Age of Conan

When I played AOC, it just wasn't for me.  Too forced, too scripted, too linear; at least in the early levels and those are the only ones I was willing to try.  Now, for some, this was just fine and that's okay.  Just wasn't for me.

But my main thought is what is the real spirit of Conan's Hyboria?  I have read most or all fo the R.E. Howard books, some Lin Carter and L. Sprague DeCamp, and some of the others, and there was a constant theme in all of these that I found missing in the game.  Basically, the theme was that Conan lived in a free and open, cruel and viscious world.  He could choose any path to walk, but with every choice he could be taking his life into his hands.

Hence, the world of Hyboria (in the novels) was:

FREEDOM + DANGER

I do not see this in AOC.  The freedom is lacking when you cannot walk off a forest path or you must talk to the "quest girl" to continue down the path past her.

The danger may or may not be there, but the early levels seemed to be a cakewalk.  I guess danger would require as much to do with incorporating a workable and stinging death penalty as it would in beefing up the challenge.

But anyway, that's the point my post:  Conan's world should be unforgiving and full of wide-open adventure and not on tracks.  At least, to feel like Hyboria, I think that should be the case.

Thoughts?

The real spirit of hyboria is: ignore funcom lies, ignore the half finished small instanced world, ignore the bugs and 2 weekly patches every week after launch...ignore that aoc is a bad game in beta phase and just pay to test the damn game...

Thats the spirit :)

I have to admit to the d\nger not really being there....i see that level 80 boss mino thing in poltain, and ever since level 20 i shoot an arrow at him to gain agro and see what damage i do. I know i only have to walk two feet and hell give up so theres no danger and most of the game is the same. much prefer Everquest where a mob would follow you to the end of the zone.

Hyboria would be so much better to explore if you didnt need to complete quests or be a certain level to get into. i miss exploring in EQ and then dying in a zone i know i have no chance of getting my stuff again.

I made a thread about this a few days ago and it quickly sank down to page 2.

With the exception of some NPC dialogue, AOC really has nothing in common with Hyborian canon. It completely fails to capture the spirit of REH's sword and sorcery world and Funcom seems more than content with that.

Originally posted by pencilrick

FREEDOM + DANGER

Quite agree.

I've been following development of AoC from the very beginning and it seemed to me that if there ever was a fantasy IP just BEGGING to be made into a brutal bloody sandbox like some kind of pre-historic EVE online then it would have to be Howard's Hyborea..

Making it into a "journey" kind of  a quest  thing where you go on to discover your destiny or some such Tolkienesque crap is totally  against everything I feel the IP stands for.

If they made a single-player with that premise I could maybe tolerate it if the story was brutal and cynical enough... but a MMO... gosh darn.

In full agreement with the OP

That was a major turn off for me when I played the game, the setting of the game just wasnt at all what I thought and expected it would be.

If AoC was more open, less scripted, and included more open PvP, looting, and harsher death sentence they would be no where near the #s they are at now. Unfortunately the MMORPG genre has gone down a different branch and you won't see any more UOs or Shadowbanes. I least not big budget(worth playing) ones.

Your gonna see the real spirte of Conan with the 3rd and 4th quarter stock holder statements. Two words come to mind " Game Over "

Originally posted by Laserwolf

If AoC was more open, less scripted, and included more open PvP, looting, and harsher death sentence they would be no where near the #s they are at now. Unfortunately the MMORPG genre has gone down a different branch and you won't see any more UOs or Shadowbanes. I least not big budget(worth playing) ones.

Yeah.... until somebody makes a decently designed and well executed sandbox that will prove viability of the model.

MMOs themselves were a niche genre "serious" developers used to snicker at.. until WoW came around. Lets just admit that previous MMOs simply weren't executed well enough to become really successful. WoW was the first MMO whose gameplay was done up to the standard of contemporary single -player AAA titles.

UO, EQ, DAoC... they simply did not play well enough compared to their contemporaries. Not talking about gfx here but about the UI, controls and overall feel of the game. Too clunky - they weren't enjoyable at the very basic, tactile level. Those were the games only us geeks could love.

We just have to wait until somebody does the similar upgrade for more open UO-style MMOs. It is not true that the EQ model is intrinsically superior - the sad fact is that there is no open-world sandbox game that is done in a technically halfway decent manner. (except EVE but it is handicapped by its peculiarities so it doesn't count here really)

Originally posted by markoraos

 

MMOs themselves were a niche genre "serious" developers used to snicker at.. until WoW came around. Lets just admit that previous MMOs simply weren't executed well enough to become really successful. WoW was the first MMO whose gameplay was done up to the standard of contemporary single -player AAA titles.

The biggest point of WoW's success was that it released when everyone and his cousin was able to order a cheap broadband with no time restrictions.

In the old days online gaming was expensive. Compuserve for example cost 2.75 U$ per hour + dialin fees. It was easy to burn 200 Euro per month. Most players have been students with free internet account from their university. It was common to look for female architecture students. Those girls usually didnt use their internet accounts :P

With the broadband also the audience changed drastically. And with this change the games changed. MMO are now becomming more and more a mass media and games are often designed to please the masses.

I am an old veteran and waited for a next gen mmo for quite a while. Its not comming. And lately i realize that DEVs dont produce a next gen game for veterans but games for the next gen players. /shrug I guess thats how the generation thing works...