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A Detailed Final Review of Conan...
admriker4
Member Posts: 1,070
Age of Conan - using a scoring system...10 being perfection, 1 being bleh I wouldnt wish this on my worst enemy.
Review of level climb...
Level 1-20 - The newb area was fun. It was like playing KOTOR with an even better story line. I found myself hoping that just one of those wenches I was busting my hump for would finally stop teasing and well...you know. It was linear yes and frankly not my cup of tea normally but enjoyable nonetheless. I especially enjoyed the night-time destiny quests playing bad guy spy. The ending was fun and I found myself disappointed that I had to leave. I felt a connection with the characters there and genuinely wanted to do every single quest to help them out.
It started to get old and I lost motivation by my 3rd toon though. Like a great book, you can only read it so many times before it becomes boring...the problem with all Linear MMO's. Dont get me wrong Funcom (im told they read this site a lot, in case theyre reading this), I applaud your effort with the newb area. It really was a lot of fun and was worth the $50 just by itself. It just misses a perfect 10 because of replay value. Score 9 / 10
Level 20-30 - The next areas beyond lvl 20 were a real letdown. For starters, the NPC's no longer have voices. The wenches especially were fun to listen to, so not hearing them now was a real letdown. It was one of the few times in my MMO life where I didnt spam-click through quests because I enjoyed listening to the characters.
I really had to force myself to keep playing to give the game a chance at this point. It just wasnt fun and felt like a real grind. lvl 20-30 was a painful quest grind consisting mostly of island hopping quests. Since the area is instanced like crazy, you find yourself constantly hopping a boat to some other place to deliver salt or a note. It was like getting my teeth pulled without painkillers, not fun at all.
Most of the Linear MMO's Ive played tend to let the player work a single area and then move them on. Its a way to teach them where things are and introduce them to gameplay. Funcom makes the mistake of leading you to new places before you've even begun the previous one. I had just landed in a place and already an NPC was having me leave for another land. And amazingly enough soon after that, im led yet again to another place ! I was totally lost after my 4th zone I loaded into.
I didnt know if I should ignore some quests and try and work a single area but it didnt seem possible. Im surrounded in several zones by quest givers and feeling overwhelmed. I never got into a comfortable rhythm of questing + selling items + emptying items in bank + buy new stuff, rinse and repeat.
I tried doing quests that were near me but I usually found myself hopping a boat to another land which would lead me somewhere else. It was rather confusing. I couldnt follow any of the storylines because of the travel and sheer number of quests. Score 3 / 10
Level 30-40 - Beyond lvl 30 I tried just good old-fashioned kill-grinding. I simply couldnt take the quests anymore. I found myself a decent spot in a resource gathering area. It was a swamp (purple lotus something, Im terrible recalling names).
Here another weakness of game design shows its face. You cant grind for long anywhere and make money at it. You only get one Bag to start with and an extra slot for another bag. I managed to buy another bag at a vendor but it only had 4 slots. You do get a bag for quest items only and one for resources but we really need 4 bags for grinding. I constantly found myself deleting items I assumed might not sell as well as other items (and you have to guess because there isnt any vendor price listed on items).
I managed to reach level 38 doing the old-fashioned grind but it was pretty slow. Funcom clearly penalizes mob grinding. Score - 4 / 10
At this point I couldnt bring myself to play this toon any longer (demonologist lvl 38) so I repeated a few other classes but never made it past 23 with either of them.
Graphics Review
Graphics are clearly one of the game's strengths and sometimes its weakness. Im running Intel Dual Core 2400 processors, Win XP, 4 gigs of ram, 7900 gtx 512mb cards in SLI
I managed to get the game to run on High settings (thats max, there is no Ultra high lotr players). I had shaders turned off, who really cares if you see a shadow being cast from something anyway. I got on average 30-45ish FPS in towns and 50-75ish FPS outside of towns.
If I had to make a direct comparison to other MMO's, Id say LOTR is closest to Conan. Age of Conan wins out though because it has more details in its rendering. I thought LOTR had done the best water ever but Conan takes it even further. Water is simply the best Ive ever seen. Conan clearly is tops in this dept for any MMO and will win mmorpg.com best Graphics Award this yr.
Funcom is clearly tinkering with graphics because today I had a noticable performance lag. I was only getting 15-25 fps in towns today and it was laggy. I tried making a new toon and it was even worse in newb area. I was seeing snapshots instead of smooth video. My fps was under 10 sometimes so I gave up for today.
One criticism of Funcom, they need to fix the settings so I can tell what graphic option I chose. You click medium for example and it doesnt highlight it in anyway so you have no idea if its still on medium later on. One time after a patch my settings seemed different so I went back and discovered (by clicking high option) that I must have reverted to Low or Medium. I couldnt tell though because of the lack of highlighted options selected.
The weakness of graphics is that Funcom had to compromise game mechanics. Instances for starters is clearly to blame for high-end graphical displays.
And of course the graphics will limit the sheer number of people who can play the game. Im basing my socre here though strictly on what I saw (not performance issues). Score - 10 / 10
Combat Review
Despite the hype, Conan doesnt really revolutionize the industry with their combat system. Yes melee combat does require you to choose a direction in which to attack but thats about it. It does require a little more strategy than just button-smashing but its still a level-based system with a damage multiplier ultimately deciding the outcome.
Casters are pretty much similiar to other MMO's with one exception. Healers (at least the Priest I played) have a directional cone heal. This is very nice and doesnt require you to target anyone to heal them. It frees you up to do more damage than constantly being ready to target/heal someone.
Finishing moves add some spice to combat. Score - 7 / 10
Sound Review
Sound is often overlooked in MMO's but it sure does make gamplay more immersive if done well. Sound in Funcom clearly had some thought put into it. From squeaking floorboards to the sound of flies swarming over a rotten corpse, Funcom did a fine job here. I would have liked more of that dramatic music we hear at character creation during combat though in-game. Score 8 / 10
UI Review
One glaring weakness is its clumsy UI. It doesnt allow for much customization we've come to expect from MMO's. The maps are pretty lousy. The chat boxes really need to allow for colored text. They need an option for the extra toolbars so we can turn them horizontal (not everyone likes toolbars to be vertical). And we definitely need more than two extra toolbars.
The worst part was our avatar's health is on the bottom left side of the toolbar. You do have one option to put a health bar above the avatar's head but otherwise yuck. And the enemies' health bar is on the bottom right side of the toolbar. Some things dont need innovation. I guess Im just used to the other 20 MMO's Ive played where they all had your stat bars in the top left corner of the screen. Score 3 / 10
Class Review
Age of Conan offers 12 classes. In truth its 4 classes with three different choices. You have your 1) 3 tank classes, 2) your 3 dps melee classes, 3) your 3 caster DPS classes, 4) and 3 healer classes. The classes can be further specialized with a Feat system to choose bonus benefits to your class.
Compared to other MMO's, Funcom has done a pretty good job offering variety here. I personally would have preferred a skill-based system but at least there are many classes to choose from.
Each of the 4 class groups (tank, healer, melee dps, caster dps) has one hybrid class that offers some unique and challenging gameplay. Score 8 / 10
Roleplaying Review
This section might not interest many as roleplaying is a dying genre. Ironic considering the very essence of roleplaying is in the title of the industry...MMORPG.
Funcom started out on the wrong foot with the RP community. First its refusal to designate an official RP-PvE server was puzzling. The players got together on the forums and voted Wicanna the unofficial RP-PvE server but honestly that never works. Majority of gamers dont follow the forums and therefore will never know to choose (or avoid) Wicanna. Ive played 95% of my time on Wicanna and I have not seen any RP whatsoever.
Second mistake was not labelling Cimmeria in-game as the official RP-PvP server. Many players joined Cimmeria with no idea (because they dont follow the forums) that the server was a RP type.
Funcom has since added another RP-PvP server but still no PvE version. It has rulesets in place but isnt enforcing them (not that I totally blame them for this).
Its been my experience that roleplay will die pretty quickly and never return if not enforced immediately on a server. The excuse by some players and Funcom to give it time to sort out isnt really valid. Once players establish themselves on a server, they arent likely to move or change their playstyle to RP suddenly. If RP isnt happening right away, its never going to happen.
RP has so far been reduced to nothing in general chat and limited to guilds. Score 3 / 10
Gameplay Mechanics
1. ) Where to begin,...how about the controvery over instancing. The folks being critical on various forums were right with their concerns. The game has way to many instances and even instances within instances. Thats going over the top Funcom. I felt like I had jumped into a pool, swam down and opened the drain pipe and went in to an underground lake below, then went to the bottom and found a cave which went further in. By the time I reached the bottom, I had no idea where I was or who else was in there with me.
I got used to walking around in large seamless worlds in games such as Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, EVE, and Lord of the Rings. Sure those games have instances but its mostly just for dungeons so players arent fighting over camped mobs. Thats really the only time instancing is useful for players.
The real turnoff for players is mirrored instancing. This is where players can enter a zone but not see each other because of mirrored instances within a zone. Its also a way for PvPers to exploit gameplay (about to lose a fight, switch to another instance)
This game is labelled an MMO but the instancing says to me its an MO. I dont see the masses anywhere.
2.) Moving on to in-game voice chat, umm where is it ? Thats a pretty standard feature players have come to expect these days. And with sieges and raids, its a must. The days of paying for a vent channel are past, Funcom drops the ball here.
3.) Crafting - Its a mistake to leave out crafting until lvl 40. Whats Funcom's reasoning for this ? If you want to engage players in crafting and resource gathering, you do it right away. Another real turnoff, resources in their own seperate zone ??? This turns resource gathering into a seperate chore. Id much prefer to pick up resources as Im busy doing something else.
Score - 5 / 10
Summary Review
Age of Conan is a fun game that quickly putters out. It doesnt have the gas to keep gamers around long enough to enjoy sieges and raiding. And lets be honest, raids and sieges arent going to keep the majority of gamers around. Only the niche gamer stays for that stuff and can overlook the glaring weakness of the game mechanics.
If you were to remove the graphics and opening newb tutorial of this game, you'd see much more critical reviews of the game. It has several glaring weaknesses and in essence isnt really an MMO. Its instances and linear style of gameplay make it a pretty good multiplayer game but a poor MMO.
Total Score 60 / 100
Average Final Score 6 / 10
Comments
Excellent post Sir
I feel the same way, it just doesn't have enough "hook" and it really does feel like GW on steroids, rather than an MMO. Personally, I've already cancelled my sub. I might come back in a few months to see what's going on (based on what I read about the progress it's making).
Im glad so many people enjoy it but Im going to stick with LotRo for now. Once again, great review.
S
Good review, dont quite agree but good review.
2 comments though.
The lvl 20-30+ content is very much area based. Find the hubs in each zone and play the story lines from there and only do the world spanning city quests if you are out of local quests. You can spend days in Connal valley never leaving it. But of course the quest lines are not as organized as in lotro, they leave it up to the player to chose their own paths.
Interface. It looks to me like their main inspiration were daoc. If you are an old daoc player like me then the only thing you are missing is the costumizeable colors in the chat window, which is weird btw since you can create so freely the content and placement of individual chat windows , just not the colors.
And note, did you ever try to right click on the drag part of the action bars? That turns them horizontal/vertical similar to how they do it in daoc.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
Thanks for taking your time for such a nice review it will give some an idea of the game, I had a feeling it would be like you described but its still a new game thats worth it to play for the time being, i have nothing else to go to now so it might as well be AoC.
No such thing as luck, just believing in it is what makes it real to you and really...thats all you need.
Im on nobodies' side but my own.
While I value your opinion I'd like to say just one thing. I understand how you see the Tortage content as very linear, I do as well. But this was meant to be linear, a sort of holding-your-hand as you learn to walk. The problem is I don't see how the content after Tortage is linear. It's set up in the exact same fashion as other MMOs (WoW, LoTRO, EQ2...) where you quest in a particular area and then a quest might take you to a new one. You still have several options as to where you would like to quest, though.
I also don't see how raids and sieges won't keep people around. Look at WoW.
Again, this isn't a flame by any means so don't jump on me.
Nice review. I agree with most of what you said. I like trying each class out and I liked the idea of quest lines for each Archetype but the replay value after you have done a particular archetype destiny quest line gets old.
The graphics are great even at lowest setting, but without different starting areas (until you get to level 19/20) replay is really going to hurt this game in the long run.
Honestly I think Funcom did a lot better than I had thought during beta but I doubt that I will play the game after my free month is up.
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Currently Playing: Guild Wars 2 and Path of Exile
Quit: Eden Eternal, Wakfu, DDO, STO, DCUO, Sword 2, Atlantica Online, LOTRO, SWTOR, RIFT, Earthrise, FFXIV, RoM, Allods Online, GA,WAR,CO,V:SoH,POTBS,TR,COH/COV, WOW, DDO,AL, EQ, Eve, L2, AA, Mx0, SWG, SoR, AO, RFO, DAoC, and others.
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to all you "on the fence" people - give AOC a try
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Good review, and I agree with most of it. I ended up canceling my sub, just didn't have that hook to keep me interested past 20, and I'm a crafter so waiting to start crafting in another 20 levels wasn't to happy about that. And the game just didn't have enough to want to keep me playing to get to 40. I might end up resubing later on after some updates gone live. Right now not playing anything don't know if I will for a while. I've kind of lost interested in the ones that are out there.
Nice review. I haven't started playing AoC yet. In fact, I'm on the edge of not playing it at all. Your review was very thorough and complete, it'll help me make my decision. I've also heard a lot of good things about AoC though so I have a lot to weigh. My issue is that if I want to play I'll have to make some upgrades to my 2004 PC, as it can't handle AoC. I still think it is a crock of shit that they made a game that requires so much juice, but with the way people flock to graphics now I can certainly understand why they did. So before I buy more RAM and a new graphics card I want to make sure I really want to play AoC. Thanks again for the review.
I missed that part, right-clicking to change toobar direction.
I usually like to place the bonus toolbars on top of the standard ones so everything is nice and close. In this case though I cant set it up like I prefer. The health bar for me and whatever im fighting is in the way
this was key for me as well.
Things like instancing I could live with but the crafting thing was a major decider for me to cancel my account.
Waiting to 40 was bad enough but to limit all resources to resource gathering zones bleh. Thats just a terrible idea.
Very good review, I will nitpick just a little though.
Just so people can understand your post a bit better, maybe change "Instance" to "Zone" when you are referring going from one area to another with a loading screen.
It has become more common to use instancing in terms of Zone1_a Zone1_b Zone1_c....
Onto the meat though, I do agree generally with what you have said:
Voices: I really enjoyed the voices up till level 20 , unfortunately it does stop there. I can honestly understand this though, its simply another area they would have to spend money. I'm not trying to be fanboi or anything here, but I like to think of things from a developers point of view. There are only so many resources to go around, and when you add new quests it means you have to get new voice people in each time.
Combat: I do enjoy combat, I guess it is really hard to call anything "revolutionary" though. I just find it adds an extra element to making the game feel more action packed and fast paced compared to other MMO's. For people playing casters, they won't notice much difference compared to other mmo's apart from fatalities.
Crafting: I am not 100% sure but the help says you can start gathering at lvl 20 and crafting at lvl 40. Honestly I think this is a good idea. I'll compare to it wow where pre level 40, you are basically rushing crafting only to get extra points so you can craft some more. All you do is make low level items and sell them to the vendor. It really makes low level crafting pretty pointless for most crafts (engineering being probably one exception.)
Voice chat and other tid bits: This personally doesn't bother me and won't many others either. Simply because people use external voice chat such as ventrillo or mumble etc. The advantage here is you can chat even after your game crashes etc. I can see voice chat being used for people not in a game/with guild mates - but other than that this doesn't bother me.
Also it is interesting to see they included multiple methods for taking screenshots, hi-res screenshots, movies and quicktime movies built into the game. Not sure how well they work but still, not many (if any?) mmo's have this feature.
My Conclusion: The main thing with conan is this, and the reason I purchased it. It has a pretty solid base game going for it, the things that can't really be changed such as graphics are already very good. The things that can be changed like UI aren't that good - but thats just it. All of the problems I have with the game are very fixable by funcom.
Now I won't go into instancing, I understand there are technical limitations which require both instancing and zoning. Personally these don't bother me at all, and I actually prefer it to be instanced for certain reasons (for example I was in a small group doing white sands quests again last night, the place was packed so it was hard to get to the mobs you need - the solution, changed to a new instance and had all the mobs to ourselves - awesome).
Thanks for the review you saved me 50$, I had a feeling the game wasn't going to live up to all the hype. It sucks because all the mmos that have come out after WoW have turned into being a failed attempt at linear gameplay. I really wish some sandbox mmos would start showing up. The only decent one i've played so far would be pirates of the burning sea, its kind of a blend between linear and sandbox. The missions are linear but the economy is sandbox similar to swg with mining factories/resource structures.
Not alot of instances..alot of zones. Completely different. You're making it sound like you just go into your own little instance. If that's the case I wouldn't of been PKd in the Underhalls.
don't try to mask the truth, the game is instanced in every "zone". 50 people per instance or as you wanna call them, zones..
and if the "zones" were big enough, it wouldn't need to be limited to 50 people or having trouble doing quests because the "zones" are so small.
instancing is ok in dungeons, it's nice to have a single-group dungeon crawl to yourself without having to worry about your mobs and bosses getting stolen from some asshat griefers. but when it comes to the real part of the game, instancing is a game killer. MMO's are all about getting into the game, and you really can't do that with a game that is built like a single player console game, that neither looks as good as nor runs as good as.
i'd rather play a multiplayer version of viking, battle for asgard than conan... at least that game runs great.
Wow!!!! Just as I stated in my thread. No replayability!!!!
Thanks for the review which was well written but i would take it with a grain of salt because of personal taste.i`ll give it a try for the first free month and then decide from there.
In the land of Predators,the lion does not fear the jackals...
I think the killer point in this is that you have to do it for 20 lvls, every char... How many times do we need to learn a game? 20 lvl's to learn? Come on. It took me 3-5 lvl's to understand how it was played. We're not morons Funcom!!!
Thanks for the well thought out review. I was teetering on getting it but you made my decision for me and I thank you. I will continue playing LOTRO and beta-testing Warhammer... AoC just doesn't seem to be the game it was hyped up to be.
I have heard rumors that they plan on adding new starting areas for the different races. Not sure if there is any truth to it or not?
It's definitely annoying doing most of the same stuff over again. Mind you I did end up doing it in WoW for most of my alts since I preferred certain areas anyway...
Nope, resources are available in other areas as well.
Where did I try and mask the truth anywhere? I was just trying to point out the technical terms being used because it can confuse people. You already seem confused because it would be 50 people per instance using the correct terms.
I really don't see that the zones are that small though? Not quite as big as WoW if you compare places like White Sands to some of the WoW places - but alot of the zones are bigger than people think once you start exploring.
You really need to stop exaggerating, it is nothing like a single player console game. Based on your comments it really seems like you haven't played it at all, it looks alot better than most console games I have seen for one.
People also need to understand that it is meant to be a more action oriented fast paced MMO, so yes some aspects will feel a bit more like an action console game I guess. Since when is this a bad thing though? People are bored and sick of games like WoW, yes AoC is a bit different but we don't want another WoW, it's meant to be different. This is a good thing in my opinion.
Anyhow most of the smart people will try the game out for themselves and give it a go forming their own opinions, it is unfortunate that many will take too much notice of some uninformed reviews and miss out however. No skin off my back though
Nope, resources are available in other areas as well.
I didnt see a single resource anywhere except in those 3 designated Resource Zones. Im sorry but thats just pathetic to place resources in a seperate zone. Im sure it had to do with game mechanic limitations thanks to the graphics.
LOTR graphics are very close to AoC quality and they arent forced to seperate resources into a few zones. Nor did they have to resort to zones with mirrored instances. So we know it can be done.
No idea why Funcom decided on limiting resources to designated zones
The difference is that you were given an option. Having 3 (4 after expansion) starter areas to choose from lessens the boredom of rerolling MASSIVELY.
You can gather in other zones as well so thats a complete false statement. As well as the graphics being anywhere close to LOTR.
As for the console part, did anyone not read the part about AOC going on the Xbox 360 for 2009? Thats why the structure of the game is how it is...its going to be on a console.
well if there are resources outside of designated resource zones I didnt see them. Course I didnt lvl to 80 so I dont know beyond that. Still, in the lvl 20-40 area I was in the resources are simply NOT in regular zones.
Console I think is the reason why Age of Conan is so instanced. Which proves that MMO's dont belong on consoles, at least until they improve upon the hardware.