Where are the Age of Conan Reviews?

[TripleAAA]

I've been tempted to get the game, but I think I'll wait another 4-6 months for WAR (Warhammer Online).

DAoC was my most favorite MMO yet and if Mythic makes it anything like that I'll be in good shape.

 

[Pepsei]

since i still have my free month after i cancelled my account, i figure might as well try another character. i guess it wouldn't hurt right?

with a different expectation, i try a pom.... the difference is night and day.
no more dance dance revolution like combat.... and at early level, i can take down a mob faster than conquerer...

maybe they'll fix trader soon. they did fixed some annoying quests and made it not as tedious... (for example, collect 30 croc skins, wasn't it used to be 40?, and they drop off all crocs and sometimes 2)

 

[KMFJD]

I started with a Necromancer, did not like him so i switched to a Tempest of Set, really like them so far, much easier to kill stuff atm...

 

[Vehemence]

GameZone's "reviewed" the game as it is at the first 20 levels, which is strange, but they gave it a 9.4/10.

There's a lot of little bugs, quirks, and UI things that definitely need work, and only a few major things that need work (Trader, DT and assasin issues, etc) but on a whole I agree...it's a high quality game.

 

[Wreckem]

Originally posted by: jzodda

Originally posted by: Pepsei

Originally posted by: Skott
PC Gamer really only covers the 1-20 levels. No one has fully played AoC to L80 to tell the whole real story yet. Including the game reviewers. Levels 1-20 is only a small part of the game.

sadly, there are quite a few level 80's already.

i believe some were using the demonologist trick to get from lvl 50 to 80 fast...

Not only themselves, but they were grouping up people to powerlevel their friends as well. I witnessed it myself and find it very disheartening that these kinds of exploits made it in from beta. Many of the 80s so far seem to have gotten there by exploits.

Like Ive said in another thread. Its quite apparent beta was only to test the servers.

 

[Wreckem]

Originally posted by: dNor
GameZone's "reviewed" the game as it is at the first 20 levels, which is strange, but they gave it a 9.4/10.

There's a lot of little bugs, quirks, and UI things that definitely need work, and only a few major things that need work (Trader, DT and assasin issues, etc) but on a whole I agree...it's a high quality game.

The first 20 levels are highly polished. Everything else is not.

 

[Skott]

Yeah, it needs more polishing. Its not a perfect game but its not a bad game either. Like most MMO developers they intend to polish and fix a lot more after launch than before launch. Unfortunately this is a industry standard with MMOs. A standard I wish they'd drop and push for more completion before launch. I'd give it a 8.5/10 but thats just me. I'm more demanding though than many reviewers.

 

[Ausm]

Originally posted by: Jumpem

Originally posted by: Harmattan
I was able to find two "first impression" articles so far:

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/age-o...ventures/875522p1.html

Also, I watched a few minutes of Gamespot's marathon yesterday and it looked pretty good, albeit a near-clone of WoW. This, in addition to a couple user reviews I found made it seemed worth while. I just picked up the game and am installing it now (holy shite, it's taking forever...10 minutes now and just started to the 2nd disc).

However, I just found out the DX10 support has been removed from the game until at least fall. Extremely disappointing...

Much more than a WoW clone... gore, nudity, and far better graphics.

Aye, It blows away WOW in both gameplay and graphics imo.

 

[Vehemence]

Originally posted by: Wreckem

Originally posted by: dNor
GameZone's "reviewed" the game as it is at the first 20 levels, which is strange, but they gave it a 9.4/10.

There's a lot of little bugs, quirks, and UI things that definitely need work, and only a few major things that need work (Trader, DT and assasin issues, etc) but on a whole I agree...it's a high quality game.

The first 20 levels are highly polished. Everything else is not.

Everything has been fine all in all as well. My guild and I have been have a great time in the later levels.

Yeah, it needs more polishing. Its not a perfect game but its not a bad game either. Like most MMO developers they intend to polish and fix a lot more after launch than before launch. Unfortunately this is a industry standard with MMOs. A standard I wish they'd drop and push for more completion before launch. I'd give it a 8.5/10 but thats just me. I'm more demanding though than many reviewers.

That summed up pretty much all my thoughts, well said.

 

[Wreckem]

Originally posted by: Skott
Yeah, it needs more polishing. Its not a perfect game but its not a bad game either. Like most MMO developers they intend to polish and fix a lot more after launch than before launch. Unfortunately this is a industry standard with MMOs. A standard I wish they'd drop and push for more completion before launch. I'd give it a 8.5/10 but thats just me. I'm more demanding though than many reviewers.

ATI graphics cards dont work all that well, no ETA. Unexcusable, should have been fixed in beta.
Traders and Banking is down, no ETA. If I had to guess, it could be a long while.
Some resource gathering is completely broken.
Some of the higher level stuff is broken to varying degrees.
Alot of various bugs known since beta made it in. Unexcusable, should have been fixed in beta.

Yeah alot of MMOGs do have a plan to polish stuff once released, but those games didnt have maxed characters in less than a week. Even non power levelers are hitting the 50s now.

 

[Miklebud]

Traders, Mailing is now available. It was fixed yesterday.

 

[skace]

I reached my first possibly non-polished zone. Unfortunately, I didn't write down the name, but it is a Namedian village/fortress off of the wilds of zaltan. There was mobs there and a couple quests, but largely unpopulated, you can basically run certain routes through the area where you won't even see monsters. Feels largely empty. Village huts with nothing near them / etc. A large door at the end of it that wasn't even interactive.

However, Connach valley in cimeria is polished all the way to 30 so far. Some slight complaints about itemization and quest design, but other than that, it was a very fun zone.

 

[Scrimmy]

Originally posted by: Miklebud
Traders, Mailing is now available. It was fixed yesterday.

Yeah, there was a patch yesterday that fixed quite a few of the biggest issues. Traders and the bank were fixed and work quite well now, the chat UI got some major changes so it's much easier to use and read (although it still needs work), some quests were cleaned up, and there were some important spell/ability/feat fixes and tweaks.

I think all of this bodes pretty well, as their turnaround time on a lot of these fixes has been significantly faster than Blizzard was with woW after release. Anyone remember how long it took them to fix the loot bug? Six months? A year?

Just as an aside, I have to say bear shaman is the most fun class I've ever played in an MMO. For anyone who ever played woW and wanted a feral druid/enhancement shaman/ret paladin that didn't suck (or melee/healers in general), I can't recommend this class enough. Healing is actually tons of fun, as your biggest priorities are keeping your HoTs up at all times, mitigating damage through your own DPS and stuns/knockbacks, then saving your burst heal for emergencies. All balanced by pretty low health rather than low damage, so you don't feel like you're just standing there twiddling your thumbs while your group takes care of whatever is trying to kill you. Much more of a skin-of-your-teeth kinda playstyle, really a good time.

 

[xboxist]

Originally posted by: Scrimmy

Originally posted by: Miklebud
Traders, Mailing is now available. It was fixed yesterday.

I think all of this bodes pretty well, as their turnaround time on a lot of these fixes has been significantly faster than Blizzard was with woW after release. Anyone remember how long it took them to fix the loot bug? Six months? A year?

"I don't have permission to do that." -- ? That one? I still get that randomly. Have to run like 75 yards away to reset the looting animation.

 

[Scrimmy]

Originally posted by: xboxist

Originally posted by: Scrimmy

Originally posted by: Miklebud
Traders, Mailing is now available. It was fixed yesterday.

I think all of this bodes pretty well, as their turnaround time on a lot of these fixes has been significantly faster than Blizzard was with woW after release. Anyone remember how long it took them to fix the loot bug? Six months? A year?

"I don't have permission to do that." -- ? That one? I still get that randomly. Have to run like 75 yards away to reset the looting animation.

Haha, I was actually thinking of the other loot bug. Right after release, there was a bug where you would try to loot something, but you would get stuck in the kneeling position. You couldn't cast or attack or do anything, but you'd skate everywhere with the loot window locked into your UI. Eventually they fixed it for the most part, but I remember there was a tin vein in The Barrens right by Mankrik's wife that would still hit you with the bug like a year and a half after a release.

I can't get to it from work, but I remember someone did a Youtube take-off on it, where they stop-motioned themselves skating everywhere IRL with one knee down like the bug. Was pretty clever. As a telemark skier, I always had a soft spot in my heart for this one.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Scrimmy
Haha, I was actually thinking of the other loot bug. Right after release, there was a bug where you would try to loot something, but you would get stuck in the kneeling position. You couldn't cast or attack or do anything, but you'd skate everywhere with the loot window locked into your UI. Eventually they fixed it for the most part, but I remember there was a tin vein in The Barrens right by Mankrik's wife that would still hit you with the bug like a year and a half after a release.

I can't get to it from work, but I remember someone did a Youtube take-off on it, where they stop-motioned themselves skating everywhere IRL with one knee down like the bug. Was pretty clever. As a telemark skier, I always had a soft spot in my heart for this one.

That was never a bug, it was poor database performance. When you bent down to loot the corpse it would query the lootdb to populate the corpse, but there was a massive backlog of traffic into the database servers and you'd get stuck waiting.

I don't know all the intricacies, but I know that Blizzard had to basically rethink their database strategies which allowed them to de-centralize the auction houses and other such things.

I forget what causes the "you don't have permission to do that" message. Could be lag, but I always thought it was when you tried to loot a corpse that had items destined for another member of the group (round robin/etc). I think you could eventually get the items if the other person checked the corpse and then didn't decide to loot them, or the safety period on it timed out such that anyone could loot.

Besides, If we are going to get nitpicky about loot bugs, AoC has a bug where the icons don't even show up properly until you run your mouse over them. Hey look at that epic sword I just got! oh, it's a hat.

I had some fun with the skiing also, by the way. It was at it's peak in Stress Test when you can basically skii around a zone. You could also break the flight paths.

 

[Scrimmy]

Yeah, definitely not trying to argue that AoC is flawless, it's pretty clearly got a lot of bugs and to fix and stuff to clean up. It was more intended as some perspective for people who are comparing a three and a half year old game to one that's a week and a half old.

On the whole, though, I've been having a great time with the game since it game. There are no game-breaking issues I've run into, the world is really atmospheric and immersive, and the overall gameplay is just wicked fun. Really can't wait to see how the siege warfare and large-scale guild PvP works out. It's still not done, but they've still got some time before anyone's really ready to get heavily into it.

I guess part of it is just the nature of an MMO; they're always works in progress. Feature creep is huge when the developers are creating the world, then the whole process gets extra tricky when it's time for the expectations to be reined in. WAR will go through the exact same growing pains when it finally comes out, and I do hope it's a good game. This is my favorite genre of game now (really the only kind I play apart from good single-player RPGs and heavily story-driven FPSs like Bioshock), so the more good and innovative MMOs there are out there, the better off we all are.

 

[Engraver]

It is an ok game so far. It definitely has some balance issues and bugs that need to be worked out though. Some of the animations are very crude as well.

I've played a Dark Templar to 28 only to find out that it is basically gimped for PVP currently. I've switched to a Conqueror which seems to be better so far, but have yet to have any PVP encounters with it.

 

[JasonandBecky]

Can you not play pvp? Are there pvp servers or is pvp combat allowed via consent only, or is it just ffa?

Also, how is the solo play? Is it a decent game for casual players?

I am recovering from my 8 year EQ addiction and do not plan on going down that road again.

 

[Miklebud]

Originally posted by: JasonandBecky
Can you not play pvp? Are there pvp servers or is pvp combat allowed via consent only, or is it just ffa?

Also, how is the solo play? Is it a decent game for casual players?

I am recovering from my 8 year EQ addiction and do not plan on going down that road again.

There are:
PvP servers = Free For All (Be Prepared to be ganked)
PvP Culture Servers = Team Deathmatch type PvP (only 3 races, which can fight race vs. race)
PvE Servers = PvP free. No fighting with other characters

It's quite easy and enjoyable to play solo. I'm having lots of fun on my PvP server. I play with a buddy, and we both enjoy "trophy hunting" (PvPing higher level characters).

 

[cheapherk]

Review here.

 

[Skott]

I play solo mostly but I'm on a PvE server. I do group with people at times to tackle the bigger quests (multiple mobs of same or higher level) but not often. As far as leveling goes any class can solo but for obvious reasons grouped with 2+ makes things easier to tackle and level much faster. Quests give the fastest leveling and the best items I have found so far. One thing I have noticed on my server (Dagoth) is that there a lot of drama in the OOC chat but whenever I have a question on where, why, or how to do something I've always gotten friendly help. Its a good friendly community but there are drama queens in the OOC chat.

Edit: I haven't tried PvP yet. Concentrating on getting to Level 80 first.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: Wreckem

Originally posted by: Skott
Yeah, it needs more polishing. Its not a perfect game but its not a bad game either. Like most MMO developers they intend to polish and fix a lot more after launch than before launch. Unfortunately this is a industry standard with MMOs. A standard I wish they'd drop and push for more completion before launch. I'd give it a 8.5/10 but thats just me. I'm more demanding though than many reviewers.

ATI graphics cards dont work all that well, no ETA. Unexcusable, should have been fixed in beta.
Traders and Banking is down, no ETA. If I had to guess, it could be a long while.
Some resource gathering is completely broken.
Some of the higher level stuff is broken to varying degrees.
Alot of various bugs known since beta made it in. Unexcusable, should have been fixed in beta.

Yeah alot of MMOGs do have a plan to polish stuff once released, but those games didnt have maxed characters in less than a week. Even non power levelers are hitting the 50s now.

You are wrong. I have been using an AMD HD3850 512 since last friday when I picked up my box from Best Buy. I had been using my other PC which had the EA + 10 days sub going that uses 2 8800GSs.

My game runs much smoother on the HD 3850 at widescreen than my SLI setup at 4:3. 1680x1050 vs 1280x1024 if you want to know ).

Just because a bunch of people have old cards doesn't mean the entire line is having troubles. The only visual complaint was up until Tuesday the intro screens stuttered but that is fixed now. In game, the graphic detail is amazing and fluid even with 2xMSAA and 16x AF applied to cranked up settings.

This game has a few issues that are being addressed but I am having an absolute blast. My guild is pushing further and further into lvl's every day and will have a max skilled 80 within the weekend. We have several people on mounts already and are making sure we cover the bases on having a balanced class makeup when we pull together more and take on more players.

PVP is pretty excellent and meaningful which I didn't think was going to be possible. Resources in this game are scarce despite the multiple instances for game enviroments. You NEED to kill other people if you want to level up at anything other than a snails pace.

When the bugs are worked out with the player cities expect a siege warfare to be epic, unlike anything that has come before it.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: Engraver
It is an ok game so far. It definitely has some balance issues and bugs that need to be worked out though. Some of the animations are very crude as well.

I've played a Dark Templar to 28 only to find out that it is basically gimped for PVP currently. I've switched to a Conqueror which seems to be better so far, but have yet to have any PVP encounters with it.

No, Dark Templars are not gimped for PVP. You just have to play to their feat make-up. You need Soul Barrier asap. You also need to keep auto-facing ON and just use your right mouse to rotate when you need it to stop working.

You need to actively switch your stances depending on the MOMENT. If you aren't being attacked then you need to be in Frenzy. If you are being attacked then you need Soul Barrier + Defensive Stance + active blocking ( PRESS X FOR HEAVENS SAKE ) and people will quit attacking you or require multiple people to kill you.

Don't forget that when Soul Barrier you can run a mana potion as a heal potion. That is 2 heal potions that can be active at once. Why you would not do this is crazy. That is +HoT for free that the other soldiers do not have.

Later levels you will get CC and DPS after you respec into a more long term build. We have 3 Dark Templars in our guild. I decided to stop rolling mine and focus on a Tempest of Set for class balance to our make-up. We have a Euro wing to our guild + good friends with a hardcore euro guild for 100% dedicated players ( you play or you are kicked, period ).

We know how to play our classes. This info comes from personal experience + others who have mastered the class thus far.

 

[Superrock]

Awesome game if you can run it properly. Very high system reqs. Lots of bugs. Horrible latency issues are pretty common. Bad customer service in terms of responding to latency issues.