Well I care OP because I haven't bought the game yet and sitting on the fence.  I'm not big on jumping into games because it's not WoW like people seem to these days, The general impressions I get seem to point to this game being your typical Korean grinder like Lineage which will most likely result in a mass exodus of people once again finding out a new game is not WoW 2 like has happrned in mainstream MMO's that have launched in the last few years.

Sucees in this genre is based on the number of subs to put it quite simply. From both a business and customer standpoint. MMORPG's are still a very small portion of the PC games market and most people that do play them are familiar with the what's out already and what's on the horizon. If a game is scraping the bottom of the subscriber base then there's a good reason for it and I surely wouldn't say it was successful no matter how much fun you have playing it. Even games that have been stamped as a failure by the MMO community and to the point where the doors should be be closed still have fans playing it and enjoying it.

Not trolling just telling the truth. Mainstream games with big money thrown at it also have a higher chance a failure than suceeding. Now you're getting into unkown developer land useing a indie budget to create a game people truely know very little about at this point. It could be a hit but common sense should tell you after looking at all the games in this genre that the chances of it bombing are much higher that it would being a suprise hit.

LOL>

MO is not art it's a product. Their sole purpose is to make money like any other business. They've already made money with a product that's still unseen. People tossing them money now are either bored and wanting something new and willing to pay for it or they're extremely gullible and don't realize the chances of this game being a truckload of fail is greater than it being a hit just because of trends in this genre.

Forgive Protus. He's is without a doubt the king of AoC's dellusional fanboys. I guess he took his crusade here. Sorry someone left the cage door open I guess.

Good one

The fanbois won't understand the references, well, because they're clueless fanbois

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

at higher levels, hitting a mob on a shielded side will result in damage proportionate to how much defence they have allocated there.

One bracket, moderate damage, 2 or three, forget it.

The great story aspects continue, but there are more stories to get involved in, and far more choices. It really opens up beautifully.

The linear, instanced, guided feel of the beginning of the game vanishes for themost part, and you are left in a world that will leave you exploring, screen-shotting, and generally marveling over a very alive-feeling environment.

Sorry to be so general, but I can't be specific, due to NDA of course.

Thanks but I just wish we could get more details to know for certain. If it loses it's Guildwars-cant-stray-from-the-path-too-far feel at level 20+ I would buy this game in a heartbeat. But this not knowing thing is driving me nuts because "GuildWars 2- The Age of Conan" would be a game breaker for me. Instancing is not a killer for me but the navigating the world on rails is.

1- Release the silly level 13 cap torwards the end of beta

or

2- Release the NDA completely. That's pretty silly as well to leave this intact for 13+ when early players will be playing retail in less than two weeks.

Originally posted by Cabe2323

 

Originally posted by DAS1337

Originally posted by Cabe2323

So I don't know what to think now.  I was hoping to get a new game to play but...

 

First off the client seems to run pretty well but it is somewhat clunky imo.  Reminds me of the plastic feeling of EQ2's character models. 

The combat is different but not really that much different.  I honestly like the reactive styles of Dark Age of Camelot more then the "Active" combat so far. 

I honestly don't like the overall feel of the game though.  It doesn't come off being very adult oriented.  It has a lot of unrealistic gore (ie massive amounts of blood on wounds that would be more blood then a person actually has) and also way over usage of sexuality. 

The number 1 thing that I don't like so far though is the zoning and path walls.  I honestly do not like zoning.  I feel like the game is a cross between guild wars and vanguard/eq2 style.  I just don't feel like I have a world to explore.  It feels like I am being pushed down paths to where they want me to go.  Literally too,  I mean I am really being pushed down preset paths to where I have to go. 

 

Overall the performance of the closed beta client was a lot better then when i tried my open beta client.  But it still just doesn't have that "it" factor for me. 

My best example would be that Age of Conan is like one of those big blockbuster popcorn summer movies.  They overdose you on special effects and load bangs, but have no depth at all. 

 

How many times do we have to say that the first 20 levels are linear and story driven?  Even Funcom has stated that there will be some walls, they are driving you in one direction because that's how the tutorial Tortage Island is supposed to be.  How can we make you understand?  The main land is supposed to be much more open.

You don't need to make me understand.  Why would anyone want to play something they don't enjoy for 20 levels, just for the promise that it will be better later?  In my opinion it is a horrible design plan. 

 

EQ2 has a starter island but it isn't linear like Tortage Island is.  It allows you to run around the entire zone up to the cliffs etc.  What I hate are these artificial pathways that are created in games. 

I'm concerned about the same thing. In a MMORPG in certain areas you should be able to take off in any direction and run for miles,. A truely open world experience.  If you don't know what I mean assume you're in a dessert with a path in front of you. In MMORPG's you could take off in any direction you like and die of thirst days later. In a linear game if you varried off the path you'd run into an invsible wall at 15'.

For AoC OB it's very linear like Guildwars. You can't stray too far from the path before you run into insvislbe walls or terrain you can't navigate past.

People keep claiming the world opens up at lvl 20. I think we're all ware the full multiplayer part starts then and the world is open for travel but are the zones still linear? That could indeed be a killer if so because there are probably many MMO players that do not like to be restricted like that. including me. One of the main reasons I hate games like GW or DDO.  And seeing as the OP stated they played closed beta too I'm not happy.

Wish they would let us level up higher or at least lift the damn NDA totally so we would know for sure. Another reason that makes me wary. They release NDA for 1-13 but leave the rest intact with only a week before they let early people play retail.

Open beta with NDA still in effect for all level 13+ content

Open beta with a very low level cap

Open beta that is restricted to only 50K Fileplanet subscribers

I'm still going to buy the game and try it myself but if that doesn't set off  alarm bells then you're either;

a) Not a MMORPG beta testing vet

b) A diehard AoC fanboi

This stuff is not even remotely normal for open betas

I used to be hyped but after hearing guildies saying it's not very good I'm a little more realistic about it. I'll more than likely still try it out but when hardcore MMO vets stop testing a hyped up game like this then you know something is very very wrong. 

Think you're thinking of the first one. This is the sequel and is still in open beta in Korea and hasn't been released anywhere yet.

Play one of the dozen or so free to play Korean MMORPG's. Now imagine better graphics. You've just played PT2.

And it has a 7.1 on the hypemeter. 

Kids looking for their next shallow, f2p, Korean, Lineage engine clone, grinder fix fresh off the assembly line and inflating the hype for the lose.

Darfall has high vaporware potential because it has all of the warning signs . I think most people that have been around the MMO block can't take this title seriously for reasons that shouldn't need explaining. I don't want to see any MMO fail to release since it's still a small genre but just going by what's known as fact  combined with the absurd amount of development time and it should be enough to make your average gamer wary.

I've been periodically following it for about 5 years and I still know about as much about it today as I did back then. It's always had some hype going for it with all the dev pillow talk but if they're really serious about releasing a successful game then they're going to have to start seriously showing what they have. But I have a strong feeling this game will never see the light of day. If it does then I sure hope it's absolute perfection after a century of development.

I didn't platy LotR  but it's one of the few  p2p MMO's that I haven't played since like 1999.

These are a few things that bug the hell out of me about these games Asian f2p grinders that are typically not a problem in p2p games;

Customization- Need more than 4 choices for face,hair,eyes. I'm still trying to figure out how they can work so hard to make a beautiful game and then spend like 10 minutes programming customization features. It's pretty sad when you could strip off comeltely naked and people would still be absolutely sure what class you are.

Classes are typically race/gender locked.  Umm, yeah.

Clones all over the place. This kinds bounces back to the problem with lack of customization but nothing shows the lack of variety and uniqueness when you're tripping over an exact clone of yourself every 5 meters. Which leads to my next point

Loot- Usually one set every 10/20 levels and that's it. No different colors or chances for a totally different set alltogether ...................b-o-r-i-n-g

Item shop or be a gimp. Kinda defeats the purpose of calling it a f2p game when you'd pretty much have to buy items to compete in PvP or to get the best progression in PvE. The irony is that these games probably make more per player than subscription games. Probably why you see a new Asian grinder popping up every 6 months or so. And they apparently don't take that money and invest it in quality.

Variety with mobs ,or in this case the lack thereof. Sorry but taking a mob and doubleing it's size does not really consituite creating a new mob. If you were to look at each truely original mob in the bestiary you'd see how uttelrly pathetic the lack of diversity is in these games.

1,000,000,000 player shops in the middle of town to lag you the hell out. Seriosuly, is it that much trouble to have some kind of auction house setup that's been standard in most quality games for the last 5 years or at least add a way to organize player shops? Most of these games don't ship with this feature but might add it later down the road when nobody cares or plays anymore.

Most of these are grind oriented at mid-higher levels at least, most of the time the whole game.

etc etc etc

Good for you if you love these games but for people that can actually afford $15/month it's hard to attempt playing free games. In most of this cases you get what you pay for. It seems Asians just need a weapon and a mob to smack but I think most Westerners except a little more, except kids without credit cards.

Korean sequel to a popular game. It's either released in Korea now or in open beta and scheduled to be launching in North America with a publisher already in line. It's Lineage II caliber with the newer goodies and pay to play so it will make the list eventually but why wait when English speaker are eager to talk about it now?  =)

Korean site-  http://www.pt2.co.kr/

English site is about ready to go up I think. People have claimed to see it up from time to time but they are obviously still working on it because it goes up and down. Don't know this url.

Sounds like one of their other clones Last Chaos allbeit with better PvP and a type of overbreeding which is present in other Asian grinders that allows minimal character progression but more points to spend on skills. Not any fresh ideas here, just different ways of implimenting them in each game although perma death for hardcore mode or whatever sounds new at least to me.

Sorry, I'll think I'll pass because it just sounds like another one fresh off the assembly line. These games are just way too shallow for me to get hooked on.  Maybe some day they'll make one that's p2p quality instead of the sterotypical Asian grinder with lots of shortcomings and it will be something i can stomach for a significant amount of time.

You seem to be having fun though and that's all that's important.

Real quests or 'Go kill 15 rats' followed by "Go collect 15 rat tails"? Most of the F2P games fresh on my memory have quests but it's just quests to hold your hand with grinding and that's a deep as it ever gets.

Do they have the same equip as other f2p games? lvl 10 get Axe, lvl 30 get Large Axe, lvl 60 get Great Axe...etc etc etc with nothing in between, where everyone is equiped with the same exact weapon minus the inevitable stones or whatever to enchant it?

Drops-  Same as most with 99% coins or completely common items or do you actually have a chance to get rare equipment from normal mobs or  bosses that drop something exceptional most of the time?

Customization- The usual choice of a few faces/color and hair styles/color and that's it?

PvP- Get penalized for killing too much?

Skill system- Is it a system that allows you to have to actually make a choice to train something up and not being able to train up other skills as a result? Like how a proper skill tree should work where you have limited points to spend and not enough train everything?

/sigh

You know, if one of these devs actually decided to put some effort into making a pay to play worthy game then they'd be a dominator. Free + item shop + actual content would mean some good money and a big subscriber base on their end. They seem content on constantly rolling out a new shallow Lineage 2 clone to replace the old though. A generic grindfest might be fine for Asians but I think Westerners expect some variety and uniqueness which these games sorely lack.