on the text boxes?

- What is your take on wayfinding?

- When you finally get to start them, your take on the gathering?

- What is your take on no repair bills?

- No training costs?

Since I'm asking you, I'm going to give you my thoughts too.  First off I want to say I am really enjoying this game.  I haven't had this much fun in a game since I played WoW for the first 3 months it was out and had to stop cause my wife was going to divorce me if I didn't (she eventually let me play 6 months later).  I've tried all the MMOs that have come out in the recent year and tried some older ones as well, but never fell in love with them enough to pay a sub too.  Well, AoC got me hooked the first 3 days.  I went from a 1 month sub to a 6 month sub immediately.  I am not knocking the game at all, just some areas I'm not happy with are the questions I posed to you above:

- I think the UI is decent but lacks the customability that everyone is looking for in a MMO.  Blizzard was finally integrating a lot of popular mods out on the cursegaming.com site seeing how frustrating people got everytime a patch made these mods useless.  I am just shocked FunCom didn't make a more user friendly customization of the UI.  I'm not meaning graphics and stuff, but the ability to move items around.  For example, I don't like my HP/SP bar on the bottom left and would prefer it to be up top.  I don't want the targets in the bottom right, I want that just below mine.  I want lockable additional tool bars.  There have been numerous times I accidentally right click instead of left click an ability and my toolbar goes vertical on me and I can't click my next combo.  They aren't tough things, but I find it that these MMOs fail at making the UI friendly and tedious to get used to.

- I find it very annoying that I cannot change text color.  I want to see my misses in combat a different color,I want to see my crits in a different color than normal damage, I want to see hits against me in a different color so I can clearly differentiate what is happening with a quick glance.  Yes I have the text floating above the toons, but I find there are so many numbers at times, I get lost in a sea of white!  Again, another quick change to the code for this user friendly item to become available.

- Wayfinding is an area that I find Funcom got it a little backwards.  I'd rather be able to talk to a guard and get directions in a major city for where the trader is, the trainer is, and the other important people (since professions isn't in the city I see u don't need it) than have each quest clearly marked on my map.  Can I turn it off?  Yea sure, but why would I?  It's like having thottbot.com in game with me.  In my opinion they made it too easy to quest.  There is no adventure in reading the quest text and figuring out where you ahve to go.

- I have a level 29 guardian and 4 other toons ranging from level 4 to level 14.  All different classes as I was trying to get a feel of each before I took my guardian past 20.  As soon as I discovered where to go and how to get to the quest givers for gathering quests, I thought I can only take one.  There was no quest from Tortage to get me to where I had to pick up gathering.  Why these professions aren't able to be picked up in the major cities is beyond me.  All professions should be available in major cities as thats where most of the work and sales would be taking place.  Yes some higher end trainers for specialty items can be in odd places, but the basics should be easy to find.  Back to the point.  Gathering, so yea, same node all the time.  I can mark it on my map, go back 10 minutes later and if someone else didn't take a whack before me, I can take another whack.  There is no randomness to the spawn points.  It sits there with 0%-9% left and i can't get an item until it reaches 10%.   This is for wood, ore, stone, and cotton so far.  Leather is a random drop!!!!!  Random!!!  There is no longer skinning to get leather?  At first I thought I had to kill the bulls and pigs around Pontia but they kept running from me...  I was very confused and I think they really need some love in the methodology of this.

- No repair bills is odd to me.  I'm just not used to not having it I guess.  I don't know what to make of it.  What is the point in currency then?

- No training needed?  I mean, these new abilities just magically come from the gods into my brain and I magically learn new combos and abilities?  Its a bit odd.  When it first happened to me, I was floored.  Again, what is the point of currency?

Originally posted by SaintViktor

It's the new trend now to only reviewi 1/4th of the game ? Yeah today I bought a new car and the car salesman had me sold when he only showed me 1/4th of the car. The rest of the car is missing though. No wheels, no engine, no brakes and the transmission needs a complete overhaul but other than that I am a happy buyer. If people are going to review the game then review ALL of it or don't even bother ya know ? 

In going with your example of a car sale. Cars are reviewed on safety and performance etc.. But as far as reliability and how it cost effective your purchase is, this can take up to or beyond your first scheduled service. Eg: The car could be great for the first month but then, there may be design flaws, faulty parts, wear and tear etc that come into account. In this regard, MMOs reviewing to more than 1/4 would require too long for most reviewers of games. Even car reviewers don't test the car for that long. It may be an afternoon drive but that doesn't tell you how the car will be in a year.

As you can see the car sale example just doesn't work.

We didn't really need another 1-20 review did we? We've all been through it up to probably level 55 or higher..

Originally posted by metatronic

We didn't really need another 1-20 review did we? We've all been through it up to probably level 55 or higher..

its not whether people need it or not,its the fact theres nothing else to review.

that article is almost a viral marketing strategy

It is simple: FunCom pays the BIG Banners.

Just HOW BAD a game  must be these days before getting a 6 ?

Even a disk with nothing on it would get a 5.

I never EVER seen a review of the "first 20 levels" of a game.

Certainly when yoyu reach that level in one or two days.

Perfect marketing review. Disgusting.

if this game had a follow tool, i'd have to drop my rating of it alot.

aoc is immersive because it plays more simularly to a FPS, no automatic movement/attacking at all. follow tool would take that away.