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Official Psiho's review of AoC PvP Beta Weekend!
Psiho246
Member Posts: 482
Hello all you AoC fans!
My review is coming up and I tell you, you will love it!
Theres a bunch of screen shots here too that I guarantee you will love!
As you all know there was a Beta PvP weekend for 20 000 lucky gamespot users.
NDA was lifted yesterday so there is no NDA breaking in the fallowing review.
My current PC spec:
CPU: Athlon X2 6000+ @3.0 Ghz
GPU: ATI Radeon HD3850 512 Mb 710/1880
RAM: 1 Gb DDR2
OS: Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 32 bit
With this spec. I could play on high DX9 settings with FPS ranging from 35-65(1024x768), but with stalls after loading screens which are probably caused by the lack of RAM memory.
I have tried out 7 different classes and all of the PvP battlegrounds and PvE starting zone Tortage.
Classes I have been playing with: Ranger, Barbarian, Necromancer, Conqueror, Demonologist, Assassin and Herald of Xotli.
Ranger - This class is considered overpowered at the moment, but my personal opinion is that his high DPS is balanced out by his lack of defense rating, as I found my self very vournable in close combat and more effective in a group behind safety of all the soldiers. :P
This class like most, uses combo system to fire arrows in spectacular ways that may root opponents and damage them in different ways.
Ranger can also use directional attacks to either shoot at opponents righ/left side or shoot tham in the middle.
Ranger also uses 1h+shield in close combat.
Ranger Pic
Barbarian - This class is a melee DPS class. His style is to charge straight on into the enemy. His skills also use combo system to gain effects of spinning attacks, attacks with both weapon and releasing a thunderous roar that boost the damage.
Barbarian being a Rogue archetype can sneak quite well so you can use that ability to you advantage too.
His DPS is not as big as Rangers, but he can take a punch or two.
Barbarian pic
Necromancer - If you want evil awesomeness this is a class for you.
Necromancer is dependent of his minions he raises to serve him. There was two minions we could summon and one you has a chance to summon via spell.
One was a humanoid zombie and other one was some kind of creature that has a pealed skin so he looks awesome. The Third minion is ice golem thingy I didn't get to play with unfortunately. I was able to summon 4 minions at once, but I am not sure what is the minion cap and how does it work, cause sometimes I could summon only 3.
Necromancer also uses ice and dark spells to fight, for which he doesn't need combo system. He can also buff him self with some dark spells. I found him being superior to most of the melee classes as melee's couldn't fight off my minions.
Necromancer Pic
Conqueror - If the class was measured by how good and cool they look, I would vote for Conqueror. He looks bad@ss with his heavy armor. He uses combos to activate his melee skills that add a tiny bit of magic to them. Conqueror has two stances: defensive and fury (or something I forgot the exact name). I don't need to explain those. :P
He had good DPS and good survivability chance which can be really useful at the times.
Conqueror Pic
Demonologist- This is another Mage class. This class like the other Mages fights with spells w/o the combo system. It uses fire spells and succubus/inccubus minion. The minion shoots fireballs that do some serious damage and also the minion looks awesome.
Demonologist himself uses his own fire spells to fight off the enemies.
Good spell DPS class.
Demonologist Pic
Assassin - This is another class from the Rogue archetype.
This class uses combo melee skills to fight. While the Assassin might appear underpowered at first, it is probably the deadliest class in the hands of a skilled player. He is best at sneaking and by sneaking behind an enemy and striking, he can take the opponents HP by 50% in a single shot.
A class with a great potential, but I feels I wasn't skilled enough at this game to play him properly.
Assassin Pic
Herald of Xotli - This is surely one of my favorite classes. This class uses both spells and melee combo system. He can also transform himself into a deadly demon for 30 seconds. When he performs a melee combo, he adds spell damage to his hit and that looks spectacular when his sword bursts into flames of death.
Herald of Xotli Pic 1 Herald of Xotli before Herald of Xotli after
I love this game!
Character selection screen as you can see from my pics are great and character editor is even more great. Here is my try at Leonidas from the movie 300 - Leonidas.
Notice his eye scar, like the one from the movie. :P
Single player part of the game is awesome. It the best and most beautiful PvE gameplay I have ever had. It was a bit easy tho but thats just the startin area so its ok I guess. :P
Just a note. All that DX10 propaganda was in vain, if you remember the nerfed DX9 pics without bloom/HDR and lower shader models. Here is the proof that DX9 can also have beautiful sun beams and texture: Pic 1 Pic 2 Pic 3
Combo system is great! You have three directional attacks: left, right and middle. To activate a combo you need to click on it and then use the proper directional attacks to perform it. At lvl 20 best combos needed two directional attacks to activate and lvl 1-5 ones needed only one. Some people claim that that sux0r rofl z0mg cause its only 1-2 directions, but ask yourself: What would the combat look like if you needed to press 5+ buttons to perform one lousy skill?
Anyways I guess there will be more advanced combos from lvl 20 to lvl 80 anyways...
Quests are great so far. You actually can talk and choose the direction of your conversation with NPCs just like in some of the best Single player RPG titles.
For me best thing about AoC is movement animation. They feel so natural and smooth that its awesome!
PvP takes real skill and even group tactics. Every class and spec seems welcome to PvP and have their part in it.
I haven't tried the shield indicator thing in PvP, but I know they make a HUGE difference in damage, but it takes real skill to use them in combat, so I guess il have to wait for game to release to train myself in these arts. :P
Finally to rate this game like my favorite PC magazine does (in percentages) id give this game [98%].
Thank you Funcom for this masterpiece of a game. My preorder will fallow shortly (in a few days) and you can bet I will buy myself gamecards for at least a year. 
Good job!
Edit: ALL THE SCREEN SHOTS CAN BE FOUND HERE IF ABOVE LINKS DON'T WORK FOR YOU.
Comments
Great review.
I noticed your FPS was quite high... was it that high in PvP, or just in PvE? From reports I've seen, FPS seems quite varied.
Nice review mate. Thank you.
There was one PvP instance that was more outdoorish type and that was the only one I had to wait like 30 seconds after loading screen so the map would render for me. That was only due to my low RAM memory but after it all loaded up, the gameplay was smooth 40-60 FPS.
Very nice review - full of tons of brief bits of info. The added pics were a great touch - the player models look beautiful. And the necro really looked evil with that bone armor.
I have one question regarding casters. Did you get to try any of that 'soul corruption' casting? Where you can power up spells at the cost of corrupting your soul, and bad stuff starts to happen to you. No idea if you can start doing that at lvl 1 or maybe you have to wait til a high lvl.
Only bad sides I encountered was few minor texture bugs, but that is for Beta forum and that will be fixed before lunch.
Fun factor is sky high and I had fun with all the classes except maybe for Ranger cause I really dont like OP classes. :P
I started nuking spells like crazy and suddenly I just died. I didn't notice any soul corruption bar (which doesnt mean there isn't one) but it didn't bother me much.
Also the UI is great and it has tons of costumizable options and maybe one of them even adds the Soul corruption bar but as I said I am not 100% sure.
Psiho, thanks for the excellent review. The pictures really help reinforce the badassedness of this game
Nice review!
I played it myself and so far its good to see so many good reviews on such a small portion of the game. I enjoyed myself also although the PVP mini games arent my thing I want the higher end PVP and PVE content. But needless to say it was a very nice game. I cannot wait to try it out in the full version from what I have heard that version was an old beta build
.
But I am wondering if it had some hardware issues I have an 8800 GTS 512 in SLI with 4Gb ram and I was getting some weird lag and such and when I would load to the PVP area it would get stuck sometimes to like 1-2 fps I would have to reboot the game and come back in and I would stay at like 64 fps or so.
The beta client was uncompressed so it took more to run it. Making loading times longer, and FPS lower for most people. At launch, this won't be the case anymore...8800 is a great card!
I automaticly blamed my low memory, but it seems it might be a client problem.
They will most probably fix it before lunch or perhaps they even already did, as I heard we were actually running an older client and that general beta testers have a newer one or something like that.
I haven't seen anything that resembled spellweaving tho, maybe you get it at higher levels.
Nice review
, glad u enjoyed the game like the overwhelming majority (even on these forums!)
A few of the pictures didn't work for me, like the Conquerer, Demonologist and Herald of Xotli 1.
I don't know if that's my problem or if imageshack is acting up, just an FYI
Nice review. But get a better hosting for images next time. It take AGES to download.
Maybe post the images here:
http://www.mmorpg.com/galleries
Yes it seems Imageshack has some server problems now, so I uploaded the images here.
Thanks for telling me.
Screen shots.
Cool, and thanks!, :DDDDDDDDDDDDDD
I see you didn't mention the bugs that imo were just as bad as Vanguard a year ago. This game will be a similar scenario that VG was when it first released. You will be paying for a beta with shinny graphics and wow type game play.
www.youtube.com/watch
These bugs do not represent the core of gameplay or anything so thats why I didnt mention them. These are things that are to be fixed before lunch and most of them are probably fixed already because the client we PvP beta testers were using is 2 months old.
I am not sure about how Vanguard lunched as I never played that game, but from what iv seen and experienced AoC is a great game and everyone should give it a try.
Bugs? What are these bugs you speak of? My son and I played 3 characters over the weekend, and he spent a good two or three hours in a PVP session with a vent using team.
We saw 2 bugs during the event, only one was of consequence, and seemed to be restricted to our hardware, as the rest of the group didn't experience it. (video driver I'm suspecting)
No idea if the rest of the game plays as smooth as this PVP preview, but with open beta coming soon we'll get a better idea.
BTW, the graphics are really shinny, I was impressed, and I normally don't care about graphics at all. Things ran nice and smooth on my laptop (its a pretty good laptop) and I have no complaints about the smoothness so far.
WOW type game play? Not really, I felt the combo move system was more like VG, LoTRO or even DAOC, but combat didn't really remind me of WOW. (well, other than it was a typical MMORPG, but I'm not expecting it to play like EVE.
I'll have to say, I was really on the fence about this game prior to this test, and now I think I'm ready to commit to playing it come release.
Not sure I'll play the open beta, I think I spent too much time in the LotRO OB and it helped burn the game out too quickly for me.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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There were.. I think 3 times during a CTF match on... gah what was the name of it.. the CTF map on the top of the list, the Temple looking one....
But there were a few times where I'd somehow end up underneath the level, walking around on nothingness. I could always find a low point in the map and jump through the walls and back into the level.
Also I know a LOT of people on that level figured out how to make the jump right by the flags that cut the distance down you had to run, same thing with the respawn points. Hopefully they change this so you cannot jump up to them.
And I found a few spots where people would stand that would make them "stuck" so that they couldn't take any damage, or dish any out unless they moved. I only saw one person exploit this, a flag carrier who sat in one of these spots until their teammates rezzed and wiped out the opposition.
There was a few times where an ability or even attack direction would bug out and become unusable. I'd simply have to restart the client to repair it.
So yeah, a few bugs here and there.
But that is to be expected.
Good review, nicely done man. Just bare in mind people that PvP weekend clinet was JUST that - like a closed end game with nothing else in it but the lvl 20 PvP, it was NOT the full game client and so the performance could be maxed out to what the current dev build can deliver with the single aspect of the game in mind.
FUNCOM - putting the FUN in disFUNctional !