I don't think the console is the reason for the instanced zones, i mean the x360 probably has better hardware than alot of people playing AoC doesn't it?
The thing however, which I really love about the combat system I've experienced thus far, is the theoretical "skill cap" that WoW, and any other MMORPG has had thrown all over it, is in my opinion, much higher with Age of Conan. You have the ability to dodge attacks completely under your own power and timed at your own discretion, you can react to the combo's and attack directions that you read from your opponents via your shields and negate a ton of damage, every class has an available Sprint and stealth, as well as a counter preception seeking type skill; and tactics and group combat are actually rewarded. But again, the real downside to it is that it's mostly in 1v1 situations in which you can actually take advantage of this, but group combat is on a whole new level and a lot of coordination is required.
In addition, you can physically dodge attacks by just plain and simple movement. There are no "target is out of range" messages spamming the top of your screen - if you use a combo, and your opponent moves to the side or out of range, then you miss, end of story. Also, attacks can hit more than one target based off of position. If you're with a group, and say, 3 of you run up to one person and all stand next to each other, followed by him using a right to left attack, it will most likely hit all three of you. If jousting is your thing, you can easily accomplish it, and I often sprint up to someone, jump in their face, and swing - just because I can and I find it amusing and ninja-like heh.
But alas, when you combine all of that together, the combat system absolutely ****s all over that of WoW. There is such a higher potential for strategy and skill in the combat system it's almost overwhelming. Granted, the system still needs some polishing, but if AoC had 4 years under it's belt like WoW to completely perfect the combat system, I could see it being groundbreaking, and at the point it's currently at, I find it quite enjoyable.
One of the biggest issues I see people complaining about is getting gang-raped in PVP, or that the system itself is bursty - and subsequently, a lot of crying follows. The catch is, the vast majority of these players are the idiots who don't value and understand group combat, and tend to charge headfirst into battles. It's either that, or their group sends in 1 or 2 players at a time - pretty much providing the opposing group endless amounts of laughter as they slaughter you each individually. GROUP combat, is absolutely essential as you reach higher levels, and I've had a ton of fun defending and assaulting camp points and holding them from those interested in our territory, and I can't wait to continue at higher levels.
For those that fear the ability for all classes to stealth, there are differences, but the basic fundamental level that all of the non-stealth reliant classes have, is dictated through how many of your skill points you put into the ability. And like I said above, you have a counter-stealth ability as well, allowing you to reactively activate a perception-type skill if you fear you're about to get ambushed. Also, you can't just stealth anywhere and not fear getting seen. While you can stealth in broad daylight if your skill is high enough, you become easier to see as you approach light sources, and heavier armor will make you one bulky ninja as well.
Yesterday I was running around with a guild mate, and we had recently seen a group that we were warned was hostile. We were being as cautious as possible while trying to maintain a decent grind, and we'd occassionally pop our perception ability to make sure we weren't being ambushed. Eventually we began to get a little lazy and let our guard down, and upon finally remembering to use the ability, I popped 5 players out of stealth just a bit too late and proceeded to get completely torn apart. I wasn't upset - I didn't cry; rather I laughed at how awesome it was that that group was able to completely stealth on top of us and own us because of our forgetfulness. I can imagine so many different strategies later on based on the ability to hide basically anywhere you want. It also provides for a means of escaping - if done correctly - if you're solo and have a root ability and find yourself outnumbered.
Nice review though like others I can't say I totally agree. But that's why we all have our own opinions. Though it's pretty sad that some folks can read one man's review and say 'Well I'm not getting the game now!'. That just doesn't really make much sense. Your opinion will vary from the reviewers or it might be the same. There are more than enough posts stating the opposite of the review given but you choose to follow the lead of the one downplaying the game. Just find that a bit interesting.
In any case, good luck to all in whatever game they wish to fall to. Just like some say they will return to LOTRO but that game had the same feeling to me as the OP is saying AoC had to him. It was just too bland for me to hold my interest. Just an example how opinions differ and one can't let another's mind make their decisions.
Decent break down, but I tend to weigh it differently, only because I do know that some of the quests are actually unfolding of actual short stories by Robert E Howard. Needless to say, I actually rate AoC 8/10 after I figured a better keymapping for the game (mouse + keyboard is practically inviable for it, and I have no clue why FC packaged it by default as such. Go figure...) much of my initial confusion was gone. The -2 I give AoC is from the "kill ten rats" quests that still exist in its list of quests. Luckily, there's enough quests that you can generally avoid these stink bombs for the story arc quests (short story based) which are infinitely better and more challenging.
Nice review though like others I can't say I totally agree. But that's why we all have our own opinions. Though it's pretty sad that some folks can read one man's review and say 'Well I'm not getting the game now!'. That just doesn't really make much sense. Your opinion will vary from the reviewers or it might be the same. There are more than enough posts stating the opposite of the review given but you choose to follow the lead of the one downplaying the game. Just find that a bit interesting. In any case, good luck to all in whatever game they wish to fall to. Just like some say they will return to LOTRO but that game had the same feeling to me as the OP is saying AoC had to him. It was just too bland for me to hold my interest. Just an example how opinions differ and one can't let another's mind make their decisions.
Agree, we all have our own opinions :
The Forecasted Metascore for AoC is right now 91% btw
Well, I'll definitely not even take a second gander at this game again! Just as I had suspected from the last 6 months from beta leaks. Heck its even worse sounding than what little I found and read...
What I don't understand is why was it rushed out the door once again right after the failure of Vanguard's launch...did Funcom devs forget about that so soon!? From your review and quite a few others it sounds like a "try it just for the exceptional lvls 1-20" then it just takes a dive bomb off a steep cliff shortly afterwards.
....and I don't agree with the "its only a week old, give it a chance to get better later!" Why wasn't it better already, why should we have to wait for months or almost a year for it to equal the hype....and the exclusion of DX10 after yrs of them hyping it being built from the ground up in DX10...yeah thats just horrible!
Anyway my opinion, and well thanks for saving me $50! Well back to hmmmmmm, nothing I guess...
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.
Consoles has nothing to do with AoC being instanced/linear. FFXI has been on playstation 2 since 2001 and it has a very open non-instanced big world just like any other mmorpg.
A solid review, I personally don't agree with it and at the very least if i where to be force to rate it this early give it around a 75-80. However, i feel in about a month it will easily garner a 9/10 for me.
only thing i dont agree with is the 20-30 content, it deserves somewhere like a 7 or 8/10, i spent days in connail valley with plenty of quests. Its the 30-40 content thats got me bogged down, its hard to find quests but i found enough to get my by to 37, i should get just enough to 38-39.
Playing: EVE Online Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2 KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
It works best if you switch zones when you run out of quests for one of them. Like visiting Khopsef, Wild Lands and Conall's valley. You'll have more quests than you can handle that way. And you'll be able to experience a lot of the outdoor content that way.
Never ceases to amaze me how many people make their minds up by reading questionable reviews on forums, for goodness sake people learn to use your own minds .
1-20, yes it was fun, agree (didnt bother to go past 18)
Didnt go past that due to the problems with graphics and reports from friends whos language in ventrilo was....colorful to say the least. I have a decent pc, but its 2 years old. I dont really want to spend 1000$ to upgrade/buy new just for one game.Its about time for the developers to worry less about graph and more about gameplay.And by gameplay i mean for the casual gamer, the hardcore-gamers i couldnt care less about.
If this was a single-player game it would be awesome, but as a mmorpg?
Naa. there's better ones.
----------------------------------------
If you dont understand what i write, ask a damn question instead of going into autoflaming-mode. And dont read in stuff between the lines, i say what i mean.
I thought gameplay is a given (arguably gameplay excitement varries depending on each one of us). Gameplay is non-negotiable. That's not an excuse to make a sub-standard game. UO still has great gameplay value but it's a dyno. Same with DAoC.
Never ceases to amaze me how many people make their minds up by reading questionable reviews on forums, for goodness sake people learn to use your own minds .
While, I would love nothing better than to 'make up my own mind' but it seems that FunCom has deemed it unnessicary to hand out buddy keys on launch so people can do as such.
So, we have nothing better to go on other than questionable reviews.
Never ceases to amaze me how many people make their minds up by reading questionable reviews on forums, for goodness sake people learn to use your own minds .
They probably never was going to buy Aoc in the first place.
Never ceases to amaze me how many people make their minds up by reading questionable reviews on forums, for goodness sake people learn to use your own minds .
They probably never was going to buy Aoc in the first place.
With the bevy of MMO's out there and most of them being vaporware. It's understandable and advisable to have a 'wait and see' approach. Since there is no way for people on the fence to go in and actually see if it's their bag, there is no other option.
Waiting to 40 was bad enough but to limit all resources to resource gathering zones bleh. Thats just a terrible idea.
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
To TsukieU: It was a good choice, given than the demand of the paying customers is bigger than the capacity of the currently available servers.
While I agree that it was probably a good idea, given the circumstances. I don't think it would have been nessicary if they hadn't pinned themselves in the circumstance.
That aside, I think in the end, locking the general public out of their game in every avenue has been a very bad choice.
With instances being limited to 50 (even city of heroes has it at about 200), wouldn't it be possible for a guild of lets say 40 people just be able to completely take over a instanced zone?
I guess that really was the choice. Graphics>Mechanics.
I am used to EVE where I have been in engagements of over 500 people. It has issues with server side lag, sometimes bad depending on what system as certain ones are more reinforced. I would see MAJOR issues of people exploiting this max of 50 (or any max) and instanced zones.
I think everyone on EVE would agree we would rather deal with lag of mass amounts of people then have instances limiting zones to 50 per instance.
How can you have world PVP in a persistant world with instanced zones? How do you control territory this way?
Never ceases to amaze me how many people make their minds up by reading questionable reviews on forums, for goodness sake people learn to use your own minds .
I m sorry sir but the official forums are out of public reach, buddy keys are suspended for new, the trial is a few months away and FC has spent so much money on advertising the game on most gaming sites i wouldn't trust one word their "reviewers" say.
I don't even know if my computer is up to playing conan because the minimum requirements are excagerated on the box and people who meet those are having technical issues.
Comments
I don't think the console is the reason for the instanced zones, i mean the x360 probably has better hardware than alot of people playing AoC doesn't it?
Add this to the combat review:
The thing however, which I really love about the combat system I've experienced thus far, is the theoretical "skill cap" that WoW, and any other MMORPG has had thrown all over it, is in my opinion, much higher with Age of Conan. You have the ability to dodge attacks completely under your own power and timed at your own discretion, you can react to the combo's and attack directions that you read from your opponents via your shields and negate a ton of damage, every class has an available Sprint and stealth, as well as a counter preception seeking type skill; and tactics and group combat are actually rewarded. But again, the real downside to it is that it's mostly in 1v1 situations in which you can actually take advantage of this, but group combat is on a whole new level and a lot of coordination is required.
In addition, you can physically dodge attacks by just plain and simple movement. There are no "target is out of range" messages spamming the top of your screen - if you use a combo, and your opponent moves to the side or out of range, then you miss, end of story. Also, attacks can hit more than one target based off of position. If you're with a group, and say, 3 of you run up to one person and all stand next to each other, followed by him using a right to left attack, it will most likely hit all three of you. If jousting is your thing, you can easily accomplish it, and I often sprint up to someone, jump in their face, and swing - just because I can and I find it amusing and ninja-like heh.
But alas, when you combine all of that together, the combat system absolutely ****s all over that of WoW. There is such a higher potential for strategy and skill in the combat system it's almost overwhelming. Granted, the system still needs some polishing, but if AoC had 4 years under it's belt like WoW to completely perfect the combat system, I could see it being groundbreaking, and at the point it's currently at, I find it quite enjoyable.
One of the biggest issues I see people complaining about is getting gang-raped in PVP, or that the system itself is bursty - and subsequently, a lot of crying follows. The catch is, the vast majority of these players are the idiots who don't value and understand group combat, and tend to charge headfirst into battles. It's either that, or their group sends in 1 or 2 players at a time - pretty much providing the opposing group endless amounts of laughter as they slaughter you each individually. GROUP combat, is absolutely essential as you reach higher levels, and I've had a ton of fun defending and assaulting camp points and holding them from those interested in our territory, and I can't wait to continue at higher levels.
For those that fear the ability for all classes to stealth, there are differences, but the basic fundamental level that all of the non-stealth reliant classes have, is dictated through how many of your skill points you put into the ability. And like I said above, you have a counter-stealth ability as well, allowing you to reactively activate a perception-type skill if you fear you're about to get ambushed. Also, you can't just stealth anywhere and not fear getting seen. While you can stealth in broad daylight if your skill is high enough, you become easier to see as you approach light sources, and heavier armor will make you one bulky ninja as well.
Yesterday I was running around with a guild mate, and we had recently seen a group that we were warned was hostile. We were being as cautious as possible while trying to maintain a decent grind, and we'd occassionally pop our perception ability to make sure we weren't being ambushed. Eventually we began to get a little lazy and let our guard down, and upon finally remembering to use the ability, I popped 5 players out of stealth just a bit too late and proceeded to get completely torn apart. I wasn't upset - I didn't cry; rather I laughed at how awesome it was that that group was able to completely stealth on top of us and own us because of our forgetfulness. I can imagine so many different strategies later on based on the ability to hide basically anywhere you want. It also provides for a means of escaping - if done correctly - if you're solo and have a root ability and find yourself outnumbered.
( http://www.gameriot.com/blogs/World-of-Ming/ )
Nice review though like others I can't say I totally agree. But that's why we all have our own opinions. Though it's pretty sad that some folks can read one man's review and say 'Well I'm not getting the game now!'. That just doesn't really make much sense. Your opinion will vary from the reviewers or it might be the same. There are more than enough posts stating the opposite of the review given but you choose to follow the lead of the one downplaying the game. Just find that a bit interesting.
In any case, good luck to all in whatever game they wish to fall to. Just like some say they will return to LOTRO but that game had the same feeling to me as the OP is saying AoC had to him. It was just too bland for me to hold my interest. Just an example how opinions differ and one can't let another's mind make their decisions.
Extremely accurate review. You sir deserve a gold star. No sarcasm intended! Very good review.
Decent break down, but I tend to weigh it differently, only because I do know that some of the quests are actually unfolding of actual short stories by Robert E Howard. Needless to say, I actually rate AoC 8/10 after I figured a better keymapping for the game (mouse + keyboard is practically inviable for it, and I have no clue why FC packaged it by default as such. Go figure...) much of my initial confusion was gone. The -2 I give AoC is from the "kill ten rats" quests that still exist in its list of quests. Luckily, there's enough quests that you can generally avoid these stink bombs for the story arc quests (short story based) which are infinitely better and more challenging.
-- Brede
Agree, we all have our own opinions :
The Forecasted Metascore for AoC is right now 91% btw
Forecasted sales 2.29 millions.
http://www.thesimexchange.com/stock.php?id=394
Great review! This is what I'm referring friends and "fencers" to read if they're interested.
I agree with a lot of your points and feel over all that currently, its a 7/10 game but...
I'd reccommend to anyone to atleast play until 20 and get out of Tortage.
Its not even a week old!
Be patient!
Don't play unless you have some hardware! (tragically, its true.)
Well, I'll definitely not even take a second gander at this game again! Just as I had suspected from the last 6 months from beta leaks. Heck its even worse sounding than what little I found and read...
What I don't understand is why was it rushed out the door once again right after the failure of Vanguard's launch...did Funcom devs forget about that so soon!? From your review and quite a few others it sounds like a "try it just for the exceptional lvls 1-20" then it just takes a dive bomb off a steep cliff shortly afterwards.
....and I don't agree with the "its only a week old, give it a chance to get better later!" Why wasn't it better already, why should we have to wait for months or almost a year for it to equal the hype....and the exclusion of DX10 after yrs of them hyping it being built from the ground up in DX10...yeah thats just horrible!
Anyway my opinion, and well thanks for saving me $50! Well back to hmmmmmm, nothing I guess...
well if there are resources outside of designated resource zones I didnt see them. Course I didnt lvl to 80 so I dont know beyond that. Still, in the lvl 20-40 area I was in the resources are simply NOT in regular zones.
Console I think is the reason why Age of Conan is so instanced. Which proves that MMO's dont belong on consoles, at least until they improve upon the hardware.
Consoles has nothing to do with AoC being instanced/linear. FFXI has been on playstation 2 since 2001 and it has a very open non-instanced big world just like any other mmorpg.
A solid review, I personally don't agree with it and at the very least if i where to be force to rate it this early give it around a 75-80. However, i feel in about a month it will easily garner a 9/10 for me.
only thing i dont agree with is the 20-30 content, it deserves somewhere like a 7 or 8/10, i spent days in connail valley with plenty of quests. Its the 30-40 content thats got me bogged down, its hard to find quests but i found enough to get my by to 37, i should get just enough to 38-39.
Playing: EVE Online
Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
It works best if you switch zones when you run out of quests for one of them. Like visiting Khopsef, Wild Lands and Conall's valley. You'll have more quests than you can handle that way. And you'll be able to experience a lot of the outdoor content that way.
Never ceases to amaze me how many people make their minds up by reading questionable reviews on forums, for goodness sake people learn to use your own minds .
1-20, yes it was fun, agree (didnt bother to go past 18)
Didnt go past that due to the problems with graphics and reports from friends whos language in ventrilo was....colorful to say the least. I have a decent pc, but its 2 years old. I dont really want to spend 1000$ to upgrade/buy new just for one game.Its about time for the developers to worry less about graph and more about gameplay.And by gameplay i mean for the casual gamer, the hardcore-gamers i couldnt care less about.
If this was a single-player game it would be awesome, but as a mmorpg?
Naa. there's better ones.
----------------------------------------
If you dont understand what i write, ask a damn question instead of going into autoflaming-mode.
And dont read in stuff between the lines, i say what i mean.
I thought gameplay is a given (arguably gameplay excitement varries depending on each one of us). Gameplay is non-negotiable. That's not an excuse to make a sub-standard game. UO still has great gameplay value but it's a dyno. Same with DAoC.
While, I would love nothing better than to 'make up my own mind' but it seems that FunCom has deemed it unnessicary to hand out buddy keys on launch so people can do as such.
So, we have nothing better to go on other than questionable reviews.
Mne eto nado kak zuby v zadnitse.
They probably never was going to buy Aoc in the first place.
To TsukieU:
It was a good choice, given than the demand of the paying customers is bigger than the capacity of the currently available servers.
They probably never was going to buy Aoc in the first place.
With the bevy of MMO's out there and most of them being vaporware. It's understandable and advisable to have a 'wait and see' approach. Since there is no way for people on the fence to go in and actually see if it's their bag, there is no other option.So, I am waiting, and watching.
Mne eto nado kak zuby v zadnitse.
If its really a decent PC and not a POS.. you wont need to spend 1000$ on upgrades
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
"very close"? Are you using DX10?SHOHADAKU
Just in case some of you did not know this. If you open the world map and cursor over each zone, it shows what level range each zone is.
Cheers
While I agree that it was probably a good idea, given the circumstances. I don't think it would have been nessicary if they hadn't pinned themselves in the circumstance.
That aside, I think in the end, locking the general public out of their game in every avenue has been a very bad choice.
Mne eto nado kak zuby v zadnitse.
One question I have;
With instances being limited to 50 (even city of heroes has it at about 200), wouldn't it be possible for a guild of lets say 40 people just be able to completely take over a instanced zone?
I guess that really was the choice. Graphics>Mechanics.
I am used to EVE where I have been in engagements of over 500 people. It has issues with server side lag, sometimes bad depending on what system as certain ones are more reinforced. I would see MAJOR issues of people exploiting this max of 50 (or any max) and instanced zones.
I think everyone on EVE would agree we would rather deal with lag of mass amounts of people then have instances limiting zones to 50 per instance.
How can you have world PVP in a persistant world with instanced zones? How do you control territory this way?
SHOHADAKU
I m sorry sir but the official forums are out of public reach, buddy keys are suspended for new, the trial is a few months away and FC has spent so much money on advertising the game on most gaming sites i wouldn't trust one word their "reviewers" say.
I don't even know if my computer is up to playing conan because the minimum requirements are excagerated on the box and people who meet those are having technical issues.