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AoC - serious issues potential buyers MUST know about!
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
The venerable game site YouGamers, made a well balanced review of 3/5, but also revealed some dramatic catastrophic details around AoC, potential customers need to know, before chosing where to put their money. Instead of mere opinion, here you may read some hard FACTS, and then make you OWN opinion, instead of just blindly crying "yay XYZ gave 90%".
LINK: www.yougamers.com/previews/18859_age_of_conan_first_impressions/
"The communication also failed due to the completely closed official forums. That's right - you can't even read the forums unless you have an active Age of Conan account. Funnily they even "banned" all the accounts created using preorder product keys that couldn't fit into the botched Early Access - so not only were you unable to join the game with your friends, you couldn't even read the forums. I'm still baffled by the motive behind all this. I can understand limiting posting privileges to paying customers, but is Funcom so afraid of negative comments that they have to hide what players are saying about their game from prospective customers?
Then came the blunder of the year. Eidos and Funcom managed to ship a faulty batch of EU Collector's Edition boxes at launch with non-working product keys. No word on how widespread the issue was, but in any case it took Funcom more than ten hours to publicly acknowledge the issue on the official forums, and most people are still in the customer support email queue waiting for working keys. The related thread on the official forum has over a thousand posts by now, and that's only from people who already had a working Early Access account - those who just bought the CE and were unable to create their account couldn't even read the official forums to find out what's up - let alone complain. The official community page still has absolutely no mention of the problem, and the whole site feels like the work of a PR agency.
Funcom also appears to fail in other ways at MMO Communication 101 - If you nerf something, you put it in the patch notes. Period. Players will find out either way, and if you didn't tell them, your forums will turn into a pool of hot magma. The game is just a few days old, but they already managed to sneak in couple of nerfs for some of the most obvious balance issues. What annoys me is that they did not mention the changes anywhere. "
...
"While Age of Conan is, at times, very beautiful, it's also maddeningly inconsistent. The visuals are best described by a single word - "uneven". There are places where you can take postcard-quality snaps, and there are places where you see something that looks like it was lifted out of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and then made uglier. "
"Far more fundamental issue is the design decision to go instance-happy. Age of Conan is heavily instanced and zoned. ... Same goes for constant, if short, loading screens - heck, when you are resurrected, even by your group member, you get a loading screen before you are on your feet. "
"The content also has another fairly annoying issue. Many quest-related points of interest inside zones are designed with a single person in mind. Should you wish to level up with a group of friends, or happen to the area with several other people doing the same quest, you will run into problems. While mob kills are credited to everyone in group, looting quest items - either off mobs or off the ground - often isn't, and you will end up waiting for quest respawns a lot."
"Experience from kills is split evenly in group without any grouping bonuses, and as experience from kills is a substantial part of the expected advancement curve, group leveling will run you into trouble as you run out of quests and have to resort to grinding - all because the monsters you killed during your quests gave you only fraction of the experience you would have gained if soloing. Effectively the only way to level at the moment is to solo or duo. There are some "group" flagged quests that support 3-4 man groups better, but even they are not that difficult, and are often quite soloable. Some may consider this to be a good thing, and it's said that you can level to 80 completely solo if you choose, but in my book the poor grouping support is a downside.
Funcom did add an "epic" mode to all the adventuring zones just before launch and it seems the idea is to address this very issue by offering the choice of "solo" or "group" versions of zones. The problem is, whole Epic mode is very much unfinished, and the only practical difference is that the mobs in the Epic version of the zone got their hit points bumped up. That's all. Extra risk without any extra reward. "
"What disappoints me is the design choice made with questing - Funcom wanted to be "realistic" with limited inventory space, but at the same time they provide players with a full map and GPS system with dynamic quest updates. You can safely ignore all the quest text and just look up the arrow, head that way, X marks the spot and by the time you get there, it's usually obvious what you need to do. Quest items glow and can be seen a mile away, and even quests that ask you to "kill X mobs" show up on the map with clearly defined spawn area of the mob in question. All that text and dialogue is wasted as you can just click through the conversation (no, 99% of the time those dialogue options don't really matter) and zoom onwards based on your map and quest indicators. "
Given such fundamental faults I personally would rather give that 50% on a 100 scale, but a 5 point scale of course does not allow such nuances. I can only HIGHLY suggest to anyone who is interested in AoC to WAIT at least a couple of months and see the new reviews then.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
I tend to agree that it would be best to wait a couple months before trusting reviews. The early parts of AoC are really good but it ramps down really fast at the higher end. I think reviews in couple months after more people have leveled up will be a lot more balanced.
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Ethion
From what I read it is clear to me that the person who posted that editorial either (1) never actually played or (2) played in early beta. Since most of what he says is incorrect, exaggerated or down right lying.
The game is not heavily instanced. Like EQ2 it will make a copy of a zone if there are too many players in one. Some quests lead to doors that, like City of Heroes, lead to an instanced quest. This far from "heavy" as the editorial claims. In Tortage (starter area) the night quests are instanced. The day quests are not but some zones are barred unless you have a quest to go there. Due to the numerous quests in Tortage, this is rarely a problem being unable to go into a particular zone.
The graphics are consistent from zone to zone. Not once have I come into a zone and seen the graphics suddenly take a dive in quality. This isn't EQ1 where you have "new" zones and "old" zones that still use 1999 graphics.
Experience from kills is NOT the substantial part of the leveling curve. That statement clearly shows that the writer of the editorial does not know what he is talking about. Questing gives vastly more XP than grinding. Heck simply finding a new respawn location rewards more XP than killing 10 mobs. You surely could grind if you wanted to, but the XP from quests really can't be ignored. In addition, the group quests that he claims "can be quite soloable" well... aren't. If I have a group 3 quest and it's even level to me, I can't solo it ... period. I can solo in in 3-5 levels probably, but by then it's gone green and not worth as much as before.
Epic zones the mobs have higher health yes. However, the claim of no better rewards is false. I've done many epic zones and I've found that the number of green drops increased. Instead of getting numerous "frayed circlet", I would get the grounding, sagacious, etc types instead. So tells me he only did 1 or 2 epic zones and got unlucky on drops.
The chat options do matter as sometimes they will lead to quests depending on what you say. The GPS system is rather nice, but you still have to actually find and kill the mobs in the "kill X critters" quests. The game just gives points you towards where the mobs are, but they aren't always exactly at X marks the spot. Some mobs wander, beast mobs run off to kill prey (rabbits, etc).
The limited inventory isn't a problem since "loot" goes in one inventory, quest items have their own and resources have another all to themselves. In addition you have one bag slot that lets you equip a bag for more "loot" inventory slots. This feature I absolutely love as the quest items and resources I gather aren't taking up my inventory space.
So in conclusion I can safely say the the author, Jarno Kokko, quite frankly is full of stygian poo. Mr Kokko try actually playing the live game before you write a review on it, mmmkay?
Sorry to say, but how are the probabilites? if a professional reviewer lies, he and his site is sued, if you lie, nothing happens, so given that threat, how likely IS IT, they tell false facts?
Let Funcom OPEN their forum for ALL to read. Before I believe rather those who say they have something to HIDE than those who say all is good and cool. Why hide, if it were so? I wont bet on who of you tells the truth, but all probability and logic points one clear way: a growing catastrophe in Hyboria.
Or him: www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/183205
Is he lying too? is everyone of the more and more people posting negative all lying hatebois? How probable is that? You believe in conspiracy theories too? No Sir, where there is smoke there ALWAYS is a fire SOMEWHERE, and gawd THAT forest is bright aflame somewhere given the smoke showing ALREADY.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
urrm its a PREVIEW of early impressions based on limited play experience, not a Review.
DrowNoble is pretty much spot on.
It is so unbelievable that if anyone says an inkling of bad about AoC they MUST be lieing or not played the game.
The professional won't get sued, because he will claim it was his opinion and Freedom of Speech. Many of what the editorial said was incorrect, pure and simple. What I am guessing is that he played in early beta or based his writing off a second-hand opinion. Such as i say Game A sucks so he writes an editorial as to why Game A sucks.
Forums are open to everyone by the way. They were only open to people who registered a game key in the few days of launch. Anyone can read forums now though so this also told me the editorial was outdated. After all if you're able to play the game and don't like it, you'd be able to read the forums... since you are playing the game.
Yes I read that link you posted too, I replied to him as well so I won't repeat myself here.
Many of the posts on this forum are overwhelmingly negative, while many on the official forums are positive. So, objectively speaking, which would be the more reliable source of information?
Where there is smoke there is fire... or a smoke machine. I had one quest that was bugged, it sucked yes, but it was only ONE quest. I petitioned and after about 6 hours I got help. I am enjoyed every other aspect of the game at that point that ONE bugged quest wasn't going to completely ruin everything for me.
Where are all the "OMG this game is awesome" posts?
It seems to me that they are out posted 10 to 1 , this can't be just Trolls trying to pull AoC down. I personally don't play AoC, but imo if AoC was all that there should be more people trying to get the point across (it's the same 4-5 people that try) and now that the review sites are starting to speak up it's not looking good.
I imagine these folks are paying customers, aren't they? Shouldn't they be able to verify if all that widespread vitriol Funcom's supposed to be afraid of is there or not?
And how're closed forums at all a communications failure when paying customers are able to access it? Admitting to not knowing "how widespread the issue was", but able to proclaim it the "blunder of the year" and cite the status of a "majority of players"? Pfft. The former is an important working point to be able to declare such things.
Complaints about nerfs in an MMO, awesome.
Ironic that he's complaining about something in the patch notes that went unspecified, that he forgot to specifically specify.
Hating zones and instancing in an MMO? Then going on to mention that Vanguard looks better than Age of Conan?
Vanguard looks better, has no zones (if you discount chunking), and no instancing (if you discount ApW).
From the 10 million playing World of Warcraft and the 5 million that bought Guild Wars boxes; how much does this person's opinion weigh when it comes to reflecting what the MMO market as a whole probably feels towards features such as instancing, zoning and graphics that're either technically accomplished, or highly stylized in absence of high technology?
For this to be happening a lot, it hasn't happened to me once. I've gone from 1 to 50 twice now, quests synched with 2 to 3 others twice now.
Not once has this happened.
As far as "off the ground" goes, those items respawn much faster than NPCs, IF there aren't enough for everyone lying around in the first place.
Has this person heard of "specific examples"? I'd love to see a quest or three cited that a group had to wait more than 30 seconds to complete collectively once at the quest marker.
Yeah, wrong.
I've apprenticed my girlfriend from 19 to 43, and she hasn't done a single quest in the Noble District of Tarantia or Field of the Dead yet; not the ones that originate there.
So she's gotten absolutely no NPC experience from Zelata, Conalli's Valley and Khospef Province.
You could argue that because I apprenticed her, she was able to steam roll group quests that she wouldn't have been able to do without me, but wouldn't the groups you argue to be a detriment to levelling be able to do the same, and benefit the same?
Never used Epic mode, so can't comment on the "risk vs. reward" argument. The point is irrevelant though if this is supposed to be some emphasis to the prior argument, since that was untrue.
Choice in how a person chooses to quest is a problem now?
I'd understand if the complaint was a lacking of story, lore, tons of quest dialogue and etc. But it's all there, available for anyone to read.
The mini-map can be turned off to. That's why the option is there if a person doesn't like it.
Anyway...I have no idea who wrote all this garble. The only problem I have with it is that the OP, or someone he quoted, decided to pass this garbage as fact. How? There isn't a single specific example supporting a single problem he lamented about.
Was his Collector's Edition box faulty? I guess not. Is he somehow stuck at level 30 with no quests because he decided to group? I doubt it. So on and so forth...this made my head hurt.
Not really. An influx in forum whining directly correlates to the amount of folks satisfied.
People who're in-game, having fun, don't normally think to leave game and post about how muchfun they're having. These forums are complaining.
To have complainers though a game has to actually have players. Vanguard has to be the worst MMO on the market now in terms of how much money and hype was put into it, amount of boxes initially sold, and where it currently sits in subscriber count and other difficulties. Yet, the board is relatively free of complainers at the moment because there's hardly anyone left to complain.
I'd worry when the complaints stop. WoW certainly isn't doin' all that bad for all the gripe it gets. What's the ratio of WoW complaints to WoW praises within any section of these boards?
i dont give a shiz, i love the game, and if anyone wishes to find out if they really like the game or not, they have to try it out for themselves. enough said.
It is so unbelievable that if anyone says an inkling of bad about AoC they MUST be lieing or not played the game.
Or people have diffent likes and dislikes? Played it didn t like it.
Oh it's ok if you played the game and didn't like it. I played EVE, wasn't as good as I thought it would be. So I felt it was not worth subscribing to. I didn't however, come to a 3rd party site (like this) and post stuff about EVE that anyone who played EVE would scratch their heads about.
The editorial was written by someone who, I felt, had outdated information or never actually played the game. With an aquilonian, stygian and cimmerian I've seen a lot of the game world. I have yet to see any of the graphical inconsistences the OP claimed were there. Would be different if he said "in zone X there was a <insert graphic glitch>", but he implied the game had a lot of zones where there were noticeable differenences.