Age of Conan -- for those of you who have played it, how is it?

Yes, I could check out the user reviews, however I normally find that those who write reviews usually love the game -- so it's biased.

I want to hear from you folks, is the game any good? What level are you, and what do you think so far?

Admittedly I'm biased due to the fact that I'm a fan of Robert E. Howard's work, and the newer novels based on his work.Delius

I have a couple of collections of stories written by Howard. Can you recommend Herrick some of the newer novels? Hell, I didn't even know there were any.

Anyway about the game: Anyone know how blocking is? Does it work well?

OK, so I picked it up. It's only $50 with a free month, so I got nothing to lose :Primnet00

This is exactly what Funcom wants. The first twenty levels are extremely well done and everyone gets a fantastic first impression of the game. I haven't gotten out of Tortage yet but I've heard that it isn't as polished. But fantastic first impression is all Funcom needs for the game to sell 1 million copies.

It really is a fantastic game, the gameplay and graphics are awesome and its been one of the better launches for a MMO that i have seen.

I definatly can recommend the game in a second, its avery addicting! Best graphics, story and combat ive seen in a MMO.

Its amazing. But just like ever mmo it needs work done on it that will come in time. But even then its still amazing! I can't wait to see where this game goes and how polished it will get.

oh and BTW I am a LVL 22 Aquilonian Priest of Mitra and I am still on the noob isle since I have been making sure to do EVERY quest. People kinda complain about the noob isle but I find it highly enjoyable, and expect when I get off it in the next few hours, that enjoyment will be amplified a LOT.

Siege battles against player cities while your on a rhino or war mammoth to crush the enemies walls with trebuchets and battering rams all around you, and players fight on foot and such, epic!! Nuff said.acidBURN1942

You shall never take ROME from us! :P

Ill be on my mammoth waiting for people trying to attack our city of Rome! hehe ;)

[QUOTE="rimnet00"]OK, so I picked it up. It's only $50 with a free month, so I got nothing to lose :PRK-Mara

This is exactly what Funcom wants. The first twenty levels are extremely well done and everyone gets a fantastic first impression of the game. I haven't gotten out of Tortage yet but I've heard that it isn't as polished. But fantastic first impression is all Funcom needs for the game to sell 1 million copies.

Quests are still plentiful and things are still going smooth at level 36. Although I think 40+ is when you don't find as many quests. Compared to outside, I hate tortage.

I just bought it but haven't played yet. 2 hours spent installing and patching :(Trilvester

Yeah its one of the longer installations ive had, but it sure is worth it :)

Enjoy!

*see if you can partner up with a few people, makes the game alot better* :)

What class are you going to start up?

Been waiting on this game for what feels like forever! Just wondering for those who've had some time to play it, how well would my laptop hold up realistically?

Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz

4GB Ram

ATI Radeon Mobility HD 2600 (performs between the 8600GS and the 8600GT)

I ran WoW on max settings with a stable 60fps. Everquest 2 wasn't as cooperative, but was easily playable.

I got a couple class questions:

How is the bear shaman? Is it pretty neat? I know how healing works, but is the bear shaman competent enough at it to be nearly as good as the priest of mitra?

how is the dark templar (that evil warrior class)? Are his spells pretty cool?

The only thing that keeps me playing is a few friends. UI in this game is just ugly and buggy as hell. The mini map is sometimes helpful and sometimes useless. I've had several lockups where you couldn't push anything. It really sucks in the middle of battle. The buddy list is poorly done. When you join a guild it adds everyone to your buddy list. You can't have a sort or an option to hide guild members. Chatbox is pretty below average. You can't change colors of text and the options are very limited. It's also contstantly cluttered with a bunch of stuff.

The tutorial island is probably the most done and well polished area in the game. As you can see with most impressions, most of those people are still there. The game is heavily instanced. Just like guild wars. The voice acting does drop off at the newbie island except for destiny quest. I didn't really care for it anyways. I actually prefere the guys just making noises like in older rpg games. The destiny quest are sp quest you do throughout the game. Not really too interesting. I kind of got bored with it after the last quest on the newbie island. 20-30 is your basic mmo quest grinding. So far I havn't encountered any really interesting story lines.

Loot is pretty wierd for an mmo. Most just don't drop anything useful. You'll get most of your gear from quest. So far I havn't really seen much variety in armors. You can see most people look alike when they arive to higher level areas. Character customization is pretty plain. You get some presets at the char creation screen that you can have a slider to slightly alter but a majority of people that I have seen are practically the same person.

Spawn timers are probably one of things that pisses me off the most about the game. Some things take up to 15 mintues to respawn. It really sucks especially if the area has plenty of people in it. Since the game is zoned like guild wars, there can only be a limited amount in the zone.

Questing right now is a bit problematic. Quite a few higher level quest are completely broken. Some instances that you can go into by yourself have broken quest. I'd have to say this mmo has a lot more broken quest then I have ever seen at an mmo launch. As you approach 30, you will probably want to move to a higher level areas. Well that's not going to happen because there is no 30-40 zones. So you have to go to the other two races 20-30 areas to do quest for 30-40. Once you get to 40 you have a few options. Well three really. The noble district in old tarantia and the sewers there and the field of the dead.

The noble district has quite a few busted quest. I arrived at 39 because I didn't have anything else to do. There are instances like the sanctum but they're not really that great. Especially compared to WoW instances. Actually they are just like the mini instances in the game except larger. Once you're done with Old Tarantia the only place you can go is Fields of the Dead. I got here around 42. It's hard times there. Not many quest. I finished all the quest there by 47. This zone has grinding quest you can repeat over and over again. There are 4 or 5 of those. Most of the quest can be soloed but some are hard to do solo but doable.

Right now the economy is broken. Well there is none because they disabled the only means to trade. So money is tight. You can't gather material until you are 20 and you cannot have a profession till 40. You have to do quest to unlock the gathering abilities. Like collect 20 ash wood. This is difficult because the areas where you have to do this are in resource cities and they're constanty camped by high level guilds. These areas are dedicated to resources. You can also get them outside of the resource area.

The violence in the fatalities are alright. Right now I have only noticed a few different version of slitting throats. 48 and no decaps yet. There not really that interesting. The blood is handled like in anime. It's over the top blood spatters. Poofs of blood here and there. I've seen worse in korean mmos. Uh....the combo system I didn't talk about earlier. It's kind of cool at first. You hit the ability and it ask you to swing in the direction of the arrows it shows you. At 40 you unlock two new slashes. They are the right and left under slash.

So far the game is just above average. Not by much however. As of right now I'm going to let my sub run out.

Short version. It's kind of ok, I guess, it's just not something I would pay for monthly. If you're bored and waiting for a new game to come out it may be worth checking out.

Arg I forgot about performance x.x

It runs decent on my rig. Some areas like Fields of the Dead are very unoptimized as are some mini instances. Very choppy sometimes with huge slow downs occasionally. Right now in the Fields of the Dead there is an audio bug that crashes the the game so I had to turn sound off for a while. Ah crap sound x.x When you slit someones throat they gurgle like a wookie. Not the best melee sounds I have heard but good enough. The music I find annoying. Not really a fan of the epic music. I like atmospheric music like fallout had. Not some orchestra behind me every minute but when I turn around they are not there.

I don't really find the settings depressing and hard to live in like they try and portray. Not very believable.

Game is great so far, but turning into a grind after level 40. The only thing that I'm enjoying is the combat system, and I can't wait for the guild sieges.

AoC - Poptart - level 56 Herald - Set - US

I must be really lucky or something, because besides being stuck on a mountain for 5mins, i havnt had any problems. No lag, no graphics problems, no booting me out of the game or reseting my pc.

Guess i will keep my fingers crossed hehe

I'm kind of torn on the game. It's a lot of fun, but in many ways resembles a game like Guild Wars more than an actual MMO. The starter area has a good storyline, and some fun quests. Though, the quests can get a little tedious due to the amount of backtracking you need to do. The further I went, I was at least able to group a number of quests together and get them finished in bulk like I do in WoW.

The loot was a bit disappointing. Especially due to the number of items that had the exact same stats but merely looked a little different. All of the good items I picked up came from quest rewards. I'm curious what the loot tables look like. Is there a remote chance of picking up a special item like you would in other MMOs. Am I going to be able to randomly get whatever the equivalent to an epic item is from killing a mob?

The graphics are also extremely nice. This is probably the best looking, most detailed MMO I've played. And the art direction is also pretty good. It doesn't look like your generic fantasy MMO. The water is also some of the best that I've seen in games, especially for an MMO. I don't have all of the effects turned on, but it looks really nice in DirectX 10.

The game is very heavily instanced. A large portion of the starter area takes place in a single player set of instances of all of the starting area set during the night time. (You talk to various npcs to go to the daytime zones so you can complete non-storyline quests and group with others, etc). This is where the game felt most like Guild Wars, and perhaps like a single player game due to the amount of time spent soloing at night. When there were too many players in a particular area, you can choose another instance of the same zone. Also, like Guild Wars, there's a fairly linear storyline you follow as you progress through the starter area. I'm not too far into the game post-introduction, but there's still a lot of instancing there, as well.

I'm not against the idea of instancing, but I prefer a bit less of it in an MMO. In WoW, the only time you see instancing is in dungeons. Personally, I quite like that as you're not waiting endlessly in line for dungeons and raids like you might be otherwise. To be honest, I'm more concerned about the linearity of the game than the instancing itself. In a game like Guild Wars, it's fine. It's not exactly an MMO, so there's no expectation of the non-linear type play and open endedness that I've come to expect in MMOs. The gameplay so far ends up being more like a stand alone type game rather than something I'd pay a $15 to continue to play for months on end. And, there's less incentive to simple roll an alt, as it's not merely leveling a character, but also repeating a storyline.

I haven't played much past the starting area, but I've heard the game continues to be linear throughout. If that's the case, I won't be playing for very long. At most, I'll probably level up to cap and finish whatever story quests and call it good. The game is very good, so far, but not what I would have expected from an MMO.

I haven't played much past the starting area, but I've heard the game continues to be linear throughout. If that's the case, I won't be playing for very long. At most, I'll probably level up to cap and finish whatever story quests and call it good. The game is very good, so far, but not what I would have expected from an MMO.

BobZany

Wait until you get out of the starting spot and get some people working on user made citys and what not, pretty cool i must say.

EndersAres review is spot on I must say.

Nice starter area, talking to the quest givers is kind of cool. Melee combat is better then EQ2 or LOTRO but the range combat is awfull compared to those games. Setting your UI to your personal preference is a pain, it would not let me set actions to my mouse buttons. The Mini-map is ok but gets clustered and the loot system is akward.

Not to mention, the game (and the install) is damn buggy and the system requirements don't match the graphics it gives you. In fact I just went back to LOTRO and ran around, I think that game's graphics are just as good if not better.

I actually think this game would have been so much better if they made it a normal RPG.

This game looks really interesting although I have not played an MMO since Star Wars Galaxies imploded on itself. Is it anything like WOW, I found that game to be kind of a turnoff I am not sure why, I never really liked the Idea of the Warcraft world, although War craft I-III were fantastic. Is there anyway to try this game yet, o would I have to pay $50 to demo it out?WOWZORS

[QUOTE="WOWZORS"]This game looks really interesting although I have not played an MMO since Star Wars Galaxies imploded on itself. Is it anything like WOW, I found that game to be kind of a turnoff I am not sure why, I never really liked the Idea of the Warcraft world, although War craft I-III were fantastic. Is there anyway to try this game yet, o would I have to pay $50 to demo it out?LTZH

HEY!!!

No one is answering the questions about hardcore vs. casual.........do you need to be on this game for 6 hours at a time or can you play an hour a day and feel like you've done something?

Does this run in Directx10 yet? I heard it wasn't available yetOld_Gooseberry

The DirectX10 version is not available yet.

No one is answering the questions about hardcore vs. casual.........do you need to be on this game for 6 hours at a time or can you play an hour a day and feel like you've done something?

vfibsux

It's hard to say as no one has gotten really far in the game yet.

is there any plan for a demo or trial? I never buy games without atleast trying themrob1101

Yes, there will be a free trial/buddy keys in the future.

if i get into this game is it one of those games where you can only have fun if you put a bunch of time into it like WoW?NEOSPARKING

I don't have a lot of time because of my work schedule lately but when I do get to pick the game up, I have a blast with it. You can do your single player storyline if you ever just want to do things quickly or you can do your daytime quests and team up with others.

Combat is fast paced and since your attack can hit multiple enemies, you aren't just taking down one at a time. I have a couple of toons in the high teens and I haven't had to put a lot of time in. They aren't easy levels to gain but they don't feel like a grind either.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I played the game again, and I'm quitting WoW to play this as of tomorrow. Just ordered a Geforce 8880 GTX... =D

WoW has simply lost its appeal, and after experiencing the CHANGE (theres plent of that in AoC) , and the beautiful environments, I just need to get this game.

Goodbye WoW, hello AoC.

P.S. It does seem to me, that many of the people blamming this game are the whiny, die-hard WoW-fan 14 year olds who cant afford a rig to run it, and havent even played it.

P.S. It does seem to me, that many of the people blamming this game are the whiny, die-hard WoW-fan 14 year olds who cant afford a rig to run it, and havent even played it.

GreaterthanG0d

yes it does

[QUOTE="GreaterthanG0d"]

P.S. It does seem to me, that many of the people blamming this game are the whiny, die-hard WoW-fan 14 year olds who cant afford a rig to run it, and havent even played it.

dan-rofl-copter

yes it does

go to the AoC forum. People with dual core CPUs, 2GB+ ram, 8800GT and 9600GT are not breaking 20FPS on medium settings.

[QUOTE="dan-rofl-copter"][QUOTE="GreaterthanG0d"]

P.S. It does seem to me, that many of the people blamming this game are the whiny, die-hard WoW-fan 14 year olds who cant afford a rig to run it, and havent even played it.

ct1615

yes it does

go to the AoC forum. People with dual core CPUs, 2GB+ ram, 8800GT and 9600GT are not breaking 20FPS on medium settings.

BS. Check out my specs in my sig. I'm getting 35+ FPS with all of my messengers, VS, SW and browsers open in the background.

People only seem to believe things in forums if they agree with it. What a waste.

[QUOTE="ct1615"][QUOTE="dan-rofl-copter"][QUOTE="GreaterthanG0d"]

P.S. It does seem to me, that many of the people blamming this game are the whiny, die-hard WoW-fan 14 year olds who cant afford a rig to run it, and havent even played it.

jpkustra

yes it does

go to the AoC forum. People with dual core CPUs, 2GB+ ram, 8800GT and 9600GT are not breaking 20FPS on medium settings.

BS. Check out my specs in my sig. I'm getting 35+ FPS with all of my messengers, VS, SW and browsers open in the background.

People only seem to believe things in forums if they agree with it. What a waste.

Look, with regards to Age of Conan, things are starting to bother me when it comes to commenting about the game in online forums....

As we all know, WoW is the current mainstream MMO giant. As anyone who plays WoW knows, a large proportion of the game's players are in their teens; lets say around 13 - 15, however a survey HAS been carried out indicating that the average player age of WoW is 28.3!

This means that regardless of all the whiny fourteen years olds writing 1.0 abysmal reviews because they cant handle the game, the game will still get a decent amount of players switching. The stuff you are reading on the forums about the 35FPS issue is BS! Pure BS, in fact, because I played the game on an IDENTICAL rig, and was going along at a comfortable 50 FPS, admittedly dropping to 35 - 40 occasionally.

PLEASE, take it from me, anything and everything you are reading from "honest reviewers" of the game on gamespot / ign / WHATEVER, cannot be trusted. I can guarantee that 70% of these people havent laid hands on the game. Until you start seeing consistent OFFICIAL reviews (which I personally think shouldnt come out for another 2 weeks, if not a month), everyone should stop giving biased reviews based on past experiences with other MMOs.