nice and balanced review..

I would point out you said it would take about on average of 8 hours to get assistance... that's pretty quick imo..

Blizzard gives you about 1-3 days

SOE upto a week

CCP up to amazing 4 weeks... that's why I quitted EVE... I mean with that slow response time when bugs happens it's amazing people bother to put in a petition... when  I started it took 1-3 days, last year my last petition was 27 days almost 4 weeks and CCP ofcourse came with a nice apology but it didn't actually help get my ship back a month later when I needed it preferable within a few days.

This puzzles me a lot since WoW has a much larger player base but we get help pretty fast while EVE has a tiny base in comparison... CCP should hire more people if they're having so much problems attending their customers needs.

Originally posted by funnylumpy

nice and balanced review..

 

I would point out you said it would take about on average of 8 hours to get assistance... that's pretty quick imo..

 

Blizzard gives you about 1-3 days

SOE upto a week

CCP up to amazing 4 weeks... that's why I quitted EVE... I mean with that slow response time when bugs happens it's amazing people bother to put in a petition... when  I started it took 1-3 days, last year my last petition was 27 days almost 4 weeks and CCP ofcourse came with a nice apology but it didn't actually help get my ship back a month later when I needed it preferable within a few days.

 

This puzzles me a lot since WoW has a much larger player base but we get help pretty fast while EVE has a tiny base in comparison... CCP should hire more people if they're having so much problems attending their customers needs.

Well, my main issue with Funcom's service is that while it may take 8 hours, that's 8 hours you're going to have to have free. They have this delightful habit of deleting *all* petitions, rather than less severe ones.

For example, I haven't been able to craft in almost week (Trade Skill issues). Now these issues are 100% not going to resolve themselves, so why delete my petition because of the GM's poor response time? I can understand deleting some petitions after a set time period (profanity, for example), but what about the players who can't stay logged in for a full day? Don't they deserve to be helped as well?

However... wow. After a full week, regardless of the game and the time it has been out, would be the maximum time I would wait for a response for a paid game. I give you props for your patience!

 Thank you  for  your  time and effort as well as posting this review.
  Several points that stood out was the playing with friends comment. I believe that is true of any online game. It is lonely without pals and gets to be a chore if the community is like some  other offerings .

    The other part was the fact that  you made it past level 20 and saw a taste  of end game.  By the time casual players make it to that point more bugs and most certainly exploits should be taken care of .

    I do think mmorp's are having a harder time attracting new players at this point due to some serious faulty releases and perhaps folks just aren't ready to go through that yet.  With seeing a review that states the good with the bad so clearly it might help them to decide to wait a few months and or even a free trial before they sink into and regret the purchase latter.

Great  review. I canceled my sub for those reasons, BUT I am going to give it another try in a few months. The game has alot of potential. I just do not believe in paying for a beta.

Great read. Graphically , I found the game cluttered. The atmosphere of the game as well was just not present either.

Again good review 

I didn't know the OP was a Staff Writer before reading it and I couldn't care either way if they were. What really caught me was that it was a review from levels 1-80 when the vast majority of the reviews I have seen have been from 1-30.

I have asked a handfull of people on how they got past level 51 since I ran out of quests around that time. They all said they kill everything on the way to a quest objective and don't avoid mobs. I noticed you, Cymdai, said that you had questing issues from 47-50 and 57-60. From level 49-51 I only had 1-3 new solo quests each time I leveled which clearly wasn't enough for my liking. You had said their was only a little bit of grinding, but I experienced quite the opposite. So I am curious how you leveled whether it be dungeon crawls or grinding. I am always curious to see if I missed a zone or something else.

Customer support is an embarrassment, true. Very bold review, appreciate the effort.
 

Finally a review with a fair and accurate score.

 Seems to me from all the reviews I've been reading, that the only thing AoC did right was picking the release date. In other words they knew the MMO market was there for the taking, everyone seems to be waiting on the next BIG thing.

Lets market all these next gen promises, hook line and sinker, then worry about them when we have your sub. Great practice.

Do you want to get paid $12/hr as a gm and they will not offer relocation assistance job at funcom usa? Yea i didnt think so.

Your review is a sugar-coated, tilted,sales job masquerading as a neutral review.  It is the equivalent of the oil companies explaining the sudden,viscious jump in gas prices as having nothing to do with greed.  I too have a level 80,have played since Beta. I played on a brand new quad -core,with great memory and a great video card. I have played on both pvp and pve servers.Your experience, regarding the abscence of the horrid level of technical difficulties plaguing this game, is either unique to you alone,totally and intentionally omissive,or a plain lie. I have read many forums about this game...volumes of forums.  To disregard,as you do,the level of fury and being let down expressed by previously unseen volumes of players is to bury your head in the sand and be in a abject state of denial. Many are simply crushed that the game they thought would be their new home was a marketing scam.  As to the population...it is far worse than most players have ever experieced in any game ,on the pvp servers. Those WoW kids,the ones who drew pictures of cats in chat,and ran through Storm Wind naked hollering,"Hic,I'm drunk." They're there... and far worse. And they have started to destroy the pve servers now.

fair review, and contrary to the poster above, i dont believe its a suger coated one.

my general summing up of aoc is that if you mostly play in a group with your guildies and/or friends then you will enjoy it lots. if you plan to solo it, it can be the most tedious and frustrating experience you are ever going to have in a game.

the thing i am most let down by is the lack of social tools. the UI is the worst ever design for finding/forming groups - in fact its terrible in all chatting aspects. and the game itself doesnt have a central point to congregate at, and of course the instancing detracts from this.

i read somewhere when it was called mmo-lite - this is my opinion also.

Only two things I don't agree with:

<<Armor sets look great as the game progresses. While I'm not necessarily a fan of wearing a skirt for 90% of the game, I was satisfied with the differences in appearance throughout my playing of the game.>>

I can't stand wearing a skirt.  I would rather wear pants or a loincloth.  And most (95%+) of the mid-range light armor pieces look virtually identical.  The only choices I've had so far (30-60) have been skirt length and, sometimes, in the shade of brown.

And I think it could take more than a month or two to make a big difference.  The patches so far have been less than good (I had to re-install the game after one).

But otherwise I agree with you 100%.

Originally posted by audioedge

fair review, and contrary to the poster above, i dont believe its a suger coated one.

my general summing up of aoc is that if you mostly play in a group with your guildies and/or friends then you will enjoy it lots. if you plan to solo it, it can be the most tedious and frustrating experience you are ever going to have in a game.

the thing i am most let down by is the lack of social tools. the UI is the worst ever design for finding/forming groups - in fact its terrible in all chatting aspects. and the game itself doesnt have a central point to congregate at, and of course the instancing detracts from this.

i read somewhere when it was called mmo-lite - this is my opinion also.

Hehe I felt the opposite when I played. Soloing worked really well, but grouping was really annoying. But of course it's alot more fun playing together with others, but I'm gonna do it in a less frustrating game instead. :)

Great review

Originally posted by Pooberries

Your review is a sugar-coated, tilted,sales job masquerading as a neutral review.  It is the equivalent of the oil companies explaining the sudden,viscious jump in gas prices as having nothing to do with greed.  I too have a level 80,have played since Beta. I played on a brand new quad -core,with great memory and a great video card. I have played on both pvp and pve servers.Your experience, regarding the abscence of the horrid level of technical difficulties plaguing this game, is either unique to you alone,totally and intentionally omissive,or a plain lie. I have read many forums about this game...volumes of forums.  To disregard,as you do,the level of fury and being let down expressed by previously unseen volumes of players is to bury your head in the sand and be in a abject state of denial. Many are simply crushed that the game they thought would be their new home was a marketing scam.  As to the population...it is far worse than most players have ever experieced in any game ,on the pvp servers. Those WoW kids,the ones who drew pictures of cats in chat,and ran through Storm Wind naked hollering,"Hic,I'm drunk." They're there... and far worse. And they have started to destroy the pve servers now.

Woah...easy there killer. =) The review was pretty critical of all those points. And I'm sorry AoC didn't work out for you. It didn't work out for me either.  

Great review, thanks for posting it!

A very fair review, although only being a casual player I am a long long way from level 80, so I can't comment on the later sections of the game. I have the occasional graphics glitch but so far no problems with sound.

I agree with most of the points, but so far I am enjoying the game & would definitely say it is worth a try. Games are cheap & in the first month you should get enough enjoyment from it to justify the cost, at least in my opinion.

Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to write an objective review.

Good Review.

I think it's important to remember, no new MMO is going to be perfect from a technical standpoint at release.

It's simply impossible for the BETA to simulate actual server loads.

It should only get better.

Originally posted by Pooberries

Your review is a sugar-coated, tilted,sales job masquerading as a neutral review.  It is the equivalent of the oil companies explaining the sudden,viscious jump in gas prices as having nothing to do with greed.  I too have a level 80,have played since Beta. I played on a brand new quad -core,with great memory and a great video card. I have played on both pvp and pve servers.Your experience, regarding the abscence of the horrid level of technical difficulties plaguing this game, is either unique to you alone,totally and intentionally omissive,or a plain lie. I have read many forums about this game...volumes of forums.  To disregard,as you do,the level of fury and being let down expressed by previously unseen volumes of players is to bury your head in the sand and be in a abject state of denial. Many are simply crushed that the game they thought would be their new home was a marketing scam.  As to the population...it is far worse than most players have ever experieced in any game ,on the pvp servers. Those WoW kids,the ones who drew pictures of cats in chat,and ran through Storm Wind naked hollering,"Hic,I'm drunk." They're there... and far worse. And they have started to destroy the pve servers now.

Who the hell do you think you are?  Very pretentious!

I've never had the game crash, the only issue I have are the occasional lag spike to like 1k ms.  But otherwise, no issues.  It's not like everyone is having these technical issues....

Overall a fair review, i think.  Lots of unpolished areas and unfinished bits (hello all instances in Khopshef!!!) and gaps in questing.  Also, lack of armour model variety, and dungeons need tuning.  But, I'm still having fun enough, but we'll see if I stay past 1 month of resubbing.