I was in at the launch & stayed about 4 months... was considering checking it out again.  A few quick questions...

1.  Itemization.  Did they ever fix that?  When I left there were great looking npc's and all the players looked like identical pieces of crap.  I leveled from 1 to 70 something hardly with a noticable difference in item "skins".  This was true for both armor and weapons. 

2. Travel.  I remember having to 'run' across zones, like 4 zones, to get to specific areas I wanted to hunt.  Not to mention utterly confusing to figure out what zones linked.

3.  Tradeskills/professions.  Broke beyond mention when I left, improved?

Thanks in advance.  I know someone will probably say - go read the funcom site because they list what they improved... but I'd rather hear it from players - I don't trust FC.  After all, I remember watching the videos of FC bragging about the thousands of unique items, drunken brawling, blood money, etc etc...

Quick answers:

1. Sorta, more items, but being low fantasy neon glowing rotating things are still not in game..

2. *Thankfully* yes. Though still 30 mins CD on path of Asura to fast travel to a hub (usually not a problem as most things you do in one place takes more than that)

3. Yes, you now have culture armors and quite a few of the end game crafting items are useful. However, I'm not the biggest crafing fan so don't take my word for it cmpletely.

Get the trial, check it for yourself.

No need to rely on others as the ones actually playing the game will tell you they love it and the ones who have left and feel cheated will tell you it is crap. 

Of course, if what you want is to initiate another flame war, you are posting the right question in the right place (sigh).

Compare AOC with Warhammer, AOC has much more contents while Warhammer has much fun.

By so far AOC is the most buggy and unpolished game I have ever seen and play before. The map simply does mean to be a map. But if Funcom remove away those unnecessary guards and npcs then I would be happy. In Khemi Bazzare, the guard and a npc stand on each side of the small alley, and a walking npc sometimes stop in the middle then you can't get through.

Yeah.. Collision detection sucks. it's way to unrealistic

/sarcasm off

To answer OP, yes, all the issues you mention have been addressed to some degree.

I also left after about four months after launch, but came back early this year.

If you liked the dark world with a low-fantasy setting there is no good reason not to at least give AoC a try now. It's still the same game as when you left, only now it's as good as what it should have been at launch.

Welcome back to Hyboria

Enjoy!

Originally posted by Luminatti

I was in at the launch & stayed about 4 months... was considering checking it out again.  A few quick questions...

1.  Itemization.  Did they ever fix that?  When I left there were great looking npc's and all the players looked like identical pieces of crap.  I leveled from 1 to 70 something hardly with a noticable difference in item "skins".  This was true for both armor and weapons. 

2. Travel.  I remember having to 'run' across zones, like 4 zones, to get to specific areas I wanted to hunt.  Not to mention utterly confusing to figure out what zones linked.

3.  Tradeskills/professions.  Broke beyond mention when I left, improved?

Thanks in advance.  I know someone will probably say - go read the funcom site because they list what they improved... but I'd rather hear it from players - I don't trust FC.  After all, I remember watching the videos of FC bragging about the thousands of unique items, drunken brawling, blood money, etc etc...

1. you will look like crap untill level 80, then you will look cool as hell.

2. Your doing it wrong, bind to OT and use your teleport, if your map isnt in Aq then it must be crimmeria or khemi.  From any main city its no more than one zone to its related maps, if you use a wagon man.  my guess is you walked.

3. i know nothing about tradeskills being broke, im not huge on crafting though.

However, now there are no content gaps, theres more overall content as well.  DX10 runs better than DX9 for me, i dont lag, i dont crash(i run vista 64bit too), sieges dont crash anymore, they fixed how stats on equipment work and added trickle down effect (main stats effect other skills and stats) so now equipment works better.  Not sure if they are fixed but just did an overhaul of the bear shaman, dark templar and conquer.  As well as nerfing casters. 

They are planning to patch in guild leveling (for serverwide rankings) and guild renown points.  You will be able to level a guild in crafting and harvesting, pve, and pvp.

And the expansion is on the horizon.

Oh and if you choose tyranny,crimmeria or wiccana youll be playing a very nicely populated server.

Think i coverd the jist of it.

 Lets add LFG tools and search functions to this list. Last time I played they didn't work at all, the only way to get group was to spam the global channel, are they still broke?

1) No for the most part every one looks the same, they didn't overhaul looks they did add a few T2 items and revamp statistics so gear is worth a bit more.

2) Travel is worse than release, we had the path at release but now instead of killing yourself to travel faster you have to just travel via feet or mount, it makes the game look artificially big but is still pretty lame.

3) Tradeskills are as pointless as ever, they are not worth doing and time invested vs. reward is comical. Of all MMOs trade skills in AoC arebottom tier.  They are even worse now that Gems have been nerfed, what the point?

Don't take my word for it, try the trial, which recently doubled the population of AoC which then quickly dropped below what it was pre trials when the hype had died down, they lost more subs than gained over three months. AoC isn't for most people, maybe you are one of the few that can over look major issues in this title, idk.

Thanks for the replies...  I guess I'm intrigued enough to re-sub for a month.  Just realized that I never removed the program from my pc, so it looks like it's doing a 2.38 gb patch tonight - and will be in game tomorrow.

I'll probably be back on this thread to talk about my experience... also I don't recall what server I was on but I do know I will be looking for a guild.

Originally posted by Luminatti

I'll probably be back on this thread to talk about my experience... also I don't recall what server I was on but I do know I will be looking for a guild.

Yeah I'm curious what you think of the game since coming back, good or bad. Let us know!

Originally posted by finaticd

2) Travel is worse than release, we had the path at release but now instead of killing yourself to travel faster you have to just travel via feet or mount, it makes the game look artificially big but is still pretty lame.

Thanks for revealing that you are absolutely utterly clueless about the game and how things work today. If you had followed the game or played it recently you would know just how misleading what you wrote just is. Becoming desperate about bashing AoC are we? Travel has been changed, yes you can if you want travel the way you mentioned, however most people use the wagoneers. The wagoneers can take you to any zone that is connected to the city hub you are in. so if you are in Khemi you can go directly to Keshetta without having to go through Khopshef or Purple lotus swamp.

3) Tradeskills are as pointless as ever, they are not worth doing and time invested vs. reward is comical. Of all MMOs trade skills in AoC arebottom tier.  They are even worse now that Gems have been nerfed, what the point?

And again you show just how clueless you are, seriously when was the last time you played AoC? Gems was nerfed yes, but that was due to gems being way way to overpower. Crafting today is far from useless, thanks to the new recipes that has been added you have the cuture gear and a lot of other nifty stuff that people actually use. Gems have b een revamped from their nerfed state into being useful again. It isn't like before when you could stack up on them and oneshot everyone, but they are useful. as a player you can manage fine without buying crafted stuff, but crafted pots, food etc are better then the normal stuff you can buy off vendors.

 

Don't take my word for it, try the trial, which recently doubled the population of AoC which then quickly dropped below what it was pre trials when the hype had died down, they lost more subs than gained over three months. AoC isn't for most people, maybe you are one of the few that can over look major issues in this title, idk.

Exactly no one should take your words for it about the game since it is obvious you are desperate enough in bashing AoC that you either lie straight out or post misleading info to try and scare people away. so now the question remains what did AoC do to you since you hate the game that much? Did it steal your candy? Can you possibly be any more desperate in your bashing of the game?

Originally posted by Crashloop

Originally posted by finaticd

2) Travel is worse than release, we had the path at release but now instead of killing yourself to travel faster you have to just travel via feet or mount, it makes the game look artificially big but is still pretty lame.

Thanks for revealing that you are absolutely utterly clueless about the game and how things work today. If you had followed the game or played it recently you would know just how misleading what you wrote just is. Becoming desperate about bashing AoC are we? Travel has been changed, yes you can if you want travel the way you mentioned, however most people use the wagoneers. The wagoneers can take you to any zone that is connected to the city hub you are in. so if you are in Khemi you can go directly to Keshetta without having to go through Khopshef or Purple lotus swamp.

3) Tradeskills are as pointless as ever, they are not worth doing and time invested vs. reward is comical. Of all MMOs trade skills in AoC arebottom tier.  They are even worse now that Gems have been nerfed, what the point?

And again you show just how clueless you are, seriously when was the last time you played AoC? Gems was nerfed yes, but that was due to gems being way way to overpower. Crafting today is far from useless, thanks to the new recipes that has been added you have the cuture gear and a lot of other nifty stuff that people actually use. Gems have b een revamped from their nerfed state into being useful again. It isn't like before when you could stack up on them and oneshot everyone, but they are useful. as a player you can manage fine without buying crafted stuff, but crafted pots, food etc are better then the normal stuff you can buy off vendors.

 

Don't take my word for it, try the trial, which recently doubled the population of AoC which then quickly dropped below what it was pre trials when the hype had died down, they lost more subs than gained over three months. AoC isn't for most people, maybe you are one of the few that can over look major issues in this title, idk.

Exactly no one should take your words for it about the game since it is obvious you are desperate enough in bashing AoC that you either lie straight out or post misleading info to try and scare people away. so now the question remains what did AoC do to you since you hate the game that much? Did it steal your candy? Can you possibly be any more desperate in your bashing of the game?

 

I think you will find your answers you seek somewhere in the middle of these two guys replys. Its not all doom and gloom, but it certainly is not all rosey either.

Try the trail and see what you think. I did and it just confirmed my previous experience of the game. A game with potential, but still too many tacked on core elements to be a polished game. Some people stil like it, and you may end up liking it too. Only you can decide that.....not the rabid haters or the rabid fanbois you find on these forums.

Well I'm in today...  Level 76 Conq, very lost though.  I'm on the server Set.  If anyone plays on that server please send me a tell in game - could use a little instruction.  My char name is the same as my name here, Luminatti. 

Luckily for you the last patch was the conqueror revamp patch, were pretty much all feats and commands for the class were changed or tweaked, so you are not the only confused conq around ;)

I don’t know what Funcom has been done for the past over year. Is it only me who think that there were many bugs. I could easily list least 200 bugs in AOC but it seems that some people do not consider them as bug so it will never fix. It’s too many to list all of them in here, just share some thought with you. In general, these features work only 30-50%. The rest 50%-70% is unpolished reasons. And the 24 man raid basically is create a object with 100,000 health and pop out a few adds with certain amount of health. It is the most simple mathematics calculation. AOC is really an amateur game. I can see they take a few from WOW and a few from LOTRO. But man, it is much simpler mathematics calculation combat.

The example of bugs:

1. If you enable automatic sheath weapon in interface. This feature did not work all the time as it should be. And while collecting resource, the mob will pop up sometimes, and after you killed the mob and sheath the weapon, you still can’t continue to mining because the game still says you cannot mining during combat. So you have to manually sheath your weapon again. But then, sometimes you will equip weapons, so you have to do it twice to sheath weapon again. IMO, it means bugs.

2. Map – the most terrible map in any mmorpg is AOC. When I completed to collecting a material. The quest says hand in the copper ore to prospector trainer. But there is no sign about the trainer in map. You have to get very closer to the trainer to spot his location. But don’t look at your mini map because the distance in mini could be thousand miles away. The map only works in about 30 meters range. The map design is very simple job. It uses single game technology as radius of your avatar to expose the target. For example, Age of Empire, the screen is all black, you have to explore the screen, the area you explored but your avartar is not there then the other area went back to grey again. So you see nothing in the map.

Travelling in AOC is always one-way. For example, if you go from LA to NY, you have to stop at Las Vegas then NY directly. It is fine, just one stop. But once you want to go back to LA then you have to stop at Detroit then Chicago then Kansas City then Phoenix then finally LA. If your teleport still on CD.
If you are third grade mmo player or below that then AOC might be your choice.

Originally posted by Larry2298

If you are third grade mmo player or below that then AOC might be your choice.

Then uhhh.... why are you still playing this game?

 EDIT: I mean if you seriously are going to try and insult a players intelligence because they may like this game then what does that say about you who still plays?

Are you for real Larry? First of all, as a fellow (ex)lotro player, there is virtually no travel in AoC in comparison and the map points you to where you need to go.. As for bugs, I seem to recall i door-bug in MoM which went unfixed for about 6 months..

That aside, the CD for fast travel is 30 mins (and 24 hours for totem). Whenver i talk to a wagoneer to get to a zone I am going to stay in that zone for at least 30 minutes. If you are going to a zone, why would you stay there for a few minutes? I have only been forced to ride across zones only twice, which was after returning Vistrix tooth and the travel quest afterwards.

I have no idea what you are talking to abut the map. It's usually criticized for being TOO dumbed down with the ! and ? showing you exactly where to pick up and hand in quests. I believe the craftsmen usually have the title "Woodcutting Trainer" or something below their name, which did not really make it hard for me to find them in the one NPC town in each resource zone.

After you killed the mob it usually takes 2-5 seconds before you can interact with anything, sometimes longer if you are having lag. If you just sit down, breath in, and wait for your character to sheath his weapon again you can merrily keep on mining. If you start to sheath/unsheath your weapon you mess with the CD. It used to be bugged last year tho (stuck in combat)..

Seeing as I am ESL I can't really understand what you are getting on about with the raid bosses.. If you can tank'n'spank every raid boss.. well.. please post your tactics :) 

Originally posted by Aercus

That aside, the CD for fast travel is 30 mins (and 24 hours for totem). Whenver i talk to a wagoneer to get to a zone I am going to stay in that zone for at least 30 minutes. If you are going to a zone, why would you stay there for a few minutes? I have only been forced to ride across zones only twice, which was after returning Vistrix tooth and the travel quest afterwards.

I have no idea what you are talking to abut the map. It's usually criticized for being TOO dumbed down with the ! and ? showing you exactly where to pick up and hand in quests. I believe the craftsmen usually have the title "Woodcutting Trainer" or something below their name, which did not really make it hard for me to find them in the one NPC town in each resource zone.

After you killed the mob it usually takes 2-5 seconds before you can interact with anything, sometimes longer if you are having lag. If you just sit down, breath in, and wait for your character to sheath his weapon again you can merrily keep on mining. If you start to sheath/unsheath your weapon you mess with the CD. It used to be bugged last year tho (stuck in combat)..

Seeing as I am ESL I can't really understand what you are getting on about with the raid bosses.. If you can tank'n'spank every raid boss.. well.. please post your tactics :) 

Obviously, if it is not happen to you then it will be bugs.

First sheath weapon, it happened on my other alts but not all of them.

Secondly, it is not only 2-5 seconds, I could tell you 2-5 hours still the same.

As I said, the bugs is not always appear to everyone.

And, I am sure you are soloer or I am curious that if you really play AOC or just play in AOC Forum or not guilded. It is silliy to tell people that if you go to a zone, stay least 30 minutes just because the travel is ONE WAY TICKET as well as the game is mostly one way. Do as the developer ask you to do.

Because when you just arrived a zone then someone from your guild ask for help or doing a group quest or raid in other zone. Not to mention if you went to grind in different zones then got other thing to do.

For the map in crafting zone, that's why I said in previous post, there are thousands bugs in AOC. There is no sign of ! or ? on the map. You have to explore the map again and get closer to any NPC may have ! or ? to display on your map. I found the NPC because I run around like I drive from LA to New York to find a guy without map. The only thing I knew is the guy is in NY. The map in AOC is useless and stupid. 

If you are interesting to know more about those bugs I mentioned, I could spend some time to make up a bug list probably includes least 200 bugs. But I think Funcom already knew those bugs and they won't do anything about it because they are known bugs.

Just take another known bug for history:

When you change zone, your character hair color maybe changed. Is there anyone wants to tell me that the hair color won't affects your combat?

I can tell you one way to paralyze the game due to poor design.

Stand in the small alley of Khemi's Bazzare, there is a guard and a no function NPC, then mounted between them, nobody could get pass to this alley. I often blocked by other players since they were AFK in there.

Will this against EULA of AOC?

Originally posted by Larry2298

I don’t know what Funcom has been done for the past over year. Is it only me who think that there were many bugs. I could easily list least 200 bugs in AOC but it seems that some people do not consider them as bug so it will never fix. It’s too many to list all of them in here, just share some thought with you. In general, these features work only 30-50%. The rest 50%-70% is unpolished reasons. And the 24 man raid basically is create a object with 100,000 health and pop out a few adds with certain amount of health. It is the most simple mathematics calculation. AOC is really an amateur game. I can see they take a few from WOW and a few from LOTRO. But man, it is much simpler mathematics calculation combat.

There was loads of bugs in AoC when it was released and loads of them have been fixedsince launch. Your observation about the raid encounters tells me you never really did much raiding. As you describes it it just pops a boss and some adds and like easy peasy. Did you actualle ever spend a lot of time raiding? Or do you simply make up stuff like Finaticd does about the game? There are boss encounters in aoc that is the typical tank and spank bosses, and there is bosses that requires teamwork and coordination. Just like wow some bosses are boring and other can be a lot of fun. But it seems like you have just watched other raid rather then tryin g it yourself. :)