Like nearly every MMO I've ever played, AoC slows down the leveling too much after the first few. It's not as bad as LOTRO (that one slows down to an unbearable crawl by level 12). It's not as bad as Rift (that got boring around level 15). But it's bad. I'm not new to the genre anymore, and I'm not entertained by killing countless things so repetitively that it puts me into a trance. It's okay sometimes, especially if I don't have to interrupt said trance to trot back and forth to various quest givers, but it's not okay enough to spend weeks or months doing it and calling that entertainment.
I want one of two things. I either want something substantially different and more entertaining than a quest grind to 'progress' in MMOs, or I want to level fast. I especially hate leveling fast at the beginning, then getting bored as everything slows down. At least one of the oft-quoted Skinner Box articles claims that fast early leveling, with lots of new skills as rewards, is just a way to condition the hamsters to their wheel and keep them grinding on long after everything slows down and gets boring.
I guess I make a lousy hamster these days, because my reaction to getting bored around level 20 is to roll a dozen alts just to make sure every race, class, and skill combination is equally dull after the first few levels. Then I quit the game in disgust. Which is what I eventually did in AoC, after I realized that pvp really isn't that easy to find or fun for a solo player and doesn't sufficiently compensate for the level grind. However, the unique combat system probably was responsible for keeping me playing long after I would have quit anything else.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
I think, if you haven't played Mount and Blade, you might not understand why some might say the melee is still button-mashing in AoC.
Try it.. it has a free trial to level 7 or some such (warbands, not fire n blade, that one's game is nerfed to a crappy quest based system instead of a sandbox)
That's the sort of combat MO wanted to replicate (not very well at all). And no, DF isn't anything close either.
You hit the nail on the head here. Mount and Blade combat is something that everyone should try and then say that Conan combat is any good. Or oblivion.
Conan was half way there, it was close but no cigar. It was a button masher that simply was not the swing your sword and it might hit something, real physics. Not even close.
Darkfall and Mortal Online did actually get closer to proper combat.
M&B combat is fun and takes some timing and skill.Unfortunately we're talking about MMO combat. If M&B were made into an MMO it would likely have hotbar combat like the majority.
It is still a button mashing game and for me it's gamebreaking. Having to press 5-6 keys to do 1 move is annoying to me.
Yep, I'm with ya. The problem I have with it, is that it takes what's always been a negative about past MMO's(you spend less time looking at the action on the screen and more on cooldown bars and effect icons) and makes it FAR worse. What good is having a bitchin' move where you rip a dude's heart out of his chest and laugh when you're busy UI staring, trying to set up your next combo?
Why do people stare at the UI, okay very obviously for the first few times and with new skills it's logical to get to know them, but in time very quickly you can easely remember them and just look at what's going on and forget about looking at the UI, atleast I can and I can't imagine any seasoned gamer to really have problems remembering something that simple.
Overall I did enjoy the game when I returned in Unchained, I didn't experiance the lag some complain about (apart from a minor mishap on my end at some patch that didn't allow me to play the DX10 version for about a week) but then again I must have a nasa build system (lol), but overall it lacked the feeling of it being a virtual world to me, which I feel would be the the ultimate Age of Conan if it was more of a virtual world aka sandbox game instead the themepark it is.
Game is still the same ... loading time is gigantic , game lags like hell ....
I know this is not your fault but I have to say that having an SSD helped major time with the problem I had with AoC's loading screens and texture loading.
guys, guys, you are the reason I dont often botter looking at this foruns anymore, but I this case I feel the urge to join th conversation., to me looks like the bashers are in grather numbers then the lovers, and youi konw why?
The lovers are too buzy PLAYING THE GAME!
I will go back to the game and enjoy one of best comunity in game I have crossed paths with.
I will go back in game to one of the most fun combat system ever.
and I will go back to one of the best guilds I have ever played with.
I think, if you haven't played Mount and Blade, you might not understand why some might say the melee is still button-mashing in AoC.
Try it.. it has a free trial to level 7 or some such (warbands, not fire n blade, that one's game is nerfed to a crappy quest based system instead of a sandbox)
That's the sort of combat MO wanted to replicate (not very well at all). And no, DF isn't anything close either.
I remember how the promised similarity to m&b hooked me into aoc, back then 3years down to release (early 2005). But it was an empty promise, the AoC combat system is way from the experience you have in m&b. also they completely disregarded mounted combat (what they had in 2008 as mounted combat is a joke, compared to m&b).
i have to admit that after playing AoC I could not play any other "oldschool" mmorpg after that, because the combat of these games (e.g. lotro) felt far more slow and boring after the AoC experience. So I have to say that AoC _to_some_extent_ delivered a fast(er) paced combat.
BUT on a close look it is just more difficult for the user, it requires you to push the skill button and then you must follow a certain combo of directional strikes to unleash that melee skill with special effects (e.g. slow, bleed) and if you fail that it won't come. in other games you would have had the same by pressing merely one button. so really no big deal in terms of innovation. but on the other side it did not offer any more tactical value or depth. e.g. there is no correllation between the directional strikes of your character and the opponent's, as you would have in real combat (and NO, darkfall doesn't have this either, it's just stupid bashing in only 4 directions, that's not swordmanship).
ok maybe that directional defense and shield stuff was new- granted. an insignificant feature in my book.
prior to aoc launch there was a community proposal how to change the combo system, there you would just follow a sequence of directional strikes and IF it correllates to a sequence of a certain skill (super backstab of darkness) it would just produce this move on the go. this system would have had allowed to change the sequence in the go and maybe switch to another strike that has the same beginning but another ending (and effect). which would allow you to produce feints or react to the opponents combo if you was able to anticipate the strike that he is trying to do.
THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN INNOVATIVE. but they screwed it up.
i logged into AOC some days ago for trying the unchained experience and after looking into the item shop and the restrictions the whole thing just felt like a huge money grab to me and i couldn't motivate myself to play this in the f2p version, but neither could i motivate myself to pay a subscription.
"BUT on a close look it is just more difficult for the user, it requires you to push the skill button and then you must follow a certain combo of directional strikes to unleash that melee skill with special effects (e.g. slow, bleed) and if you fail that it won't come. in other games you would have had the same by pressing merely one button. so really no big deal in terms of innovation."
False. In the mainstream / bestseller / traditional (call it whatever you like) MMOs positioning in combat means nothing; or you face your target or you don't; attacks are either single targeted (to the tabed mob) or aoe. And here is the big difference between AoC and them where you hit everyone that is on the way of your sword swings or your spell path. If you didn't realized it, you never learned how to play it. Proper positioning and sometimes slight moves between parts of a combo are essencial.
About Mount & Blade started the tutorial yesterday. To be honest I hated it. Ok don't mash your keys, mash and move your mouse... but I will give it more time and I will try to learn it, although I have my doubts about how much I will enjoy it...
I am trying to figure out what exactly some people are looking for when it comes to combat. Do they want some kind of mind probe so they do not have to touch their keyboard? Do they want to play a PC game using a console controller?
What the hell?
I long for the day a MMO will use a combat system akin to the one in Mount & Blade. It's a bit like Conan, but w/o the button smashing. You click left of the guy, you swing from the left. You click on him, you puncture him. And so on. You actually look at the guy you're fighting. You NEED to look at him, instead of learning silly key combinations. And it is way cool.
Game is still the same ... loading time is gigantic , game lags like hell ....
I know this is not your fault but I have to say that having an SSD helped major time with the problem I had with AoC's loading screens and texture loading.
An SSD makes a huge, huge difference in playability for a lot of games. I was amazed at how much just getting a SSD improved AoC / Rift.
Firstly this reeks of a paid review. As a number of people have noted this review is very light on details of the many problems and issus the game has.
Allow me to set the scene. I was until recently a very loyal and hardcore AoC player since launch. At the time I left, I had done everything there was to do with the game including 22 level 80 characters and 10 of those in full Tier 2 (2 in full Tier 3). Suffice to say I'm about as knoweldgeable as anyone else is likely to be about the game. This doesn't make my opinion mean more of course, but it does at least mean my opinion is informed (while still being an opinion )
Here's a little writeup on the issues I have I posted elsewhere.
The game is irrevocably flawed due to chronic mismanagement and there is absolutely no sign at all that Funcom have the will, desire, interest or ability to actually sort out the issues. After 3 years, it's clear they can't/won't actually make the game what it could have been. I see a few of these issues have been adressed recently - whoopie! Bare in mind it's taken them 3 YEARS to fix them.
- Bugs still in the game from the very beginning such as the imbalance of damage based on sex (damage is linked to the length of the animation played when your character performs a damage action. Female characters have faster animation so do less damage - I kid you not. This is now supposedly fixed sort of)
- Raids broken and fixed then broken again (the last expansion May 2010 was supposed to come with the Tier 4 raiding but only shipped with 2 of the bosses enabled. Both bosses were broken for a long long time, were fixed, broken again and now lie apparently half broken) Meanwhile, raiding guilds are left with the same T3 content they've been clearing for at least 12 months. (since I wrote this, the expansion has brought T3.5 raids - way to go. Don't fix or expand the already existing, broken T4 that was supposed to be COMPLETE 18 months ago instead introduce something the player base didn't really want)
- PVP exploits hugely unbalancing the game (Jost one is a number of classes, but mainly the Bear Shaman, have a PVP exploit of aborting the combat combination animation (called combo-skipping) that gave them a sizeable advantage in PVP. It's been known about for over a year and only now are they discussing fixing it. (they've now supposedly fixed it but it's apparently introduced other equally game breaking problems))
- Sieges crash repeatedly and randomly - the siege system has been broken pretty much since launch (remember it was one of THE main selling points). It goes through various rounds of being broken then being partially fixed again but mostly broken. Sieges are possible, just about, but still suffer random crashes. The fact that on any server theres 8 siege points and theres not even 4 guilds on any server anywhere that could get anywhere near the 48 needed for a full siege force makes this a moot point however (YES you can join with other guilds, yes you can siege but with 8 siege points, theres really not all that much going on)
- Massive PVP imbalace due to game mechanics - ANYONE who's played AoC in the past 12 months will know all about the Shrines of Bori and the MASSIVE cluster**** that turned out to be. Too much to go into but PVP10 gives you such a massive advantage in PVP that anyone PVP1-5 might as well just not bother (again yes you can work your way up to it over a VERY long period of time but the imbalance is staggering and soul destroying)
- The GUI, interface and guild management options are weak at best - the default GUI is dire and for some classes so bad (Conq, Jugger Guard, Necro) that if you stay with the default GUI you might as well not bother. Addon GUI's exist and make it usable, but that shouldn't be the norm. Guild management options are incredibly weak.
- Bag space is laughable - A minor issue really on the scale of it but when you've struggled to manage and control 7 or 8 "bank" characters because you can't store anything on them it becomes a major pita The latest "F2P" option introduces a multitude of "social" vanity armour and items to buy only it all uses the same slots as your potions, tradeskill items and everything else. Way to go to generate revenue. The items are helpfully BoP.
- Lag, instability and glitches - It was all relatively stable when I left but thats relative. It's been so bad at times that you just had to stop playing for a few weeks until they eventually patched the problems. Every patch night was a running "joke" in the guild. Whatever it was they did on the night before patch ALWAYS caused lag and instability. The lag issues have never gone away. They are always there to some degree.
Need I really go on (because I could, believe me)? I could go on and on and on about the problems and issues. Unless you have been consistently and repeatedly beaten into submission on the game for years.
My complaint lies firmly with Funcom and their inability to execute and follow through on their promises. The game at it's core is exceptional. There is nothing quite like it. But AoC is a tragic story of unrealised potential and missed opportunities (with a hefty dose of dire attitude and approach to boot)
I bought this at launch, played less than 2 weeks. Playerbase pushed me out and it was so out of this world, bone headed I couldn't even call it ragequit. I laughed as I logged out for the last time. The area in question was patched shortly after that but it was the player initiated aspect that made me never reinstall the game.
Very early you get access to an open ended PvP zone and I went there at level 10 or so. A level 35 guy caught me at a respawn point and slaughtered me with pointless 1 shots for a good 20 minutes. He got no points, no skills, no tactical understanding from doing it because I never toughed the mouse or the keyboard the whole time and he used the exact same one shot to kill my low health newly rez'ed char. Over and over and over and over and ....
I laughed at it, let him do it for around 20 minutes to half an hr before I just closed the game. The idea that someone was allowed to, willing to and wanted to do something so dumb shit lame painted the game in a bad light for me and it never went away. I played EVE for 6 years, I understand that some players will destroy others work in a mindless impotence just because they can but in EVE the got a cheesy killmail or some 'tears in local' or some other lamer giggle. This guy got nothing. He could have been a macro for all I know.
Its too bad for AoC. I watched forums and I wasn't the only fatality to this lack of forward thing that some people will no matter how stupid, do things in game "cuz".
@ xxGBHxx you bring some negative points, the majority of them already adressed in previous comments (and the bag and bank space I don't find it that important but everyones has the right to state their opinion).
I should also say that your last sentence pretty much summarizes what I feel about AoC.
On the other hand it is weird to see someone who leveled 22 chars to level cap, raided with 10 of them, calling fanboy to others and being so harsh about the overall game experience. So one of two: or you had some good times in AoC even with all the problems you state and in the end it isn't that bad, you are just burned out with this game; or you are a masochist.
False. In the mainstream / bestseller / traditional (call it whatever you like) MMOs positioning in combat means nothing; or you face your target or you don't; attacks are either single targeted (to the tabed mob) or aoe. And here is the big difference between AoC and them where you hit everyone that is on the way of your sword swings or your spell path. If you didn't realized it, you never learned how to play it. Proper positioning and sometimes slight moves between parts of a combo are essencial.
Overrated. Position-dependent moves were in several other games, e.g. DAoC. What you describe is a cone-ae model for all melee strikes. Granted, both things weren't in WoW and it's clones. Nothing revolutionary.
About Mount & Blade started the tutorial yesterday. To be honest I hated it. Ok don't mash your keys, mash and move your mouse... but I will give it more time and I will try to learn it, although I have my doubts about how much I will enjoy it...
When I got the game in 2006, it took me at least 3 hours to get through the quarterstaff fighting tutorial, it's not easy. You might want to switch the control of the directional strikes to "relative direction to target" or something like this. this was the mode i got along with more easy than the other two (and it was the original default mode i believe). Over time you will find the perfect rythm for your weapon and how to string attacks etc. if you fight against more than 1 opponent positioning also gets extremely important (but more for defensive purposes, several guy beating you up will kill you in no time).
Also, you might have misinterpreted my ranting so that M&B is a superior swordfighting sim. In fact it is not. From the mechanics other games offer, it might be somewhat innovative. From the perspective of realworld swordmanship it is almost as far from that, as most melee games.
What I liked most in the game was the mounted combat aspect which I find more fleshed out from all games I know of today. You don't have many games where you can charge with your galloping warhorse and a couched lance into a mob of infantry. Also the archery uses a physics model, so being a dangerous horse archer on a galloping horse requires quite a lot of player skill (and char skill on top of that). All in all, it is a nice simulation of medievalish skirmish battles with various troop types (infantry, cavalry, archers). and for some time the promise of this experience to be repeated in AoC was fuelled by Dev posings and so on. When after release it turned out to be far from that and a lot of potential just dumped.
M&B far from perfect, don't get me started on the things that could be improved. Pretty much everything, really! But name me another game with a similar combat experience!
About Mount & Blade started the tutorial yesterday. To be honest I hated it. Ok don't mash your keys, mash and move your mouse... but I will give it more time and I will try to learn it, although I have my doubts about how much I will enjoy it...
(whoops the forum ate half my post)
When I got the game in 2006, it took me at least 3 hours to get through the quarterstaff fighting tutorial, it's not easy. You might want to switch the control of the directional strikes to "relative direction to target" or something like this. this was the mode i got along with more easy than the other two (and it was the original default mode i believe). Over time you will find the perfect rythm for your weapon and how to string attacks etc. if you fight against more than 1 opponent positioning also gets extremely important (but more for defensive purposes, several guy beating you up will kill you in no time).
Also, you might have misinterpreted my ranting so that M&B is a superior swordfighting sim. In fact it is not. From the mechanics other games offer, it might be somewhat innovative. From the perspective of realworld swordmanship it is almost as far from that, as most melee games.
What I liked most in the game was the mounted combat aspect which I find more fleshed out from all games I know of today. You don't have many games where you can charge with your galloping warhorse and a couched lance into a mob of infantry. Also the archery uses a physics model, so being a dangerous horse archer on a galloping horse requires quite a lot of player skill (and char skill on top of that). All in all, it is a nice simulation of medievalish skirmish battles with various troop types (infantry, cavalry, archers). and for some time the promise of this experience to be repeated in AoC was fuelled by Dev posings and so on. When after release it turned out to be far from that and a lot of potential just dumped.
M&B far from perfect, don't get me started on the things that could be improved. Pretty much everything, really! But name me another game with a similar combat experience!
(sorry, something went wrong with my previous posts)
Regarding M&B
When I got the game in 2006, it took me at least 3 hours to get through the quarterstaff fighting tutorial, it's not easy. You might want to switch the control of the directional strikes to "relative direction to target" or something like this. this was the mode i got along with more easy than the other two (and it was the original default mode i believe). Over time you will find the perfect rythm for your weapon and how to string attacks etc. if you fight against more than 1 opponent positioning also gets extremely important (but more for defensive purposes, several guy beating you up will kill you in no time).
Also, you might have misinterpreted my ranting so that M&B is a superior swordfighting sim. In fact it is not. From the mechanics other games offer, it might be somewhat innovative. From the perspective of realworld swordmanship it is almost as far from that, as most melee games.
What I liked most in the game was the mounted combat aspect which I find more fleshed out from all games I know of today. You don't have many games where you can charge with your galloping warhorse and a couched lance into a mob of infantry. Also the archery uses a physics model, so being a dangerous horse archer on a galloping horse requires quite a lot of player skill (and char skill on top of that). All in all, it is a nice simulation of medievalish skirmish battles with various troop types (infantry, cavalry, archers). and for some time the promise of this experience to be repeated in AoC was fuelled by Dev posings and so on. When after release it turned out to be far from that and a lot of potential just dumped.
M&B far from perfect, don't get me started on the things that could be improved. Pretty much everything, really! But name me another game with a similar combat experience!
The fact that this game has an 8 is amazing. And you think 10 out of 10 in anything is accepteable? This game is not PERFECT. 10 out of 10 is perfection. Just FYI
AoC is alright, but nothing special, I have a 80 barb, 71 ToS and a 51 Guardian. The game lacks a steady/loyal population... The AC never has any items of value, it has a very limited section due to the dead/slow population. I have been re-sub'd the past month and located 1 group after playing each night for about 6 days in a row. Funcom, they're beating a dead horse with AoC. The game just never took off from the gate like some of the other MMOs on the market.
The downside is no one really wants to grind out those 80 levels, most people came into AoC for the lore/PVP, but found themselves in a dead zone finding groups, quests for their level. Most were just trying to grind out levels, and from the dead space which is the lack of groups. When the game launched you almost had to just kill mobs from 67-70 because quests were no where to be seen.
AoC had high hopes, but it was a failure in terms of where it is today. Its F2P and still funcom has a hard time keeping people around, and that says a lot. I just hope TSW is a much better game in terms of keeping us fans involved, grouped, and with good steady content, that's actually worth while in game.
Please explain how "you can totally skip Tortage". Perhaps I'm reading too much into your assertion but, to me, that means that there is an option available when you create a new character to actually SKIP Tortage entirely, and go to the starting area for your race. If there is no such option, then your statement is false.
The balance of your post suggests that what you really mean that it's possible to shorten the amount of time you have to spend in Tortage. Finding a "work-around" so you can avoid the "Tortage grind" isn't the same thing.
And, unless things have changed, you have to meet minimum level requirements before you can do each night mission. Which means that you either have to do some daytime quests, or you have to grind for levels.
Am I really being that obtuse? Is my request really that difficult to understand? Or are those who are bent on defending this game being disingenuous, and trying to trivialize my concerns by posting misinformation.
Which is it?
I think I remember the guy behind the counter in the Tavern giving an option to "skip" tortage, I could be mistaken though.
I think I recall that, too, but I don't think you could do it unless you were a certain level. After all, no mob in the open world is less than lvl 20. So... there's no real bypass other than the free lvl 50 mentioned above. A couple years ago they gave out unlimited double xp potions. I remember being able to use them and level almost solely on the night missions. That's about as close as it gets to any kind of bypass.
Tortage is pretty cool, IMO. Now, is it as cool as having separate Human/Night Elf/Dwarf/gnome/Tauren/Undead/Goblin/etc... starting areas? In terms of replayability, that would be a big fat no.
This game has its good points, but it has too many bad points for me to continue to play it.
The fact that you can buy items in the store that buff your stats for combat in PvE AND PvP puts it in the "will never play again" category for me. (Well, I'm old enough to know better than say "never", but that's going to have to change, along with some other things, and I just don't see it happening.)
I was one of the early subscribers, but bailed after a month because the game was an overall disappointment. It wasn't Conan. I recently went back (with a different attitude, not expecting the game to be Hyboria, but expecting it to be just a game that played decently) because of the new solo instances, and that's the good part, there are solo instances. There are of course other good things about the game too. The running story, even though it only comes up at certain level points in the game, is a good one, and feels personal. It also is made to adjust a bit to your class, something WoW devs could learn a lot from. Alternate Advancement, always a good thing, not just running around doing achievements so your achievement score goes up, allowing you to get - nothing. Another thing WoW devs could learn from AoC devs.
I love AoC melee combat. The be-headings never got old to me (of course I didn't play the game for years, either. ) Cloth melee (Herald of Xotli) - great fun! (Can be frutrating at times, but very satisfying, too.) I hate the fact that the servers get bogged down doing whatever they do, and you can click hotkeys or press keys at times to no avail - it can get you killed fighting mobs that are usually cake to you. Talk about frustrating!
But the game isn't meant for real players, in the end. It's made for players who want to level up without even playing (you get a free level-up every 4 days of paid subscription time), players who think it's okay to buy items that help you in combat (I imagine the absolute best items come from group raids, but you can still get nice items by buying something like $15-25 U.S. worth of FunCom points - I forget what they call them exactly - and using those to buy weapons and armor.) Age of CONAN should be about hard-core MMO R. P. G. - and what it's about is level 80 roflicopterxx ganking your level10 character because he's so bad at PvP he can't beat anyone within 10 levels of his own. (That being said, there is a real PvP server now.)
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
This game is not worth an "8" rating unless someone paid you to write this article. In which case, I hope they paid you well.
There is no way in he** I would ever play this game again. Funcom treats it's customers as though they owe them for paying to play their crappy game. Their attitude shows in everything their customer service department does and it's not customer service. They should call it customer abuse.
Do yourself a favor and don't bother with this game. It may be fun at first but when you finally realise how imcomplete, buggy and thrown together this game is, you'll agree.
Beautiful landscapes? Maybe, but that doesn't make a game.
Firstly this reeks of a paid review. As a number of people have noted this review is very light on details of the many problems and issus the game has.
Allow me to set the scene. I was until recently a very loyal and hardcore AoC player since launch. At the time I left, I had done everything there was to do with the game including 22 level 80 characters and 10 of those in full Tier 2 (2 in full Tier 3). Suffice to say I'm about as knoweldgeable as anyone else is likely to be about the game. This doesn't make my opinion mean more of course, but it does at least mean my opinion is informed (while still being an opinion )
Here's a little writeup on the issues I have I posted elsewhere.
The game is irrevocably flawed due to chronic mismanagement and there is absolutely no sign at all that Funcom have the will, desire, interest or ability to actually sort out the issues. After 3 years, it's clear they can't/won't actually make the game what it could have been. I see a few of these issues have been adressed recently - whoopie! Bare in mind it's taken them 3 YEARS to fix them.
- Bugs still in the game from the very beginning such as the imbalance of damage based on sex (damage is linked to the length of the animation played when your character performs a damage action. Female characters have faster animation so do less damage - I kid you not. This is now supposedly fixed sort of)
- Raids broken and fixed then broken again (the last expansion May 2010 was supposed to come with the Tier 4 raiding but only shipped with 2 of the bosses enabled. Both bosses were broken for a long long time, were fixed, broken again and now lie apparently half broken) Meanwhile, raiding guilds are left with the same T3 content they've been clearing for at least 12 months. (since I wrote this, the expansion has brought T3.5 raids - way to go. Don't fix or expand the already existing, broken T4 that was supposed to be COMPLETE 18 months ago instead introduce something the player base didn't really want)
- PVP exploits hugely unbalancing the game (Jost one is a number of classes, but mainly the Bear Shaman, have a PVP exploit of aborting the combat combination animation (called combo-skipping) that gave them a sizeable advantage in PVP. It's been known about for over a year and only now are they discussing fixing it. (they've now supposedly fixed it but it's apparently introduced other equally game breaking problems))
- Sieges crash repeatedly and randomly - the siege system has been broken pretty much since launch (remember it was one of THE main selling points). It goes through various rounds of being broken then being partially fixed again but mostly broken. Sieges are possible, just about, but still suffer random crashes. The fact that on any server theres 8 siege points and theres not even 4 guilds on any server anywhere that could get anywhere near the 48 needed for a full siege force makes this a moot point however (YES you can join with other guilds, yes you can siege but with 8 siege points, theres really not all that much going on)
- Massive PVP imbalace due to game mechanics - ANYONE who's played AoC in the past 12 months will know all about the Shrines of Bori and the MASSIVE cluster**** that turned out to be. Too much to go into but PVP10 gives you such a massive advantage in PVP that anyone PVP1-5 might as well just not bother (again yes you can work your way up to it over a VERY long period of time but the imbalance is staggering and soul destroying)
- The GUI, interface and guild management options are weak at best - the default GUI is dire and for some classes so bad (Conq, Jugger Guard, Necro) that if you stay with the default GUI you might as well not bother. Addon GUI's exist and make it usable, but that shouldn't be the norm. Guild management options are incredibly weak.
- Bag space is laughable - A minor issue really on the scale of it but when you've struggled to manage and control 7 or 8 "bank" characters because you can't store anything on them it becomes a major pita The latest "F2P" option introduces a multitude of "social" vanity armour and items to buy only it all uses the same slots as your potions, tradeskill items and everything else. Way to go to generate revenue. The items are helpfully BoP.
- Lag, instability and glitches - It was all relatively stable when I left but thats relative. It's been so bad at times that you just had to stop playing for a few weeks until they eventually patched the problems. Every patch night was a running "joke" in the guild. Whatever it was they did on the night before patch ALWAYS caused lag and instability. The lag issues have never gone away. They are always there to some degree.
Need I really go on (because I could, believe me)? I could go on and on and on about the problems and issues. Unless you have been consistently and repeatedly beaten into submission on the game for years.
My complaint lies firmly with Funcom and their inability to execute and follow through on their promises. The game at it's core is exceptional. There is nothing quite like it. But AoC is a tragic story of unrealised potential and missed opportunities (with a hefty dose of dire attitude and approach to boot)
This is perhaps the silliest post I've ever read at MMORPG.com. I highlighted the only pertinent information in yellow. Essentially the guy got burned out on the game after playing the hell out of it for years... so for 4 years it was the best game around, and now it's the worst. Sort of like having a manic-depressive as your head cheerleader.
Comments
Like nearly every MMO I've ever played, AoC slows down the leveling too much after the first few. It's not as bad as LOTRO (that one slows down to an unbearable crawl by level 12). It's not as bad as Rift (that got boring around level 15). But it's bad. I'm not new to the genre anymore, and I'm not entertained by killing countless things so repetitively that it puts me into a trance. It's okay sometimes, especially if I don't have to interrupt said trance to trot back and forth to various quest givers, but it's not okay enough to spend weeks or months doing it and calling that entertainment.
I want one of two things. I either want something substantially different and more entertaining than a quest grind to 'progress' in MMOs, or I want to level fast. I especially hate leveling fast at the beginning, then getting bored as everything slows down. At least one of the oft-quoted Skinner Box articles claims that fast early leveling, with lots of new skills as rewards, is just a way to condition the hamsters to their wheel and keep them grinding on long after everything slows down and gets boring.
I guess I make a lousy hamster these days, because my reaction to getting bored around level 20 is to roll a dozen alts just to make sure every race, class, and skill combination is equally dull after the first few levels. Then I quit the game in disgust. Which is what I eventually did in AoC, after I realized that pvp really isn't that easy to find or fun for a solo player and doesn't sufficiently compensate for the level grind. However, the unique combat system probably was responsible for keeping me playing long after I would have quit anything else.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
M&B combat is fun and takes some timing and skill.Unfortunately we're talking about MMO combat. If M&B were made into an MMO it would likely have hotbar combat like the majority.
Game is still the same ... loading time is gigantic , game lags like hell ....
Why do people stare at the UI, okay very obviously for the first few times and with new skills it's logical to get to know them, but in time very quickly you can easely remember them and just look at what's going on and forget about looking at the UI, atleast I can and I can't imagine any seasoned gamer to really have problems remembering something that simple.
Overall I did enjoy the game when I returned in Unchained, I didn't experiance the lag some complain about (apart from a minor mishap on my end at some patch that didn't allow me to play the DX10 version for about a week) but then again I must have a nasa build system (lol), but overall it lacked the feeling of it being a virtual world to me, which I feel would be the the ultimate Age of Conan if it was more of a virtual world aka sandbox game instead the themepark it is.
I know this is not your fault but I have to say that having an SSD helped major time with the problem I had with AoC's loading screens and texture loading.
Yay!!!
My MMO baby gets 8!! Now, finally people start to agree with me. Head over and join us in AoC.
The worlds most underapprechiated masterpice is waiting on you
The Ultimate Breakdown
Tried the game last week, and quickly remembered why I quit last time:
- Too much instaing. Up to several load screens just to do a single quest.
- The starting area feels like a solo game. And that's exactly what the night time part is.
It may be better at higher levels, but these two issues broke the game for me.
guys, guys, you are the reason I dont often botter looking at this foruns anymore, but I this case I feel the urge to join th conversation., to me looks like the bashers are in grather numbers then the lovers, and youi konw why?
The lovers are too buzy PLAYING THE GAME!
I will go back to the game and enjoy one of best comunity in game I have crossed paths with.
I will go back in game to one of the most fun combat system ever.
and I will go back to one of the best guilds I have ever played with.
Cya guys
I hope you find your game.
And believe me It will not be SWTOR...
I remember how the promised similarity to m&b hooked me into aoc, back then 3years down to release (early 2005). But it was an empty promise, the AoC combat system is way from the experience you have in m&b. also they completely disregarded mounted combat (what they had in 2008 as mounted combat is a joke, compared to m&b).
i have to admit that after playing AoC I could not play any other "oldschool" mmorpg after that, because the combat of these games (e.g. lotro) felt far more slow and boring after the AoC experience. So I have to say that AoC _to_some_extent_ delivered a fast(er) paced combat.
BUT on a close look it is just more difficult for the user, it requires you to push the skill button and then you must follow a certain combo of directional strikes to unleash that melee skill with special effects (e.g. slow, bleed) and if you fail that it won't come. in other games you would have had the same by pressing merely one button. so really no big deal in terms of innovation. but on the other side it did not offer any more tactical value or depth. e.g. there is no correllation between the directional strikes of your character and the opponent's, as you would have in real combat (and NO, darkfall doesn't have this either, it's just stupid bashing in only 4 directions, that's not swordmanship).
ok maybe that directional defense and shield stuff was new- granted. an insignificant feature in my book.
prior to aoc launch there was a community proposal how to change the combo system, there you would just follow a sequence of directional strikes and IF it correllates to a sequence of a certain skill (super backstab of darkness) it would just produce this move on the go. this system would have had allowed to change the sequence in the go and maybe switch to another strike that has the same beginning but another ending (and effect). which would allow you to produce feints or react to the opponents combo if you was able to anticipate the strike that he is trying to do.
THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN INNOVATIVE. but they screwed it up.
i logged into AOC some days ago for trying the unchained experience and after looking into the item shop and the restrictions the whole thing just felt like a huge money grab to me and i couldn't motivate myself to play this in the f2p version, but neither could i motivate myself to pay a subscription.
so screw it. they haven't learned a bit
"BUT on a close look it is just more difficult for the user, it requires you to push the skill button and then you must follow a certain combo of directional strikes to unleash that melee skill with special effects (e.g. slow, bleed) and if you fail that it won't come. in other games you would have had the same by pressing merely one button. so really no big deal in terms of innovation."
False. In the mainstream / bestseller / traditional (call it whatever you like) MMOs positioning in combat means nothing; or you face your target or you don't; attacks are either single targeted (to the tabed mob) or aoe. And here is the big difference between AoC and them where you hit everyone that is on the way of your sword swings or your spell path. If you didn't realized it, you never learned how to play it. Proper positioning and sometimes slight moves between parts of a combo are essencial.
About Mount & Blade started the tutorial yesterday. To be honest I hated it. Ok don't mash your keys, mash and move your mouse... but I will give it more time and I will try to learn it, although I have my doubts about how much I will enjoy it...
I long for the day a MMO will use a combat system akin to the one in Mount & Blade. It's a bit like Conan, but w/o the button smashing. You click left of the guy, you swing from the left. You click on him, you puncture him. And so on. You actually look at the guy you're fighting. You NEED to look at him, instead of learning silly key combinations. And it is way cool.
An SSD makes a huge, huge difference in playability for a lot of games. I was amazed at how much just getting a SSD improved AoC / Rift.
And the fanboys come out swinging.
Firstly this reeks of a paid review. As a number of people have noted this review is very light on details of the many problems and issus the game has.
Allow me to set the scene. I was until recently a very loyal and hardcore AoC player since launch. At the time I left, I had done everything there was to do with the game including 22 level 80 characters and 10 of those in full Tier 2 (2 in full Tier 3). Suffice to say I'm about as knoweldgeable as anyone else is likely to be about the game. This doesn't make my opinion mean more of course, but it does at least mean my opinion is informed (while still being an opinion
)
Here's a little writeup on the issues I have I posted elsewhere.
The game is irrevocably flawed due to chronic mismanagement and there is absolutely no sign at all that Funcom have the will, desire, interest or ability to actually sort out the issues. After 3 years, it's clear they can't/won't actually make the game what it could have been. I see a few of these issues have been adressed recently - whoopie! Bare in mind it's taken them 3 YEARS to fix them.
The latest "F2P" option introduces a multitude of "social" vanity armour and items to buy only it all uses the same slots as your potions, tradeskill items and everything else. Way to go to generate revenue. The items are helpfully BoP.
- Bugs still in the game from the very beginning such as the imbalance of damage based on sex (damage is linked to the length of the animation played when your character performs a damage action. Female characters have faster animation so do less damage - I kid you not. This is now supposedly fixed sort of)
- Raids broken and fixed then broken again (the last expansion May 2010 was supposed to come with the Tier 4 raiding but only shipped with 2 of the bosses enabled. Both bosses were broken for a long long time, were fixed, broken again and now lie apparently half broken) Meanwhile, raiding guilds are left with the same T3 content they've been clearing for at least 12 months. (since I wrote this, the expansion has brought T3.5 raids - way to go. Don't fix or expand the already existing, broken T4 that was supposed to be COMPLETE 18 months ago instead introduce something the player base didn't really want)
- PVP exploits hugely unbalancing the game (Jost one is a number of classes, but mainly the Bear Shaman, have a PVP exploit of aborting the combat combination animation (called combo-skipping) that gave them a sizeable advantage in PVP. It's been known about for over a year and only now are they discussing fixing it. (they've now supposedly fixed it but it's apparently introduced other equally game breaking problems))
- Sieges crash repeatedly and randomly - the siege system has been broken pretty much since launch (remember it was one of THE main selling points). It goes through various rounds of being broken then being partially fixed again but mostly broken. Sieges are possible, just about, but still suffer random crashes. The fact that on any server theres 8 siege points and theres not even 4 guilds on any server anywhere that could get anywhere near the 48 needed for a full siege force makes this a moot point however (YES you can join with other guilds, yes you can siege but with 8 siege points, theres really not all that much going on)
- Massive PVP imbalace due to game mechanics - ANYONE who's played AoC in the past 12 months will know all about the Shrines of Bori and the MASSIVE cluster**** that turned out to be. Too much to go into but PVP10 gives you such a massive advantage in PVP that anyone PVP1-5 might as well just not bother (again yes you can work your way up to it over a VERY long period of time but the imbalance is staggering and soul destroying)
- The GUI, interface and guild management options are weak at best - the default GUI is dire and for some classes so bad (Conq, Jugger Guard, Necro) that if you stay with the default GUI you might as well not bother. Addon GUI's exist and make it usable, but that shouldn't be the norm. Guild management options are incredibly weak.
- Bag space is laughable - A minor issue really on the scale of it but when you've struggled to manage and control 7 or 8 "bank" characters because you can't store anything on them it becomes a major pita
- Lag, instability and glitches - It was all relatively stable when I left but thats relative. It's been so bad at times that you just had to stop playing for a few weeks until they eventually patched the problems. Every patch night was a running "joke" in the guild. Whatever it was they did on the night before patch ALWAYS caused lag and instability. The lag issues have never gone away. They are always there to some degree.
Need I really go on (because I could, believe me)? I could go on and on and on about the problems and issues. Unless you have been consistently and repeatedly beaten into submission on the game for years.
My complaint lies firmly with Funcom and their inability to execute and follow through on their promises. The game at it's core is exceptional. There is nothing quite like it. But AoC is a tragic story of unrealised potential and missed opportunities (with a hefty dose of dire attitude and approach to boot)
i loved how they choosed "UNCHAINED" for the f2p model..................whast a joke........
I bought this at launch, played less than 2 weeks. Playerbase pushed me out and it was so out of this world, bone headed I couldn't even call it ragequit. I laughed as I logged out for the last time. The area in question was patched shortly after that but it was the player initiated aspect that made me never reinstall the game.
Very early you get access to an open ended PvP zone and I went there at level 10 or so. A level 35 guy caught me at a respawn point and slaughtered me with pointless 1 shots for a good 20 minutes. He got no points, no skills, no tactical understanding from doing it because I never toughed the mouse or the keyboard the whole time and he used the exact same one shot to kill my low health newly rez'ed char. Over and over and over and over and ....
I laughed at it, let him do it for around 20 minutes to half an hr before I just closed the game. The idea that someone was allowed to, willing to and wanted to do something so dumb shit lame painted the game in a bad light for me and it never went away. I played EVE for 6 years, I understand that some players will destroy others work in a mindless impotence just because they can but in EVE the got a cheesy killmail or some 'tears in local' or some other lamer giggle. This guy got nothing. He could have been a macro for all I know.
Its too bad for AoC. I watched forums and I wasn't the only fatality to this lack of forward thing that some people will no matter how stupid, do things in game "cuz".
@ xxGBHxx you bring some negative points, the majority of them already adressed in previous comments (and the bag and bank space I don't find it that important but everyones has the right to state their opinion).
I should also say that your last sentence pretty much summarizes what I feel about AoC.
On the other hand it is weird to see someone who leveled 22 chars to level cap, raided with 10 of them, calling fanboy to others and being so harsh about the overall game experience. So one of two: or you had some good times in AoC even with all the problems you state and in the end it isn't that bad, you are just burned out with this game; or you are a masochist.
(whoops the forum ate half my post)
When I got the game in 2006, it took me at least 3 hours to get through the quarterstaff fighting tutorial, it's not easy. You might want to switch the control of the directional strikes to "relative direction to target" or something like this. this was the mode i got along with more easy than the other two (and it was the original default mode i believe). Over time you will find the perfect rythm for your weapon and how to string attacks etc. if you fight against more than 1 opponent positioning also gets extremely important (but more for defensive purposes, several guy beating you up will kill you in no time).
Also, you might have misinterpreted my ranting so that M&B is a superior swordfighting sim. In fact it is not. From the mechanics other games offer, it might be somewhat innovative. From the perspective of realworld swordmanship it is almost as far from that, as most melee games.
What I liked most in the game was the mounted combat aspect which I find more fleshed out from all games I know of today. You don't have many games where you can charge with your galloping warhorse and a couched lance into a mob of infantry. Also the archery uses a physics model, so being a dangerous horse archer on a galloping horse requires quite a lot of player skill (and char skill on top of that). All in all, it is a nice simulation of medievalish skirmish battles with various troop types (infantry, cavalry, archers). and for some time the promise of this experience to be repeated in AoC was fuelled by Dev posings and so on. When after release it turned out to be far from that and a lot of potential just dumped.
M&B far from perfect, don't get me started on the things that could be improved. Pretty much everything, really! But name me another game with a similar combat experience!
(sorry, something went wrong with my previous posts)
Regarding M&B
When I got the game in 2006, it took me at least 3 hours to get through the quarterstaff fighting tutorial, it's not easy. You might want to switch the control of the directional strikes to "relative direction to target" or something like this. this was the mode i got along with more easy than the other two (and it was the original default mode i believe). Over time you will find the perfect rythm for your weapon and how to string attacks etc. if you fight against more than 1 opponent positioning also gets extremely important (but more for defensive purposes, several guy beating you up will kill you in no time).
Also, you might have misinterpreted my ranting so that M&B is a superior swordfighting sim. In fact it is not. From the mechanics other games offer, it might be somewhat innovative. From the perspective of realworld swordmanship it is almost as far from that, as most melee games.
What I liked most in the game was the mounted combat aspect which I find more fleshed out from all games I know of today. You don't have many games where you can charge with your galloping warhorse and a couched lance into a mob of infantry. Also the archery uses a physics model, so being a dangerous horse archer on a galloping horse requires quite a lot of player skill (and char skill on top of that). All in all, it is a nice simulation of medievalish skirmish battles with various troop types (infantry, cavalry, archers). and for some time the promise of this experience to be repeated in AoC was fuelled by Dev posings and so on. When after release it turned out to be far from that and a lot of potential just dumped.
M&B far from perfect, don't get me started on the things that could be improved. Pretty much everything, really! But name me another game with a similar combat experience!
The fact that this game has an 8 is amazing. And you think 10 out of 10 in anything is accepteable? This game is not PERFECT. 10 out of 10 is perfection. Just FYI
AoC is alright, but nothing special, I have a 80 barb, 71 ToS and a 51 Guardian. The game lacks a steady/loyal population... The AC never has any items of value, it has a very limited section due to the dead/slow population. I have been re-sub'd the past month and located 1 group after playing each night for about 6 days in a row. Funcom, they're beating a dead horse with AoC. The game just never took off from the gate like some of the other MMOs on the market.
The downside is no one really wants to grind out those 80 levels, most people came into AoC for the lore/PVP, but found themselves in a dead zone finding groups, quests for their level. Most were just trying to grind out levels, and from the dead space which is the lack of groups. When the game launched you almost had to just kill mobs from 67-70 because quests were no where to be seen.
AoC had high hopes, but it was a failure in terms of where it is today. Its F2P and still funcom has a hard time keeping people around, and that says a lot. I just hope TSW is a much better game in terms of keeping us fans involved, grouped, and with good steady content, that's actually worth while in game.
I think I recall that, too, but I don't think you could do it unless you were a certain level. After all, no mob in the open world is less than lvl 20. So... there's no real bypass other than the free lvl 50 mentioned above. A couple years ago they gave out unlimited double xp potions. I remember being able to use them and level almost solely on the night missions. That's about as close as it gets to any kind of bypass.
Tortage is pretty cool, IMO. Now, is it as cool as having separate Human/Night Elf/Dwarf/gnome/Tauren/Undead/Goblin/etc... starting areas? In terms of replayability, that would be a big fat no.
This game has its good points, but it has too many bad points for me to continue to play it.
The fact that you can buy items in the store that buff your stats for combat in PvE AND PvP puts it in the "will never play again" category for me. (Well, I'm old enough to know better than say "never", but that's going to have to change, along with some other things, and I just don't see it happening.)
I was one of the early subscribers, but bailed after a month because the game was an overall disappointment. It wasn't Conan. I recently went back (with a different attitude, not expecting the game to be Hyboria, but expecting it to be just a game that played decently) because of the new solo instances, and that's the good part, there are solo instances. There are of course other good things about the game too. The running story, even though it only comes up at certain level points in the game, is a good one, and feels personal. It also is made to adjust a bit to your class, something WoW devs could learn a lot from. Alternate Advancement, always a good thing, not just running around doing achievements so your achievement score goes up, allowing you to get - nothing. Another thing WoW devs could learn from AoC devs.
I love AoC melee combat. The be-headings never got old to me (of course I didn't play the game for years, either.
) Cloth melee (Herald of Xotli) - great fun! (Can be frutrating at times, but very satisfying, too.) I hate the fact that the servers get bogged down doing whatever they do, and you can click hotkeys or press keys at times to no avail - it can get you killed fighting mobs that are usually cake to you. Talk about frustrating!
But the game isn't meant for real players, in the end. It's made for players who want to level up without even playing (you get a free level-up every 4 days of paid subscription time), players who think it's okay to buy items that help you in combat (I imagine the absolute best items come from group raids, but you can still get nice items by buying something like $15-25 U.S. worth of FunCom points - I forget what they call them exactly - and using those to buy weapons and armor.) Age of CONAN should be about hard-core MMO R. P. G. - and what it's about is level 80 roflicopterxx ganking your level10 character because he's so bad at PvP he can't beat anyone within 10 levels of his own. (That being said, there is a real PvP server now.)
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
This game is not worth an "8" rating unless someone paid you to write this article. In which case, I hope they paid you well.
There is no way in he** I would ever play this game again. Funcom treats it's customers as though they owe them for paying to play their crappy game. Their attitude shows in everything their customer service department does and it's not customer service. They should call it customer abuse.
Do yourself a favor and don't bother with this game. It may be fun at first but when you finally realise how imcomplete, buggy and thrown together this game is, you'll agree.
Beautiful landscapes? Maybe, but that doesn't make a game.
This is perhaps the silliest post I've ever read at MMORPG.com. I highlighted the only pertinent information in yellow. Essentially the guy got burned out on the game after playing the hell out of it for years... so for 4 years it was the best game around, and now it's the worst. Sort of like having a manic-depressive as your head cheerleader.