MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood has been playing the first twenty levels of Funcom's Age of Conan. Today, he presents this review of the game to this point, telling us what worked in the game and what didn't.
A great game that has some issues to work out. That’s how I would describe my experiences so far in Funcom’s Age of Conan. When getting ready to write this review of the game’s first 20 levels, I had some trouble getting my thoughts into an order that would sound and look good on paper (or on your screen, as the case may be). On the one hand, from a personal point of view, these first twenty levels were some of the most fun that I have had playing an MMORPG title. On the other hand, I did run into a number of problems and customer support, at the time that I used it, was a bit of a mess. In the end, my fellow MMORPGers, I hope to address both the good and the not-so-good elements of the game.
"I should start by saying (as I will say again in the graphics section of the review) that Age of Conan is one of the most visually appealing MMOs available. The developers placed a clear focus on having high-end graphics to bring the world of Howard’s Hyboria to life. While graphically this is a huge boon for the game, it has left players with lower end machines to either play on the lowest possible settings or, in some cases, not at all."
After reading your review on AoC i found most of it spot on. then i came to one issue you didnt highlight that is impacting a lot more players than you realise.
The Frames Per Second issue has now offically become a living legend of a joke amongst ATI card users.
Famine said in the patch post that theyre working on a fix and that its been tricky to fix, so at least theyre working on it.
However, I'm afraid that if my 3850 performed any better it would outperform nvidia cards 2-3x more expensive :P
Yeah, I got some more info on what I sent out a few days ago. This is true but I'm currently waiting on more info. So it's a sign things are being worked on with this report. As many have mentioned already this has to due a lot with a lot technical aspects with ATI itself but we are working on it.
Sorry for the delay, wanted to post this in the morning.
Originally Funcom didnt even bother to let the Player base KNOW of these issues, myself came to the conclussion that this game (and funcom) were paid a TRUCK load of cash to give ATI users very poor and terrible FPS.
This in my view has been proved, as this GM has now basically said the issue is ATI and not funcom. Now stop me here, isnt the game supposed to run on all available cards as possible??? or is there more to this conspiracy theory??
So i would basically say to anyone thinking of trying Age of Conan, First get your PC specs checked out, if you have an ATI video card, i would recommend staying away from this game until you see an offical (and judging by their lack of customer service) post regarding a solution to this serious issue. If you want to waste £25 quid on buying it, then please by all means go for it...
After all i did, and got a nice coaster.
You know what's funny? For 7 years, ATI users have had the short end of the stick in Anarchy Online also. Funnily enough, the GMs and even the game director have always said it was issues on the end of ATI, not Funcom. See the pattern? Either ATI hates Funcom and purposely makes all of their cards, new and old, incompatible with Funcoms' games; or Funcom has some serious programming issues. Of course, it couldn't be Funcom.....................
graphics: I have what AOC would consider a marginal system and I have been fighting and tweeking the settings (taking away from my enjoyment of the game) one thing of note I actually got better performance starting with the HIGH setting and adjusting from there than from the low,, I ended up with a better graphic image and even a bit of improved FPS that being said I rarely break 30 fps and many times much lower to me the graqphics requirements are needlessly high and leave many people with older but still strong systems sitting outside.
friend list: this gets even worse when you join a guild as the friend list and guild list are merged!!! and there is no note section!
sorting tools: when looking at the venders and auction house it seems to have been cut and pasted in the game at the last minute the few tools there are, are quirky for instance if you sort by price the prices have been out of order 300 before 4 ect and if you go to buy something the list snaps back to its default order which switches what you had selected for purchass easily buying the new item instead of intended. and the auction house has almost no sort filters making it clumsy.
customer service: I think they have NPCs running their CS as if you get anything its robotic,, ive have a petition in since day 2 about an account issue.
quests and voiceovers I love that they have voiceovers but it seems that they shot their wad in the 1-20 which seemed that the code they used for the dialog was overly cumbersome (and i thought the talking was too long) as for the quests I was sadly dissapointed with the same old quest fare and that developers couldnt have used much better encounter tools. basicly gameplay has devolved to quest/grinding
as for the mature rating I actually think they needed to get more rough and raw,, you start as a "slave" but you have no bruses or injuries,, you actually start out life in luxury there is no struggle for instance the game could have you scavanging for food behind an inn or getting the snot kicked out of you by a guard for trying to steal fruit no bar room brawls to me game play is shallow and rigid I was expecting more from AOC.
*************
final observations
not all ladders are climbable
long run times to get to the higher zones from town no /follow this makes difficult grouping when you might be in another part of the world unless you prefer DEATH PORTING
the storyline is still soft and fluffy,, the quests assume your goodygoody,, quests send you to retrieve items from a house vault or shop but you cant steal anything else but the quest item??? they should factor in a few "optional" theft items.
clothing is un inspired and stat dependant occasionaly see clones,, no secondary costume clothing
crafting is all but broken I spent a full day trying to get "rares" so I can level my resource gathering and didnt aquire one of the several I need.
inventory is a bit clumsy with pages and too few of them given what players are required to carry they need a private bag as well as a loot bag so that you dont allways have to sort through your stuff everythime you sell or at least a "hide" option
UI the ui is fairly crude like it was built with a crayon not a pen UI could use an overhaul
the AI the NPC brain is the same brain developers have been using since EQ1 PLEASE make some more smarter NPCs than perceive,,advance,,attack and your dungeons arnt better just because you pack in more monsters or add more hitpoints to them game locations need to be far more diverse and dynamic with complex climbable terrain and climb points I have actually fallen asleep in the catacombs during yet another swarm of NPCs I think it was spiders (its amazing how oblivious NPCs can be when I chop off their buddies head!) try some trilpwire encounters or hotplate encounters.
I sugested that in the resource areas that they have NPC forts of differing level that players can raid for resources, lets say you want level 40 resources you get a group together and enter the "playground that restricts the level you go attack the outpost and if your sucessfull you can raid their cotton field or ash trees or their copper mine,, their might be an option for a rogue to sneek in and pilfer some resources maby from a warehouse, I wouldnt have full nodes but a crop of 20 cotton plants with 1-3 per plant would be cool and alot of fun.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
Accurate review, however I think the value score should of been lower, also I'm interested how Funcom fixed your lag problem when the tech forum has a 1600 post thread on the problem and no reply from Funcom.
I will also add I have a CE copy and have since cancelled my account, Funcom won't be getting another cent out of me. Already got $100 from me for me to play a game still clearly in beta.
I understand from a editorial point of view why you only reviewed lvl 1-20, but frankly as it was pointed out its abit disingenuous. The reason is and espicially in AOC lvl 1-20 are the best part of the game. Its after you leave the starter area that the problems commence. A few points.
-Unlike many MMO that have different starter areas per race you have the same starter area no matter what race you play. This means that the first 20 lvl are going to be ALMOST completely identical. This can becoming boring if you have got more than 1 character.
-The Crafting system stinks. Its uninspired, its boring, its broken and many professions are just useless.
-The economy is broken. There is very little to buy, the few things you need are exceeding expensive.
-Traveling in the game is a pain until you get a mount (which is much later due to exhorbitant price). Even so its very difficult to get around there is no transfering system. Going to your Guild city or Craft city is extremely long. And you have to WALK it.
-BUGS. You mentioned this before, there are tons of broken quests later in the game, my lvl 47 Conqueror is current stuck in two different ones, several other quests I had to restart.
-PVP. You didnt mention this at all. There is no PVP in this game only griefing. The main problem is not the FFA status of the PVP game, its the lack of a consequence system. That means a lvl 60 can continually kill a lvl 22 without any sort of consequence, or spawn/gate camp, or gank lowbies with his guild members, it gets pretty frustrating. Now FUNCOM is supposed working on a "prison" system but as it stands now there is no real PVP, just people being an ass to each other.
-The Customer Service still stinks. I STILL cannot use post on official forums and nobody has bother to reply to my emails a MONTH later. GMs are unhelpful all they seem to do is recite company policy about this and that.
-Once you reach lvl 40 or so there is a noticable lack of content. I know a few lvl 80s that had to grind the last 10 lvls because there werent enough quests.
-The vaunted castle siege system is also broken. I believe there has only been one such attack on a castle.
Its not a bad game, but it was definatly rushed out the door, probably to beat WAR. I am thinking about cancelling because I dont like the idea of paying for a beta, which this game clearly is.
economy is new and player governed, so at the moment due to demand things are going to be expensive as with any new game.
Rares should be RARE! simple. so many other games call items rare then you find you need to kill a cetain mob a couple of times and the likelyhood is you will get what you want. Although crafting needs a hell of a lot of work in Ao i do aplaud them for actualy making rares RARE. well done funcom on that one.
Just my opinion but i am so glad i am out of tortage now. i have reached 50 and found the game opens up out of tortage. so for me tortage is the part that after seeing it once you just cant wait to get out .
You know, I didn't HATE AOC, but I cancelled it. It is boring. You run Tortage once, it's fun, and I'd agree with most of what was said in the review. Say, however, you want an alt. Well, you run it again. Reroll or another alt? Run it again. It becomes TEDIOUS the second and third time, despite the fact that the four major class groups have slightly different questlines.
Another problem is how easy it is to level. Yes, I know there were exploiters and such that took advantage of bugs. But having max level characters running around less than a week after launch, and I myself had 2 characters halfway there within 3 weeks, with only playing a couple hours a day. There doesn't seem to be a sense of accomplishment when I hit level 40, because it was so easy. In fact, I felt kinda gimp, as the rest of my guild were in their 60's and 70's already.
As for quests, my gripe isn't the voice overs, that's kind of fun, but when you talk to ANY NPC, you go into an instanced chat cutscene that you have no control over, except to push 1 2 or 3 when the options present themselves. So you have gankers waiting at quest NPC's waiting to gank you as soon as you start talking, because there's nothing you can do but get killed. Even pushing escape doesnt do anything half the time, and the times it DOES let you out of the cutscene, it does so slowly, so your attacker has 5 or 6 hits or spells already cast on you.
Feats. Lordy. Feats. Great idea, alternate advancements are a great way to let a person feel they are customizing their character to their own unique playstyle, and there are a lot of fun feats available. If only half of them WORKED. There are entire feat trees that are broken on some classes. Not just one or two that need tweaking.
Nudity. Ok, anybody that bought the game JUST because it featured nudity... get a life. That being said, however, anytime someone even mentions 'hey I found a topless NPC over here in this or that zone,' on the forums, invariably the next update finds that particular NPC with a hastily added shirt. Come on, if you're going to advertise in Playboy, and brag how edgy you are, then turn around and cloth every NPC, it looks pretty stupid.
Lastly, something that really bothered me, and was touched on in the review, is the lack of response from Funcom on issues. There have been 100 page long threads, with over 100,000 views and a couple thousand people posting, about issues to do with armor value caps, spell weaving, and a few other major game play features that just don't work or are working improperly. IF a dev takes the time to respond, you get an answer... then if ANOTHER dev says something, it's completely contradicting what the first dev says, then if a third responds, it's something entirely different than the FIRST two are saying. One says it's working as entended, carry on, the next says it's broken, we're looking into it, and the third uses the wookie defense to explain how great the math is on it. Seriously, that's what pushed me over the edge, and is the main reason I cancelled the account.
Overall, I waited for this game for over a year, and there are several people that were disappointed with the first push back of release THREE years ago. Since they announced the original release date that long ago, the game has changed from something that seemed pretty innovative and fun, into something that's a LITTLE different from the norm, with the active combat, that isn't really THAT innovative. The graphics are frankly, amazing, and worth the 3 extra years of delays. But it seams they forgot it's a game, and despite over a year of closed beta, there are so many things that are broken or just glaringly lacking, I can't believe much was put into gameplay testing. Or they simply didn't listen to what feedback the handpicked beta testers SHOULD have been providing. Either way, for me, it's a fail for now. I'm going to look again in a couple of months and see where the game stands, but for now, back to Sins of a Solar Empire.
Oh, dear Jon. I congratulate you on enjoying the first 20 levels so much. I am afraid you've seen the best of the game so far, and it's going to decline rapidly downhill for the next 20 levels. It get's worse and worse for every fifth level.
Well, I do not agree. Have lv. 39 demonologist and my enjoyment since 20 has not changed (for sure not to worst). Ok, I would like all NPC's speak with real voice like up to 20. Responsible for gathering and crafting system did terribly badly its homework. Not to mention transport system. This one is problem by itself. After visiting new places one should be able to travel to ALL previously known places. And only to play AoC (in high settings of course) I have invested around 200€ for new graphics card. But I'm ok with this; if AoC runs well, I guess any other game will run as well.
But otherwise I like game. Mainly I agree with original post, have some mine complains, .... But it is passable.
After (for me the best of the best) WoW for now AoC is only acceptable option where I have fun. Despite problems. Here I would like to add note about their intent to fix soon problems. If there were unable to do this in all this time, there is little hope they will succeed in this in next months.
But this problems, complains, ... could be fatal for AoC if coming War and other MMORPG's will live to their hype. We will see numbers after about 1 year.
-PVP. You didnt mention this at all. There is no PVP in this game only griefing. The main problem is not the FFA status of the PVP game, its the lack of a consequence system. That means a lvl 60 can continually kill a lvl 22 without any sort of consequence, or spawn/gate camp, or gank lowbies with his guild members, it gets pretty frustrating. Now FUNCOM is supposed working on a "prison" system but as it stands now there is no real PVP, just people being an ass to each other.
Good news there, if you havn't heard about it they are fixing that, hopefully soon. Been a lot of threads by gankers who whine about that here. If you are upset about, take a summer vacation and come back when it's been fixed. Same thing with sieges.
The crafting system so far seems only really useful when you hit tier 3 (oh, yeah, the tier 3 blue armours with gems in are really good), but then we havn't build our guildcity yet to get the extra stuff from the buildings.
I do enjoy the game a lot but if you're not used to SOE games like I am, it might be worth to wait 'til august to get it. It needs more work but have the potential to be great.
Oh, yeah.. and the ATI issues. The game is made for Nvidia cards. The current ATI cards can't use shader 3.0 (turn it off for the love of Crom if you have ATI) and the game really isnt the same without it. AT have been after Nvidia lately, this will change with their new cards this late summer but if you have an old one: get your drivers from www.omegadrivers.com, they are a lot better tweaked than the official ones and usually provides performance in all games, While the problems surely are part Funcoms, ATI have some blame too (and Nvidia have paid FC to at least show their logo) and the current ATI cards are generally slower than the Nvidia cards (if less expensive though). I am not trying to bash ATI, but who makes the best hardware have allways been changing forth and back and as I said, ATI upcomming cards seems very good indeed.
Still, my recomendation for the guys who build a computer just for AoC (I did that) or just need a new graphic card for it: get an Nvidia card. The 8800 serie is very good priced compared to how fast it is.
Have you heard how Warhammer deals with that? Hehe, the high level that's causing the grief gets a 10 second warning, and then gets turned into a chicken with only a Peck attack. They're stuck like that till killed. It's on the website.
It's the new trend now to only reviewi 1/4th of the game ? Yeah today I bought a new car and the car salesman had me sold when he only showed me 1/4th of the car. The rest of the car is missing though. No wheels, no engine, no brakes and the transmission needs a complete overhaul but other than that I am a happy buyer. If people are going to review the game then review ALL of it or don't even bother ya know ?
It says level 1 - 20 review so I don't think anyone is stupid enough to take it as a full game review + everything in the first 20 levels is how the game mechanics work for the rest of the game so if you don't like it then you wont like it after.
---------------------------------------- Talking about SWG much?
I agree 100% with the review, very fair and informative. For posters who say:
[quote]-Once you reach lvl 40 or so there is a noticable lack of content. I know a few lvl 80s that had to grind the last 10 lvls because there werent enough quests.[/quote]
Ive not found that at all to be the case, you need to look a bit harder. Im currently lvl 55 and enjoying the game as much as i did in the first 20 levels.
If the OP reviews 21 to 60 it will be a near identical review.
AoC's 1-20 is a lot larger than most games' noob islands and is well worthy of its own review. The gameplay does change after that to something more akin to daytime with very limited dialogue (more dialogue to be added in an upcoming patch). TBH I did all of the daytime quests as well as nighttime on my main runthrough, just to get the decent equipment. I find even those quests just a bit more nicely crafted than the standard MMO fodder.
20-40 was ok for me too. I had to move between lands to get as much xp as possible.
40 is where the early polish starts to wear off.
40-50. XP a bit thinner on the ground but I found myself doing the 'daily' quests to get cash, xp, and the occasional rare drop. Alternated between the two 40-50 zones plus the resource zones.
Currently 51 and still have lots of quests to do before I leave the 40-50 zone.
50-60 and 70-80 are where the game lacks quests I hear, although there's a new 50-60 zone coming soon. I'm not in any hurry to reach 80 so am taking my time and levelling 'wide' instead of 'deep', if that makes sense - doing a bit of everything: levelling, exploring, crafting, RPing, learning, plotting
I've read some criticism here in the forums over MMORPG.com favoring one game or another...
I think the reviews should move from the first person narrative to an impartial third person. Enough with "my opinion", "my experience", "I didn't have problems with that" and so on.
Take longer to review a game if needed, take more than one reviewer to review one game, but enough with reviews that SEEM biased, as this one.
I haven't played AoC - waiting for it to mature, but I read the first post of the recents avanlanche of complaints since its "beta release". During the review, there are many points that sound as if the reviewer is trying make up for or explain and put into perspective some of the problems appointed by some of the players.
It would be an ok review if the title read "AoC review for level 1 to 20".
How long does it take you to get to leve 20? One day? Three days? Great! Let me do that and write a review.. I am afraid that was the author's approach. And that's cheating.
Most important aspect of MMO is playability over a long period of time.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
It would be an ok review if the title read "AoC review for level 1 to 20". How long does it take you to get to leve 20? One day? Three days? Great! Let me do that and write a review.. I am afraid that was the author's approach. And that's cheating. Most important aspect of MMO is playability over a long period of time.
Do not know for others, but yesterday I have leveled my new necro alt up to lv. 15 in about 6 hours, but many are also faster.
It would be an ok review if the title read "AoC review for level 1 to 20". How long does it take you to get to leve 20? One day? Three days? Great! Let me do that and write a review.. I am afraid that was the author's approach. And that's cheating. Most important aspect of MMO is playability over a long period of time.
Do not know for others, but yesterday I have leveled my new necro alt up to lv. 15 in about 6 hours, but many are also faster.
Forgot before ... palying game for me is not just rushing to level! I try to enjoy game, I try to read complete description of quest even if I'm doing it for 10h time .... Of course, leveling (more then that getting new spells, new feat points, ...) is also part of this fun, but it is not only that.
Dont get me wrong i power level alts too but on my main no chance. Why would i power level other than just to be the fastest? i just prefer to play the game:).
It would be an ok review if the title read "AoC review for level 1 to 20". How long does it take you to get to leve 20? One day? Three days? Great! Let me do that and write a review.. I am afraid that was the author's approach. And that's cheating. Most important aspect of MMO is playability over a long period of time.
Not to mention the fact that even if you weren't rushing, the 1-20 review should have come like 2-3 weeks ago. 1-20 is a complete joke in how long it takes to do, and then the game takes a nose dive in content. This is quite obvious to most who have played it and have experience with past mmo's. I agree with the others who said this is a blatant attempt to review the nicer side of the game.
I am a 71 bear shaman, in a game controlled by lvl 80 Tempest of Sets and Priest of Mitras, and we all got there by grinding the last 20 levels; those two classes just do it better than everyone else. And no, I didn't enjoy those levels, I just want to do sieging...which is apparently a complete mess according to the first siege event review on funcom's own forums =/
For me, I didn't really run out of quests until 57. At that point I packed up and headed to Thunder River and did the very few quests there offered to me at that level. After I ran out there, I headed back to the Noble District and ran the daily solo quests. I'm 59 now but it's probably going to be a couple more days worth of clearing solo quests (since I can only get a set amount per day) before I hit 60 and the next round opens up.
Just a note: I have several quests in the Main/Cistern area to do -- I just haven't been able to get the right group to do them with me. And the ones I have right now sure can't be done by just a duo!
But I've really been enjoying myself thus far and look forward to the added content and the bug fixes down the pike.
Just keep in mind, Age of Conan is 3 games. 1-20, 21-79, 80. If people read reviews of Age of Conan that only deal with the first 20 levels, then they are going to be sorely surprised when they get off of Tortage.
Just about everything in the game that makes it an incredible game in the first 20 levels is gone or changed a great deal once you leave. About the only thing that is constant through out the whole game, are the amazing graphics.
Not to mention the fact that even if you weren't rushing, the 1-20 review should have come like 2-3 weeks ago. 1-20 is a complete joke in how long it takes to do, and then the game takes a nose dive in content. This is quite obvious to most who have played it and have experience with past mmo's. I agree with the others who said this is a blatant attempt to review the nicer side of the game.
Ok, I'm going to step in here for a minute and explain exactly why this is a 1-20 review:
First, yes, I realize that it doesn't take a long time to run through the content of 1-20 if you're running through the content to progress past it. It's a little bit different when you're playing a game to review it. When you're playing a game for the purposes of a review, you have to go much more slowly. You read every piece of dialogue, you go through unnecessary quests, and just generally spend time exploring.
Also, it isn't enough to move through the content with only one character in only one class. Ideally, you should move through the content with every class and see how it differs both in terms of story and functionality. In this case, I have played four different characters through the content.
Also, as you play those characters, you shoud also try playing on the different server types. In my case, I am playing on PvE, FFA PvP and RP.
It would be totally irresponsible to write a review based on a casual viewing or even a typical play-through. A reviewer needs to be as familiar with the body of what they are reviewing as possible.
Why haven't I reviewed the full game? Probably because I have four characters at and around level 20 and have barely ventured into the rest of the game. As the content is properly completed, we will update the review.
Comments
not a bad game though i heard this game for quite a while but haven't seen some screenies..
Read the whole reivew here.
Dear Jon
Quote from the Technical issue,
"I should start by saying (as I will say again in the graphics section of the review) that Age of Conan is one of the most visually appealing MMOs available. The developers placed a clear focus on having high-end graphics to bring the world of Howard’s Hyboria to life. While graphically this is a huge boon for the game, it has left players with lower end machines to either play on the lowest possible settings or, in some cases, not at all."
After reading your review on AoC i found most of it spot on. then i came to one issue you didnt highlight that is impacting a lot more players than you realise.
The Frames Per Second issue has now offically become a living legend of a joke amongst ATI card users.
Take this thread,
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=23864&page=61
However, I'm afraid that if my 3850 performed any better it would outperform nvidia cards 2-3x more expensive :P
Yeah, I got some more info on what I sent out a few days ago. This is true but I'm currently waiting on more info. So it's a sign things are being worked on with this report. As many have mentioned already this has to due a lot with a lot technical aspects with ATI itself but we are working on it.
Sorry for the delay, wanted to post this in the morning.
And then this thread,
http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=25454
Originally Funcom didnt even bother to let the Player base KNOW of these issues, myself came to the conclussion that this game (and funcom) were paid a TRUCK load of cash to give ATI users very poor and terrible FPS.
This in my view has been proved, as this GM has now basically said the issue is ATI and not funcom. Now stop me here, isnt the game supposed to run on all available cards as possible??? or is there more to this conspiracy theory??
So i would basically say to anyone thinking of trying Age of Conan, First get your PC specs checked out, if you have an ATI video card, i would recommend staying away from this game until you see an offical (and judging by their lack of customer service) post regarding a solution to this serious issue. If you want to waste £25 quid on buying it, then please by all means go for it...
After all i did, and got a nice coaster.
You know what's funny? For 7 years, ATI users have had the short end of the stick in Anarchy Online also. Funnily enough, the GMs and even the game director have always said it was issues on the end of ATI, not Funcom. See the pattern? Either ATI hates Funcom and purposely makes all of their cards, new and old, incompatible with Funcoms' games; or Funcom has some serious programming issues. Of course, it couldn't be Funcom.....................
I just wish I could have played Night all the way to 80!
This is what made 1-20 so great IMHO.
Just me 2c
graphics: I have what AOC would consider a marginal system and I have been fighting and tweeking the settings (taking away from my enjoyment of the game) one thing of note I actually got better performance starting with the HIGH setting and adjusting from there than from the low,, I ended up with a better graphic image and even a bit of improved FPS that being said I rarely break 30 fps and many times much lower to me the graqphics requirements are needlessly high and leave many people with older but still strong systems sitting outside.
friend list: this gets even worse when you join a guild as the friend list and guild list are merged!!! and there is no note section!
sorting tools: when looking at the venders and auction house it seems to have been cut and pasted in the game at the last minute the few tools there are, are quirky for instance if you sort by price the prices have been out of order 300 before 4 ect and if you go to buy something the list snaps back to its default order which switches what you had selected for purchass easily buying the new item instead of intended. and the auction house has almost no sort filters making it clumsy.
customer service: I think they have NPCs running their CS as if you get anything its robotic,, ive have a petition in since day 2 about an account issue.
quests and voiceovers I love that they have voiceovers but it seems that they shot their wad in the 1-20 which seemed that the code they used for the dialog was overly cumbersome (and i thought the talking was too long) as for the quests I was sadly dissapointed with the same old quest fare and that developers couldnt have used much better encounter tools. basicly gameplay has devolved to quest/grinding
as for the mature rating I actually think they needed to get more rough and raw,, you start as a "slave" but you have no bruses or injuries,, you actually start out life in luxury there is no struggle for instance the game could have you scavanging for food behind an inn or getting the snot kicked out of you by a guard for trying to steal fruit no bar room brawls to me game play is shallow and rigid I was expecting more from AOC.
*************
final observations
not all ladders are climbable
long run times to get to the higher zones from town no /follow this makes difficult grouping when you might be in another part of the world unless you prefer DEATH PORTING
the storyline is still soft and fluffy,, the quests assume your goodygoody,, quests send you to retrieve items from a house vault or shop but you cant steal anything else but the quest item??? they should factor in a few "optional" theft items.
clothing is un inspired and stat dependant occasionaly see clones,, no secondary costume clothing
crafting is all but broken I spent a full day trying to get "rares" so I can level my resource gathering and didnt aquire one of the several I need.
inventory is a bit clumsy with pages and too few of them given what players are required to carry they need a private bag as well as a loot bag so that you dont allways have to sort through your stuff everythime you sell or at least a "hide" option
UI the ui is fairly crude like it was built with a crayon not a pen UI could use an overhaul
the AI the NPC brain is the same brain developers have been using since EQ1 PLEASE make some more smarter NPCs than perceive,,advance,,attack and your dungeons arnt better just because you pack in more monsters or add more hitpoints to them game locations need to be far more diverse and dynamic with complex climbable terrain and climb points I have actually fallen asleep in the catacombs during yet another swarm of NPCs I think it was spiders (its amazing how oblivious NPCs can be when I chop off their buddies head!) try some trilpwire encounters or hotplate encounters.
I sugested that in the resource areas that they have NPC forts of differing level that players can raid for resources, lets say you want level 40 resources you get a group together and enter the "playground that restricts the level you go attack the outpost and if your sucessfull you can raid their cotton field or ash trees or their copper mine,, their might be an option for a rogue to sneek in and pilfer some resources maby from a warehouse, I wouldnt have full nodes but a crop of 20 cotton plants with 1-3 per plant would be cool and alot of fun.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
Accurate review, however I think the value score should of been lower, also I'm interested how Funcom fixed your lag problem when the tech forum has a 1600 post thread on the problem and no reply from Funcom.
I will also add I have a CE copy and have since cancelled my account, Funcom won't be getting another cent out of me. Already got $100 from me for me to play a game still clearly in beta.
You are absolutely right. And I think your review is of value for everyone who plans on playing only levels 1-20.
--
Delanor
Dear Jon
I understand from a editorial point of view why you only reviewed lvl 1-20, but frankly as it was pointed out its abit disingenuous. The reason is and espicially in AOC lvl 1-20 are the best part of the game. Its after you leave the starter area that the problems commence. A few points.
-Unlike many MMO that have different starter areas per race you have the same starter area no matter what race you play. This means that the first 20 lvl are going to be ALMOST completely identical. This can becoming boring if you have got more than 1 character.
-The Crafting system stinks. Its uninspired, its boring, its broken and many professions are just useless.
-The economy is broken. There is very little to buy, the few things you need are exceeding expensive.
-Traveling in the game is a pain until you get a mount (which is much later due to exhorbitant price). Even so its very difficult to get around there is no transfering system. Going to your Guild city or Craft city is extremely long. And you have to WALK it.
-BUGS. You mentioned this before, there are tons of broken quests later in the game, my lvl 47 Conqueror is current stuck in two different ones, several other quests I had to restart.
-PVP. You didnt mention this at all. There is no PVP in this game only griefing. The main problem is not the FFA status of the PVP game, its the lack of a consequence system. That means a lvl 60 can continually kill a lvl 22 without any sort of consequence, or spawn/gate camp, or gank lowbies with his guild members, it gets pretty frustrating. Now FUNCOM is supposed working on a "prison" system but as it stands now there is no real PVP, just people being an ass to each other.
-The Customer Service still stinks. I STILL cannot use post on official forums and nobody has bother to reply to my emails a MONTH later. GMs are unhelpful all they seem to do is recite company policy about this and that.
-Once you reach lvl 40 or so there is a noticable lack of content. I know a few lvl 80s that had to grind the last 10 lvls because there werent enough quests.
-The vaunted castle siege system is also broken. I believe there has only been one such attack on a castle.
Its not a bad game, but it was definatly rushed out the door, probably to beat WAR. I am thinking about cancelling because I dont like the idea of paying for a beta, which this game clearly is.
economy is new and player governed, so at the moment due to demand things are going to be expensive as with any new game.
Rares should be RARE! simple. so many other games call items rare then you find you need to kill a cetain mob a couple of times and the likelyhood is you will get what you want. Although crafting needs a hell of a lot of work in Ao i do aplaud them for actualy making rares RARE. well done funcom on that one.
Just my opinion but i am so glad i am out of tortage now. i have reached 50 and found the game opens up out of tortage. so for me tortage is the part that after seeing it once you just cant wait to get out
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You know, I didn't HATE AOC, but I cancelled it. It is boring. You run Tortage once, it's fun, and I'd agree with most of what was said in the review. Say, however, you want an alt. Well, you run it again. Reroll or another alt? Run it again. It becomes TEDIOUS the second and third time, despite the fact that the four major class groups have slightly different questlines.
Another problem is how easy it is to level. Yes, I know there were exploiters and such that took advantage of bugs. But having max level characters running around less than a week after launch, and I myself had 2 characters halfway there within 3 weeks, with only playing a couple hours a day. There doesn't seem to be a sense of accomplishment when I hit level 40, because it was so easy. In fact, I felt kinda gimp, as the rest of my guild were in their 60's and 70's already.
As for quests, my gripe isn't the voice overs, that's kind of fun, but when you talk to ANY NPC, you go into an instanced chat cutscene that you have no control over, except to push 1 2 or 3 when the options present themselves. So you have gankers waiting at quest NPC's waiting to gank you as soon as you start talking, because there's nothing you can do but get killed. Even pushing escape doesnt do anything half the time, and the times it DOES let you out of the cutscene, it does so slowly, so your attacker has 5 or 6 hits or spells already cast on you.
Feats. Lordy. Feats. Great idea, alternate advancements are a great way to let a person feel they are customizing their character to their own unique playstyle, and there are a lot of fun feats available. If only half of them WORKED. There are entire feat trees that are broken on some classes. Not just one or two that need tweaking.
Nudity. Ok, anybody that bought the game JUST because it featured nudity... get a life. That being said, however, anytime someone even mentions 'hey I found a topless NPC over here in this or that zone,' on the forums, invariably the next update finds that particular NPC with a hastily added shirt. Come on, if you're going to advertise in Playboy, and brag how edgy you are, then turn around and cloth every NPC, it looks pretty stupid.
Lastly, something that really bothered me, and was touched on in the review, is the lack of response from Funcom on issues. There have been 100 page long threads, with over 100,000 views and a couple thousand people posting, about issues to do with armor value caps, spell weaving, and a few other major game play features that just don't work or are working improperly. IF a dev takes the time to respond, you get an answer... then if ANOTHER dev says something, it's completely contradicting what the first dev says, then if a third responds, it's something entirely different than the FIRST two are saying. One says it's working as entended, carry on, the next says it's broken, we're looking into it, and the third uses the wookie defense to explain how great the math is on it. Seriously, that's what pushed me over the edge, and is the main reason I cancelled the account.
Overall, I waited for this game for over a year, and there are several people that were disappointed with the first push back of release THREE years ago. Since they announced the original release date that long ago, the game has changed from something that seemed pretty innovative and fun, into something that's a LITTLE different from the norm, with the active combat, that isn't really THAT innovative. The graphics are frankly, amazing, and worth the 3 extra years of delays. But it seams they forgot it's a game, and despite over a year of closed beta, there are so many things that are broken or just glaringly lacking, I can't believe much was put into gameplay testing. Or they simply didn't listen to what feedback the handpicked beta testers SHOULD have been providing. Either way, for me, it's a fail for now. I'm going to look again in a couple of months and see where the game stands, but for now, back to Sins of a Solar Empire.
Well, I do not agree. Have lv. 39 demonologist and my enjoyment since 20 has not changed (for sure not to worst). Ok, I would like all NPC's speak with real voice like up to 20. Responsible for gathering and crafting system did terribly badly its homework. Not to mention transport system. This one is problem by itself. After visiting new places one should be able to travel to ALL previously known places. And only to play AoC (in high settings of course) I have invested around 200€ for new graphics card. But I'm ok with this; if AoC runs well, I guess any other game will run as well.
But otherwise I like game. Mainly I agree with original post, have some mine complains, .... But it is passable.
After (for me the best of the best) WoW for now AoC is only acceptable option where I have fun. Despite problems. Here I would like to add note about their intent to fix soon problems. If there were unable to do this in all this time, there is little hope they will succeed in this in next months.
But this problems, complains, ... could be fatal for AoC if coming War and other MMORPG's will live to their hype. We will see numbers after about 1 year.
Good news there, if you havn't heard about it they are fixing that, hopefully soon. Been a lot of threads by gankers who whine about that here. If you are upset about, take a summer vacation and come back when it's been fixed. Same thing with sieges.
The crafting system so far seems only really useful when you hit tier 3 (oh, yeah, the tier 3 blue armours with gems in are really good), but then we havn't build our guildcity yet to get the extra stuff from the buildings.
I do enjoy the game a lot but if you're not used to SOE games like I am, it might be worth to wait 'til august to get it. It needs more work but have the potential to be great.
Oh, yeah.. and the ATI issues. The game is made for Nvidia cards. The current ATI cards can't use shader 3.0 (turn it off for the love of Crom if you have ATI) and the game really isnt the same without it. AT have been after Nvidia lately, this will change with their new cards this late summer but if you have an old one: get your drivers from www.omegadrivers.com, they are a lot better tweaked than the official ones and usually provides performance in all games, While the problems surely are part Funcoms, ATI have some blame too (and Nvidia have paid FC to at least show their logo) and the current ATI cards are generally slower than the Nvidia cards (if less expensive though). I am not trying to bash ATI, but who makes the best hardware have allways been changing forth and back and as I said, ATI upcomming cards seems very good indeed.
Still, my recomendation for the guys who build a computer just for AoC (I did that) or just need a new graphic card for it: get an Nvidia card. The 8800 serie is very good priced compared to how fast it is.
Have you heard how Warhammer deals with that? Hehe, the high level that's causing the grief gets a 10 second warning, and then gets turned into a chicken with only a Peck attack. They're stuck like that till killed. It's on the website.
It says level 1 - 20 review so I don't think anyone is stupid enough to take it as a full game review + everything in the first 20 levels is how the game mechanics work for the rest of the game so if you don't like it then you wont like it after.
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Talking about SWG much?
I agree 100% with the review, very fair and informative. For posters who say:
[quote]-Once you reach lvl 40 or so there is a noticable lack of content. I know a few lvl 80s that had to grind the last 10 lvls because there werent enough quests.[/quote]
Ive not found that at all to be the case, you need to look a bit harder. Im currently lvl 55 and enjoying the game as much as i did in the first 20 levels.
If the OP reviews 21 to 60 it will be a near identical review.
Knights who say Ni website!
Great review and very accurate!
AoC's 1-20 is a lot larger than most games' noob islands and is well worthy of its own review. The gameplay does change after that to something more akin to daytime with very limited dialogue (more dialogue to be added in an upcoming patch). TBH I did all of the daytime quests as well as nighttime on my main runthrough, just to get the decent equipment. I find even those quests just a bit more nicely crafted than the standard MMO fodder.
20-40 was ok for me too. I had to move between lands to get as much xp as possible.
40 is where the early polish starts to wear off.
40-50. XP a bit thinner on the ground but I found myself doing the 'daily' quests to get cash, xp, and the occasional rare drop. Alternated between the two 40-50 zones plus the resource zones.
Currently 51 and still have lots of quests to do before I leave the 40-50 zone.
50-60 and 70-80 are where the game lacks quests I hear, although there's a new 50-60 zone coming soon. I'm not in any hurry to reach 80 so am taking my time and levelling 'wide' instead of 'deep', if that makes sense - doing a bit of everything: levelling, exploring, crafting, RPing, learning, plotting
I've read some criticism here in the forums over MMORPG.com favoring one game or another...
I think the reviews should move from the first person narrative to an impartial third person. Enough with "my opinion", "my experience", "I didn't have problems with that" and so on.
Take longer to review a game if needed, take more than one reviewer to review one game, but enough with reviews that SEEM biased, as this one.
I haven't played AoC - waiting for it to mature, but I read the first post of the recents avanlanche of complaints since its "beta release". During the review, there are many points that sound as if the reviewer is trying make up for or explain and put into perspective some of the problems appointed by some of the players.
It would be an ok review if the title read "AoC review for level 1 to 20".
How long does it take you to get to leve 20? One day? Three days? Great! Let me do that and write a review.. I am afraid that was the author's approach. And that's cheating.
Most important aspect of MMO is playability over a long period of time.
Too many loading screens.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Do not know for others, but yesterday I have leveled my new necro alt up to lv. 15 in about 6 hours, but many are also faster.
Do not know for others, but yesterday I have leveled my new necro alt up to lv. 15 in about 6 hours, but many are also faster.
Forgot before ... palying game for me is not just rushing to level! I try to enjoy game, I try to read complete description of quest even if I'm doing it for 10h time .... Of course, leveling (more then that getting new spells, new feat points, ...) is also part of this fun, but it is not only that.
Dont get me wrong i power level alts too but on my main no chance. Why would i power level other than just to be the fastest? i just prefer to play the game:).
Not to mention the fact that even if you weren't rushing, the 1-20 review should have come like 2-3 weeks ago. 1-20 is a complete joke in how long it takes to do, and then the game takes a nose dive in content. This is quite obvious to most who have played it and have experience with past mmo's. I agree with the others who said this is a blatant attempt to review the nicer side of the game.
I am a 71 bear shaman, in a game controlled by lvl 80 Tempest of Sets and Priest of Mitras, and we all got there by grinding the last 20 levels; those two classes just do it better than everyone else. And no, I didn't enjoy those levels, I just want to do sieging...which is apparently a complete mess according to the first siege event review on funcom's own forums =/
For me, I didn't really run out of quests until 57. At that point I packed up and headed to Thunder River and did the very few quests there offered to me at that level. After I ran out there, I headed back to the Noble District and ran the daily solo quests. I'm 59 now but it's probably going to be a couple more days worth of clearing solo quests (since I can only get a set amount per day) before I hit 60 and the next round opens up.
Just a note: I have several quests in the Main/Cistern area to do -- I just haven't been able to get the right group to do them with me. And the ones I have right now sure can't be done by just a duo!
But I've really been enjoying myself thus far and look forward to the added content and the bug fixes down the pike.
It's a great review of the 1-20 content.
Just keep in mind, Age of Conan is 3 games. 1-20, 21-79, 80. If people read reviews of Age of Conan that only deal with the first 20 levels, then they are going to be sorely surprised when they get off of Tortage.
Just about everything in the game that makes it an incredible game in the first 20 levels is gone or changed a great deal once you leave. About the only thing that is constant through out the whole game, are the amazing graphics.
Ok, I'm going to step in here for a minute and explain exactly why this is a 1-20 review:
First, yes, I realize that it doesn't take a long time to run through the content of 1-20 if you're running through the content to progress past it. It's a little bit different when you're playing a game to review it. When you're playing a game for the purposes of a review, you have to go much more slowly. You read every piece of dialogue, you go through unnecessary quests, and just generally spend time exploring.
Also, it isn't enough to move through the content with only one character in only one class. Ideally, you should move through the content with every class and see how it differs both in terms of story and functionality. In this case, I have played four different characters through the content.
Also, as you play those characters, you shoud also try playing on the different server types. In my case, I am playing on PvE, FFA PvP and RP.
It would be totally irresponsible to write a review based on a casual viewing or even a typical play-through. A reviewer needs to be as familiar with the body of what they are reviewing as possible.
Why haven't I reviewed the full game? Probably because I have four characters at and around level 20 and have barely ventured into the rest of the game. As the content is properly completed, we will update the review.
Hope that clears things up for you
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com