The silence by Stradden is deafening.

This review really was just a shill job for FC.  For shame MMORPG.com, for shame.  If you are goign to whore yourself out for a game, at least do it for a game that is actually an MMORPG.  AoC is not, so one review was already too many, let alone 3.  LOL.

Originally posted by Frobner

Originally posted by Tjommis

Originally posted by Frobner

This review pretty much sums up AOC.  Its worth the free trial and if you can enjoy the game with the 500 loading screens in Tortage - then you should maybe consider buying the game.

For me.. as a victim of the infamious memory leak during beta and well beyond (the entire box sub) - I simply can never play this game again.  Every time I load into the game I shiver from discust having to wait at every loading screen.   

Is the game worth the sub ?   Nope its not.  Not for me - ever.  1 more loading screen of AOC and I break my monitor.

 

The number of loading screens you would see during a normal gaming session after you completed Tortage is not many at all. Tortage; with it's small semizones and houses has quite a few; I agree, but many of the later zones are MUCH bigger and chances are you will stick in one zone alone for an entire evening of gaming only to zone to one of the major hubs after you are done for the night. That would total 20 seconds of loading screen for an entire session which I think most could handle..

On a sidenote. In Tortage when you zone in and out of buildings, if you have a decent computer the loading screen is hardly noticable since the entire zone is allready preloaded.

I have no problem accepting that people don't like AoC since it does not have a seamless world and they feel it harms their experience, but I really feel that the focus on the loading screens is HIGHLY exaggerated and that during a normal play session they don't matter much at all.

Edit: Since lag has been the topic in many of the posts here, I just have to mention that. I play on the EU Crom server (mostly) and in the last half year or so I have disconected from lag during game play 1 time a month tops. Agreedly there are occational spikes, but I really don't feel that this game has more lag issues than other games I've played.

 

Sorry m8 but loading screens are MAJOR problem for those that suffered through hours - days - WEEKS through the endless memory leaks both in beta and early launch.  I have seen more of the loading screens than actually playing the game - and I got 3 high lvl characters -inlcuing one lvl 80. 

Have you tried to play an MMO game where you can play for 5 - 10 mins and then it crashes?  Thats what I agreed to play beta for.  But that was NOT what I agreed to pay for.  Still I did that for then ENTIRE time that the sub for the box version lasted.

I have a perfectly good PC to run all games (rated 5,7 )  with 9800gtx, 4gb ram and so on.   If there is something that developers should realise by now that gaming is about having FUN - it has very little to do with sitting and waiting.   Just look what the indie developers are doing now  with titles like Hinterlands and Trine (less than 1 gb dl.  Its pure gameplay - the loading screens are filled with story driven content - voicovers and images.   Thats gaming !!!

Yeah, the game had memory leaks at launch, and I had plenty of those too, but thats not what I'm saying. The memory leaks are no more, atleast not for me and the huge majority (some cliam to still get them at tech forum, I know, but I have not seen any since october last year).

But there is no point in discussing launch anymore. We all know how it was then. My post was on how a normal night of gaming would be in the current situation. And for the reference. I played this game through 6 months of beta, through launch, and consistently to this day of speaking.

Not about the article itself, but:

Given the lifespan of MMOGs, it's too early to re-review AoC. Should have waited at least 6 months.

It's sad that I felt so incensed by some of the replies to this thread that I had to register an account just to respond. Some of the replies here beggar belief to be honest. People who have an axe to grind who seem to have little idea of the game today trotting out the same sad old cliched responses we've been reading for the last year which at best are grossly eggagerated but at worst are outright lies. I guess you can call me a fanboy as I actually pay for the game but then again I guess that makes me a little more qualified to respond as I play it 30+ hours a week as opposed to a couple of hours after 12 months of not playing.

The game is not perfect, no game is but allow me to dispell some of these exagerations and lies.

Lag

Does  it exist? Of course it does. Is it a problem? As someone who plays 30+ hours a week I'd have to say from my perspective, no. It's been a long long time since I got more than one or two lag spikes a day and even longer since I got disconnected more than one a week. Thats never been any different in any MMO I've played and considering how much I do play this MMO pretty decent.

Content

The thorny issue of content. There have been 2 complete new areas added since the launch (Ymir's Pass and Tarantia Commons District) which cover the 58-63 and 75-80 level ranges specifically. There has also been added another 100 or so quests throught the 50+ leveling range to minimise the grind. You can still chose to grind and you might even need to grind a little depending on how you've leveled (missed out group quests, not killed a lot of mobs in the area of the quest mob) but fundamentally theres almost no gaps in the leveling now.

They also added two new high level dungeons (Xibaluku which is a high difficulty level 80 dungeon and Crows Nest which is a short group dungeon with a number of repeatable quests) and thats going to be added to by a larger group instance called Iron Tower in the next month or so.

Class Balance

I don't PVP so I wouldn't like to comment on that aspect however FC have always maintained that PVP is balanced for group fighting and not 1 on 1 so make of that what you will. It still needs a lot of work from what I understand however what game with PVP doesn't. Everyone always moans and whines about how their class is getting pwned by some other class. Thats PVP and it will be forever.

Bugs

I've raided and killed every boss in the game many many times. Bugs appear, get fixed and other bugs take their place. On the whole for the past 7 or 8 months there hasn't been a single bug that meant a boss couldn't be taken down. Bugs still exist but nothing that causes anything other than occasional mild annoyance rather than game stopping or destroying issues. This whole fixation on bugs that kill the game is quite frankly, nothing more than utter eggageration. Having 7 level 80 characters I'm pretty certain I'd have been made aware of them all and quite frankly they're so few and far between they don't detract.

Fundamentally the game when released was terrible. Memory leaks, leveling holes, bugs, grey maps and so on. Those problems are far far behind the game now and the clear haters with little or no interest in really giving the game another go do nothing but pour their ill founded virtiol for the sake of hearing their own voice. Age of Conan has a HUGE amount going for it including, on the whole, a very mature community. If the outcome of the problems at launch have meant those types of players you read in this forum spreading their vitriol never play again, that HAS to be FC's masterstoke...

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Originally posted by angus858

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Originally posted by Shastra

The advertisement for this game is false. There is no such thing as sexy in game. Armors are so damn bland and ugly that people would get sick of it in first 20 or 30 lvls. and trust me it doesn't get long to hit 30.

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Armor in AoC looks like armor, as it should for Hyboria.  If you want neon tights with spikes there are many games which give you that and call it armor.  AoC does not, and should not look like Power Rangers Online.  That being said we could use more armor and clothing variety, as long as it all fits in with the gritty realism of this game's artistic style.

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Realistic doesn't mean gray, gray and more gray and to make things worse there is serious lack of variety in armor sets. Sexy armor do not mean pink and neon flashy colors. I meant artistically armors are bland and boring in AOC.

Nothing you said was wrong per say but you missed a major flaw in this game

THERE  IS  NO  LOSS.

I love how you glossed over the fact that it is exactly like WoW. Raiding is not an endgame for everyone. Some would like PvP as an end game and that means you lose something upon death when PvPing. They have a whole seperate system that figures out if you are PvPing and applying damage depending on that, they could add a xp or gold loss if they wanted.

Theres a few things i dont like about Age of Conan . I would have prefered factions instead fo the free for all gankfest we get at the moment apart from that i ve only a few minor niggles . It stands as the only mmorpg appart from Warcraft i ve played longer than a couple of months so its got to be good . Admitedly i m going to jump ship to Aion in september but i think i will be returning to AoC  now and again .  

It's not like World of Warcraft havent had its fair share of issues. After the wotlk release, Wintergrasp almost broke the game. There was major server lag, instances and raid could not be entered not mention wintergrasp is just piece of crap. These things took forever to fix despite the fact that Blizzard probably has 10 times the people working on it. There are many things about wow I don't like, but i simply ignore because im used to it. I believe i would have felt same about many other mmo. When you enter another mmo hoping for something new and great. Something without issues you faced in the past you might be dissapointed when it simply doesnt live up to your expectation, but thats not to say its a bad game anyways.

Originally posted by angus858 

Armor in AoC looks like armor, as it should for Hyboria.  If you want neon tights...

Guess you close your eyes when speaking with the priests in bright blue robe, or pass nearby the npc with the fluorescent green or blue hats then. 

Not to say the gloom in some cutscenes that makes you blind.

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by angus858 

Armor in AoC looks like armor, as it should for Hyboria.  If you want neon tights...

Guess you close your eyes when speaking with the priests in bright blue robe, or pass nearby the npc with the fluorescent green or blue hats then. 

Not to say the gloom in some cutscenes that makes you blind.

Casters don't wear armor. That's why it doesn't look like they *GASP!* wear armor.

Also the feature is called Bloom. With a B. And it's toggalabe if you don't like. Mouth-breathing however comes standard.

There are those that hate Funcom and therefore AoC.  Doesn't matter what changes are made in the game, they will still spew "I hate AoC" whenever and where ever they can.

I like the game.  It's not perfect by any means.  It had some problems at launch, but nothing like WoW did.  WoW had server crashes, "loot lag", long queues, etc at launch.   AoC quickly added 9 servers the 1st week to handle the load.  They did have a memory leak, but that's since been fixed.

Problem is this game had a LOT of hype and with that  much hype it could  never live up to player expectations.  They showed guild cities and sieges and when they weren't ingame to start, people got mad.  Sorry folks, YOU have to build the cities and YOU can't start serious crafting til 40.  READ the ingame manual people and you would of known that.

Originally posted by lmzz

3rd review for AoC on this site, 2nd re-review. Kinda silly if you ask me, how many chances should a game get?

 

Also, this review is fairly basic, it's more of a preview than anything. Combat is great but very imbalanced between casters and melee, fantastic engine if you have a computer that can handle it and great music BUT there are still very heavy flaws in the game and the first and most obivous one is purpose.

The only thing you can do is grind PvP points til you hit PvP level 5 or raid the broken and unfinished raids and that's it. There are no natural meeting places (rush around to buy stuff, move on), no events (Paradigm owns the license and won't let anyone make any changes to it, which GM/dev events are considered), it's HEAVILY instanced with a disjointed world.

Now don't get me wrong, the fast paced combat (although slower after last patch) and not having to target is pure bliss. I prefer playing it just for that over any other mmo.

Tbh, Funcom should sell the game and engine to a company who knows what they're doing, it's a great engine. To bad about the execution.

While everything you say is true, I applaud MMORPG.com  for not giving up on AoC.

I also applaud FunCom for selecting Craig Morrison and for giving Mr. Morrison and his Team all the leeway and all the time they need to make AoC the ourtstanding MMO it deserves to be.

What's sad is this game is now (today) where it *should* have been when it was released over a year ago.  If we think about AoC from that point of view, and we can get past serving whine with our cheese about that dick-stepping and  blaming Gaute (picture a burro with blinders and you get the idea) and FunCom for all the bad decisions (I was there from early closed beta on) along with a premature launch that made Anarchy On Line  seem seamless, I think we get the idea here...

Not to belabor the point -- nice job on an objective re-look at what AoC has become; what  "could have been" and what arguably "will be" an outstanding, innovative, exceptional MMO.