Now that I have given it a fair play time, I have to say that I want to play this game as much as I did before, if not more.

Let me get some things straight before the hatebois and trolls jump all over this post looking for a fight.

1. Yes, I recognise there are some performance issues for a few people out there. My PC ran it fine tho I must say... From some of the posts complaining about this problem though I honestly think they would have issues running Moonstone, let alone this game. Some people need to realise that not all games are for them and to play cutting edge graphics (for an mmorpg) you need to spend some money.
2. Yes, I recognise there are bugs. I get that. None of them broke the game for me though, and the fun factor for me personally outweighs any fixable problems.
3. No, I do not think we will see a perfect launch. I think we will have, if I am honest, problems for the first 2-4 weeks. Nothing game breaking, but enough to fuel the hater's bile I am sure. Not that it needs any fuel for that tbh.
4. Yes, I would have preferred certain elemants, such as spell weaving and the like, to be public tested. It just seems safer to have done so. I trust Funcom at this stage enough to know what they are doing though. They have launched MMORPGs before, and I havent, so I would be ridicolous of me at this point to be telling them whats what.
5. Yes, I do believe that there is an optimsed client that isnt being used yet. I am aware of the arguments to the contrary, but none of them seem to be based on anything any more solid then the evidence I have. This being so, and my cynical nature when it comes to dubiously grounded hate posts from people I don't know and argue like 14 year olds, I choose to discount their obviously jaundiced and biased claims in favour of my own.
6. Yes, I know this game contains raiding. Yes, I know this games got grinding. I will say right now that I just don't care, and maybe if you do thats your issue and not the games. I am not a hardcore raider, those days are long behind me, and I don't enjoy hardcore grinding, but a little of both in a game is very ok with me. AoC seems to me to allow just that, with the end choice of how much of either I want to do depending on what I achieve. I plan on playing this game in my own way and simply do not expect it to meet 100% with any of my needs or expectations. I know that it  is impossible and I will not hate a game for not doing so.
7. I personally love the PvP ruleset. I have read it all and formed a balanced view.
8. No, I do not think this will be a 'wow killa'. It will do well, very well, but it won't go stratospheric. As a player, rather then a investor, that dosent worry me at all though to be honest. A solid player base of 250-400,000 will do just fine. I honestly don't care if this kills WoW or not... it's not really my concern.

Ok... Lets get this out of the way...

So far, my experience has been fun. I have enjoyed 90% of everything so far and I will not be cancelling my pre-order. 

Ok, now onto my personal pov on all this...

I am enjoying AoC immensly, though I wouldnt want to replay the L1-20 tutorial too many times so i am glad they have allowed us to switch it off after the first go.

The graphics are really nice. The engine is obviously top rate and will serve the game well for years. I am aware that the art direction is subjective, but imo it simply looks great. I am loving the style and I feel they convey the feel of Hyboria brilliantly.

The classes are varied and fun, and, being a fan of traditional MMORPGs (for which I make no apologies at all) they are conventional enough for me to recognise while all throwing something new into the mix. Yes, they need balancing still, but I am experienced enough to know thats a growing process all mmorpgs go through. I love grouping and I am dying to see what these classess can do at higher levels and how they mesh with each other.

The quests are... well... quests. They do exactly what it says on the tin. Yeah, I would have loved to be a truly next generation dynamic quest and encounter system, but this isnt to be this time out I guess. In the meantime, AoC is at least well writen and well acted, with the stories and flavour being all Conan.

The people I have met through this game so far have all been great. If the general player base is anything like the new people I have met so far, a few of whom I will be guilding with, I have no fears about the wider community in this game at all.

To finish, I feel AoC is a solid evolution of the genre and delivers a inspiring and exciting gameplay that has, I will be honest, got me hooked into it. I personally welcome a game that rewards player skill and investment in the way AoC has been brave enough to do. It's great to see a celebration of skill being offered, and not the celebration of mediocraty that 99% of the mmorpgs out there right now seem to be presenting.

I can honestly see me playing AoC in 1,2, or even 3 years time if they add the right content.

Listen, even in the the worst case scenario, if everything I have experienced so far is ultimatly proven to be wrong,  is that I will have paid £24.98 for a game that I will play for a month... No big deal tbh, I have blown a lot more on a lot less... My life dosent revolve around or rely or this game's success.. I really don't get all the hate and anger that is on these forums.

I feel pretty much the same but am too lazy to write a long post to express that.  I want to get a few more classes to level 13 to post a review of sorts, and even then I probably will wait until launch where I will post a review comparing OB to the launch client and my opinions then.  I'm actually overly critical in my reviews so it may sound like i'm being harsh but I am just simply enjoying myself in Hyboria and that is all I need to know I will be playing for a long time. 

I'll play the game too , its right that the game seem to freeze a lot and still have bugs , but I'm sure they will correct it and make it run smoothly.

I tried Ranger , priest of mitra , barbarian and conqueror I add a lot of fun , even if I really got annoyed by all de Freeze I had.

But I will give them a chance coz I can feel something new in this game , and I want to see where its going to go , and if I am wrong then I'll just have to wait for Warhammer no big deal.

Originally posted by keneda

I'll play the game too , its right that the game seem to freeze a lot and still have bugs , but I'm sure they will correct it and make it run smoothly.

I tried Ranger , priest of mitra , barbarian and conqueror I add a lot of fun , even if I really got annoyed by all de Freeze I had.

But I will give them a chance coz I can feel something new in this game , and I want to see where its going to go , and if I am wrong then I'll just have to wait for Warhammer no big deal.

Exactly...

I feel great about where the game is at and where it looks like it's going, but if I am wrong, then what the hell really? It's no big deal.

At this time though, I honestly, after all I have read and understood, have faith in this game as a long term investment of my gaming time.

Hopefully newcomers will be able to see through the fearful haters, the shills, and the insecure trolls to make their own minds up.

Alway's nice to come across a post after so much hate or love and just tells it like it is,I have been in neither beta but do read alot of forum's and try to search through the hate or love to find honest post's,so cheers m8..

Originally posted by vesavius

Now that I have given it a fair play time, I have to say that I want to play this game as much as I did before, if not more.

Let me get some things straight before the hatebois and trolls jump all over this post looking for a fight.

1. Yes, I recognise there are some performance issues for a few people out there. My PC ran it fine tho I must say... From some of the posts complaining about this problem though I honestly think they would have issues running Moonstone, let alone this game. Some people need to realise that not all games are for them and to play cutting edge graphics (for an mmorpg) you need to spend some money.

 

Why do nealy all the people for whom the game ran "fine" insist on trying to inform anyone who has had performance issues that either, their PC is outdated, cheap and/or badly setup? ~ and from what I have seen, it aint simply "a few people".

As I do not wish a holiday from MMORPG.com right now I will bite my tongue very hard and refrain from insulting you.

Sure, I can run the game on max settings with AA -shadows from "everything" and get 50fps steady in the tutorial zone, it's in and around Tortage that the "stalling" begins and can get very very bad at times.

Zoning is also a lottery, I had roll another character today becuase ALL of mine were stuck inside tortage, the game would just stop responding after loading into the zone.

And I still get random crashes, due I am sure to the known memory leak.

Intel E6700 Core 2 Duo @ 2.66

2Gb corsair ram

8800GTS 640Mb

Vista 32

So yes I have "spent some money" thank you very much, and so I would like to inform people, counter to your findings, that the people suffering performance issues, crashes and other problems are not all plebs, liars and haters using hardware from 1990.

For the record, I like this game from what I have been able to see and hope it does do well and have not yet cancelled my pre-order.

And I still get random crashes, due I am sure to the known memory leak.

 

 

Sorted for you.

I haven't posted here in a while but I do need to make a comment in regards to the OP:

Yes, I would have preferred certain elemants, such as spell weaving and the like, to be public tested. It just seems safer to have done so. I trust Funcom at this stage enough to know what they are doing though. They have launched MMORPGs before, and I havent, so I would be ridicolous of me at this point to be telling them whats what.

That needs to be changed. It isn't launched MMORPGs before, it is MMORPG. Singular. Funcom has released a single MMO. Anarchy Online. And in the interest of self-preservation, I will refrain from comment on that game aside from this. It had the worst release of an MMO to date, including Vanguard. Those that experienced release in 2001 would most likely corroborate. Other than that, Funcom hasn't released any MMOs. Midgard was scrapped. There was another MMO in development that was put on hold for Dreamfall (which also by the way I found to be dull and droll with a horrible combat system) called The Secret World of which development was resumed after Dreamfall shipped and was officially confirmed about this time last year. That's one MMO released and it was not something to inspire confidence in said company. It isn't about telling them what's what, it is about trying to make them understand that we as players won't settle for games that are broken out of the box. As long as we continue to buy into the release it and they'll fix it later mentality, we will continue to get games like Vanguard and Tabula Rasa. I know where I stand but it sure does seem pretty lonely here right now.

Yep AO was a terrible release that is for sure,but having said that they have approached this release alot different from that one,also we all learn from mistake's....dont we?

All of this is sounding just like VG.  The whole, "I have heard about performance issues, but not experiencing any myself" shows that this will be another tech-heavy game that is only playable on certain rigs.  Whether this performance is due to AoC's engine or to sloppy coding remains to be seen.

AoC will truly be comparable to VG if it launches with all of the bugs people are clamoring about.  I hope it doesn't, but I have a feeling the poll is correct with about 50% of interested gamers still on the fence about this. 

The post-launch reviews are going to make or break this game.  Word of mouth after a horrible launch won't save any game, nevertheless an MMO.  I have been following this for quite some time and initially chalked this up as a 'must have', but lately have been turned off by all of the negative impressions.

Thank goodness for GTAIV online :)

I've never..well one time for about 60 seconds..seen the 50FPS+. I run quite nicely at a good 20-25FPS on high. I turned off bloom and shadows but otherwise it's a solid play experience.

I am not sure aqbout playing AoC three years from now but certainly for a good long stay. I have a class picked out and I am pretty sure I have an alt class to play during 'dry' moments ( Ihave to get him to 10 to see the feats)

I am reasonably sure that the game will iron out the bugs and will be smooth as silk whether the launch is spotless or not.

Originally posted by nikoliath

 

Originally posted by vesavius

Now that I have given it a fair play time, I have to say that I want to play this game as much as I did before, if not more.

Let me get some things straight before the hatebois and trolls jump all over this post looking for a fight.

1. Yes, I recognise there are some performance issues for a few people out there. My PC ran it fine tho I must say... From some of the posts complaining about this problem though I honestly think they would have issues running Moonstone, let alone this game. Some people need to realise that not all games are for them and to play cutting edge graphics (for an mmorpg) you need to spen