come on lets face it any true fan of howard would say that aoc failed.  If he was alive today he would say the same.  There was no sense of adventure and exploration - or even good mob encounters.  The conan of Howard's creation often fell into adventures - a thing that was woefully lacking in aoc.  Also the completely limeted world that aoc had compared to the books is sad.  The lack of many cultures and races left it lacking plain and simple.  Slavery was a huge part of conan's world too and could easily have been in the game as were pirates.  They just plain did such a poor job fleshing out the world for no apparrent reason short of being either lazy or crappy coders.  Pvp is meaningless in aoc to a large degree. The community never got past the poor marketing of the first clown who marketed aoc ( cannot rememmber the fools name) - they just attracted a bunch of juvy folks wanting to see breasts onscreen for no apparrent reason.  Don't get me wrong, sex was a huge part of aoc, but having pc running around naked served no purpose in furthering the game.  The only thing they got right in aoc was the combat.  And running around with mamoth mounts and rhino mounts - come on, that is completely unfaithfull to the books. 

Well, he would roll in his grave as it was not a very faithfull representation of the conan world.  About the only part he would like are the death animations.  He did not say conan was behind him , but that it felt like conan just popped into his mind as if he was standing behind him dictating the adventures to him and they they seemed to consume him fully during the writting process.  The best sword and sorcery writter yet to be sure and sad that his life ended at such an early age.  They say the death of his mother drove him to suicide. 

I am not sure what tha answer is to the internet " I am a know all and everything sucks" crowd.  All I can think is that there are a whole lot of spoiled folks who just like to whine to see themselves in type .  Please  - complaining about an interface when we all now the recent history of online games has dumbed things down and simplified to the point where you can actually get a char to lev 80 in a month so that you can dominate the camps and farm better gear faster.  I almosty hate to say it but forums are part of the issue.  Every game that I have played since eq2 has had the same type of comments.  Endless argument about one group wanting risk / reward while the younger folks want instant gratification and the easy street - quests dumbed down and to be told what to do in a game due to inability to use imagination .  Too many games haved turned into console games for multiplayer instead of mmo games and I for one am glad we are getting a few that differ.  The new catch phrase is " sandbox"  people throw that around to mean so many things and to sound cool saying it, then complain that they do not know what to do in a game lol.  It is hard to have a mmo where you do not have endless wow type mobs standing around and you need to take exactly 10 steps left, one right then pull your uber-doober weapon that everyone else has to take out the boss while getting out of the next group waiting to do the same thing with the exact same gear.  Hard becasue that is what many folks want and many devs cave in to the dollar first and foremost.  Pretty much anything that millions of folk in today's world like and do daily is rarely something that I find of any value or entertainment value.  Mainstream it all and turn the world in to a boring star trek next generation world if that is your thing - I just hope all the devs do not get on that boat with you. 

listen to yourselves - half of you are asking for it to be just like wow.  It is a niche game thank god not an instant gratification one.  You actually get satisfaction from hard work and decent game play not by tweaking your new char with hand me downs form yuo rlev 80

well I am going to say a few things as a new player.  Here is what attracted me to this game

1.  risk reward

2.  classless and skill based

3.  no instant gratification

4.  no instant travel

5.  no fake invis skill or panning camera

6.  corpse runs

7.  no flagged quests and flagged rsources that make it idiot work to harvest

8.  territory control

9.  alignment mean something again

10.  skill based combat to include magic and archery

I have to say that i am constantly amazed when folks rag on this game for certain reasons.  They read the description, sub then whine about how it is harsh, there is nothing to do and not for casual guys - basically they rag on it for not being a wow clone.  There are enough dumbed down mmo's out there like wow and warcraft and aoc that allow for instant gratification.  These are the same folks that troll the forums and moan about things till the devs cave in.  Typically they argue that they do not have time to travel or corpse retrieve and must meet all the other busy people insatantly and be able to log in and achieve great things in one hour.  These are the people that have ruined most games my forcing devs to mainstream all into the same mold - make it fast and easy for instant gratification because i cannot think on my own.   I will play for hours, but somehow have no time and need to achieve all in a hour??

I have fond memories of the orig EQ1 before sony ruined it all.  In those days you logged on with a rusty sword and just hoped to get bronze armour.  You had to figure things out without being spoon fed all by devs.  I loved the thrill of going deep into a dungeon and hoping not to dy becaus how in hell will i get my corpse back out?  I loved seeing some item for sale and chatting with the seller then running accross the world to get it from him in the tunnel hoping he is not going to sell it to someone els or bag waiting on you.  I remember training mobs all along the way as i ran for the tunnel.   I remember a huge giant( a gm) running around the sands reeking havoc on any unfortuate they came accross and large numbers of players running to the area to try and tag team it - dynamic gm events. 

I have no memories of any game since then to match it.  Every game now is dumbed down(mo might be an exception if it actually ran properly and was playable).  If having to think for yourself and actually have skill in combat ( player skill not character skill alone), if getting robbed by a player or having to run accross the world or having to meet some guy in a city to buy from them so you do risk getting pked, if having to work at something for a reward is a grind then do not play this game and stick to wow.  

Do not give in devs.  If EVE had done it , it would have failed soon.  Let the trolls leave and let the player base that you want trickle in as you improve the game.