Why don't more people play Age of Conan ? I know it had a bad start but it's pretty nice now. It has the best grafix by far +Carnage, blood, fatalities, naked breast's, and in my opinion, the bet starting area, finest combat structure and least boring quest of all. The raids are fun and the expansion was nice. The planned content sounds good to. I have played Aion and beta tested Rift, DCU, and others but never found a replacement for this game......So my question is why don't you play? ....Poor PC ? Sour from launch ? Not enough advertising or hype ?
The voice acting is great... 'till you get to lvl 20 and leave Tortage.
The combat is great... 'till you realize you're just playing a clumsy version of Simon Says that does little more than root you in place. Or you play a Mage.
The graphics are great... 'till you discover you'll have to considerably lower your settings to get a playable framerate or buy a new rig.
The art direction is great... 'till you notice there's really only three different models for armor, in three variations of brown.
The boobies are great... 'till you've actually seen a real woman naked and have a genuine reference of comparison.
Promised features were not in there at launch, blood money and drunken boxing. The OB left everyone stuck on Tortage whilst the DEVs lied/were economical with the truth until launch when you bought a copy and left Tortage and slowly realized (depending on how much you played) that you'd been had.
Next there was the memory leak, 5 years of development and years of testing with a $30 million budget and there was a ****ing memory leak at launch!!!!!!! **** MY LIFE!!!!!! Everyone was having to restart the game after having been through two instances or so.
Next the instancing ... F*** MY LIFE!!!!!! Thanks Gaute for concealing the extent of the instancing as best you could, Scumcom erm I mean Funcom PR did a great job of coaching DEVs for interviews being as evasive as possible but not denying that there were instances. GITS!
Then the 200 vs 200 battles and siege warfare, do me a favour! You couldn't get half that number into an AoC instance even then you'd have a crash in 3 minutes due to the memory leak if you could! Siege warfare was broken and just a gay exploit fest. One team defending would commit suicide spell weaving as that counted as a kill for your side whilst the attackers tried to glitch through the walls to the keep before the kamikazie casters won! LLLLEEEEAAAAMMMMMMMEEEE!!!!
Crafting was a bug fest and leveling was a massive grind of the same 2 villas over and over, combat was nothing but a button mashing fest that made your fingers go numb. SUX!
The game was instanced to death so that you rarely saw anyone else and the maps were just pathetic, AoC was nothing but a shitty half done single player RPG that required an internet connection and a monthly fee to play and suffered the most vile chat I've ever seen take place in an MMORPG. Even I as a father in his 30's felt sick somedays and began to lose hope in the human race!
In all I paid top dollar for one of Gaute's "sizziling steaks" but all I got was a sloppy shit sandwich,
Agricola
I never had issues at launch or with the beta to be honest.
I thought combat itself was awesome and enjoyed it.
but you are correct about instances, good god they had instances with in instances, if you a budy in the same map, he could you were on the same server you coudlnt see him becuase he was in a different instance.
Map Design I also disagree with I think they were awesome. as well as music and graphics.
Crafting was and still is a horrid no reason waht so ever to do it. 98% of all items are uselss until you max it out then get lvl 80 culture gear. and you could only craft at lvl 40.
The gear I think I wore the same ragedy stuff till lvl 50 then the same stugg till ike 70, there was very little feeling of progressions.
I just picked up Rise of the Godslayer for 10$ yesterday, the fatalities, pvp, and mounted combat had me interested. Age of Conan looks to be one of the better mmo's out right now really. It looks and sounds like they have shaped this game up nicely. Ill be rolling pvp server. And noticed after logging in at 2am est last night for char creation all servers were at least on medium load.
Age of Conan-What Has Changed (Found this video with some developers talking about were AOC is headed etc)
Answer to the original tread topic... You never get a second chance at a first impression
and that's why the world is going worse and worse
you know,it's stupid to make a judgement on a thing you tried just once.
i mean,before saying "pasta sucks" you gotta try it many times,don't you think?
maybe the first time you were unlucky and you eat a crappy plate of pasta in a crappy restaurant!
here in Italy we say "la legge non ammette ignoranza"...i could apply this proverb to AoC saying that is not Funcom fault if people are ignorant,and even that the game does not sucks just because people think so^^
Answer to the original tread topic... You never get a second chance at a first impression
and that's why the world is going worse and worse
you know,it's stupid to make a judgement on a thing you tried just once.
i mean,before saying "pasta sucks" you gotta try it many times,don't you think?
maybe the first time you were unlucky and you eat a crappy plate of pasta in a crappy restaurant!
here in Italy we say "la legge non ammette ignoranza"...i could apply this proverb to AoC saying that is not Funcom fault if people are ignorant,and even that the game does not sucks just because people think so^^
But it is Funcom's fault that the game has numerous faults wouldn't you agree? In likeness to your saying, the chef can make his pasta as good as he is capable and Funcom wasn't very capable.
I loved the game but I couldn't play due to the amount of bugs and memory leakage which made the game more frustrating then fun.
Answer to the original tread topic... You never get a second chance at a first impression
and that's why the world is going worse and worse
you know,it's stupid to make a judgement on a thing you tried just once.
i mean,before saying "pasta sucks" you gotta try it many times,don't you think?
maybe the first time you were unlucky and you eat a crappy plate of pasta in a crappy restaurant!
here in Italy we say "la legge non ammette ignoranza"...i could apply this proverb to AoC saying that is not Funcom fault if people are ignorant,and even that the game does not sucks just because people think so^^
But it is Funcom's fault that the game has numerous faults wouldn't you agree? In likeness to your saying, the chef can make his pasta as good as he is capable and Funcom wasn't very capable.
I loved the game but I couldn't play due to the amount of bugs and memory leakage which made the game more frustrating then fun.
i ensure you that the game is not as bugged as it was before,indeed,i could say all the major bugs are no more present...remain only just a few little graphic glitchs(sometimes when you enter a dungeon your beard became white,but it is all random^^)
i suggest you to give it a try again.
i left it 1 years and 6 months ago for the crappy situation you described above,but now i'm playing it and i'm enjoying it a lot!
Bcs there is not enough Tortage in the game, not enough mature/erotic content, to many bad mouthing, the window of oportunity closed times ago, etc. The new Conan movie may be another chance to get some players and for me if they make TSW + AoC a cheap deal i may take a look at it again...
PS: And if i have a wish make the Necromance more interesting and a true pet class with epic quests for aquiring pets or parts of pets to build my own frankenstein pet, let it be a full feature pet that can anything do i want instead of me, dont make it a bland mobile satelite dot like the other pets with no usefull significant non dps ability.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
Answer to the original tread topic... You never get a second chance at a first impression
and that's why the world is going worse and worse
you know,it's stupid to make a judgement on a thing you tried just once.
i mean,before saying "pasta sucks" you gotta try it many times,don't you think?
maybe the first time you were unlucky and you eat a crappy plate of pasta in a crappy restaurant!
here in Italy we say "la legge non ammette ignoranza"...i could apply this proverb to AoC saying that is not Funcom fault if people are ignorant,and even that the game does not sucks just because people think so^^
But it is Funcom's fault that the game has numerous faults wouldn't you agree? In likeness to your saying, the chef can make his pasta as good as he is capable and Funcom wasn't very capable.
I loved the game but I couldn't play due to the amount of bugs and memory leakage which made the game more frustrating then fun.
i ensure you that the game is not as bugged as it was before,indeed,i could say all the major bugs are no more present...remain only just a few little graphic glitchs(sometimes when you enter a dungeon your beard became white,but it is all random^^)
i suggest you to give it a try again.
i left it 1 years and 6 months ago for the crappy situation you described above,but now i'm playing it and i'm enjoying it a lot!
I have tried it again. I was an early access player who left SWG due to the NGE and put all my faith into AoC an after reaching the endgame bugfest quit and recently returned last year after the release of RotGS which to my dismay found a lot of the same bugs still remained.
I quit again after levelling another character to 80 with the intention of returning at yet another later date to see if Funcom had progressed with their game. Therefore, I tried it out again on a free trial to see how the game was before commiting to a months subscription and low and behold, the same issues still remain which were the same old crashing and memory leakage.
I really wish Funcom would sort out this major issue as it seems to be a huge concern on their technical forums which hasn't been rectified as I really wanted AoC to succeed as it has a lot of potential and has the potential to be a great game if Funcom sorted their act out but instead all they offer is player made workarounds which do not work and it is clearly a sign of the state of the game when you see how deserted the servers are.
At the end of the day, Funcom have the vision but lack the tech savvy to deliver what their vision is which is a shame imho.
Why don't more people play Age of Conan ? I know it had a bad start but it's pretty nice now. It has the best grafix by far +Carnage, blood, fatalities, naked breast's, and in my opinion, the bet starting area, finest combat structure and least boring quest of all. The raids are fun and the expansion was nice. The planned content sounds good to. I have played Aion and beta tested Rift, DCU, and others but never found a replacement for this game......So my question is why don't you play? ....Poor PC ? Sour from launch ? Not enough advertising or hype ?
I have played it a lot on and off. Only game I hit max level in and it's my fav of the past few years. That said here's why it didn't catch on:
Lack of open, seamless world
No variety of gear at launch
Gear modifiers confusing at launch
Bugs galore at launch
Not enough content at launch
Combo system too cumbersome for average mmo player. Should have stuck with single stroke hotkeys.
Very poor descriptions on skill/ability tooltips, even to this day
Poor social/grouping aspect. Need a way to warp group members to the dungeon
Mature nature keeps out preteens and young teens. They are a HUGE demographic.
The absence of childs in this game could have been a strong point though i know some parents who bought their kids of 14+ yrs this game and i see no problem with that. Some hysteric people my cry but this game offers nothing that can top (negative) the daily news...
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
So my question is why don't you play? ....Poor PC ? Sour from launch ? Not enough advertising or hype ?
Launch gave AoC an extremely (and sadly deserved) bad reputation.
A lot of people still remember all the lies/failed promises ("Sieges with literally hundreds vs. hundreds of players", "DX10", "elaborate and engaging crafting system" etc. etc.) I would say AoC had it's fair share of hype.
What can a, in some ways much improved, but almost 3-year old game offer to a newcomer?
A player with an openworld PVP mindset will have to face: Low population, gear dependant PVP that requires either grinding PVE content, exploiting or... Hmm wait, that's it.
A PVE player will get to experience being 3 years behind. The expansion made rolling alts less viable so levelling from 1-80 will be a 99% soloexperience. Once you DO get to 80 you will realize that you are still 3 years behind gearwise unless you manage to get into a guild with enough bored members to carry you through instances.
Now add to that a listed subscription price that are 20% higher than the most successful games in the genre...
Yes I know: I am being rather pessimistic about it and AoC is, in most ways, a lot better than it used to be, but you need to be a fairly "hardcore gaming type of person" to get on par in AoC today. Unfortunately very few of these will give a 3-year old game with a bad rep a second chance.
If I was to promote AoC I would be quite brutal and say: You will never be able to please the hardcore PvP crowd - Leave it as it is for now and keep improving PvE - Focus on making "alts" viable again, make it worthwhile for seasoned players to help newcomers level up etc. Most importantly: Throw your loyal RP community some much needed bones! RP'ers may be a niche but they are the least demanding and most loyal customers have. If Funcom (after 3 years neglect) listen to their RP followers, those people will be able to generate a more positive "word of mouth" (or "hype" if you will) aura around AoC than Funcom (and their flat out lying PR-dept.) will ever be able to pay for.
Only other option is F2P, but guess what: Funcom are several years behind the top dogs and I doubt they have the stamina, determination and dedication to pull that one off to a point where the earnings would make it the right choice.
(Yes they have some experience with F2P but take a look at their financial reports before you call that successfull compared to AoC as it is.)
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!! (repeat ad infinitum)
Main reason I left at some point was that silly idea to have after lv. 40 FIVE)!!!) buttons used for combos executions only instead for abilities. Was kind'a fun at start but fast become boring and wrist-hurting. Besides while you are doing some long combo combination you can not move or move is cancelled. If they wanted to be original max of the max 3 directional keys should be used. Fortunately spellcasters and ranger does not have this problem.
Still have resubbed around new year after few years and I'm not sorry, it is great and fun and intense game, but i'm very bothered by mele classes and that multikeys combos. But I guess will not stay more then 1 month or 2.
I really can't speak for anyone else, but for me, outside of Tortage the game was just weak. The quests weren't fun, and the world just looked worse. I went from doing things that seemed to have meaning, to do typical kill this, collect that quests.
I tried it twice, and that was enough for me.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Because the F2P model absolutely sucks. You cannot access any of the expansion content without being subbed. Even if you have purchased the expansion and played as a sub for 6 months. The minute you stop subbing you lose all access. The F2P model limits you to only the old world stuff (and only certain parts of it, you have to pay for temporary access to the "better" raids and such) and that's it.
Age of Conan WAS.....the BEST MMORPG ever made at one time,
Here is why it was, and is no longer:
During its first 2 years, there were guilds of every type and servers for every type of game play.
For example, I was in an PvP Role Playing guild on a PvP-RP server!
The role playing was awesome, the sieges were awesome!
The, something happened....one of the servers a "pure PvP" server became the server of a$$hats....and as the lesser a$$hats fled that server they all transferred to the PvP-RP server. AND they did not RP as that server was made to be, instead they harrassed the roleplayers on an RP server and continued extending the a$$hat server (pure PvP servers a$$hat populace to this RP server with no intervention by FunCom.
Server transfers of any type should never ever have been allowed, and if so at least enforce FunComs own non harrassment policy.
As a result, the many many roleplaying guilds on the rp-pvp server left the game...we are talking thousands of players.
Add that too the first expansion, which was a grind fest and even the a$$hats began to leave.
Also, the PvP arena was one of the best until PLAYERS in a guild would form teams, and then have other guild mates spread out among the random que to sabotage the random teams they joined.
Thus, players fled the game in more numbers.
Also, if you did not PvP to earn what you needed for gear from the get go, you will be out geared to the point of never recovering.
FunCom tried to do the right thing when they went F2P by allowing you to buy with money the last version of PvP armor to at least make you competitive....it didnt work.
Even worse, was an exploit where you could interupt animations and still do damage was exploited to the point wheere if you didnt learn this fine art you were hosed.
I think it was called animation cancelling or something like that.
Then the politically correct players whined and complained about partial nudity...THIS IS AGE OF CONAN based on Robert E Howards books which feature sex, prostitution, nudity and bloody fighting.....dont like it? go play hello kitty.
Frankly, there should have been an age 21 limit to keep the brats out and that in itself would have drawn in tons of lovers of fantasy novels and robert e howards books...a more mature crowd.
I miss Age of Conan, my guild, the role playing, the sieges, EVERYTHING except the PLAYERS that RUINED it.
My entire guild from WoW was hyped for AoC, my wife and I both bought Collector's Editions after playing the Beta. After realizing that Tortage was the only thing the game offered (and apparently the only thing the developers had bothered to work on, cause everything else sucked) we slowly gave up one by one and that was that. Never looked back.
Kinda same thing happened with Rift. Really liked it, very excited to play it. Then Trion went ahead with their first round of "fun nerfing" and took away the best thing about the game, class customization. It's a pale shadow of what it was during beta and dare I say, "vanilla Rift", or maybe, pre-fun-nerf rift.
There are plenty of reasons AOC did stick for me but the first one is the combat. Nice idea but pretty bad execution. I got tired of dance dance revolution years ago, don't need a MMO that makes me do that as well. If they actually made the combos different every time to make you pay attention maybe that would work but making me hit the same 4 keys per move I want to make is just repetitive and boring.
Lots of people in this necro thread saying that it was a poor launch and they are 100% correct about that.
However, Funcom did makes leaps and bounds in this game during the first three years after launch. It barely even resembles the game that came out in 2008 and that's a great thing.
If you just forget PVP exists, cause it's pretty much the one thing that's totally garbage in this game and will probably never be fixed then you have some of the most challenging raid content ever produced.
Tier 1 is a great introduction to raiding. They are short raids and begin to prepare players for the next level. The technical mechanics are learned here which will carry raiders through the rest of the game.
Tier 2 is three separate raids, the second of which is quite a challenge to most new players who are just starting to collect gear. The first boss in the second Tier 2 raid is a litmus test for tanks and healers. If you can tank it, then you're probably going to make it as a tank in this game and if healers know how heals work, then they can keep the tank alive.
Tier 3 ramps up the difficulty another big notch. The fights are very technical and every player needs to know the upper and lower limits of their character. Restraint is the key word here. Tanks need to be able to swap aggro regularly because the bosses hit too hard for any one tank to last the entire fight. DPS need to know when to crank out the damage and when to slow down. Any single bad player will regularly cause raid wipes, so this is where most players find out if they make the cut or not in the good guilds.
Tier 3.5 is insane. The difficulty goes into nightmare mode here and consequently many guilds skip this level of raiding entirely, with some coming back after finishing T4 just to prove they can kill the bosses.
Tier 4 is the last tier of end game content and the fights here are extremely technical. Every person has a job and that job needs to be executed perfectly. However, once these technical fights are learned and each player knows his job, these fights become very easy due to the fact that there is little to no random elements to these fights like there is in T3.
Then there's the six man raid content which ranges from extremely easy on normal mode to extremely challenging on Hardcore mode. The Jade Dugout and Pagoda are a testament to small group tactics and teamwork.
The point I'm trying to drive home here is that the PVE content absolutely brilliant in this game and if PVE is your thing, then I wouldn't skip over this game. If nothing else, go do amphitheatre of karutonia... it's one of the most memorable dungeons I've ever encountered.
Comments
The voice acting is great... 'till you get to lvl 20 and leave Tortage.
The combat is great... 'till you realize you're just playing a clumsy version of Simon Says that does little more than root you in place. Or you play a Mage.
The graphics are great... 'till you discover you'll have to considerably lower your settings to get a playable framerate or buy a new rig.
The art direction is great... 'till you notice there's really only three different models for armor, in three variations of brown.
The boobies are great... 'till you've actually seen a real woman naked and have a genuine reference of comparison.
I never had issues at launch or with the beta to be honest.
I thought combat itself was awesome and enjoyed it.
but you are correct about instances, good god they had instances with in instances, if you a budy in the same map, he could you were on the same server you coudlnt see him becuase he was in a different instance.
Map Design I also disagree with I think they were awesome. as well as music and graphics.
Crafting was and still is a horrid no reason waht so ever to do it. 98% of all items are uselss until you max it out then get lvl 80 culture gear. and you could only craft at lvl 40.
The gear I think I wore the same ragedy stuff till lvl 50 then the same stugg till ike 70, there was very little feeling of progressions.
sieges make me cry. as well as the pvp maps
did you try the game after Rise Of The Godslayer?do you have Rise Of The Godslayer?
if the answer is NO,then buy it and then come here with your new judgement.
if the asnwer is YES,then you are blind(or worse,you're a hater who don't wanna see the truth^^)
Answer to the original tread topic... You never get a second chance at a first impression
I just picked up Rise of the Godslayer for 10$ yesterday, the fatalities, pvp, and mounted combat had me interested. Age of Conan looks to be one of the better mmo's out right now really. It looks and sounds like they have shaped this game up nicely. Ill be rolling pvp server. And noticed after logging in at 2am est last night for char creation all servers were at least on medium load.
Age of Conan-What Has Changed (Found this video with some developers talking about were AOC is headed etc)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RrQ6s_xPaw&feature=related
and that's why the world is going worse and worse
you know,it's stupid to make a judgement on a thing you tried just once.
i mean,before saying "pasta sucks" you gotta try it many times,don't you think?
maybe the first time you were unlucky and you eat a crappy plate of pasta in a crappy restaurant!
here in Italy we say "la legge non ammette ignoranza"...i could apply this proverb to AoC saying that is not Funcom fault if people are ignorant,and even that the game does not sucks just because people think so^^
i ensure you that the game is not as bugged as it was before,indeed,i could say all the major bugs are no more present...remain only just a few little graphic glitchs(sometimes when you enter a dungeon your beard became white,but it is all random^^)
i suggest you to give it a try again.
i left it 1 years and 6 months ago for the crappy situation you described above,but now i'm playing it and i'm enjoying it a lot!
Bcs there is not enough Tortage in the game, not enough mature/erotic content, to many bad mouthing, the window of oportunity closed times ago, etc.
The new Conan movie may be another chance to get some players and for me if they make TSW + AoC a cheap deal i may take a look at it again...
PS: And if i have a wish make the Necromance more interesting and a true pet class with epic quests for aquiring pets or parts of pets to build my own frankenstein pet, let it be a full feature pet that can anything do i want instead of me, dont make it a bland mobile satelite dot like the other pets with no usefull significant non dps ability.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
I have tried it again. I was an early access player who left SWG due to the NGE and put all my faith into AoC an after reaching the endgame bugfest quit and recently returned last year after the release of RotGS which to my dismay found a lot of the same bugs still remained.
I quit again after levelling another character to 80 with the intention of returning at yet another later date to see if Funcom had progressed with their game. Therefore, I tried it out again on a free trial to see how the game was before commiting to a months subscription and low and behold, the same issues still remain which were the same old crashing and memory leakage.
I really wish Funcom would sort out this major issue as it seems to be a huge concern on their technical forums which hasn't been rectified as I really wanted AoC to succeed as it has a lot of potential and has the potential to be a great game if Funcom sorted their act out but instead all they offer is player made workarounds which do not work and it is clearly a sign of the state of the game when you see how deserted the servers are.
At the end of the day, Funcom have the vision but lack the tech savvy to deliver what their vision is which is a shame imho.
I have played it a lot on and off. Only game I hit max level in and it's my fav of the past few years. That said here's why it didn't catch on:
Lack of open, seamless world
No variety of gear at launch
Gear modifiers confusing at launch
Bugs galore at launch
Not enough content at launch
Combo system too cumbersome for average mmo player. Should have stuck with single stroke hotkeys.
Very poor descriptions on skill/ability tooltips, even to this day
Poor social/grouping aspect. Need a way to warp group members to the dungeon
Mature nature keeps out preteens and young teens. They are a HUGE demographic.
All that and I still enjoyed my time playing it!
The absence of childs in this game could have been a strong point though i know some parents who bought their kids of 14+ yrs this game and i see no problem with that.
Some hysteric people my cry but this game offers nothing that can top (negative) the daily news...
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
@Minn
now i begin to think that your rig has some problems..
the game crash no more,it only crash 1/20 in siege,but while you are playing it does never.
and that is not an IMHO,is a statement,me,my girlfriend,my all guild mates..we never had a crash while playing.better to check you rig
Launch gave AoC an extremely (and sadly deserved) bad reputation.
A lot of people still remember all the lies/failed promises ("Sieges with literally hundreds vs. hundreds of players", "DX10", "elaborate and engaging crafting system" etc. etc.) I would say AoC had it's fair share of hype.
What can a, in some ways much improved, but almost 3-year old game offer to a newcomer?
A player with an openworld PVP mindset will have to face: Low population, gear dependant PVP that requires either grinding PVE content, exploiting or... Hmm wait, that's it.
A PVE player will get to experience being 3 years behind. The expansion made rolling alts less viable so levelling from 1-80 will be a 99% soloexperience. Once you DO get to 80 you will realize that you are still 3 years behind gearwise unless you manage to get into a guild with enough bored members to carry you through instances.
Now add to that a listed subscription price that are 20% higher than the most successful games in the genre...
Yes I know: I am being rather pessimistic about it and AoC is, in most ways, a lot better than it used to be, but you need to be a fairly "hardcore gaming type of person" to get on par in AoC today. Unfortunately very few of these will give a 3-year old game with a bad rep a second chance.
If I was to promote AoC I would be quite brutal and say: You will never be able to please the hardcore PvP crowd - Leave it as it is for now and keep improving PvE - Focus on making "alts" viable again, make it worthwhile for seasoned players to help newcomers level up etc. Most importantly: Throw your loyal RP community some much needed bones! RP'ers may be a niche but they are the least demanding and most loyal customers have. If Funcom (after 3 years neglect) listen to their RP followers, those people will be able to generate a more positive "word of mouth" (or "hype" if you will) aura around AoC than Funcom (and their flat out lying PR-dept.) will ever be able to pay for.
Only other option is F2P, but guess what: Funcom are several years behind the top dogs and I doubt they have the stamina, determination and dedication to pull that one off to a point where the earnings would make it the right choice.
(Yes they have some experience with F2P but take a look at their financial reports before you call that successfull compared to AoC as it is.)
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
Main reason I left at some point was that silly idea to have after lv. 40 FIVE)!!!) buttons used for combos executions only instead for abilities. Was kind'a fun at start but fast become boring and wrist-hurting. Besides while you are doing some long combo combination you can not move or move is cancelled. If they wanted to be original max of the max 3 directional keys should be used. Fortunately spellcasters and ranger does not have this problem.
Still have resubbed around new year after few years and I'm not sorry, it is great and fun and intense game, but i'm very bothered by mele classes and that multikeys combos. But I guess will not stay more then 1 month or 2.
I really can't speak for anyone else, but for me, outside of Tortage the game was just weak. The quests weren't fun, and the world just looked worse. I went from doing things that seemed to have meaning, to do typical kill this, collect that quests.
I tried it twice, and that was enough for me.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
And while at it, also used the insta lvl50 feature and boosted it some more offline levels to reach this magnitude of awesomeness
a 3 years necro... must be a new record.
edit: dalta, what you've titled "boring" and "a problem" (the combo mechanics) is maybe the strongest part of the game besides Howard's work.
I self identify as a monkey.
Because it's just another quest grinder with dull combat mechanics?
Age of Conan WAS.....the BEST MMORPG ever made at one time,
Here is why it was, and is no longer:
During its first 2 years, there were guilds of every type and servers for every type of game play.
For example, I was in an PvP Role Playing guild on a PvP-RP server!
The role playing was awesome, the sieges were awesome!
The, something happened....one of the servers a "pure PvP" server became the server of a$$hats....and as the lesser a$$hats fled that server they all transferred to the PvP-RP server. AND they did not RP as that server was made to be, instead they harrassed the roleplayers on an RP server and continued extending the a$$hat server (pure PvP servers a$$hat populace to this RP server with no intervention by FunCom.
Server transfers of any type should never ever have been allowed, and if so at least enforce FunComs own non harrassment policy.
As a result, the many many roleplaying guilds on the rp-pvp server left the game...we are talking thousands of players.
Add that too the first expansion, which was a grind fest and even the a$$hats began to leave.
Also, the PvP arena was one of the best until PLAYERS in a guild would form teams, and then have other guild mates spread out among the random que to sabotage the random teams they joined.
Thus, players fled the game in more numbers.
Also, if you did not PvP to earn what you needed for gear from the get go, you will be out geared to the point of never recovering.
FunCom tried to do the right thing when they went F2P by allowing you to buy with money the last version of PvP armor to at least make you competitive....it didnt work.
Even worse, was an exploit where you could interupt animations and still do damage was exploited to the point wheere if you didnt learn this fine art you were hosed.
I think it was called animation cancelling or something like that.
Then the politically correct players whined and complained about partial nudity...THIS IS AGE OF CONAN based on Robert E Howards books which feature sex, prostitution, nudity and bloody fighting.....dont like it? go play hello kitty.
Frankly, there should have been an age 21 limit to keep the brats out and that in itself would have drawn in tons of lovers of fantasy novels and robert e howards books...a more mature crowd.
I miss Age of Conan, my guild, the role playing, the sieges, EVERYTHING except the PLAYERS that RUINED it.
Bad launch.
My entire guild from WoW was hyped for AoC, my wife and I both bought Collector's Editions after playing the Beta. After realizing that Tortage was the only thing the game offered (and apparently the only thing the developers had bothered to work on, cause everything else sucked) we slowly gave up one by one and that was that. Never looked back.
Kinda same thing happened with Rift. Really liked it, very excited to play it. Then Trion went ahead with their first round of "fun nerfing" and took away the best thing about the game, class customization. It's a pale shadow of what it was during beta and dare I say, "vanilla Rift", or maybe, pre-fun-nerf rift.
There are plenty of reasons AOC did stick for me but the first one is the combat. Nice idea but pretty bad execution. I got tired of dance dance revolution years ago, don't need a MMO that makes me do that as well. If they actually made the combos different every time to make you pay attention maybe that would work but making me hit the same 4 keys per move I want to make is just repetitive and boring.
Lots of people in this necro thread saying that it was a poor launch and they are 100% correct about that.
However, Funcom did makes leaps and bounds in this game during the first three years after launch. It barely even resembles the game that came out in 2008 and that's a great thing.
If you just forget PVP exists, cause it's pretty much the one thing that's totally garbage in this game and will probably never be fixed then you have some of the most challenging raid content ever produced.
Tier 1 is a great introduction to raiding. They are short raids and begin to prepare players for the next level. The technical mechanics are learned here which will carry raiders through the rest of the game.
Tier 2 is three separate raids, the second of which is quite a challenge to most new players who are just starting to collect gear. The first boss in the second Tier 2 raid is a litmus test for tanks and healers. If you can tank it, then you're probably going to make it as a tank in this game and if healers know how heals work, then they can keep the tank alive.
Tier 3 ramps up the difficulty another big notch. The fights are very technical and every player needs to know the upper and lower limits of their character. Restraint is the key word here. Tanks need to be able to swap aggro regularly because the bosses hit too hard for any one tank to last the entire fight. DPS need to know when to crank out the damage and when to slow down. Any single bad player will regularly cause raid wipes, so this is where most players find out if they make the cut or not in the good guilds.
Tier 3.5 is insane. The difficulty goes into nightmare mode here and consequently many guilds skip this level of raiding entirely, with some coming back after finishing T4 just to prove they can kill the bosses.
Tier 4 is the last tier of end game content and the fights here are extremely technical. Every person has a job and that job needs to be executed perfectly. However, once these technical fights are learned and each player knows his job, these fights become very easy due to the fact that there is little to no random elements to these fights like there is in T3.
Then there's the six man raid content which ranges from extremely easy on normal mode to extremely challenging on Hardcore mode. The Jade Dugout and Pagoda are a testament to small group tactics and teamwork.
The point I'm trying to drive home here is that the PVE content absolutely brilliant in this game and if PVE is your thing, then I wouldn't skip over this game. If nothing else, go do amphitheatre of karutonia... it's one of the most memorable dungeons I've ever encountered.