Personal AoC review - in case someone is interessted

Spiider

I read most of the reviews here but I still feel I can contribute to guys who are thinking about buying the game. My points of view are a bit different then the others but I promised to be as objective in my subjectivness as possible. Here we go:

Graphics: Demanding but stunning if you play on high res. 8800 should do the job. If you are sick of cartoony graphics AoC is the game for you. If you are running on low settings then AoC is "as good as any other game" on the market, it wont blow you away but you will not be irritated.

Sound and music: Music is AWESOME! So far... but still AWESOME. I wish I had a soundtrack. Sounds are good, not spectacular, but good. Music and sound just add to the immersion in this world. Dialogues and NPC acting is also awesome. Fucom did a god job here.

Navigation and combat: Navigation could be a bit better. It's good but there is still room for improvement. Avatars can get stuck sometimes on an object and then you need to take few steps back to unstuck yourself or you need jump around like mad to be able to continue ... that's ok, not that bad. Evasion in combat is good, double tapping navigation keys has good response times and it's usefull. Combat is different, you need to think about what combo you will use, from which side you will attack based on armor of the opponent... very nice stuff. It's a bit stupid to have full animation of a finishing move on a single opponent that lasts few seconds while 20 others are attacking you but hey... that's what the crowd wants. At least you can not be harmed during that. Combat is definately positive side of this game. Even slashing lvl1 rabbit is fun to watch. Also damaging multiple opponents at the same time when you take wide swings is cool to have. Nothing to add or complain about here.

PVP: Ah... And I'm not talking about ganking the spawn points, that is pefectly fine if some kid needs his ego boosted trough killing people on loading. There is no real deth penalty so who cares. What bothers me are running casters. As I already said double tapping controls is awesome way to escape someone's blow. Combos require some time and that time is more then enough for your opponent to take a step aside or back or even to run away from you which will make you miss. Melee chars will have to stand and fight you but casters and long range fighters will not so they can run around you (or you can run around them if you are long range) and be in no real danger from your combos. This will need balancing in the future. That's my opinion at least. I have still to try attacking cities and huge pvp battles but my current impression is that PVP will not be the highlight of this game.

Gameplay (leveling and exploration): OUCH! Tortage was awesome for a rookie spot. But I could not wait for lvl20 to get out and do some exploring and free roaming. OUCH! I ended up in a another Tortage. First thing I tried is to leave city borders and go out. OUCH! Gate blocked until further notice. Other gate blocked until I reach higher level. There is even a dialouge option saying "I can take care of myself, let me trough" but the answer was "I have my orders, bugger off". Instancing is not a problem for me but this is. NO FREEDOM! If I want to leave town I have 2 options, a ship to another town or a caravan to a third town. So I can't just leave for wherever I want to, I need to pass trough places I don't care about at first. I know very few games offer freedom I seek but I am suprised that Funcom made a world more restrictive then Anarchy Online. YES! AO is better then AoC from lvl1 when it comes to game freedom. I seriously hope this will change. It maybe changes for higher levels but I'm not there yet and I really feel like chained to an offline leveling game rather then an open mmo I'm used to. For some of you this might not be the problem but for me it is a reason not to stay long term with this game.

Overal impression: AoC is an awesome product. But not revolutionary in any way. If they combined freedom of EVE or at least AO with AoC gameplay then I would be subscribing for next few years. But right now I'm not sure of what I will do.

And for the end I must add that AoC is one of the best games on the market. I will not compare it to WOW since I played WOW for only 45 minutes. But I did play LOTRO and AoC is much better. But not better then EVE. 

I hope this helped some of you on deciding  about purchase.

 

alakram

Originally posted by Spiider


I read most of the reviews here but I still feel I can contribute to guys who are thinking about buying the game. My points of view are a bit different then the others but I promised to be as objective in my subjectivness as possible. Here we go:
Graphics: Demanding but stunning if you play on high res. 8800 should do the job. If you are sick of cartoony graphics AoC is the game for you. If you are running on low settings then AoC is "as good as any other game" on the market, it wont blow you away but you will not be irritated.
Sound and music: Music is AWESOME! So far... but still AWESOME. I wish I had a soundtrack. Sounds are good, not spectacular, but good. Music and sound just add to the immersion in this world. Dialogues and NPC acting is also awesome. Fucom did a god job here.
Navigation and combat: Navigation could be a bit better. It's good but there is still room for improvement. Avatars can get stuck sometimes on an object and then you need to take few steps back to unstuck yourself or you need jump around like mad to be able to continue ... that's ok, not that bad. Evasion in combat is good, double tapping navigation keys has good response times and it's usefull. Combat is different, you need to think about what combo you will use, from which side you will attack based on armor of the opponent... very nice stuff. It's a bit stupid to have full animation of a finishing move on a single opponent that lasts few seconds while 20 others are attacking you but hey... that's what the crowd wants. At least you can not be harmed during that. Combat is definately positive side of this game. Even slashing lvl1 rabbit is fun to watch. Also damaging multiple opponents at the same time when you take wide swings is cool to have. Nothing to add or complain about here.
PVP: Ah... And I'm not talking about ganking the spawn points, that is pefectly fine if some kid needs his ego boosted trough killing people on loading. There is no real deth penalty so who cares. What bothers me are running casters. As I already said double tapping controls is awesome way to escape someone's blow. Combos require some time and that time is more then enough for your opponent to take a step aside or back or even to run away from you which will make you miss. Melee chars will have to stand and fight you but casters and long range fighters will not so they can run around you (or you can run around them if you are long range) and be in no real danger from your combos. This will need balancing in the future. That's my opinion at least. I have still to try attacking cities and huge pvp battles but my current impression is that PVP will not be the highlight of this game.
Gameplay (leveling and exploration): OUCH! Tortage was awesome for a rookie spot. But I could not wait for lvl20 to get out and do some exploring and free roaming. OUCH! I ended up in a another Tortage. First thing I tried is to leave city borders and go out. OUCH! Gate blocked until further notice. Other gate blocked until I reach higher level. There is even a dialouge option saying "I can take care of myself, let me trough" but the answer was "I have my orders, bugger off". Instancing is not a problem for me but this is. NO FREEDOM! If I want to leave town I have 2 options, a ship to another town or a caravan to a third town. So I can't just leave for wherever I want to, I need to pass trough places I don't care about at first. I know very few games offer freedom I seek but I am suprised that Funcom made a world more restrictive then Anarchy Online. YES! AO is better then AoC from lvl1 when it comes to game freedom. I seriously hope this will change. It maybe changes for higher levels but I'm not there yet and I really feel like chained to an offline leveling game rather then an open mmo I'm used to. For some of you this might not be the problem but for me it is a reason not to stay long term with this game.
Overal impression: AoC is an awesome product. But not revolutionary in any way. If they combined freedom of EVE or at least AO with AoC gameplay then I would be subscribing for next few years. But right now I'm not sure of what I will do.
And for the end I must add that AoC is one of the best games on the market. I will not compare it to WOW since I played WOW for only 45 minutes. But I did play LOTRO and AoC is much better. But not better then EVE. 
I hope this helped some of you on deciding  about purchase.
 

Well, in fact there are ships and caravans to zones out of cities you just ned to find them but, anyway, I find this a little anoying. So game desing offers little exploration but once you reach a zone it offers a  good exploration rating IF you can deal with a zone based game. Zones are huge an open but no seamless.

Tibster

 

Originally posted by Spiider


I read most of the reviews here but I still feel I can contribute to guys who are thinking about buying the game. My points of view are a bit different then the others but I promised to be as objective in my subjectivness as possible. Here we go:
Graphics: Demanding but stunning if you play on high res. 8800 should do the job. If you are sick of cartoony graphics AoC is the game for you. If you are running on low settings then AoC is "as good as any other game" on the market, it wont blow you away but you will not be irritated.
Sound and music: Music is AWESOME! So far... but still AWESOME. I wish I had a soundtrack. Sounds are good, not spectacular, but good. Music and sound just add to the immersion in this world. Dialogues and NPC acting is also awesome. Fucom did a god job here.
Navigation and combat: Navigation could be a bit better. It's good but there is still room for improvement. Avatars can get stuck sometimes on an object and then you need to take few steps back to unstuck yourself or you need jump around like mad to be able to continue ... that's ok, not that bad. Evasion in combat is good, double tapping navigation keys has good response times and it's usefull. Combat is different, you need to think about what combo you will use, from which side you will attack based on armor of the opponent... very nice stuff. It's a bit stupid to have full animation of a finishing move on a single opponent that lasts few seconds while 20 others are attacking you but hey... that's what the crowd wants. At least you can not be harmed during that. Combat is definately positive side of this game. Even slashing lvl1 rabbit is fun to watch. Also damaging multiple opponents at the same time when you take wide swings is cool to have. Nothing to add or complain about here.
PVP: Ah... And I'm not talking about ganking the spawn points, that is pefectly fine if some kid needs his ego boosted trough killing people on loading. There is no real deth penalty so who cares. What bothers me are running casters. As I already said double tapping controls is awesome way to escape someone's blow. Combos require some time and that time is more then enough for your opponent to take a step aside or back or even to run away from you which will make you miss. Melee chars will have to stand and fight you but casters and long range fighters will not so they can run around you (or you can run around them if you are long range) and be in no real danger from your combos. This will need balancing in the future. That's my opinion at least. I have still to try attacking cities and huge pvp battles but my current impression is that PVP will not be the highlight of this game.
Gameplay (leveling and exploration): OUCH! Tortage was awesome for a rookie spot. But I could not wait for lvl20 to get out and do some exploring and free roaming. OUCH! I ended up in a another Tortage. First thing I tried is to leave city borders and go out. OUCH! Gate blocked until further notice. Other gate blocked until I reach higher level. There is even a dialouge option saying "I can take care of myself, let me trough" but the answer was "I have my orders, bugger off". Instancing is not a problem for me but this is. NO FREEDOM! If I want to leave town I have 2 options, a ship to another town or a caravan to a third town. So I can't just leave for wherever I want to, I need to pass trough places I don't care about at first. I know very few games offer freedom I seek but I am suprised that Funcom made a world more restrictive then Anarchy Online. YES! AO is better then AoC from lvl1 when it comes to game freedom. I seriously hope this will change. It maybe changes for higher levels but I'm not there yet and I really feel like chained to an offline leveling game rather then an open mmo I'm used to. For some of you this might not be the problem but for me it is a reason not to stay long term with this game.
Overal impression: AoC is an awesome product. But not revolutionary in any way. If they combined freedom of EVE or at least AO with AoC gameplay then I would be subscribing for next few years. But right now I'm not sure of what I will do.
And for the end I must add that AoC is one of the best games on the market. I will not compare it to WOW since I played WOW for only 45 minutes. But I did play LOTRO and AoC is much better. But not better then EVE. 
I hope this helped some of you on deciding  about purchase.
 

In red: Damn u even played WoW less them me.

 

 

LOL!