Age of Conan - The Verdict

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SasqWatch
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Oli Welsh's opinion on the early days of AoC.
We expected one other factor to be holding us back. After the beta test proved to be an unstable, resource-hungry, slow and jerky mess that required constant patching and server downtime, we feared the worst for the bloodthirsty upstart. Age of Conan would simply not be ready to be thrust upon hundreds of thousands of demanding gamers this week, we thought. We were wrong.
In actual fact, the Norwegian developer and game operator has pulled off one of the smoothest MMO launches in history. We've been playing the retail version of the game since last weekend, and it has been largely bug-free and effortlessly playable, running reliably and at a fair lick of speed. The transition from limited early access to full-blown launch in the US earlier this week went well, and there's no reason not to expect the same in Europe today.
Only persistent problems with players getting stuck in one mid-level zone, Lacheish Plains, have blotted its copybook. It's still hardly accessible - you'll need an ocean of hard-drive space, the latest drivers and Windows updates, some patience with patch downloads, and preferably a ton of RAM and a beefy graphics card, if you want to play Age of Conan. Once you're in, though, you'll get what you paid for. In purely technical terms, we've no hesitation in recommending you play it from day one.
That, of course, is only one of many sides to this story.
More information.
 
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> been largely bug-free

oh, except the fact that auction house and in-game-mail is broken

> In purely technical terms, we've no hesitation in recommending you play it from day one.

unless, you want auction house and in-game-mail

I really hate when early opinions fail to be objective.

That is not to say that what is broken won't be fixed - I'm sure it will. But let's not lie to ourselves. Yes, AoC is here and we've all been waiting for it. Perhaps, somehow it's cool to beatup on Blizzard for Hellgate (because Hellgate wasn't D3), but not cool to beatup on Funcom for AoC (because AoC isn't WoW).
 
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AoC is slowly turning into the greatest tragedy since Vanguard or Hellgate.

I'm truly sorry, but there it is.
 
I'm looking forward to exploring outside of the shackles of Tortage with my conqueror. Leveling and end-game content will really determine what's down the road for AoC.

At least, I have to say, AoC crashed only once on me (though generally always barfs on exit). So at least the client appears to be more-or-less stable, unlike Hellgate after launch.

It is hard to believe that this game has been in development for so long though.
 
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I pretty much agree with the review - some parts of AoC are simply the best we've seen so far (melee combat classes, for example), but certain elements are simply not as good as they should be (especially the social aspect).
 
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AoC is slowly turning into the greatest tragedy since Vanguard or Hellgate.

I'm truly sorry, but there it is.

Its far from vanguard or hellgate as far as i have seen. People are enjoying it and while som of the later parts of the game are broken - they are allready patching them right now (i.e bank and traders).

I havent heard anyone calling the game as "Great Tragedy" (well atleast until now). I think this game could be the best selling mmo since guild wars and wow.
 
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Its far from vanguard or hellgate as far as i have seen. People are enjoying it and while som of the later parts of the game are broken - they are allready patching them right now (i.e bank and traders).

I havent heard anyone calling the game as "Great Tragedy" (well atleast until now). I think this game could be the best selling mmo since guild wars and wow.

I admit, I was probably overstating the problem.

It's just that I've had too many bad experiences lately, with promising titles. While AoC does indeed suffer from a VAST amount of issues right now - it's not certain that it can't recover.

I apologize for the statement, as it was mostly based on emotional frustration and I should have contained it.
 
Conans new prison system for pvp servers is going to be launched soon:

According to Jason Stone on today's MMO Report, he's designed this very elaborate "prison system" that is AoC's take on anti-griefing, and it will be implemented fairly soon because it's essentially done and was part of the "launch plan" for the game.

In essence, it specifically targets griefers with a "bounty system" coupled with a "prison sentence".

Griefing would essentially be repeat kills of a player that provides no challenge. For example, repeatedly killing a player much lower level than you who has no chance at all to win against you (so some type of level differential). It would also encompass something like too many successive kills in a row or timeframe (I'm reading between the lines of what he actually said here).

So say you do this in Cimmeria. Enough offenses and you get a "Cimmerian bounty" placed on you. The Bounty Hunter NPCs in Cimmeria can then somehow capture you (no details here), so you can choose to flee to Aquilonia or Stygia and do your dirty deeds there instead. If you ever come back to Cimmeria, you will still have a bounty on your head (no time-out, apparently).

If you get caught by the bounty hunters, you can either bribe them to let you go by paying some amount above and beyond the bounty (one type of money sink penalty), or you can choose to serve prison time.

The prison time is meant to be actively unpleasant. You can't just wait it out. You must perform menial, boring tasks such as "take this stick and kill 300 rats" or "carry this stone to the other side of the yard, pick up a stone on that side and carry it back, do this 300 times", etc.

Finally, somehow the "prison" is visible to other players, so that you get the embarrassment of being seen serving your prison time and doing those menial quests.

..and their unique anti-greifing prison system that will be folding into the game soon after launch..

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/685749/The_MMO_Report_Age_of_Conan_Special.html

Cant wait to see that in action. :p
 
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