The game is not fun.  I don't care what they stole or created out of a fart.  The game is not fun, its boring.  I gave the beta a go, and it was yawn.  

 over on the US forums, the community has finally had enough...

Under the General Forums: Age of Conan: PVP Feedback from Khemical.

So, let's all take a moment and review the community and involvement of PVP by Funcom in the world of Age of Conan.

So, since launch we have gotten pvp levels that in reality, don't mean a thing, we all can agree on this. I mean, what good is pvp 5 which takes 5x longer to get and more hardwork then a repetitive PVE dungeon that can give you gear that is 2x better in item stats.

Let's take a look at mini-game maps. We have 4 maps, we are creeping in on 2 years since launch the game has been alive and kicking and we have 4 maps still, that's it, not to mention the lack of support in pug vs premades, x-server mini games and AI that will assemble teams correctly when you load in if it is a pug vs a pug. 1 team could have 3 heals while the other gets none, or one team gets 3 mages(mage shields), while the other team could be all melee.

Then we head out to the BK's, we have nothing to do out there, ever. Shrines of Bori was put on Test Live as a promotion for the game to get us to talk about it and have us sub, then taken away again and told we may get it by expansion pack release? That is easily 5-6 months away, on top of that, who is to say they're releasing it with the expansion pack. So were basically back to square one with the BK's, who really wants to farm pvp resources that mean absolutely nothing in this game.

Let's take a look at sieges now, they're still half ass, people glitching out when stuff explodes, all guild cities look exactly the same, there really is no strategy to them other than, bring as many fkn casters and tanks as you can. I mean what good is a siege with out strategy, just stand on the cheapest spot and drop aoe bombs and collect kills and call yourself god. Let's talk about the lag, they said they fixed it, it's clearly not fixed, the latency goes up and down like a tsunami wave when we hit big battles, which really kills the fun for melee, the main pvp fun of the game.

World PVP, I mean does it exist? sure. It only exists if you have a population online, it consists of zergs and gaurds. Not only is world PVP absolutely weak in this game, we have gaurds to save people who usually start the fight and then it turns in to an exploit fest mixed with murder points(another broken pvp system). I mean seriously, the only PVP space we have with out mobs, gaurds or rez pads interferring is, the middle of kheshetta road, which lies between Kheshetta City and Oasis.

Glory, the glory system was given to us 2 weeks ago, it is quite obvious that the system is rigged to give players of the PVE/Crafting community the edge for doing absolutely nothing. They could go afk while their 6 man group kills an elite mob and still recieve the points that are literally 10x more than a pvp kill, which I might add, is way more challenging. If you go afk in PVP, your a dead man, gaurenteed. Crafting? what a joke Funcom, seriously, what were you thinknig making that system. You really believe it's because they had mats saved up and that's why they're getting high points. Your either niave, your out right lying to the community once again. Glory is an absolute joke compared to any other category for points, once again you have slapped the pvp community in the face.

Arenas, I don't even know where to begin with this atrocity of failure. You put in Arena's with no ranking system, you hide it in some back corner for nobody to even find it, not to mention people need a guild to use it and have a certain level requirement, that alone screams FAIL. Then on top of it, we get no PVP XP for using it, hell I may aswell stick to Epic Kheshetta for my duels. Then you have another Arena that is like level renown 17, now if your a pvp guild and you don't care for PVE or Crafting, how long do you think it would take a guild that is focused on pvp only, to get to renown 17, do the math. Let's also discuss how you made mini games time based, so when people go in and dominate 1 team, we all sit there for 10 minutes to get our points because the system was thought out so poorly, like every other aspect of PVP.

It is quite obvious that the whole PVP department of Age of Conan is put on the back burner and is always the "last thing to work on". You can sit there all day Silirrion and write me a story and say you work hard on this, you do that, but your words mean nothing to the PVP community at this point in time. Your lies, your deception, your teases, your miscommunication towards PVP players and lack of efforts to keep us pleased in this game has grown old and pathetic. When this game was sold to us, it was said it had a 75% player base for PVP, you have literally left us in the dust and turned Age of Conan in to a World of Warcraft, something a 2 year old can play.

Classes in PVP, all the classes in Age of Conan have been watered down tremendously. This is so the mass of newbs that wanted to play, would still have a decent chance in group pvp, this is what you call corporate sell out. PVP before was extremely fast paced and bad ass. PVP now is extremely slow, 1 step combos are your main damage abilities and movement doesn't really mean a thing anymore. AoE procs and tab targeting classes which is a WoW combat system design, are their main focus in Age of Conan now, because the average newb can't keep up in the game. Not to mention, they slowed the game down drastically by removing 50% of our stamina since patch 1.04. Then Silirrion tells the PVP community he is going to fix it before 1.05 was released, we are now moving on to 1.07 and he has not done a single thing to fix stamina yet for the PVP community.

PVP in this game is extremely fun, I enjoy it when the population is there, but the lack of commitment to keep the pvp community alive is getting old, you can call me Negative Nancy, but can you blame me? I have been in this game since it's Alpha Phase and Open Beta, NOTHING in PVP has changed, except for the worse. There has not been one thing implemented that actually worked for the PVP community to keep us busy and rewarding fun PVP encounters. The last thing they put thought in to is PVP, since Silirrion was put in to office. He has ripped the heart and soul of PVP from Age of Conan, to feed what he only knows best, PVE Players. Thank you Silirrion for destroying what could have been one of the best PVP MMO's of all time, you will be remembered, that's for sure.

Keep in mind here, I cheated yes, I only played one month.  I have cancelled my subscription.  I doubt I will come back, even if a NA server comes up. I have never cheated in anyway on another MMO.  You can belive it or not, I never had a reason to cheat in other MMOs. 

By the looks of their patches, they seem to be improving the game, but they need a way to curb the cheating and whipe the servers.   At first I was reluctant to cheat, but when new friends out gain you in skills 10x, you find yourself alone in the game.  If you want to participate in the fun stuff, you gotta have some decent skill levels, otherwise you lose armor, mounts, weapons...  And guildies get tired of helping out when you aren't on the "treadmill" to advance quickly when those options are readily available, and zero punishment for doing it.   There are so many 3rd party programs and exploits.  I swear they even encourage macroing.  Most guilds make their own 3rd party programs, the game is so poor on security and easy to manipulate on the client side.  And everyone I know that got banned, it was only a few days max, usually hours.  There is no way this small company will turn away money, cheat or no cheat.  

So what did I get out of one month's worth of play?  I learned how to use 3rd party programs to cheat.  I learned many tricks to exploit the game.  I found out that the game can actually play for you while you sleep.  I have played just about any significant MMO out there (and a few insignificant ones).  But this is the first game that I hacked, macroed and exploited.  Why you ask, cause if you don't you will only tread water.

This is really a wonderfully developed game, but the devs just simply underestimated the time people sink into this games and drive to "win" at any cost.  The developers didn't fail this game, the community did. 

Game canceled - 6/1/2009.

You know, its not the loot I lost.  It was all crap, stuff from the Goblins.  What I don't like is wasting several hours with zero accomplishment.  I am tired of thesestarter areas, I wan't to play the bigger part of the game that everyone talks about.  But I haven't found that yet.  Maybe i will just be Cain and walk the earth in search of inner meaning (in game of course).

After five days, i feel really feel like I have a grasp on the controls and my character movement and combat styld.  I put in some good skill points into two handed sword, bow and lesser magic.  I had a quest to kill Trolls and get their blood using skinning.  I made several attempts to complete this quest and I almost got close, I had two troll bloods at one time.  But as of late, the ganking has increased.  I died several times at the hand of a superior opponent.  I fought hard but to no avail.   Soon after several attempts to complete this quest, I was left with nothing but my starter staff from all the ganking and looting. Sure, I could go finish the quest naked, but I don't get any skill gains naked with my magic,melee or bow.  I logged off for a few hours to see if the maybe it was a timing thing.  I absolutely could not get anything done today from the ganking.  

I logged back in later and tried again.   This time I went back to the Goblins to get some gold and loot and replenish what I had lost.  I also did some resource gathering to sell for gold as well.    This was not successful, the ganking was still going  on and I lost about 200 mining resources.  I found myself bored of this repittion in dying so I turned to the new guild I had joined.  After all they sounded like on vent they were having fun.  They weren't very hepful and I couldn't figure out where they were in the world or how to get there.  So I decided to just do some explorying.  Darkfall afterall looks huge.   I wondered around the lands and was impressed with the strange castles and ruins.  I wondered what all the scattered stuff was, but there is no lore to be found. I found a few creatures, some I could kill, some I could not.  There seemed to be no way of knowing which ones were weaker and stronger.  I found a nice isolated stream and started doing some fishing.  I noticed accross the stream, a fellow alliance player was chopping wood.  Soon I heard the sound of battle and the guy accross the stream was dying to 3 players on mount.  I moved into a bush on the ground and the riders didn't spot me.   I was impressed of this newly discoverd hiding ability.  I survived.  I had loads of fish on me.  I started back towards town, but this time the riders saw me and mowed me down.  It was a quick way back to town.  I logged off after this.  I wasn't a pleasent session at all.  I don't think I accomplished anything.  Well maybe a point or so in defense skills from the ganking I was taking.  I problably won't log in tomorrow night.  Right now I don't feel like playing for a while.  I kinda wasted an evening.  So will see.  I am sure I will play again, but not for a while.  I do like the hardcore of the game, but I would also like a fighting chance.  I am going to leave my guild and see if I can find a more helpful guild.  I probably won't post anymore impressions, unless something more positive occurs.

So day three in the game.  I really played alot tonight, maybe 5 hours.  I learned several new things today.  I found out that when you die, you lose everything, except your "noob" weapon.  I had a crap knife.  And also you don't get skill points for using the noob weapon.  So really, its a last ditch item incase you lose everything and at least you can kill a goblin and get some gold to get out of the homeless shelter.   It happened to me.   I wanted to try out some magic, so I discovered (from asking in chat) that I need a staff to perform magic.  I went to the Walmart greeter guy when you pop in the world and he was able to swap the noob knife for a noob staff for a friendly tip of 20 gold.  Pretty nice, cause I get a free self heal spell that came in handy.  Gold really piles up quick and I had enough to buy whatever was at the vendors.   The vendors sell you usual stuff.  All weapon types, potions, crafting materials and so on.    I did all the chain quests at the starter city, and that was pretty much giving you the tour of crafting, which was interesting, and alot of Goblin killing.   You can gather or craft whatever.  Crafting is your usual MMO stuff, as well as material gathering.  Nothing new here, but it seems to have alot of depth to it.  I got a quest to fish and cook a salmon.  Well I couldn't find a lake to fish in, but after running for about 15 minutes, i did find a river that had lots of fish in it.  I caught at least 5 different fish in about 15 minutes.  Which in turn I made into nice tasty snacks at the local city oven.  I don't know what effect you get from eating food, but you can do it. 

Pretty soon I was handling the goblins pretty well, 2 or 3 at a time.  Its amazing how fast the skills level up and make you stronger.   Just yesterday they were really beating me down.    I like the levelling system, it makes sense if you just play the game.  Unfortunately, there were many, and I mean many, players just macroing Bow and magic to  power level their characters.  Bow and lesser magic, you just have to use it, you can use it on a wall and get skill points.  I am not sure what the cap is, but thre were alot of "afkers".  Once again I didn't get ganked at all.  I did join a guild and talked with them in Vent a bit.  I was advised to level up at the starter city before venturing out to our guild city.  Sounded like they were having fun, PVP and ganking.  I can't wait to get some skills and meet up wtih them.  I don't know how many skills I need to leave the starter city.  I will ask next game session.  I am still having fun and I look forward to the next session.  My last quest takes me to know kill Trolls, which I am told are far more nastier than goblins. 

On a side note.  I did get too cocky on the Goblins, and about 4 of them took me down.  I was really rushing back to my gravestone, because I had a lot of loot on my corpse.  Way more than I should be carrying around.  Well when I got back, this nasty orc character was looting my gravestone.   I got there in time to salvage a few items ike my skinning knife.   I wanted to call him an ass, but I can't figure out how the chat works for just a local conversation.  Maybe next time I will just kill him for his lowly deed.

So I finally got an account.  Actually I got it the first time I tried.  I bought the game on my cell phone during a meeting at work Monday.  Really I feel like I donated 50 bucks for a good cause.

So here are my impressions after two days.   It pretty much starts out with a  bit a confusion.  There isn't really anything to tell you what to do, but that is part of the mystery insn't it?  After about an hour of just messing around with the controls to get them where I want  them, I start wondering around and pick up a quest.  I thought I picked up 3 quests, but 2 of them I either completed or they disappeared, not sure.   I got a quest to kill some Goblins, so I thought, here we go, go kill x amount of this stuff.  Well the goblins were kinda pissed when I went over there and they killed me.  I thought I was fighting one goblin, but it turned out he had friends.  I thought I died, but really, I was just laying on the ground moaning for about 30 seconds or so.  I wasn't sure what to do.  So I waited.  Sure enough,  I eventually spawned where I started the game.  I ran back to the goblins to try to get a kill.

Finally I took a goblin down.  Now this isn't WOW or anything.  I had to really try to kill the goblin, it wasn't easy.  When he died, I got some good loot, an axe and a bow and some gold.  All you do is really click the mouse button trying to aim the attack of the weapon.  Sounds easy, but not so when the Goblin is running and zigging all over the place.  Not to mention the goblin gets a nice "ghost" attack on ya. all time (did I see him swing?).  All during the battle, I was getting skill points in different things, like running, defense, melee skills, lots of skill levelling.   So feeling good, I equipped my new axe (really a stone tied to a poor stick) and went back to battle.  Well I died again.  And again I lay on the ground moaning for some time before I spawn back at the starting point.   I ran back to the battle only to realize, my new found axe and everything else was gone.  I managed to kill a few and complete a few quests.  I got some gold and did some mining.  I also found a bank (a big safe in the city) where I learned to put everything in there.  Only reason I found hte bank was because I was following another player to see where they were going.

After two days, its too early to judge the game.  I didn't get ganked.  I am not sure you can in the starter city or not.  I don't know.  I do know that I will back again.  I really like the skill based system and the combat is so much better than the target turn based attack systems of all the other clone MMOs.  It is a challenging game so far.   I just joined a clan, so that will be interesting.

Oh yea, there are no slots in the bags, you just kinda dump your crap in the bag and dig around for stuff.  I like it.

Wow hdnine, that sucks.  I guess I got lucky with Vista 64. (even though I have built 6 more machines with 64 for friends and famliy with zero issues).   With the flash thing , you have two IE browsers, one is 32 bit and one 64 bit.  Pathetic Flash doesn't have a 64 bit download, so make sure you are running the 32 bit browser.

Yes, step #1 with Vista is to disable the "user account control".  All that is, is Microsoft's "cover my butt" solution.  Now they are now longer responsible for security problems, cause you turned it off.

I have Vista-64, I have zero problems.  I had zero problems when I built the compter and loaded it.  I have no problems running any games, and I run alot of games.  I got a reply a few months ago from a Funcom rep stating that 64 bit exe files will come with your pre-order or game purchase.  To those who buy into the Apple commercials, thats a load of suck. 

If you play this, please end it all and get rid of those shoes, you know they are worn out!