Lets talk about Age of Conan (MMO)

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: hooflung

Originally posted by: Drift3r
I played the game and it just felt hollow. Maybe I am jaded but other then the nice graphics and button smashing combos I couldn't get into the game world at all.

Because you played a Beta. Simple as that. My preorder download has had 2g of data added to it in the past 2 days. That is after a version of the closed beta got slimmed down into a deployable package and went gold.

You haven't had enough time to even comment on the game world. Sorry.

The open/demo beta didn't grab my attention at all so I'll wait around for reviews.

 

[TurnX]

Originally posted by: hooflung
Mmmhmmm. So you never heard about short cuts and macro keys huh? This game finally makes macro keyboards and game boards worth while. If you want to play it like wow, be my guest.

For starters the game does not have macros, so many would have to purchase a new keyboard to take advantage of these "shortcuts and macro keys" you speak of. I personally don't think anyone should have to buy a new keyboard to make a combat system work.

Originally posted by: hooflung
Beta servers aren't live servers.

Actually they are the same exact servers, the beta and retail clients, however, are different. Loading times are not magically going to be fixed when the retail client launches.

Originally posted by: hooflung
Beta content did not have retail content fully implemented. Devs said this multiple times.

Perhaps in the open beta 20+ content was missing, however in closed beta everything was there, and there was a serious lack of content in the level 20+ zones.

Originally posted by: hooflung
The Devs said it will start out with 48 vs 48 on the live servers to ensure they servers don't fall on their face in the first week. Closed Beta saw 150 vs 150 sieges run just fine thank you very much. They will dial it up once they see they have the capacity to do so.

Not sure where you got your info but Sieges aren't even in the closed beta client. The only testing that has been done with Sieges in through in house testing, and really they can say whatever they want about that.

Originally posted by: hooflung
Reads to me, "I like to judge games according to BETA content, because there is no way they can improve things or are holding things back because of it being a BETA."

I in no way implied that things can't be fixed, however as it stands the current state of the game is far from what Funcom has made it out to be. With several months of tweaks and added content it could very well be there, but I think a lot of people will be disappointed when they realize how much is missing.

Originally posted by: hooflung
I hope you do, I'd like to put a 2H axe in your face or smite you with some form of Holy Damage. If the game sucks because of certain aspects, like world PVP and arena PVP being too much at odds with each other then I'll quit until they dial back arena PVP. But I am going to get a lvl 80 or 2 first. Also, the economy of this game is stellar. PVP loot is pretty much shite but everyone is going to be geared up on it almost definitely.

Umm, how can an unreleased game have a "stellar economy"?.... Anyway, perhaps you should take your fanboi goggles off and look at this game realistically. There are some big issues that Funcom needs to work out before this game is going to be anything near where they have said it is. I think the biggest issue is going to be how fast they can take care of those issues, because if they wait too long people may just leave in favor of some of the other games coming out this Fall.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: hooflung
Reads to me, "I like to judge games according to BETA content, because there is no way they can improve things or are holding things back because of it being a BETA."

I have yet to see a game that drastically changed between beta and release. Maybe with stability but not with gameplay, and that's really where it counts. beta's have always been great way to test a game out for me.

 

[TurnX]

Originally posted by: pontifex
Originally posted by: hooflung
Reads to me, "I like to judge games according to BETA content, because there is no way they can improve things or are holding things back because of it being a BETA."

I have yet to see a game that drastically changed between beta and release. Maybe with stability but not with gameplay, and that's really where it counts. beta's have always been great way to test a game out for me.

I know... plus how else can we judge a game? Am I supposed to spend my money blindly because you and the devs say it will get better? I don't know about anyone else but I like to make decisions on things I have actually had hands on experience with, and based on my experience with AoC I would rather not spend my money.

 

[Superrock]

I'm a verteran MMOer and I'm as skeptical as the next guy about this game. I keep hearing mixed reviews. I preordered AoC and hope the PvP will be enjoyable.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

i'm ready for 1pm. installed and patched, collector's edition unopened in front of me.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

1pm. Perfect. Gives me 30 minutes til the Red Wings game. Just have to go in and register my game name and a couple friends who didn't get into the early access. Then watch the game

I'll worry about leveling up on Monday. Home all day as opposed to working all weekend.

 

[Arglebargle]

I've come to the conclusion that its best to wait for about a year before trying out an MMO. Unles the subject matter is of great interest to me. Almost all of them are birthed too early, and a year is sufficient for a shakedown cruise. Guess that means I should be looking at LOTRO now. ;-)

I am not that fond of the grindy-for-loot model of Ultima-Everquest-Wow. Nor anonymous PVP. I hope that AOC does do well though, as it sounds like the Funcom guys are at least trying to do some things differently. The background and art looks to be very well done. But without the good gameplay..... I know I will be watching closely at least and keeping up withplayers' impressions.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
i'm ready for 1pm. installed and patched, collector's edition unopened in front of me.

the servers were up at 4:30 :roll:

after 4 hours of playing, i can say this game is awesome.

 

[Superrock]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
after 4 hours of playing, i can say this game is awesome.

What other mmos have u played? What're your specs? is the game stable and bug-free? Hows the lag? Whats your opinion about the combat does it really degenerate into button mashing after a while?

 

[Ig]

Originally posted by: Superrock
What're your specs? is the game stable and bug-free? Hows the lag? Whats your opinion about the combat does it really degenerate into button mashing after a while?

Q6600@3ghz
2gb ram
8800GT
1920x1200
WinXP

DX9, High (pretty much everything maxed), no AA, and SM3.0 - I get ~30fps outside, ~40fps in town, ~60fps inside dungeons

Supposedly DX10 actually improves performance and looks better. Now I have to upgrade

Game is pretty stable and I haven't really noticed any bugs. No CTDs. No lag that I can see. ~50ms ping

Going into AoC blind, I was basically button mashing at the start. After a bit, I do a lot better when I don't button mash. You have your directional attacks and then you have your skills, sometimes using a skill require a directional attack followup to use the skill. Basically when you start mashing your skills won't work, sure you can get it off sometimes purely by chance, but it gets more complicated as your skill get higher level. Since they require more then one directional attack as the followup, the random chance you'll get it off by button mashing is low.

(edit: changed instances to dungeons, see my other post for an explaination)

 

[Shortass]

Everyone commenting on the game that I've seen have given this game splendid initial reviews. Now I just need to get a new computer so I can experience the brutality that is the Conan universe...

Screenshots go!

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: Ig

Originally posted by: Superrock
What're your specs? is the game stable and bug-free? Hows the lag? Whats your opinion about the combat does it really degenerate into button mashing after a while?

Q6600@3ghz
2gb ram
8800GT
1920x1200
WinXP

DX9, High (pretty much everything maxed), no AA, and SM3.0 - I get ~30fps outside, ~40fps in town, ~60fps inside instances

Supposedly DX10 actually improves performance and looks better. Now I have to upgrade

Game is pretty stable and I haven't really noticed any bugs. No CTDs. No lag that I can see. ~50ms ping

Why do you get much better performance in an instance than outside? Why do you get better performance in a city than outside? That's kind of backwards imho. I would think once you get in the city you will have your biggest performance hits because of all of the people.

 

[Ig]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269

Originally posted by: Ig
Q6600@3ghz
2gb ram
8800GT
1920x1200
WinXP

DX9, High (pretty much everything maxed), no AA, and SM3.0 - I get ~30fps outside, ~40fps in town, ~60fps inside instances

Supposedly DX10 actually improves performance and looks better. Now I have to upgrade

Game is pretty stable and I haven't really noticed any bugs. No CTDs. No lag that I can see. ~50ms ping

Why do you get much better performance in an instance than outside? Why do you get better performance in a city than outside? That's kind of backwards imho. I would think once you get in the city you will have your biggest performance hits because of all of the people.

Outside it's big open spaces with lots of sky and you can see large distances.
Towns (well, I've only been to one town so far...) have lots of buildings and not so many open spaces.
And I probably shouldn't have said instances (I'll fix my original post) but rather dungeons, which have very tight spaces.

In the single player (night), I get even higher fps compared to the multiplayer counterpart.

It seems even the multiplayer areas are instanced so it reduces the amount of players in a given area. You can freely switch to find friends.

 

[mharr7]

I played on my brothers copy last night for about 1.5 hours....I was impressed. Much more fun than I thought it was going to. I made a charc, whose only about lvl 5, but it was fun up until then.

Then combat definately takes a bit getting used too, but its nothing crazy.

I still need to put more time in until I can decide if I wanna buy it or not though....I havent grouped or anything yet.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: Superrock

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
after 4 hours of playing, i can say this game is awesome.

What other mmos have u played? What're your specs? is the game stable and bug-free? Hows the lag? Whats your opinion about the combat does it really degenerate into button mashing after a while?

after waiting for 3 years for this game, i am very happy with the product so far. i have found a couple small glitches, nothing serious. the controls were a little funky at first, but is pretty intuitive now. this game is not for kids.

pros:
very high system demands - this is a game for today and tomorrow, not 2003.
nothing is obviously fundamentally horribly wrong with the game at this point
huge game world
absolutely gorgeous graphics
audio and music are excellent
interface is very clean and simple, everything is both keyed and mouse clicky
not final fantasy style, much closer to fps shooter style

cons:
very high system demands - the blade cuts both ways
some server work and patching cuts down on availability
(honestly, both cons i mention are just teething pains for a new platform)

et cetera:
opteron 165 @ 2.7 GHz
Asus A8NSLI-32
2x1 GB DDR400
MSI 9600GT @ 700 MHz

ping is usually around 70. fps swings all over, 25 to 60, but always looks quite smooth

 

[JD50]

The combat is pretty cool. The only thing that I am really disappointed with is how everything is pretty much instanced. I like how in WoW everything is open and you can go anywhere you want. I just hit level 20 tonight, then the servers crashed

 

[KevinH]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler

Originally posted by: Superrock

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
after 4 hours of playing, i can say this game is awesome.

What other mmos have u played? What're your specs? is the game stable and bug-free? Hows the lag? Whats your opinion about the combat does it really degenerate into button mashing after a while?

after waiting for 3 years for this game, i am very happy with the product so far. i have found a couple small glitches, nothing serious. the controls were a little funky at first, but is pretty intuitive now. this game is not for kids.

pros:
very high system demands - this is a game for today and tomorrow, not 2003.
nothing is obviously fundamentally horribly wrong with the game at this point
huge game world
absolutely gorgeous graphics
audio and music are excellent
interface is very clean and simple, everything is both keyed and mouse clicky
not final fantasy style, much closer to fps shooter style

cons:
very high system demands - the blade cuts both ways
some server work and patching cuts down on availability
(honestly, both cons i mention are just teething pains for a new platform)

et cetera:
opteron 165 @ 2.7 GHz
Asus A8NSLI-32
2x1 GB DDR400
MSI 9600GT @ 700 MHz

ping is usually around 70. fps swings all over, 25 to 60, but always looks quite smooth

Sounds cool.

For the most part, can you tell me how smooth the game is when lots of mobs/players etc are in the game? What resolution are you at?

This is definitely a game I can see myself getting into.

 

[j0j081]

will this run on an 8600gts at 1280x1024 with medium settings?

 

[Shortass]

Originally posted by: j0j081
will this run on an 8600gts at 1280x1024 with medium settings?

I read over at the PA forums that someone with the same card was running it smoothly at 30fps with decent settings... I don't remember the resolution, but I can't imagine anyone running it less than at 1280 so you should be fine. Perhaps I'll find the quote later.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: JD50
The combat is pretty cool. The only thing that I am really disappointed with is how everything is pretty much instanced. I like how in WoW everything is open and you can go anywhere you want. I just hit level 20 tonight, then the servers crashed

To clarify, when you say 'instance' you are just saying that when you hit a zone boundary you have to load. It is not actually loading a personal 'instance' a la Guild Wars or WoW 'instances'.

 

[Ig]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269

Originally posted by: JD50
The combat is pretty cool. The only thing that I am really disappointed with is how everything is pretty much instanced. I like how in WoW everything is open and you can go anywhere you want. I just hit level 20 tonight, then the servers crashed

To clarify, when you say 'instance' you are just saying that when you hit a zone boundary you have to load. It is not actually loading a personal 'instance' a la Guild Wars or WoW 'instances'.

Not a personal instance but it's still instanced. There are multiple copies of each and every zone, even town. You can switch to a different instance, by clicking on a little button and choosing one.

 

[ViviTheMage]

The game is fantastic, I played all weekend (the pre-access stuff) , got to level 30 on my demo.

My guild is pretty intense -- Murder Herd.

I cant wait to try Archer or another melee class, was thinking conquerer.

This game has replaced WoW for me.

 

[Xavier434]

There is one fundamental problem that I have found which has made the decision for me when it comes to this playing this game. I feel it is too mature for young kids to be viewing. The level of graphic violence and sex is just too much to play in front of my 5 year old. That means I would only be able to play it when he is not home (very rare) or asleep. That amount of time per month does not justify the monthly fee imo. It's a shame, but I got to draw the line somewhere.

 

[stall6g]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
There is one fundamental problem that I have found which has made the decision for me when it comes to this playing this game. I feel it is too mature for young kids to be viewing. The level of graphic violence and sex is just too much to play in front of my 5 year old. That means I would only be able to play it when he is not home (very rare) or asleep. That amount of time per month does not justify the monthly fee imo. It's a shame, but I got to draw the line somewhere.

There's an option where you can turn the "mature" settings off like the blood so this isn't really an issue.