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I know this might be asking a lot on the mmorpg forums hah, but can anyone that plays the game give me a fair review of the state of the game as it is now... I'm very interested in playing and would like to get some insight on server population, stability,and fun factor.. I know there are a lot of things funcom failed to reach so far, but I would really like some postives also. thanks CsM III |
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8/10/08 11:04:26 AM#2
Its a fun game. Decent content. The server population is good. I've played since release and have had almost no problems with crashing and bugs. Just realize that the vast majority of people that play, really like this game. And also realize the vocal minority come to the forums and bash the game. My advice would be to play it. If you dont like it, then u dont like it. But dont just take what people say for the 100% truth. |
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8/10/08 11:07:55 AM#3
Originally posted by Sevensodd And I guess the vocal minority also posts on all the other sites too, including the official forums. Here's a fair review OP http://rabblog.com/?p=10 |
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8/10/08 11:09:20 AM#4
Really, it's as good as anything else that has come out in the last few years, better than alot. the end game is not there yet and changes are coming pretty much weekly. I'm not going to go on about how this game is the shit, it's not. It's a good solid game that will be around for awhile. nothing truly wonderful about it or bad. Most of the crying you see on the forums are from the pvp crowd. ( what a surprise huh ). My biggest issue with it is the world does not draw you in as say wow, where you see players hanging out , showing off new stuff, and talking smack. the zone thing really hampers this. I would rate it "C", another average game that was overhyped to be the one. without the hype it would have probably faired better. Wait till it goes on sell or get a buddy key, unless you're really bored. |
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8/10/08 11:11:00 AM#5
Originally posted by Sevensodd
You have to be kidding me... The vast majority playing may like it, but the vast majority that bought it aren't playing it. It is not a vocal minority that doesn't like the game. That is just SOEism if I've ever seen it.
To the OP. I didn't really like the game from the get go, even before I got out of the intro town that even the people that really hate this game seemed to like. I found the combat to be really clunky. The melee combat had an action style control to it, where you would attack in certain directions and use combos, which would have been cool. BUT, they added a combat queue to it, which completely ruined it in my opinion. You basically had an action style control scheme but had to wait for attacks to happen after you pushed the button. I also found a lot of graphical errors(not fps errors as my fps was great even on max settings). Thinks wouldn't render right, or just plain bugs such as all of the character features going invisible when you go stealth(this includes clothes, facial features, everything). Another thing I hated about the game was the instancing. Having multiple copies of each zone completely ruined the immersion for me. Just my .02 Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic |
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8/10/08 11:24:47 AM#6
Originally posted by ducks1290
fair review????....here ya go
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Ghist
 Novice Member
Joined: 10/21/06
Paid MMORPG subscriptions are the ONLY valid rating meters because people have to pay to vote." |
8/10/08 11:28:55 AM#7
Waiting for the next thing |
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8/10/08 11:32:47 AM#8
I'd be happy to. The game allows you to customize your character's physical appearance pretty well. There's an advanced setting that allows you to morph the face, body shape, etc., so you can look truly funky, if you like. As for gear right now, however, gear customization is negligible. The itemization of AoC is pretty terrible. There is barely any variety of gear and no way to customize the colors via dyes. This will supposedly be fixed with a massive patch that is due to come out in the next few weeks or months (depending on who's the talking head at Funcom for the week), so hopefully there will be some new variety. For now, though, the armors do have a realistic functionality look to it, which is a nice change of pace. The unique and epic gear does look very nice, even if they are redundant at this time. Gameply wise, AoC is a lot of fun, imo. It takes some tactics to apply your attacks because the enemies rotate their shield (brackets that form around the targeted enemy that reveals which side they are currently guarding). Careful use of combo attacks and having to pay attention to what you're doing is nice change of pace compared to other MMORPGs that are more click-and-watch/go-get-a-sandwich. The first 20 or so levels are done in a well done newbie area called Tortage. There are a lot of interesting quests, with full voice acting dialogues to help boost the experience. Tortage is broken up into two different play mechanics - Daytime, which is a more traditional MMORPG style of gameplay with many other people running around and more traditional "go kill X of these or gather X of that" style quests. The other gameplay mechanic is the Nighttime Tortage which is essentially a single player experience which focuses on your character's primary story line and adventure. You'll bounce between these two modes a few times during your noob expeience. There's never a loss of what to do in this newbie area. The one downside to this is that if you're an alt-a-holic like me, you'll play through this same newbie area a lot and will want to stab your eyes after the third time. It would have been nice to have about 3 newbie starting areas, but considering the amount of focus that went into this newbie area, I think we would have been waiting another 3 years for this game to ship, and/or Funcom would have filed bankruptcy. After the newbie area, you're sent to the homeland of your character - either Cimmeria, Stygia, Aquillonia. From here you'll get the much more traditional MMORPG gameplay, with vectoring, kill, and fetch quests abound. The quests are pretty much flowing well up until the mid 50s, then you'll be hunting around for a quest to do - any quest! Later game questing is pretty difficult, especially for a solo player. Again, Funcom said they are going to address this in their "super-awesome-patch-of-godly-hope" that they say they will eventually release (concensus says it'll be just before WAR is released, and I'm inclined to agree with that), so we'll see. In the meantime, my 57 Conquerer is busy repeating Villa quests (the equivalant on Daily Quests), or I'm playing one of my many alts until the miracel patch comes out. Thankfully the combat system keeps me entertained enough with all my alts, so I'm not really suffering, yet. There was a lot of problems with stability when the game launched, especially with horrendous lag spikes that were caused by a myriad of memory leaks. A lot of the memory leaks have since been fixed, but there are still some in the game that casue the annoying lag-spikes-o'-death. Luckily these spikes aren't nearly as frequent, but they do still pop up here and there to the point where I want to fly out to Funcom and start beating their programmers with a hob-nailed baseball bat. I know memory leaks in a game are a bear to track down and fix, but never-the-less, they are still very annoying. Another annoyance is that there are still quests that are broken, but a lot have been fixed. In addition, some quests that were working fine are now broken, which leads me to believe that their internal testing proceedures are pretty much non-existant. Case-in-point: There is a quest that has the player go into what's known as the Spider Caves and retrieve some money off a dead body that is owed to another NPC. The quest used to work fine - go into the cave, kill a bunch of spiders, find the body and loot it. Now, the devs introduced a new gameplay mechanic that is essentially a triggered respawner encounter that has a bucnh of minion spiders crawling down the wall to attack the player. Cool in concept, except that the spawners have collision on them, thus blocking out an invisible portion of the ground from being walkable. And guess where the devs put on of these new spawners? You guessed it! Right on top of the dead guy that the player is supposed to loot in order to complete the quest. BRILLIANT! So, not only do I think that there aren't any testers at Funcom, but it's obvious that the designers don't test their own work, which is unfathomable to me. I've read the community is a mixed bag, so your mileage will vary. I'm currently on Wiccana and the community there has been nothing but fun and informative. So at least on Wiccana, which is a PvE server, the gaming community has been a lot of fun. The PvP servers, I've read, have been nothing but a newbie gank fest with no repurcussions for killing low level players. Again, this is supposed to be addressed in the miracle patch, so we'll see. Personally, I haven't played on a PvP server, so I can't give an opinion on it. I can't really give an opinion on any PvP yet since I haven't dived into the fray. Ok, this has gotten way to long, so bottom line is that there were a lot of features that were promised that never made it into the final release, though we are repeatedly assured by Funcom they will eventually make it, but overall the game is enjoyable if you overlook this glaring problem. There is still quite a bit to do until you reach the mid 50s, and depending on the server crowd, the community can be fun. Based on my experience on Wiccana, I can reccomend this game, that is until WAR comes out. And maybe after WAR, depending on how good the miracle patch will be. Sorry in advance for any typos, but I was typing fast to get this done before lunch. I hope this helps. I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play. |
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8/10/08 11:35:31 AM#9
Originally posted by ducks1290
im a fan of aoc, but funcom hater, becuz they ruined the game for me, im gonna try to give you a fair review, as fair as i can :) the univers of the game is good, attractive i understand why you want to try it, graphic are one of the best, with issues but still. the actual eta of the game, i would advice player with high play time to stay away from the game, there is no really entertaining content, client have performance and stability problemes, servers lag and crash, the only way a player can somehow enjoy the game is to play it casual, and wait for fixe. the other stuff like items pvp combat that depands on ppl, you will say for your self if you like or not after you test it. bottom line, hardcore player don't go, casuals can give it a try and may enjoy it, the lv1-40 is the magic one, where everyone likes the game last point didnt play for long time, but servers seems to be getting more and more empty, so try to find the most populated one to start |
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awesome. thank you for all the reviews.. Actually was expecting to get flamed for even asking hah.. But very useful information. thanks again CsM III |
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8/10/08 11:50:21 AM#11
a fair short review would be: AOC is a ok game. Probably if it had not been hyped by both players and developers , most would accept it for what it is, a diiferent game.Problem is when you have a ok product, market it as the next big thing, promisse all kind features for years... well.. in that scenario, when the players get it, and find half the things promissed are not there or are not working, they complain. And with reason. And when those some players find out that even the things that are in the game are 3/4 done, they complain more. so, in a concise manner, what will you find in AOC good graphics and sound A decent attempt to give the player both a quantitative and qualitative gaming experience an interesting combat system the usual stuff you'll find in other mmorpgs. what will you complain about in about 3 or 4 weeks of playing the fact that half the stuff that was hyped for months is not there the terrible itemization, something that compromisses character development the lack of content after lvl 55-60. What sadly brings another consequence: due to the fact you'll end up grinding more than what you should, the leveling process tends to burn out some players even on the new combat system. the endgame situation, that, at lest till 3 weeks ago, was ..terrible the fact that the promissed fixes are often mere optical ilusions, Funcom might release patch after patch every week but has not yet adressed pivotal points. so bottom line.. yes the game worth playing? yes if you take an approach of "i'll play it while i have fun", and not "this is going to be my next mmorpg",
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8/10/08 12:06:29 PM#12
If you do decide to play it you need to be very careful which server you pick. They released new servers after the head start and the majority of those servers are ghostlands and should be merged. If you say play on Bardisvatta you might never see more than 400 players on the server at the same time even during primetime. The game itself is ok if you want a MMORPG that plays more like a console game. If you really enjoyed say Diablo you might like the game. The combat system is interactive and can be fun but it is also very simplistic and watered down lacking any type of depth. You round up mobs and AE them to death, the healing is all AE, aggro system is simplistic etc. The PvP is pretty much terrible right now, one hit kills are rampant, classes have almost no balance, there is no risk or reward system in place, sieges are so laggy and buggy they dont' really work and only those who are in pretty hardcore guilds even get to participate in them. If PvP is what you want I'd look towards WAR instead or just wait another month. |
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8/10/08 12:30:45 PM#13
Originally posted by Sevensodd
OP, there are some untruths in this statement. I've played since early release (still have a sub until end of September) and let me clear up some of the falsehoods here. It's a fun game: TRUE - many fun aspects to the game, until you get to max level. Decent content: TRUE - however he fails to tell you that much of the end game content is unplayable. Server population is good: FALSE - a few servers still maintain a decent population, most do not. Choose carefully and cross your fingers. Almost no crashing a bugs: FALSE - very misleading. If he is in the minority that does not have issues, at the least he is being disingenous but not relaying the fact that many people have serious technical issues that Funcom refuses to address. Such as constant latency spiking in raids, and terrible lags/bugs in seiging which is one of the main reasons that attracted people to the game. Vast majority of people like the game: FALSE - while there are many fun aspects to the game, I am not sure that any of the people that came in to try it with me, are going to resub at this point. Terrible treatment of it's customers, patching that actually decreases game performance, complete lack of communication and hiding topics from its user by deleting threads, are a few reasons. As well as many missing features that the game promised. |
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8/10/08 12:45:50 PM#14
Don't fucking lie to the OP, the majority of people who bought the game are very disappointed with this piece of trash. And I very much doubt you have no problems with crashing and bugs. In fact, that's pretty much impossible.
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8/10/08 2:00:29 PM#15
Heh. People forget that it's all opinion of what is a good game and what isn't. Age of Conan is an /alright/ game. It's not the best, but it's certainly not the worst. The discontent comes from people feeling letdown from the hype surrounding the game and the game's inability to live up to that hype. If you've played everything else out there and are bored, AoC will fill the void for a little bit. It's cool at first, but the veneer wears off and the bugs come through and it gets boring around the lvl 50 mark when you run out of quests and have to grind for some time. Content gets sparse up in the higher levels. There are bugs, of course, especially dealing with Shader 3.0 and apparent memory leaks. Also more than a couple of quests are bugged and are unable to be completed, though they are getting fixed, though it seems that the more they fix, the more they break something else. To me, it was just more of the same thing. A lot of stuff wasn't implemented at launch (normal), and a lot of the stuff that was, was broken (normal). People are just disillusioned that it wasn't what they expected and are pissed that they bought into the hype. (normal) |
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AmazingAvery
 Age of Conan Advocate
Joined: 1/16/07
The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them. |
8/10/08 2:21:21 PM#16
Originally posted by ducks1290
Some people here have serious issues with the game and will do anything to get you not to try it nor understand there are many people still enjoying the game. Before launch these same people amongst others pointed out AoC will have around 200-250k subs when it settles. I believe its above that, but I can not prove it just as people can't prove otherwise. I'm going of the population I see in game as a current subscriber. I mainly play on Cimmeria, content lvl 40 and up is Top Heavy say to the Tortage 1-20 area. I havent crashed in a few weeks now, last time was the "red line" lag bug. Somepeople still report it, but in my experience in a guild of a few hundred its becomming less and less frequent now but still happens. It seems you are already aware of where FC have let us down and in which area's so far. Yet your also asking for what is good about the game. And your right to be interested it has a good amount to offer. If your willing to pay $2.99 for the download I'll send you a buddy key so you can make your mind up yourself. Just send me a PM with your email addy and I'll forward one to you asap. A good place for research is here: http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=436
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8/10/08 2:24:12 PM#17
avery just because YOU may be lucky enough not to crash or have problems doesn't mean others don't. When I was playing I wouldn't crash but the memory leak would get so severe that I would have to restart. Constantly.
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Distopia
 Drifter
Joined: 11/22/05
If it contains the words video and game, it must be a WOW clone. |
8/10/08 2:29:00 PM#18
Originally posted by Nadril
Originally posted by Nadril Just wondering how you can attack someone who said the same thing you did.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson If you can't argue the point don't say anything at all. |
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8/10/08 2:36:23 PM#19
"crashing and bugs". Thanks for completely leaving that out. And my point is that I did crash, then they released a patch and I wouldn't crash as much but it would get to a point where I had to restart or the game would freeze up. |
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AmazingAvery
Age of Conan Advocate
Joined: 1/16/07
The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them. |
8/10/08 2:38:18 PM#20
Originally posted by Nadril
I can fully accept people have problems, but please, don't speak for all of us. You need to realise that if people are upset about something they will tell more people than something good. IMO they need to post to make people understand their own frustration, they need reassurance thats its not just themselves having issues. So here we are with say 50 people on these forums who have issues. 3/4 of them quit the first 2 weeks. Those first two weeks are nothing like what the game is like now. Its not even relevant anymore, only talking about it past tense is applicable the way I see it. There are people out there who don't have as many issues as others, those that have issues need to accept there is a flip side too. I feel sorry for those that have problems, it pissed me off to no end. All I can say from personal experience is its a lot better for me now. I am not denying their are issues with the game, they are certainly not game breaking for many, many people. Most people who suffer from memory leaks have to re log every couple of hours, thats the view I have from people in game I play with - personally that issue doesn't affect me, my memory usage is always less that 27%. Initally when the game launched it would go over 55% and crash the client. The biggest issue is the red line lag issue - you used to spike to 10k ms, they said they improved it, then it went to 5k ms lol. Last 5k'er I had was about 2 weeks back.
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