Well I came back, liked the improvements and I'm now playing (albeit casually) for $8.25 a month and I'll jump in to Secret World beta and give that a try when I get invited.

There are hosts of improvements to the game, many of which were mentioned in this thread and, like many who actually tried the game recently, I'm looking forward to more polish and the new ("free" for me!) expansion next year.

The one thing that I am not fond of (which has yet to improve) are the group quests and raids.  Every single one of these in the game are all "scripted" -- e.g., the "leader," who's done the quest repeatedly, has his or her script whihc will be followed explicitely as he/she barks specific commands via a third party voice program (usually Ventrillo) -- and, if if you're not distracted, totally brain dead and you can understand English and follow orders, you and your group grind it out exactly the same way everyone else did to complete the quest or raid and maybe, if you've been good and are very lucky, you will get your bright and shiny <item> for your reward.  While the script varies depending on the quest/raid, they are all similiar in that they are all excrutiatingly tedious, boring and long.  Many players run through much of them with one or two level 80 guildies/friends just to get them done and move on.  There are 'way too few "group" quests (FoD area comes to mind as one of few exceptions) where you can actually complete quests that are marked as "group" -- very difficult if not impossible to solo, but which can be enjoyed and completed as a duo or trio -- full group not needed.

I'd like to see attention placed on the quests -- both the current quests (characterizing them properly and  then modifying many so a group party of various sizes has content to enjoy together.  FunCom can review Turbine's LotRO "small group quests" and their modifications of "epic" quests (so they will actually be able to be soloed!) in LotRO's new upcoming Mirkwood expansion for examples and ideas on how this is done.

I love the idea posted above in this thread about offering more content -- the WoW zitsqueezers won't like that because it's more "work" to do all that reading, but in a game rate "Mature" that's not the intended audience anyway -- and additiion of more rich content is guaranteed to improve the player's imersion and enjoyability  of the game by enhancing the Hyborian experience.

Finally, I applaud MMORPG because, like most of the MMO/RPG fan sites and magazines I read and respect, they've continued to provide clear, honest reporting and editorials about our hobby and the games we can play.  While I admit, I was one of many who ran away screaming when FunCom shut down our closed beta server a month or so after releasing the "not ready for prime time" Age of Conan as a half finished beta product.  But I came back and I'm glad I did. 

I feel sorry for those twisted and bitter trolls who continue to serve us whine with their cheese, intersperced with lies, misinformation and half truths simpley because they can't get beyond their bitterness to actually examine the reality of how much Age of Conan has improved.

It just gets better and better!

Definitely the most interesting (and probably the most challenging) class yet.

Amazing!

Ever since the SWG dick-stepping, anything SOE is unacceptable.  I was in the Vanguard alpha & beta from the beginning and when SOE stepped in I ran away screaming.   I avoid everything SOE like the plague. 

Burn me once, shame you you.  Burn me twice, shame on me.

I'm not sujrprised no one posted a comment yet.

This reminds me a lot of LotRO where the devs develop inncuous bull crap called "festivals" (which mean absolutely nothing especially if you're serious at all about the game) to keep them amused. 

The reality of life is the players (read "paying customers") would MUCH rather see the employees working to develop better game content that actually means something.

How disappointing. 

The effective range of this effort is zero meters.

The MT model is tricky and it seems the major argument "for" it -- to bring more people to the game -- didn't work when SOE used that excuse for the NGE and it won't work for BioWare, either.

Personally, I don't think BioWare is at all worried about numbers -- anyone who knows anything about this hobby knows for a fact that SW:TOR will blow everything else out of the water.  My God, when they announced they were taking closed beta applications, the response was so literally overwhelming, the server crashed.

My take of these "points" and "store" will be  more along the lines of awarding "points" in game as rewards which would be spent  in the "store" for some innocuous in game items and maybe even real items, such as hats and t-shirts.

I'm sure we'll hear all about it from BioWare eventually.  

But I'm old school too -- if SW:TOR introduces RMT for important in game items such as weapons, armor, kits and the like, the effective range of that concept is zero meters.

"All in all the game has departed from something special the token world back to just another game with a token skin on it."

Freudian slip, eh Eric?  Still on point, though.

I'm a lifetime founder so I'll be checking to see how long it takes for Turbine to get back on course with this game.  If they do manage to listen like they used to and get away from their current bent on old style, outdated MMO "features," great.  I'd love to return to logging in and playing LotRO regularly.  If not, I'll just continue beta testing Star Wars: The Old Republic.

OK, so some of the "veteran rewards" are silly but, you know what?  It's the tought that counts.  :)

I have to applaud Mr. Morrison and FunCom for taking the time to offer these rewards as a small but significant "thank you" to the veteran AoC players who have continued their AoC subscription.

The Iron Tower sounds interesting as well.  I just hope that this new group instance area is not "over the top" as are too many of the group quest areas, such as Black Castle, Cistern, etc. -- you know the ones I mean -- those areas with a ton of group quests that require one or two level 80's to come along and babysit you and your friends so we can actually finish it.  I was so annoyed with those areas that I simply deleted all those group quests and moved on -- even with the level 80's "helping" us, they took too long, and when compared to say, the Villas, and yes even the solo quests, the XP and the rewards just were no fun and not worth the time or effort. 

This is really simple.

The preponderance of long-time LotRO players are very unhappy with the direction the new development team is taking with the game.    We'd like to see them stop worshipping at the old-style fantasy MMO god, reverse direction and move forward and never look back. 

The profound dislike with the old-style stuff is all over the official forum and a focal point of many threads on all thewell-known fan sties, as well.  Impossible to ignore or dismiss, even if you're a LotRO/Turbine fanboi and/or a lover of the now-tiresome old, outdated standbys of fantasy MMO game play.

We'd like to see more polish to what we have (mounts are a joke, for example) and more forward thinking (like skirmishes).  We need even more improvements to crafting; lets not forget how silly the half-ass housing has remained the same, unchanged since it was hastily thrown in).  Polish.   LotRO is screaming "Polish me!."

Unfortunately the current dev regime made it clear that they will remain stubbornly fixated on many of the tired old-school WoW-like (use EQ2 here and the like) systems, foolishly justifying this in their mistaken impression that it will bring more people to the game. 

Sad.

As an original closed beta tester and closed beta tester for every expansion since, I started losing my love for LotRO while testing Mines of Moria.

I'm a Lifetime Founder.  Shaking my head and with a nagging feeling I'd regret it, I did pay my $20 and downloaded the MoM retail expansion and was dragged, kicking and screaming, through the Mines of Moria content (well, at least most of the quests, most of which can eb done solo and to the closing portion of Vol. 2, Book 5).  I didn't advance my pre-Moria maxed crafters (3).  I didn't do any of the MoM instances for the "cool" gear.  I'm not a raider -- I did schlep my way through Helegrod once and got close to the Balrog in the Rift twice only because friends/kinmates asked -- but I just conuldn't motivate myself to raid anymore -- it feels like slowly pulling out my fingernails with a pair of pliers.

A poster above here dilusionally insinuates (parroting Turbine's latest LotRO development team) that most LotRO players want and expect the WoW-like "old generation" MMO.   The truth is that Turbine, unfortunately, choosing to take that well traveled road will likely lose more of their loyal player base than they attract when peddling that old-style content.

So now, reading this hype about the next retail expansion, South Mirkwood, I'd of very much liked to be excited but while it does touch on some nice additions and improvements (the "Good"), those, unfortunately, are vastly overshadowed by WoW-style theme park design of content we used to brag about LotRO avoiding since launch (the "Bad" and the "Ugly").

Yes, I am underwhelmed.  And I actually never thought I would feel this way about LotRO, but I'm toying with not purchasing the next retail expansion.

Wow here it is 3 months along when I read this and only a few posts?  Shows how much of a yawner LotRO has become, I guess.  Placing all this additional emphasis on raids and instances trying to woo WoW- style raid fans is collaterally disenfranchising long-time LotRO players who were never interested in raids and were hoping for the minimal instances after the disaster the introduction of such instances caused in MoM.

Sad to say, with this direction LotRO is taking, it's pretty clear, if this direction doesn't change, especially with all the great MMOs due to release in the next year or so, there will continue to be a lot more people jumping out of LotRO than Raid Fanatics jumping in.

Originally posted by Elsabolts

Originally posted by shzrocka

In my opinion, these are changes that should be happening with patches over time for free. Seems like to me that funcom is trying to make more money by selling 6 (not so major) updates packed in a box. This purely my opinion, take with a grain of salt.

 

This person gets it. Besides paying for the last year of beta testing Funcom has figured out away to make a few more bucks out of ya and your still paying to beta this game. This time around folks are gonna be more cousious and may not come back as much as they want them to. I believe also you will not get to see expansion till you've already paid for it. Anyone doubt it will not come with alot of problems that disrupt the game. NO!

Jihad works both ways

Regarding having to pay for the expansion, while no real details have been released about this, I'd expect to pay about $30US for the expansion with the convenience of an online download (check out LotRO's and other retail expansions to see how it works).  I'd also expect a "gold" game box to hit the shelves for about $50 (possibly less).

I'll bet you a case of your favorite brew that these two guys quoted here, serving whine with their cheese, haven't actually played AoC in many months and are merely continuing to parrot the woes from last summer.

The reality of life, to clarify and to inform you both, is that AoC actually reached release quality some months ago and if you were playing the game now, you'd know it. 

Your arguments are soo last year and stale, no longer apply and are therefore irrelavent.

Originally posted by Skuz

I think that them focusing on the high end so much in this expansion is a mistake, the biggest shock factor in AoC was how abysmally crap the game felt once you leave Tortage, the high enders will always demand new content but I think that for the long term health of AoC they really should have focused on the middle of the game much moreso than the high end.

 

People have to GET to that high end & if you fail to keep them engaged you lose them at the mid-point, & that is where AoC fails so badly, the game falls apart once you leave Tortage & it's to the game's detriment that the mid-game hasn't been treated with the same love & care as Tortage was.

What you say is a stale complaint at this point and simply no longer true.

The way AoC is designed, it's actually pretty easy to get to 60 -- even more so today, since they've added so much content.  I know, because I came back as a level 1 Ranger 3.5 months ago after running away screaming from the "Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Conan" when closed beta ended (June 2008) and have done the preponderance of this mid-level myself.  Furthermore, based on what I've read and hear from other players, the 60-80 content has been greatly expanded as well.

Mid-levels are alive and well in Hyboria.

I, personally, am no fan of PvE group quests in this game as most of them are annoying as hell.  Therefore, I play for the solo and small group (duo or trio) content and except for the Pyramid, I've avoided all the designated "true group" quests since quitting Black Castle and deleting its quests in frustration months ago.  There's something terribly wrong with the quests area of AoC's game design when you have to have a specifically constructed full group of players who not only know each other's play styles well and are usually in the same guild to have any chance or, if you need to PUG the group quest, you have to depend for someone to bring along a level 80 to "babysit" you and the rest of the group of strangers to have any chance at all of making it through.  What's the fun in that?  It is also highly unlikely that I will ever do any Raiding in AoC  (at least in raiding's current form) for many of the same reasons.

I also find the quest design labeling to be inaccurate more often than not regarding group quests.  For example, in FoD, most of the group quests, except for the group quests inside the Tomb) were easitly completed by my mid-40's Ranger in duo with my friend's mid 40-s ToS.   While there are some "small group" quests in AoC, sadly none that I've seen so far are labeled as such, leaving it for the player to "guess" if he/she hasn't been through this content, or depend on another player's experience/knowledge. 

I'd like to have Morrison & Co. take a long, hard look at all the quests designed already in game, paying close attention to the quest labeling and the difficulty and adjust them accordingly and of course, pay close attention to this going forward.   A good place to start would be FoD because the labeling goof there is at it's most absurd this far with this Ranger.

When in comes to on line gaming, if it's not fun, I don't do it.  An MMO is entertainment I pay for and it's supposed to be enjoyable.  And in coming back to AoC, while it is clear that AoC has these and other issues to address and resolve, it is also obvious Morrison & Co. continue to make major efforts.  So for now, warts and all, AoC remains in my repetoire.

Originally posted by Turntable

Originally posted by LordBonezy

Originally posted by BesCirga

Originally posted by LordBonezy

Originally posted by BesCirga

Being unhappy with a game you generally like, is a bitch. I know that. But, it still doesn't change the fact the your OP was written as a pure flamebait...

I could give a nut suck about what you think my post was about. I don't care. Don't care. Flame it all you like, AOC has been a massive failure and what they are doing to keep it afloat is release an expansion when they should have been fixing the fucking game. Working on other mmos when they should have been fixing the fucking game. Marketing lies, and bs from start to finish when they should have been FIXING THE FUCKING GAME!

 

Hehe... I can tell that you dont care, by; you quoting/answering me and screaming in caps

 

Caps are cruise control for cool. I really wish they had fixed the game in a timely manner and not lied to customers before and after launch. The fact that they continue to mis-priortize just about everything having to do with AOC means I'm never buying a Funcom product or service again and encouraging other people daily for until I feel like not doing it, to do the same.

So yeah do I care what you think about my post not at all. ;)

Have a nice day.

Soo, 131 post about how bad Conan is.. Time to move on?

Hehe.  After playing the entire closed beta experience, I threw up my hands and quit (even though I had purchased the AoC game box for $5 from a friend who quit) when FunCom shut down the beta server in June of last year.

Meanwhile, I monitored the game's progress and, a few months ago, I decided to go back with a 3 months subscription.  I haven't regretted that decision.  I think Morrison's team has done a great job in polishing the game and it's clear that today, AoC is the release quality product we'd hoped for a year ago.

Lord Bonezy, serving whine with his cheese, simply parrots year-old complaints -- the boy needs to let go of the bitterness that many shared a year ago but now, today, is a small club of former players who remain in a rut regarding AoC.

As one who knows AoC well (warts and all), it's clear to me that FunCom has done an outstanding job since Morrison took over.  My only complaint is that they are really *slow* in doing so LOL.  But hey, it's certainly clear, as another poster has said here, that FunCom has not given up on this game!

I'd also like to debunk comments and impressions that the game is dead.  Far from it.  I've characters on two servers (one PvP, one PvE) and I'm here to tell you that there's plenty of people playing AoC.

I, for one, was plenty excited about AoC's new expansion and there's *plenty* of people who feel the same way -- see for yourself of the Godslayer link in this article. 

To be fair, I have to add that I was pretty disgusted with the last paragraph of FunCom's release about the expansion.  The reality of life is that AoC, when released, was a smoking pile of sh!t and I am being kind here.  But that shouldn't be how today's AoC is judged -- and many, like me, are excited about what Morrison & Co. are doing with the game and what they have planned for it's future.

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.

For whatever reason (many of us blame the SOE leadership's arrogance coupled with their ostrich-like head in sand behavior), SOE never could get their head wrapped around the "Community Relations" concept, let alone understand how absolutely critical the community is in the success of an MMO.

I'd also like to correct SOE's release here -- I remind SOE that you cannot call yourself a leader at all if you know nothing of and care nothing about the community because the community actually justifies your existance.

I'm late with this reply (hey, it's summer time LOL).

I know this doesn't matter to most, but I would really like to see Age of Conan offer some -- ANY -- variety in how equipment looks -- not so much on the "green" drop items, but it would be nice to see some differentiation in how quest reward items look on my avatar?  My Ranger is almost 50 and except for the "texture" variation (which you really have to look closely to detect), all her medium armour looks pretty much the same.  Quests items should LOOK different/better than the "green" drops, IMO.  Also, I'd like to see more cloaks.  They seem virtually non-existent --  except for the "Drinking Cape," the first cloak drop/reward I've seen was in the Pyramid (or 30's) and that cloak, even with the revamped itemization, still has stats largely useful to casters.

I'm thinking of dropping the game again when my recent 90-day renewal expires in a month or so -- we'll see how it goes and I'll be paying close attention to news of AoC's upcoming retail expansion.

A thought provoking and well written "take" on the industry from the inside that seeks a commonality -- a "thread" to obtain answers that thinking MMO hobbyists seek.

Of course, the title says it all, really.  There is no "End Game" -- no "magic bullet" to explain away all the issues for all the problems and failures.  Except one.  For all of them (the latest put out to pasture is Mark Jacobs) -- it was time for them to go.

Quoting Alienovrlord, "open RvR in WAR only works when there are enough players on the server, in the right zone, at the right time. My ability to enjoy the game should not be totally dependent on other players, even in a MMO. The lack of decent PvE content with horrible quest writing and design insured that there was little else to do besides PvP."

The WAR MMO was a brilliant concept.  I stuck with the game through Alpha and Closed Beta (and I returned even after the "Holiday Break" during which the game was on hold and testing had stopped until further notice).  But the reasons Alienoverlord mentions above, along with my distaste for the WoW graphics (the MMO game imersion just didn't feel like Warhammer to me),  are the main reasons why I never committed to the retail box purchase of WAR.  I was certain these problems would cause huge issues with the playability of the WAR MMO when it went live and they did.  Most are still problematic.

Continuing to quote Alienovrlord, "I wish this news was surprising, but it's not. It is a cautionary tale for Bioware. But there is one big difference between Muzyka and Zeschuk. They are not MMORPG developers like Garriott, McQuaid, Godger and Jacobs. They didn't make games based on concepts like tedious timesinks and overly complicated, non-intiutive mechanics. Instead Muzyka and Zeschuk made games that were compelling and FUN *first* then decided to go into the MMORPG space."

The "good doctors" (BioWare's Muzyka and Zeschuk), among other things, are first and foremost all about the story.  The "fun first" is not that complicated and not at all hard to understand -- it's simply following a proven method of  "RPG" storytelling that we've seen BioWare develop since Baldur's Gate.  It's what labeled BioWare a success with EA, LucasArts and, of course, hobbyists.

With MJ gone, expect major changes (for the better) with WAR -- it's no longer MJ's ego running a puppet show.  Mythic is a good company which will only get better now.

We've all seen disenchanted folks diss EA but, IMHO, in this case, it was time for MJ to go and the restructuring cannot help but strengthen and improve all facets of their operation.

LotRO, while continuing to receive periodic free updates, improvements and new content, plus a retail (about $30US) paid expansion about once a year, won't ever get the complete makeover as the writer of this article suggests.  

Beyond "wouldn't it be kewl if.." and while the author does make some good points, the reality of life is that an NGE-type of "makeover" for LotRO is impractical, if not impossible, unless developers pretty much start designing these things with a clean slate.  Do we think Turbine will ever come out with a "LotRO 2?"  Nope.

Yet, for many of us long-time residents of the LotRO MMORPG (I've been in this MMO since early closed beta and have been a Lifetime Founder since day one), many of the recent "updates" and the "improvements" planned for Volume 2 are at least as often viewed as bitter rather than sweet.

The problems started with Mines of Moria and it seems to be continuing to move in the wrong direction.

Instancing is a crutch that's being overdone -- no matter what the dev journals say, if it looks like a dog, barks like a dog and bites like a dog, it's a dog.  If we wanted instanced-everything, we'd be playing Age of Conan.

LotRO is alarming many by moving ever so strongly toward Raiding, hoping to lure the pubescents and the rest of the hardcore like-minded who couldn't care les about the journey, they ignore the lore, they can't be bothered to smell the flowers, all they want is max level, max gear ASAP -- to raid.  More large-scale raids as an entity  onto itself where, in their minds, the only items worthwhile for your avatar are raid rewards.  Step-by-step, the new regime in charge of LotRO is further alienating themselves from the core premise that players could grind/hunt for, quest and craft equipment comparible to those received in raids.  The only explanation for this is that the Turbine Team has deluded themselves into thinking this is what LotRO players want.  The reality of life, however, is that we'd all be playing WoW, not LotRO, if we wanted a raid-centric MMO.

LotRO should hold true to it's roots -- the core values and systems that both the LoTRO MMO and the LotRO community were founded on. 

Change is not always a good thing.

Great article, Mr. Wood. 

'Way too much neysayers posting, so here's some "anticipated MMOs" to ponder (since no one else mentioned them):

Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Star Trek Online.

Copernicus.