I am a casual player, and do not have much time to play, because I have to work. I do not know how the 'experts' are rating games, I can only tell my opinion about a game. I believe that someone needs to play a game himself rather than to choose according to ratings. I left AoC when my character became level 79, very close to 80.

Well, I had great hopes for AoC, I still wish that it reaches the full potential this game can have, I wish that Solareus was wrong, and the AoC advocates are correct. However, the things some advocates told are not correct. AoC doesn't have any '100 men enjoying full pvp in gigantic siege warfare'. There aren't many 'exiting dungeons for 24 characters'. Well, sure they are more exiting than a pac-man dungeon. The crafting in the game is pointless, cause it is still broken.

I understand that many people had the hopes that this game would be a WoW-killer, and they are frustrated that it isn't. However AoC isn't a crap either, I played many MMOs till now, and I believe AoC had a much better start than WoW even.

I believe that the game suffered from poor leadership, which didn't listen to the problems of the players, but rather aimed for much bigger income by 'enlarging the boobs'. When I last logged in with my level 79 toon, and saw that there was none around to play with during evening hours, i definetly understood that Funcom was doing something wrong.

I just hope that they can keep fixing AoC, so me and my guild-mates can return to it.

When this game came out years ago, it didn't have an alternative. Historical realism has been set aside loooong ago in order to keep the `balance`. Well, with the realism factor gone, why to play such a game with such poor graphics??? Battlefield 1942 has a lot better graphics, is faster, a lot more fun and you don't pay a monthly fee (And it also doesn't offer any more realism than this game).

Another question is: Which game offers realism about world-war 2 ??? Soldiers: Heroes of WW2 or Faces of War (both strategy games) offers the most realistic combat (but only for tanks, soldiers still have hitpoints). Does anyone know any realistic WW2 game at all?

I must salute the players who kept this game alive though. It has one of the friendliest communities. Eager to help or teach any moment, they add a lot to this game. Without them there is absolutely no reason to play this game.

Last problem I can recall now is the buggy engine, which cannot be fixed for years. There are still hackers using `radar` which shows any enemies within 2 km, and the devs cannot do anything about it, other then hiding the fact. Somewhere in my old computer I still have a few screenshots taken by a hacker, which shows a line of red dots on the radar, who are actually panzers trying to reach a village through a forest. And next he simply bombs the poor guys, who don't have any clue about how did the blenheim bomber saw them there.

Whenever a new patch comes and I feel like playing that game, I look at these screenshots and give up wasting my money and time. Not worth imo.

If this game earns a 10 out of 10, so why did all the members of my guild leave and several servers are empty now? None of them left because of the bad comments in mmorpg.com.

Maybe their wives and kids pleas, not to spend all their free time to grind from level 20 till 80 :P

I give 10 out of 10 to the fanboy who wrote that `advertisement`, for valiantly defending a game even its `captain` abandoned (I cannot even recall his name, what was the name of the rat/captain who left his place in funcom?).

As I recall WoW needed a few months to be stable. And I recall to have left WoW for a few months because they couldnt solve lag problem for a month. At the end of a month away from WoW, I solved my lag problem by myself ( I remember so long Blizzard customs service blaming our ISP, they admitted bad routering after a year).

Age of Conan definetly needs that time as well. Yeah we cry, yeah we flame. But there will be still a lot who will play, and Funcom will use their money to improve the game out of beta status. So far I didn't see any game who didn't have a bad start. I am sure things will become better for AoC as well. However...

However there is something not right with Funcom. They don't listen to the bug reports, but are trying to listen to the whiners. And they change things according to whiners. That's wrong. You cannot spoil a baby by giving a sugar each time she cries, at the end she will cry just to get attention.

Also I worry about the `bug fixes`. 9th patch today, still main bugs are not fixed. They simply cannot fix it. But they keep giving false comments. `We will fix it this wednesay`. That was told by someone high from Funcom. And...? The bug is not fixed, there is not even a comment about it !!!

Age of Conan is a good game, and has lots of potential. But right now it doesn't deserve the time I spend/waste. I am a casual player. After a tiring workday I cannot afford to betatest a broken patch which ruins my entire night.

See you Age of Conan and all Conan fanboys who will tell `You will not be missed`. Hopefully we can meet in 6 monthes when/if the bugs are fixed.

(Why so much whining? Cause I wanted to play AoC and relax tonight. But Funcom screwed something again, and game kept crushing for everyone in the party whenever we entered a fight.)

vista32 2gb ram Core2quad 2.4, 8800 GTX here

2 weeks ago I was playing with 50+ fps, which was actually not needed even, cause this is not a FPS where you need that high reaction time.

Since last patch I can play with 10~ fps. If I play with 2 other casters and we start AoE, we all crush to log in screen. We were told to talk with our ISP... with 1 playing from Sweden, other from Moscow, last from Turkey. I cannot even understand how they dare to blame our ISPs.

With the stupid idea of `if you damage a mob more, you get the loot`, it became impossible for low levels to kill the bosses for their quests. Level 80s outdamage poor guys and get the kill so often. This became such a serious problem as most of the few quests available are meant to kill someone/something, which is camped because it drops good loot which can be sold. (Boss items were supposed to be `not tradable`, so high levels cannot farm and sell them at trader)

if Funcom doesn't fix...

Can they fix anything at all? 7th patch to fix alchemy, still bugged. Only 1 of the level 70 feats on my character list is working. Lag became so bad.

I cannot believe just 2 weeks ago I was defending this shit game.

That 8.4 is a just score if you play only 1-20, and probably he didnt play after that last patch which screwed the game  (Several players outside UK experienced server kicks every 2-7 minutes).

The `patch` claims to solve the problem and we dont get kicked. But now there are 2k-17k lag spikes every 20~. The answer we got for that problem was to check our ISP and open some ports. I asked the guy how come guildmembers from Moscow, Sweden, Turkey and Ireland experience that lag spike same time if its our ISP or ports.

I want to play this game, I liked it so far. Yeah I grinded after 55, the hundred quests I did gave me just 2.5 levels. I still want to play with all the bugs... But cannot. Now I must sit here and write, cause there was only 2 persons out of 25 in our guild, who could play normally today. The others simply logged off, most of them will not renew their membership after their time ends. I still cant decide. Great game, if you can play.

After todays patch, the problems and protests became so high that Funcom cannot censor it anymore. AoC definetly is in beta stage, and we are paying for this. Still, if it will be a good game at the end, I wanna pay.

However censor, and trying to hide the massive problems... cannot be done to a paying customer. We are not swearing, we are not flaming. Just because we are complaining about the server `rollbacks every 2-7 minutes` (which started today), we are considered `whiners` and censored. I am sure some people will come and start typing `You are whining bla bla bla` in a few minutes. But I will still try to warn people who are thinking about playing AoC. The game is in beta.

At last I read a review wih a lot of truth about this game. Good work. The game is going through difficulties like any other games had at start.

What worries me is that Funcom doesnt concentrate on the bugs but is trying to `balance` the game. 6 patches, and some basic bugs aren't fixed, but our main tank got nerfed badly. Funcom is not telling any word about `hidden` nerfs, you just play and find that you were nerfed. That sucks a lot, I cannot trust them.

Performance is truely `strange`. I play the game superb, no big problems except lag spikes and necessity to change an instance after a rare crush. However friends with a lot better comps than mine are crying they crush every 5 minute.

Btw if you like the melee in this game, go buy a G15 keyboard :P

I know you are trying to tell the truth, but you get anger in return. Thats their problem, to accept or to reject the facts.

For those who are thinking so low of AoC, may I ask you something, which game are you waiting for? Warhammer, which is so many monthes away still? WoW? ok you can play it, noone is forcing anyone to play any other game. I personally am bored from WoW, so I didnt want to wait several monthes more until Warhammer comes, and nwo I play AoC. Others didnt like AoC, so they cancelled their accounts and stopped playing (Great thing to do if you have 30 days of free play) BUT

But we have the freedom to choose. We can choose whatever we want. YES, funcome lied in advertisements. There is no directx10. Game becomes grinding after level 54. There are few dungeons wihch work at all. There are bugs everwhere. The game is censored by putting clothes on npc girls and removing sexy emotes so its nto a mature game but teen game now. And the list goes on.

However which game didnt undergo such a stage? I remember my preorder WoW account could only be activated 1 week after start, and Blizzard didnt even care (And WoW was full of bugs at that time as well). So what ? in so many years WoW became the top of the mountain, at least in the area to fill their designers pockets.

So what do you suggest? Shall I stop playing AoC and sit at home watching TV after a tiring work day?

There are so many games, Anyone has the freedom to choose anything he wants. And all advertisements lie, no game gives what it offers.

I have fun with my Priest of Mitra in this game, so much fun. There are soo many bugs, true. Half my feats are bugged, the others are wrong or weak. I still love to play it. This game had the greatest idea a all years healer can dream about. You heal with your damage. Incredible. Superb Fantastic.  or maybe not because even that feature is bugged. Who cares? I am having fun.

Dont lie, tell the truth, and dont be afraid to tell.

Right now all classes need bug fixes and tweaks. So its too early to tell anything about what will happen, which class will be fun. My experience is PvE only. The game is completely different in PvP so these will not help you.

Tomorrow they are going to change Demonologist (poor PVE after 40) and Necros (Aggro and damage problems). Necros look like a single party of their own. We'll see after tomorrow.

Priest of Mitra brings a complete new alternative to healing, you heal with your damage, the more you damage the more you heal (Bugged now, but works great). You dont just stay back and look at Hp bars anymore, you look into screen and think how to inflict mroe damage :) Incredible. I didnt play any more fun healer class since 15 years.

Tempest of Set, nuker. Was really hard to mid level (i assume 50 as mid). Descent CC like grounding. Can do hell of a damage which take aggro from guardian sometimes.

Guardian is strong, we had 2 guild members who were about to cancel their subscriptions, but they wanted to try Guardian first. And now they still play. I sometimes forget to heal them, their hp bar goes down so slow if they can take mob even boss from front. The fastest levelling class I saw.

Barbarian. hard to play hard to solo. Dies easyly. But if he acts like a rogue, he chops and slashes and kicks. Friends who play barbarians fall into frenzy after some time. `Did you see how I chopped his head off? And the next one I buried my axe into chest...` We keep him talking over TS like that, and all we see is a rain of blood.

Assassin. Incredible at night or some dark dungeons. A glass vase at daylight and sunny dungeons. Our last assassin stopped playing after Sanctum, so I assume its a boring class even with lifesteal.

Ranger. Doesnt have a pet and needs to enter melee after a few shots. I assume that class is a killer in PvP. Why? I saw ranger with crossbow taking 70% of a boss in 1 shot just after fight started. The rest of the encounter he spent running from boss while guardian was swearing at him trying to regain aggro. Hard to solo, they even beg me (PoM/Tos) to go to even basic missions.

Dark templar... Someone else needs to explain, I didnt understand how he fights. I saw once a 45+ attack a 50~ boss and survive doing `strange` combos.

Herald. Strong in daemon form, dies as soon as his daemon form ends. But powerful in daemon form, truely powerful. Once we watched our HoX attacking wrong mobs, we expected him to die, but he chopped until last one of them. Well the last one caught him after his daemon form ended so needed to res anyway.

Just a quick word about Priest of Mitra, Tempest of Set and Bear Shaman.

According to dev track reports and current feats, they have the following purpose:

PoM Primary Healer (Right now a good playing ToS can easyly heal same as PoM at level 50+)

ToS Mana filler. Nuker

BS Stamina filler Melee

That doesnt mean ToS or BS can heal bad. PoM is slightly advantaged.

For some reason Lvl 60+ groups take 1 PoM and 1 ToS, but I"ve seen Shamans so rare. Can anyone tell me about their server? And if there are less Shamans around, why, any ideas?

When you sent an item or money from trader, it was getting duped immediately. If 100 people didnt notice that they were giving all their money over trader, and their money was staying in their pocket... I dont know what to tell about these 100 persons.

Well you can tell that all these people made a visit to the guild boss to give money 1 by 1 instead of sending from trader which is in every starter place... then yeah the guy would be innocent as Snowwhite.

Just I want to ask the defenders of this guy 1 question. How is it possible not to notice Item duping by 100 person?

I myself, found a nice item for my friend, sent it to my friend from trader. A strange magic and we got 2 of the item. My friend called GM and 1 answered 1 hour later (Now it takes days till they asnwer :( . At that time people were screaming over OOC channel how to dupe items openly.

That was day 1 after opening. These guys became level 80 and didnt notice what we noticed at level 10? Come on.

I didnt take part in AoC beta. I simply entered preorder play one week earlier.

And whola, the first thing we noticed IN THE FIRST DAY was that the traders were duping items and money. My guildmate was one of the first ones to report that to a GM. After that day we got periodic server announcements from GMs about not to use bank duping EVERY DAY. It was no bigsurprise when the traders were taken off.

Maybe you missed that daily warnings, maybe a few missed, but did 100 people from your guild missed that?

You sir, are a liar, and I am happy that you got banned. I wish all those who help you willingly get banned soon as well.

(They announced about traders in 3 languages even, in case you dont know english and couldnt read the warnings :P )

First of all: If the game doesnt run smooth, dont blame the company, cause the game runs very smooth. We are playing 8 friends together and the only one who had a problem was because he was playing from his laptop on abroad (Our comps are not super high but most can play with max details.)

2nd, the game is fun except dungeons. Dungeons are extremely boring, huge and repeating. Many people have great fun. I especially enjoy the fact that quest item drop rate is 90%.

3rd, this game is not WoW killer, we will enjoy this for a month or two, but then there is not much to do. I dont know if you guys noticed it or not but the entire game area is pretty small. I got level 41 in 6 days, and I already saw levels 80s at the end of friday.

I dont understand why some people say `this game is super cool, incredible, fantastic ` etc. Are you getting paid for this or what? That is an average everquest copy, nothing special.

And I also dont understand those who tell `the game sucks, will be another SWG failure, nothing works`etc. You are wrong, that game is not bad, point.

Now go to play with whatever game you like to  play, Conan or whatever. If you dont have anything else to play with, name your hands Candy and Handy, and make a triple with your stick. Just stop fooling real players with wrong information.

---

Originally posted by majoch

The question I have now is for anyone currently playing.  What is the in game population like now during prime time?   I remember even the first 2 weeks of release that there was not a significant crowd on the starter islands or starter cities on the mainland and I can only imagine that this hasn't improved much if any?  Shortly after I un-subscribed they did the first big patch which apparently increased the toughness of mobs which also caused a small exodus, has this been re-addressed as well?

---

My 14 day trial just ended today, and I must say the only reason I played so far is the friendly community there. However under population is a big problem, and the stupid xp grind system causes the players to disperse over other areas where you cant chat with them. This is because one begins to get very low xp during start cities, than moves to region with better mobs. Than when the mobs at the new region dont give enough xp you move to new region and this keeps going. There is not a single reason to return back to older regions, since no quests or not enough high quality merchandry exists.

The mobs are unnecessaryly strong, and grouping lowers the xp so much sometimes you dont get any xp from a mob which you can kill alone. And named mobs cant be killed even with groups, because they kill entire group before giving a 2nd order. I was invited to a named boss as a newbie to watch, and I couldnt even take a screenshot (I was some 100 meter behind the main 3 full groups). This is because 40+ GUARDS SPAWNED when the named boss was attacked and killed everyone. Yeah, wanna hear a very moronic thing? the big bosses guards dont stay near them or nearby areas etc so you can pull them first. So someone has to go and attack the big boss, and instantly dozens of guards spawn, and than you have to pull them and kill 1 by 1. And due to extreme lag which is caused by so many instant spawns, you dont even get the chance to target or give an attack order, because these guards go to patrol the area and kill everyone at sight.

So most people make 2 people groups so they can heal each other and so make fast xp from lower creatures (another stupid thing is you can heal yourself every 2-3 MINUTES, but someone else every 3 seconds). Low level creatures give faster xp, you can defeat 2 of them easily if a 2nd one joins the combat. However if a 3rd one joins the combat, you are dead. I think your defense is divided among your attackers somehow. I think so because Ive seen 150+ skill level fighters die against 3 of the start city gingos. And aggros follow you death, even if means a kilometer of running.

The major patch didnt solve the lag problem. The server gets very laggy every day once to several times so the admins reset the game. And server downs usually last longer than they say.

Too bad, a very promising game again which killed by developers...

So far one thing is true. Eq2 is better than SWG

I dont think amdriker444 is lying, or tried to start flaming here. As far as I know these are FREE forums, only admins can tell one to **** off. I value everyones opinion, so I would like to hear people who liked and didnt like with their reasons. Noone is forced to love eq2.

I liked eq2 so far. The quests are definetly not delivery boy quests (Accually doing a few delivery quests wouldnt hurt for easy xp). Graphics and animations are a must see.

However reaching level 20 I began to have doubts about the game. The problem is the underage of players and forced grouping. Creatures have too much health so soloing is tiresome, so groups are a must. As the creatures getting harder, you need a cooperative group who knows their job well. But now it became a common sight that badly injured players try to run aimlessly instead of circles around healer, while the healers trying to catch them so they can heal. Fighters forget to taunt. Those trying to fight from far attract other monsters into battle. After the fight group members are lazy to walk a few meters so they rest on spawn points, where new spawns kill them. When you try to tell someone to tell what to do you are answered with a 'why?' Its like a big kindergarten where you try to babysit...

I must say even with level finding a group became very hard. Zones are filled with shouts for those LFG every 2-3 seconds. But since many have different quests party wastes a lot of time which quest to do first. For underlevel members you have to do same quest again with no xp.

Whatever, these doesnt change eq2 is a very good game. I decided to play it till the point it bores than switch to wow, and play it for a while, and when it bores switch back and so goes. Both are good games, both games have downs. One must play both I say.

Very good question I was wondering too.

EQ 2 looks to have much better graphics, but those who play tell of a game full of bugs. I played SWG for over a year, and I share the opinion about SOE games are full of bugs and they dont fix them. 'Soon' was the only answer from customer service when we asked when they will be fixed.

Can those who play tell how the customer service works and how fast bugs get fixed in eq2? I only played a few days, and the only major bug so far I saw (or not saw I'd rather say) were invisible NPCs, but they fixed this bug now. But I am still newbie, didnt do much in the game. And some players over level 20 talk about broken quests, rewards unuseable, monsters turn invisible if the dungeon gets crowded etc.

I wonder your opinions about how fast they solve the problems in eq2. Please no WOW flaming.

I am playing EVE since 3 months. Short time thinking the game is over a year old. I may be wrong at some things, but thse are my opinion of the game so far.

EVE is not a game for those who expect action all of the time. To call it boring just because it lacks the hack and slash of diablo would be wrong. (There are many other reasons that make the game boring though  )

Lag isnt a problem. I think Alkatraz tried to play the game when the Exodus expansion was fresh out. I admit lag was intolerable back than, but porlly it was due all the people trying to downlaod and to log in. I watched a 2 vs 20 battle a few days ago, not a problem, even with battleships launching waves of drones and missiles flying all over.

Skill system in real time sounded a fair way at the start. I thought that would balance the game between people who play a few hours a day, and those 7/24 non stop freaks. but I was definetly wrong. The system allows elder players always win over, you dont stand a chance if youre a newbie and want to protect yourself against the horde of old pirates annoying you.

I am surprised a lot of tactics can be used in combat, thinking battles takes place within vast empty space. However newbies learn these tactics while being defeated by old ones. So getting into a big battleship doesnt make one equal.

Community is a real annoyance of the game. With so many free trial accounts around, many create spy accounts to trap their enemies. So people became paranoid of everyone passing near them. People lie whenever they have to chance to trick others. Even in the help channel people give false information to newbies, or lure them to become pirates to annoy their enemies.

But sure this helps people to stick to their real friends. If you prove that you are trustworty, whenever you fall into trouble, help comes. Some will offer you new ships to replace your losses (even cruisers worth a few million), some will chase your aggressors as their blood enemies

The loss of death depends totally how risky you play. If you fly around in a battleship with implants in your head worth millions, you can loose a lot. Thats like going with a thick wallet into slums, better have anything with you to protect your assets.

I dont understand those who said you can loose skill points when you die. If you play a game where your character can die, you better save the game at some point. And cloning is not harder than saving while playing a FPS. If you forget to save, please dont blame the game.

Another downside of EVE is that you can only fly one ship at a time. And ship equipment options are rather limited. Dont get fooled by the hundreds of items in the market, only few are best. Either you carry these, or you die. There isnt many ship types, any ship differs only if it does carry a normal or unique version of equipment in it. You learn the weaknesses fast, you know which ship you can defeat, which you wont. (Yeah yeah, the market is full of different types of ships, but only a few are good, others crap)

PvP in the game is a must. If you are a peaceful miner, who digs astreoids while fending off AI pirates and happily living, wake up fast, you are daydreaming. Pirates roam everywhere but the newbie areas. Security corporations who offer protection are alternate characters of pirates. Big anti-pirates always come late (makes one wonder), and they make big speeces how they reclaimed space from evil-doers. When they leave the system pirates come again, its you and your friends who defend.

But PvP in EVE strongly favors pirates. If you try to catch them somehow, they simply go offline. Few are dumb enough not to carry protection against ship capturing methods like webbing, others simply slip away from your hand. Also many a pirate are alternate characters or have several accounts like 8-12 accounts. I am not joking, there are some people out there who pay for so many accounts each month.

Enough talked... There are free accounts everywhere, download and see yourself. But get ready for a game which can be real boring.