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What AoC has going for it...
Trustt
Member Posts: 11
The game was missing plenty at launch and Funcom hasnt handled things perfectly. They lost a massive chunk of population and some of those people wont come back. Its first impression on the MMO community was definately rocky. History also shows that if an MMO doesnt make a phenomenal first impression on the industry, then it is doomed to failure or at least a small niche status. All this is true and no one is denying it.
But what AoC has going for it that other games like LotR, SWG, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, and the like didn't have, is that Age of Conan is just a flat-out, all around awesome game. Despite missing launch features and despite early tech issues that many experienced, the game itself is amazing. The melee combat is different and engaging. The graphics are better than most single player games. The pvp is top notch.
Funcom has made large strides in many of the areas that were lacking, performance being the biggest and most noticable improvement. They still have a long list of things to address, and their eventual success is directly related to how competently those issues are attended to, but they do seem to be on the right track.
Looking forward to the immediate future, they are addressing:
- DX10
- PvP
- Crafting
- Server merges
- Filling in content gaps (which arent as bad as people make them out to be)
The 3-5 most populated servers are seeing a noticeable increase in population and player activity as new people join and as people from dying servers re-roll. I log into my account and see 20-50 guildies on at any time of day (Tyranny btw). Global chat doesnt stop and finding pick-up groups at any level (up to 55 at least) hasnt been a problem in about a month. While playing the game on one of the popular servers, one no longer gets the impression that they are playing a dying game.
As stated, Funcom has a ways to go to before the game can be considered as "turned-around", and it's not going to happen overnight, but as long as players can see a steady progress being made, most will respond positively. The game, as it is right now, is better than most other games out there (not all, calm down). Look where WoW was after 2 years of tweaks, changes, additions, patches, etc. Now imagine where AoC can be once they find their groove.
Some will disagree and thats fine. This is after all, just my opinion. But I have played most of the MMO's over the last 10 years and i don't think any game in the past, present, or near future has the potential for greatness that Age of Conan has. And to be clear, i don't measure greatness in dollars or subscription numbers. I measure greatness in quality. Although the game is great right now, its still not where it needs to be. But as it gets closer to that point, many of the people that originally shunned AoC (and with good reason) will find themselves coming back to one of the best MMO's in gaming history. --imo--
Comments
I started with a group of other people. love the game. 10/10
Nothing !
MAGA
Can't be true when it has your interest / attention
Good summary of points OP.
the one thing i do adore about this game, is the soundtrack, one of the best around.
Great post! agree 100%
Looks like viral marketing 101.
Summary : Game is better now, it sucked at release and someday (soon... june or july) it will be muuch better.
Heard it before, sounds like this, blah blah blah yada yada yada.
Somehow I doubt the MASSES are going to come flocking back. Show some kinda link that shows a game (any game) having a huge initial release , then losing a HUGE number of those players to the point of server merge status in record ..yes record breaking time and then show where that game was able to reinvigorate it to the point that MASSES of people CAME BACK within the first year of its release. Name one. Anyone? Bueler.. Beuler? Anyone.
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Edit to agree with the guy above, yes the music is first rate. Shame they didn't stick with music eh? Since games really aren't their strongsuit.
marketing spam... it's even formatted like marketing spam
Well it is true, it was a little rocky at the release, well it actually first really kicked in, around level 50, when you ran out of content.
And to the one above talking about the soundtrack being great, i fully agree, the music sucked me into the game.
It's actually a mmorpg that's improving greatly compared to the other "meh" mmorpgs. And i hope with the DX10 update people might give it another shot, because the game deserve to live, the company behind it, is however a questionable factor but with GG gone, i suppose there might be hope.
I'm having a blast again.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
What AOC has going for it? It is a fairly good game with really good graphics.
What AOC has going against it? It has a terrible PR problem that will prevent new players from ever buying the box, and old players from ever returning. It has severe population issues that prevent widescale pvp on most servers. And finally, it is owned by a company that will be going bankrupt soon and probably has a very minimal development team working on the game.
Buy the box, ask on the forums and find a high population server.. enjoy the next 2-3months. If you are a fairly hardcore players, you can easily get a couple hundred hours of entertainment out of AOC over 2 months. Just don't plan on AOC being the game you play for the next year.
But unless you consider staring at graphics as entertainment.. there really isn't any reason to play AOC over WOW, which is more fun and will be here next year.
Sorry, I can think of plenty of reasons that have nothing to do with graphics. To be honest WOW would be my last choice to pick from, key factor being its atmosphere and lore. I never found a single thing interesting about WOW, I never quite felt I was a part of anything substantial in that game. Everything felt cosmetic, I got the same feeling playing lotro to be fair.
I can't even pin point what it is that caused this feeling, it wasn't the visuals, it wasn't the game play. Something about them both, feels sort of generic. The only other game I felt this in was Guild Wars.
AOC had some elements that hinted at that same genericness, however it's atmosphere made up for that IMO. I always felt like I was in danger in AOC, which has a gloomy feel to it. Might I add real ffa PVP which is quite rare these days, WAR is the only decent alternative at present (exluding EVE). AOC also has features WOW doesn't like Cities for example, player ownership is something I appreciate in a game (SWG vet , spoiled I guess).
I look at a games social aspects first and foremost, that's where my play style fits. I'm more of a pvp'r socializer, rather than a raider or item grinder. WOW's whole philosphy goes against what I prefer a game to focus on.
Personally i'm back to shooters for a while until something changes in AOC (merges) or something else comes along.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It is funny and convenient that you ask. "Ymirs Pass", the whole new area to be stuck into the game just came out on the testlive server tonight. It is apparently massive and holds many lvl 55-65 lvl range quests and fun. Look forward to play this one.
i'm thinking about coming back to the game i'm just curious, what size is the pop right now and will it be around for awhile? i really liked the game and quick cuz of all the bugs and missing stuff asuming in a couple of months that they would get it turned around. so my question is have they?
You would be rich if you knew the answer to you first question. For the second question, I just want to say I play the game, and I see huge performance increase, less bugs and much more content. have fun.
lol ok thank you wargpest for not trolling me and answering directly
Yeah. they really fixed the client up pretty good.
I would give them 'fair' ratings for content at this point. They have added since launch.. but you still have substantial deadspot.
Ask on the Official forums regarding a high population server. This is absolutely the most important thing you can do. make sure you get on one of the highest pop servers.
As far as how long AOC will last. I think January
Have any of you guys had a go at Ymirs Pass, the new area? What about you Avery?
A well written post by Trustt that sums things up for the game.
I for one will come back when they have implated dx10 (graphic ´hoe). I hope then that I will find good n funny pepole to enjoy the game with, so it wont become an boring single player experince in a mmo world
I7@4ghz, 5970@ 1 ghz/5ghz, water cooled||Former setups Byggblogg||Byggblogg 2|| Msi Wind u100
You should at least try to back those statements up with something. Funcom is a publicly traded company and you can check out their latest financial report yourself on their website.
Looking at those , the company looks healthy with a cash balance well enough to pay the current staff for 1-2 years. AO is still earning money, they made lots of money on the Dreamfall release a couple of years back, and AoC is also bringing in money. How much we will see when they present the Q3 results.
Unless you got something to back your statements up with, I'll just assume you're pulling your claims from your ass and give consider them to be worth as much as anything else that comes out of that place.
AoC has a huge potential still :
Forgot
I'm sorry but I see your post more like some attempt at viral marketing.
Ymir's pass isn't in the game yet.
People are still waiting for it to be implemented. Don't you even play the game?
If you played and read the AoC forums you would know that...
Ymir's pass isn't in the game yet.
People are still waiting for it to be implemented. Don't you even play the game?
If you played and read the AoC forums you would know that...
it's on the TL server, so anyone with an active account can test it
After over a month of WAR i just resubd to AOC after leaving it after the launch month and its been less than 2 weeks but im having a good time with it again....
They threw in a bunch of content for the 50+ crowd (still needs more),they tossed in the first half of the PvP system,my server Tyranny isnt feeling the population pinch at all,they put some work into the resource gathering system,Balanced some classes and fixed a few technical issues.
Still has a looong way to go and if your playing WAR im not saying AOC is better cause i dont think it is, but if your heavier on the PvP side of mmo's then i would definetly recommend AOC and on top of that the combat is a breath of fresh air compared to the button mashers out there...
As an overall product its inferior to Warhammer and WOW content wise but at the same time it offers alot of things that Warhammer and WOW just dont offer like FFA pvp,great music and graphics,Building Guild keeps to later defend and expand....its a pretty good game with alot of potential for improvement.
Now whether or not they meet the expectations of the community is a whole different matter cause only time will tell if funcoms gonna ever get there %^&@ together but if your playing WoW or WaR and are happy...Great...but if your looking for an mmo more PvP based like Asherons Call or Shadowbane then i urge you to give the game a shot and not get caught up in the bull$#%@ youll see on these forums about AOC.
Now i get why AOC caught a bad rep early on cause i myself had higher hopes for it at launch and after the first month i left cause of the lack of the PvP system (and i hated the 50+ grind) but that stuff has been addressed and still the majority of AOC topics you catch on this site is a persons lame attempt to paint you a picture of a dieing community or a bankrupt Funcom...Well my server is doin alright with population and Funcoms still feeding us patch after patch..
I Mean its not a huge mystery...Carebears Despise FFA pvp.....AoC is not dead or dieing.... its rose and fell but landed on its feet none the less...but i dont have a credible program like Xfire to back me on that =/....
I had a hard time reading the rest of the post after this statement. The graphics, and some of the combat features are OK to good. The art direction, however, is lackluster at best, and the much touted melee combat system is found by many to be tedious rather than refreshing.
Just my opinion, but the rest of the game just isn't compelling - it's not fun. AoC is not a deep game. It's linear and shallow, which is a shame given the IP they had to work with. These are not problems caused by bugs, they are a problem fundamental to the game's design. It will take much more than a patch to correct such a flawed foundation.
PvP is anything but "top notch". The PvP system is a run-of-the-mill rep system for buying gear. There is nothing new or innovative at all about it. Currently, it's being exploited by players as they "trade kills" in order to level.
Strangely, I also measure greatness in a game by quality over subscriptions. Calling AoC "great", while acknowledging that is has had a history of very poor quality, therefore seems disingenuous to say the least. Given the style of presentation, it smacks of propaganda/viral marketing.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
There is nothing wrong with his reasoning here. He is basically saying, when MMO developers ambitionlevel is high it might be harder to complete a smooth launch than if you develop a MMO that is already built on very welltested code and known ways of doing things. The game with the higher ambition level has however higher potential and will end up on the top as long as the Devs keep working on the game. That's exactly what FC do. They are not giving up on this one and I as a new player can absolutely not understand what all this bitching is about. The game blows me away. 10/10
Funcom's ambition level isn't any higher than most other company's, though it could be argued that their arrogance level was quite a bit higher. FC decided they were too good, too smart, to go with some of the established conventions, and recreated the wheel with many aspects of the game. Unfortunately, most of their new wheels were square, and have been or will be changed because of the lack of foresight it displayed (EX: lack of fast travel made the suicide teleport all the rage during the first couple of months). It made them look more than a little foolish.
Similarly, AoC has no more, or no less, potential than any other game out there, given developer motivation. I find it humorous how the fanbois of just about any game, AoC included, somehow believe that their game is intrinsically "better", with more potential, and that somehow their game's developers care more than those of other games. What hogwash! At least making some sort of attempt at objectivity would be a good start when assessing the game.
AoC is a below average MMO, in my opinion. Though they are correcting a lot of the bugs it had, they still have to correct many of the basic design flaws it has to make it a more appealing game.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.