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Players...just wondering...
Torak
Member Posts: 4,905
I'm picking up my new PC next week and I was looking at giving a new MMO a try.
I have questions on AoC. I would prefer that only people who are actually currently playing the game answer. Drama queens need not reply.
What is actually "wrong" with the game today.
I understand it had a suck ass launch but what game hasn't? Since you can pick it up on ebay for about 20 bucks (or less), I'm not going to lose any sleep over retail pricing.
What are actually the issues with this game aside from all the drama queen shit that is filling the forums here?
- Are all the features in?
- What performance like?
- Pops?
- Whats broken in the classes/skills?
- Dead areas in content?
- Whats the actual problem with the PvP if any?
That sort of thing. You know actual issues.
Reviews look pretty good overall (ave 8.1 out of 33 reviews) www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/ageofconanhyborianadventures/review.html
but forums....geez, you would think these guys are eating your children.
There is also way to much conflicting info to really say.
I also understand its pretty heavily zoned/instanced...fine but does it have a restrictive linear feel like LotR or does it have a more open world feel with several areas to choose from at whatever level?
Do you like it? (remember, I only want people who are actually playing to answer)
Carry on.
Comments
Are all the features in? No
What performance like? Its Great after the last patch
Pops? PvP servers have 2 RP-PvP and 2 PvE servers the others need help so 5 healty servers
Whats broken in the classes/skills? diffrent things for diffrent classes so to hard to say but over all balance was made way better with the last patch
Dead areas in content? There are some but they have added some and will be adding more . 60 to 70 needs work.
Whats the actual problem with the PvP if any? they have fixed alot so I would say they just need to fix some feets for some of the classes over all PvP was made alot funner the last patch
the game still needs work but im having alot of fun and the game is getting better.
P.S. I played EQ2 so I don't mind the instance I would say they need to make sure the world feel gets larger with contant updates and the expansion coming out.
Your best bet is to read user reviews of the game on different sites and from that figure out if its something worth playing for you. Reading reviews where they played the Tutorial isnt gonna tell you anything how the game is. Neither reviews on any site that has/had AoC commercials, you dont know if those reviews are unbiased or not then.
The majority speaks. So go to your favorite sites and check user grade and comments about the game.
The feeling I get from your post is that you hope to get some people to praise the game so you can find a reason to buy it and the biggest reason you wanna buy it is cause you got a new computer and want to see some shiny graphics.
Asking for opinions from only people playing is like asking for only positive info. Those that didnt like it have quit by now except the 3/6 months people that are stuck for some time. I have played the game, but have stopped, dont see why my opinion shouldnt count as much. But it sounds like you already decided to buy it and just want to get some positive stuff so it feels better.
Without bashing AoC I'm just gonna say that there are loads of other MMOs that are better in every aspect except maybe graphics. So if you are looking for a good long lasting MMO look elsewhere, if you are looking for an action multiplayer game with nice graphics and dont mind paying a monthly fee for it, well give it a shot. Just consider that servers are very empty and no guarantee that they will ever fill up again.
It doesn't matter if you're a CURRENT player or someone who quit because they haven't made any changes that matter.
You're asking from honesty from current players...and frankly the only people left playing AOC are the rabid fanboys who'll sugarcoat the situation...
Do you think such distain for a game and negative posts by the thousands are unwarranted? All these pissed off people just got together one day and said 'HEY! Let's go trash AOC!!' We only spent 60-100 bucks on the game. Read what they're saying...
People have outlined repeatedly the issues. Not sure what you mean by 'ACTUAL ISSUES' as most people's ISSUES have to deal with broken, missing content which include crafting, stats, feats, quests, items, instances, and exploits abound.
There's not enough content to get you to 80 without grinding. By 53 I was totally out of quests until 60 and even then there's maybe 15 quests from 60-80. Many bugged quests which left what little content there was unable to finish.
The only real change is they turned on the PVP system halfway. It's been in the game since BETA so it isn't like they actually coded anything. They turned on the PVP experience and didn't turn on the penalty system. So basically high levelers can run roughshot over lowbies without fear. This has been happening anyway because level 80's are bored to tears and ganking lowlevelers is their only fun.
Now with the PVP experience on. Guilds just unguild themself and kill each other in a circle jerk for PVP experience. When they get maxed exp for the day they go run in the only level 70-80 area there is in the game. People can't even quest now in the 70-80 zone because it's full of guilds(usually 1 guild) putting the area on lockdown and resurrection camping you.
The armor of which there was suppose to be 1500 sets. Well there aren't 1500 sets... Everyone looks the same. What armor is around is bland uninspired trash. My level 20 barbarian looked almost identical to my level 80 barbarian. Which looked just like every other barbarian in the game. Even the PVP gear is just restatted lower level dungeon gear.
Stats and feats of which the majority are broken or aren't functioning. Which leads back to gear. If stats don't do a thing then gear is pan amount to worthless. People are left without any gear goals because gear basically does nothing.
Much was promised at launch that isn't in the game and is nowhere on Funcom's agenda.
A complete PVP system. Drunken brawling. Mercenary system. Kingship DirectX10, etc...
Just watch ANY Hyborian insider especially the ones PRIOR to the games launch. They were suppose to be insights into the game and what we should expect. Basically they're blatant lies. Especially the Insider released RIGHT before the games launch. People were misled and they're pissed.
You say you play LOTRO and think that game funnels you??????
LOTRO is probably the most expansive MMORPG around. You see the top of the Misty Mountains a mile away you can go to that peak. You can take shortcuts through zones... So not sure what exactly you mean by funneling as LOTRO doesn't funnel players in any way shape or form.
You want to see funneling go ahead and buy AOC. You see that mountain way in the distance. You can't go there. Invisible walls all throughout the game- you're walking then BOOM invisible wall.
If you do not take the EXACT path/trail through the zone then there is NO OTHER way to where you want to go. There are no shortcuts and you are relegated to walking the same roads over and over and over. This is one of the LARGEST complaints about AOC. Might as well forget any exploration. On top of that EVERY single zone and area is an instance...Hope you like loading screens.
You seem bound and determined to try the thing. So I say go ahead. I can warn only so many people that the bridge is out but they keep on driving. Sure go ahead and buy it if you have money and time to throw away. Not my money they already ripped me off.
The graphics in AoC are great, and I really enjoyed the combat as well. Unfortunately the game in my opinion lacked story after level 20. The content 1-20 was really packed full of quests things to do, and of course finding out about your character, however once you get sent to the real MMO part of the game after level 20 it becomes just another outside of graphics and combat. Just go to a zone do the quests get your exp and keep doing that until about 55-60ish, then unless you have friends leveling is horribly dull, it's like playing an asian f2p game just grind those levels the quests we're few and far between at least they were a couple months ago before I stopped playing. The game has potential, it definetly had a good feel to it. Unfortunately if you want something new, you could maybe try war and see if thats your cup of tea. If not it's back to lotro or wow, or whatever you find enjoyable in the stockpile of average MMO's that are on the mmorpg.com game list.
The graphics are very nice, the melee combat is awesome. The game has a great foundation on which to build on.....in the future.
Are all the features in?
Which features are you referring to? Directx 10 graphics - No. Drunken Brawling - No. PVP is in the game, to a fashion. Though the next patch will introduce a Fugitive system.
What performance like?
Performance is good on the whole. There are a few spots which are dodgy for me (one of the villas), but its not game breaking.
Pops?
Now this is where things start to go downhill a bit. People might still be paying, but many ain't playing.
Whats broken in the classes/skills?
I play a Demo, and ignoring some of the feats you get from the feat tree which are completely useless, I don't think the Demo has it too bad.
Dead areas in content?
I'd say levels 55 - 60, 65 - 70, 75 - 80. Ymirs Pass zone is coming in (we don't know when exactly because the devs refuse to give details) which will fill levels 55 - 60. There are 2 dungeons which they are working on for level 80(but they can't give any more info). Then there's the Commons District, another zone which originally was going to be level 40+ until people started asking why. We've been told its level range is to be raised to either 65+ or 75+. No further details provided on the level range as of yet.
Whats the actual problem with the PvP if any?
Dunno, I don't PVP. From the general concensus I'd say there's a lack of depth and direction. At the moment its a little chaotic at high level on the PVP servers I believe.
The main problem? New content
The main issue with AOC is lack of clarity on what's coming and when. People ask the devs and the devs reply not to ask questions directly to them because it will have the opposite effect. So the community is left twiddling its thumbs. People don't know if the likes of Ymirs Pass and Commons District is going to be 1 week till test, or 1 month or 1 year.
The community is told "We will release it when it's ready" and "we are formulating a plan of action which we will HOPEFULLY get out to you when we can" and the immortal "We are already aware of the issue and have discussed it internally, no ETA".
People say "Give them time." But how much time is long enough before its too long? Its like crying wolf all the time. After a while, people will stop believing you.
Yes the PVP patch brought in PVP and that was a lot of work no doubt, but that took approximately 2 months with NO substantial patches in between. All bug fixes and tweaks were also held back until the PVP patch was so big in the patch notes, it made it look awesome. Which when the you consider that the list was an accumulation of several patches into one, it wasn't that awesome. Though the changes were definately needed.
And that's the problem. The community has been left in limbo, with promises of new PVE content without any tangible evidence appearing on the test servers as of yet. The test servers themselves haven't had an update of any substance since before 17th Sept when the PVP update went live.
For now, all is quiet on the Funcom front. Still, if you're feeling jaded about AOC, watch the new Darkfall video. That will perk your spirits up ROFL. How anyone has the guts to release such a pile of crap is anyones guess:
http://videos.neoseeker.com/gameplay/742-darkfall-gameplay-video/
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
Yes the PVP patch brought in PVP and that was a lot of work no doubt, but that took approximately 2 months with NO substantial patches in between. All bug fixes and tweaks were also held back until the PVP patch was so big in the patch notes, it made it look awesome. Which when the you consider that the list was an accumulation of several patches into one, it wasn't that awesome. Though the changes were definately needed.
How much work does it take to turn on an existing PVP system halfway? The PVP system has existed since BETA but they turned it off right before launch. It took them 4 months to get the PVP patch IN. Not 2 months... It was 2 months since they had released a patch prior to the PVP one. Even then the first 2 months of patches were just utter bullshit and fixed nothing and introduced more bugs.
So 10,000 people buy a Ford Garbage. A year later, 10 people are still driving it, but instead of reading anything else, you just want to hear from those 10 people.
1. Stats on gear don't work. Most of the time you have no idea what a stat is doing for you ingame. Hard to determine if a new piece of gear will make your characer more powerful
2. Gear progession is terrible. Besides the fact that you don't know what stats do, you might do a dungeon at lvl 50 and get a piece of gear that has lower numbers than a dungeon at lvl 30.
3. Seiging is broken. The biggest part of the overall pvp system was seiging. But it is still impossible to take over battlekeeps from guilds that quit the game 3 months ago
4. Populations - have dwindled so far that you won't be seiging anyway. Most realms have 1 guild left. Who are they going to seige against?
5. PvP in general still has no purpose. You run around empty fields killing each other, but there is no big objective. Most players are resorting to kill-trading just because populations are so low and mini-games never happen
6. Dungeons are still bugged beyond playable... there were making progress on them, but the latest patch broke a ton that haven't been fixed.
But yeah, at $20, it's probably worth it to try Tortage (the only fun part of the game). It will be like playing a single player game. Don't forget to wipe your credit card information before you cancel though.. they've been billing people early who quit
I said 2 months to reflect the amount of time between patches.
You sound like you ain't happy with the rate of development. And I agree.
Not all of the bug fixes and updates in the last patch hung on the PVP update surely. God knows why it was all held back together.
Fact is that since the PVP update there's not been any patch of any substance on the test server (looking at the test server forums). Which means that there's not going to be a patch on the LIVE servers this week. That means 2 weeks have passed since the PVP update. They relaxed the timeframe between patches from 1 week to 2 because they couldn't meet the deadlines. Which was ok. But now they're proving that they can't meet the 2 week deadline either.
My guess is that we'll see an update to the launcher info saying that they are moving to patching once per month on the LIVE servers, before we'll see a patch of any particular substance on the test server.
In the meantime, people start to be concerned about the lack of any kind of proof that development is continuing after the PVP update. Sure, we've had promises of content to come and little notes from the devs saying that our points have been noted. But where's the proof? Will people have to wait ANOTHER 2 MONTHS before they will see the likes of Ymirs Pass? And then ANOTHER 2 months before Commons District. And only THEN will the high levelers see any development to entice them to play? Does that mean that L80's won't see any content to meet their needs until 2009?
All the while, the community gets told "We'll release details when we're ready" or "We have noted your concerns, no ETA" or "We are working on a plan (we are penning it as we speak)". In poker, these sort of things are called "Tells". People notice them. And sooner or later they use them to call your bluff.
There comes a point where words just won't cut it. Action speaks louder than words. And when there's a NOTICABLE lack of communication about development progress on ALL forums (EU, US and Test server). People naturally start to ask questions.
The community (even those who have quit) REALLY want a reason to believe. But they ain't being given one.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
Here you will get a current players (as of yesterday and todays) opinion about AoC.
Performance:
AoC has now much better FPS and stability ingame. I was playing WH a few days ago before I put it on the shelf due to it's performance issues. AoC runs in fact at higher FPS than WH which is quite amazing considering the difference in graphics.
Siege:
I was recruited in a guild a day after I came back to AoC and have performed 1 Siege. Siege is totally working after last patch and it is immense fun. Not more to say about that really. It's working
PvP:
System in place and it works as intended. I know they are going to implement that special Notoriety system the patch after the next one, but to mee that is irrelevant. I am not going to kill people 7 levels lower than me anyway.. soo..
Content:
The alt I am playing now is in lvl 52 and questlog is full.
In General:
There is a official list of bugs FC is working on (available in the AoC forums). I started to read some of it, but its kind of boring nonegamebraking stuff like a boss acting weird or display of itens sometime in your backpack while in the trader get shuffeled up or other. The most important of these bugs are 2 bugs that affect some people. 1 screen might freeze up screen for a fraction of a second, which naturaly is annoying, 2. Some people AltTabing out to desktop crash game. The GD said the fix for these two will be patched inn next (if the biweekly schedule is adherred to that means coming wednesday).
Besides this AoC still has no DX10 and that new area "Ymirs something" in place.
Well i can see that you play alot of games so i don't no if my review is worthy.
I played WoW when it was released for 2 years and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.
After the 2 years of playing WoW i left before the expansion somethings in the game was changing that i didn't agree with but thats another story.
I have played AoC since release and i must say i enjoy playing the game.
Sure it's got it's bug's but what game when released hasn't, i remeber WoW when that was first released i think people forget what WoW was like when it was FIRST released.
AoC graphic's and combat system is the best iv'e ever played, but sadly it lacks in community.
A lot of people played at released and alot of people left a few months later, due to many bugs.
This has sadly made a great game imo fail.
The competion of WoW and Warhammer soon to be released, forced the unfinshed AoC on to our shelves and the result has been deverstating.
On the defence of AoC i think it will survive and i do think Warhammer will go under.
My reasons for this. AoC has improved since release. ( more content & balancing classes )
Warhammer has no durabilty. eg quick pvp fix 3 months later ( bored )
I might be wrong but imo i would join a good guild & play AoC.
pm me for my server and guild ( eu )
Hey there Torak. I have been playing AoC since launch and I have to say that the game has improved greatly since then. I have never suffered from the technical problems that a lot of others seemed to, discounting the very occasional CTD.
I find the game a lot of fun and the setting is brilliant. I am one of those people that would rather stick a red-hot needle in my eye than play another High-Fantasy, Elves and Dwarves MMO, so this is a breath of fresh air. The Low-Fantasy setting is a hell of a lot more interesting to me than the usual WoW, LotRO, EQ nonsense. The game is rather linear, if you are looking for a sandbox MMO and nothing else, then this is not the game for you.
The game does however have the perfect setting for Roleplay if that is your thing. I actually have RP characters on Aquilonia and Corinthia (both Euro RP-PvP servers) and the community on both these servers is top notch. The population on Aquilonia is very good, whereas Corinthia is a lot quieter, however Corinthia is probably a slightly more mature community than Aquilonia as Aquilonia suffers from having a lot of Non-RPers playing there due to a lack of PvP enabled servers being available at launch.
The straight PvP servers are pretty much mayhem since the PvP patch, I also have characters on Fury EU PvP and its like a madhouse atm, good luck moving from the spawnpoint if you roll a character there!
I have not tried any of the PvE servers and from the posts on the official forums they are rather dead atm apart from a select few where populations are still good. Crom EU PvE for example. Now on to your bullet pointed questions mate.
1. Are all the features in?
In a word, no. DX10 is still not in the game yet and the other half of the PvP system is still to be implemented. Also, there are a couple of new areas to be released soon, Ymir's Pass and the Commons District.
2. What performance like?
Like I said earlier, this has never been a problem for me, the patch just before launch sorted out all my performance related issues with the game (I was a closed beta tester).
3. Pops?
As I said mate, some servers are pretty quiet, the Euro Racial PvP server Twilight comes to mind here, its pretty dead. A lot of the PvE servers are quiet too apart from a couple. Roll PvP or RP-PvP and you should be fine population-wise though. I can only talk for the EU servers here though, no idea about the US ones.
4. Whats broken in the classes/skills?
Some classes have particular feats in their trees that don't seem to do much, or anything at all. Pitch-Pots in the Ranger/Waylayer tree springs to mind here. Class balancing is an ongoing issue and at the moment at least 1v1 the top dogs imho seem to be Bear Shaman and Tempest of Set. But of course in Team PvP that goes out the window and its the team with the best mixture of classes and best skills that wins the day. A little note on Class balance here - Rangers. Now, Rangers are a funny class in that up until around level 45-50 they are PvP Gods, then they are pretty crap until they get better, but certainly not overpowered at 80. The gem nerf in the last patch saw to that. Before the gem nerf, gem-stacking Guardians and Rangers were the rulers of endgame PvP, their damage potential was insane. That coupled with the gem-duping exploit led to the nerf. I just put that note in on Rangers because when anyone starts the game their first post is usually along the lines of 'FFS nerf Rangers Funcom!!'. Yes, I have an 80 Ranger, but it is not my main.
5. Dead areas in content?
Not really mate. You should be 22ish by the time you leave Tortage, your Racial Starting area will take you to around 34, you can then either do the quests in the other Racial Starting areas, do the group dungeon quests, or grind a bit till 40. At 40 you can go to The Noble District in Old Tarantia and that takes you to the late 40's, Field of the Dead will take you to mid fifties and then its on to The Eglophian Mountains till around 63. You still have Thunder River, Atzels Aproach and Keshatta to take you to level cap as well as a multitude of group dungeons, or if you prefer you can grind Villa's solo. Villa's are repeatable instances in the Noble District that level up along with you and they reset for you every 6 hours. It is possible to reach 80 without grinding Villa's though, you just have to do your group quests.
6. Whats the actual problem with the PvP if any?
None as far as I am concerned apart from the madness on the straight PvP servers. Introducing the PvP XP and rewards without the murder system has led to crazy spawn camp ganking etc. This is not near as bad a problem on the RP-PvP servers where people generally follow a code and don't just slaughter mindlessly. The siege system still has some flaws, but is a hell of a lot better than before. Lag is sometimes a problem here though.
Well, thats it mate, I have tried to be as unbiased as possible one way or the other. I'll just finish up by saying although this is not my preferred style of sandbox-based MMO, it is a great game for what it is and is a hell of a lot of fun. Does it still have problems? Most definitely yes, but those problems are minor and are well worth puting up with imho. Hope this helps Torak.
MMORPG History:
Playing - EVE Online.
Played (Retired) - AO, SWG, MxO, WoW, RFO, SoR, CoX, EQ2, GW, L2, Vanguard, LotRO, AoC, TCoS, Aion.
Favourite MMO - Pre-CU SWG, 3 Years, 4 Accounts, 2 Pre-CU Jedi (1 Pre-9).
Awaiting - Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Secret World, Earthrise.
Want to play an MMo? Formula is simple: Buy EVE Online or Warhammer, if you like PvP, or buy EQ2 or Vanguard if you want PvE.
Gaius
Hi there! Currently playing AOC and still enjoying it. PVP is more balanced than in other games I have tried. The graphics are magnificent. There is lots to do and see, so definitely worthe the investment into buying the disc. The gameplay you get out of Tortage covers the cost of the game!. Please dont listen to what is said on a lot of the Forums, I have never read so much hate in my life!...I dont even think most of those people play! Online there is a real community happening...sure you get your gankers/griefers/hate speakers....but you also get a lot of helpers/fellow questers/friends. Each major update has brought with it much improvement, and content is growing. My only grief at the moment would be in 80 content...not much there, so I have rolled an alt, but sieges are promised, as well as an expansion...so plenty to look forward to.
If you are in Oceanic region, roll on Bloodspire and Ill see you in game
Most of people playing WOW, WAR, EQ2, EVE, Tabula Rasa etc etc etc are FANBOIS, so thx for what we all know already. May I ask you what MMO masterpiece are you playing?
I’m actually playing EVE and AoC, both games are great, and you know, I don’t give a shit the opinion of TROLLS.
Whatever
I'll be as fair as can be, in short it's not as bad as you may see written on any given forum. However, it's also IMO not as good as many professional reviews may lead you to believe.
Features: I personally feel the game has a lot to offer in this department. Though it can still feel incomplete in certain areas. It feels less restrictive than games like LOTRO which I also currently play. As in you can pretty much go all over (racial zones) and find quests at your level. Outside of tortage, the world opens up in a fashion much like EQ2, though initially you have a wider variety of areas to explore.
However, it must be stressed it is far more restrictive than older MMO's like SWG, daoc, EQ etc...
If you're a pvper by nature you have a lot more options in this game than you would as pve oriented player, keep that in mind.
Think of it like this, if you liked the concept behind EQ2 ffa pvp, however felt it lacked a rewarding feeling or the game play to support it AOC is the fix to those problems.
As has been pointed out some of the really interesting features like massive sieges and bar brawling have not been added, nor seem to be on any timetables.
If you need to know more specific elements in game play, respond accordingly I'll do my best to give you a run down.
Performance: Back in may/june things were far worse than they are now, I still see reports of problems. However, I have not really had any in the last month. I just built a new PC myself this week and my performance has skyrocketed, avg. 50+ fps in most areas, 30+ in larger cities (hubs).
Haven't had a crash since returning or a gray map. I also have not experienced any more falling through terrain, which happened regularly at launch.
Population: The show stopper or buzz kill of AOC at present. This is the biggest problem the game has right now IMO, thin populations can add up to really boring PVP and slow pvp leveling. I can only speak from personal experience on my server alone Deathwhisper. Your best bet would be to check out which servers have more new players on, before deciding on one. Just hit the player tab in the ui when you enter the game, do a search for players around your level. Might take a few minutes out of your initial playtime, but it would be worth it in the long run.
Dead areas: Personally I haven't run into any (at level 40) though I've seen mixed reports on the current status of this issue. I've seen people say content completely drys up, then I see others saying they're near endgame and still have full quest logs. This is the problem with forum information in general, you never know the truth until you see it yourself.
PVP problems: First and foremost as stated earlier, population. Secondly, I love it as a ranger. There's a few issues with balancing at least based on information gathered. IN a fair (lvl) fight I've won and lost, never saw myself at a game play disadvantage or losing due to balance. Though during victories I have received the usual bs /tells informing me I won because of such.
The Bad: I can not sing all these praises without mentioning the short comings now can I ?
. The game still needs a ton of work, even the PVP system is incomplete at the present time. When these things will be introduced is anyone's guess at the moment. The last major patch took months to roll off testing into live. The next hasn't even reached the testing stages yet, it's safe to say it may be a while before that even happens.
Performance for me has improved, though there are many reports suggesting otherwise. Until that ceases or subsides drastically. It's hard to say the game has excellent performance. I couldn't even tell you who's in the minority or majority in regard to this issue right now.
Populations need stimulating or merging that much is obvious. It looks like it's going to have to be merging. With the success of WAR I can't see AOC reaching higher subscriptions anytime soon. They bit off more than they could chew in regard to servers. They opened far to many, now the communities suffer due to that horrible decision.
Hope that helps.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Instead of asking other people to help you make a choice on rather to buy this game or not, why dont you simply ask someone to send you a buddy key? Playing the game is really the only way to tell if you will like this game or not.
People still playing AoC are going to tell you that the game is great. The people who have quit are going to tell you that it isnt great. This game may be great for you or it may not be great for you but the only way to truely tell if you are going to like this game is by playing it for a few days on a buddy key.
Personally, AoC wasnt the game that I hoped it would be so I have stopped playing it. However, that doesnt mean that other people wont find it entertaining.
I will say this though, and I think everyone will agree with me. AoC has great graphics and the first 20 levels of the game(Tortage area) are excellent. With that said, dont make your decission based solely on Tortage because the rest of the game isnt like that at this point in time. Some people love the combat system while other hate it. Just because it is different doesnt make it better. Play it and see what you think. You may like it and you may not.
Youre comapring the launch of wow with the launch of aoc? That is uterly absurd. Thats like comparing a Lexus to a Pinto.
people didnt leave aoc because of bugs. They left because the game simply sucks.
AoC will not survive. At least not under funcom. Check the stock price lately? Its less than half of its original release price. That alone should tell you its going down.
AoC improved since release? Wrong again, the game was better at launch than it was when I left a few months ago.
Warhammer has no durability? wtf does that mean? There is so much to do in warhammer its crazy. People talk about bad graphics but I will take warhammer graphics over AoC pretty lagfest graphics any day if it makes the game run smoother.
When AoC was released, the first 2 days there was a que to get into Deathwhisper. After the first 2 days I never had a que again. In warhammer, there is a que EVERY NIGHT around peak times and this is 2 weeks after launch.
Anyone who buys AoC off the shelf today is an idiot. They are practicly giving them away on ebay.
To the OP...youve been warned. Dont do it!
And I'm sure you won't get the just the most rosiest outlook from people who are stil playing this game haha!!! who is actually going to "tell" you that anything is wrong with the game if they still play it?
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I don't remember all the questions and I dont want to look so I'll just guess.
Content-No it's not all currently in but most is being reworked which is probably a good thing. Gaute godager was the quick fix man. Most of the systems he was over would probably not be any good.
Lvling ranges-I didn't run into trouble till the upper 50's then again at the upper 60's everything else was fine.
Performance-Much improved for me over the past few weeks. No more crashes, better framerate .
Feats- I play a conquerer so most of our feats do work. That doesn't mean they work good enough though. I took a 4 point talent that gave my banner healing. It heals for 3 every 3 seconds. So basically 1 hp per second.
Balance-Last patch did seem to help but theres still some work to be done as there always will be.
Sieges-Not 100% but probably 90% working. Works well enough to where you'll have fun and won't care about the problems.
Merges-In process
Future of AoC-I may be in the minority but I think the future looks good. The new game director is really taking the reigns. Ymirs pass, part 2 of pvp patch. DX10, House of Crom. and many other things to look forward to.
My best piece of advice would be to take everything you read with a piece of salt. The conan forums will probably be leaning more towards positive and these forums are full of bitter people that hate everything. The most I could tell you is get your hand on a trial play it and make up your own mind. It's not a bad game just had some issues and for some reason was held to the stake unlike any game before. Even ones that were 10x worse which I believe is due to the people who play MMO's these days but that's another story.