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The Last Paragraph
Shoal
Member Posts: 1,156
QFT :
"Age of Conan isn't the worst attempt to compete with WoW in the recent years - that honor goes to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes - but still it's a failed attempt in many ways. It's not different enough to avoid unflattering direct comparisons, and when you scrape off the pretty visuals and put the actual meat of the gameplay next to Blizzard's juggernaut, Age of Conan falls on its face. In fact, it doesn't compare very favorably even when you size it against the actual gameplay offered by old timers like Dark Age of Camelot or Everquest 2. Shiny visuals and boobies are not enough to cover up the unfinished and poorly designed gameplay. Next contender, please."
From this in-depth (and accurate) Review :
http://www.yougamers.com/reviews/19142_age_of_conan_hyborian_adventures/
Comments
That is what i ve felt for awhile now, and to think i was a fanboi of this game a couple years ago. Ah well some will like it some won t. I m just glad most of my friends from other games tried it and are leaving now we ll have some fun in other games when they come out
Age of Conan: The Hyborian Adventures was released before it was ready. The 1-20 leveling experience is mostly complete, with nifty features such as voice-acted quest givers and a rich storyline granting players a solid, next-generation RPG experience. But the further you get from the starting levels, the more you'll have to deal with smudged content. The voice acting will mysteriously disappear, along with the quests, the single-player story and the engaging instances. The primary reason to keep playing the game will be forming guilds and engaging in epic, PvP sieges with characters that have grinded to 80. Nevertheless, Age of Conan: The Hyborian Adventures' core features are brilliant. Blood, sex, power, vengeance, lordship and lust together drive a game that has tremendous potential, despite its lacklustre polish. In the months to come, Hyboria will grow into a gladiatorial contender that you may well want to experience, World of Warcraft fan or not. For the moment, though, this is a game best left to the MMO crowd that's been craving an M-rated change of pace.
From this in-depth (and accurate) Review :
www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/index.cfm
I wonder sometimes if the MMO culture is now more focused on what is wrong with a game than what is right. It may be Western Culture in general when you think about it. HOwever, there just seems to be a "I cannot see the forest because Im burning all the trees" philosophy
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
What is right with AoC?
Seriously ... it looks pretty but scratch the surface and it's devoid of the basics.
I do not agree with you Czzarre, I think that the true reason for people being quick to voice their concerns is that some of us gamers (finally) have gotten enough of burned fingers by flaky launches, UO, AO and of course Vanguard have all disappointed a lot of people (at launch at least), and rather then sucking it in once again we voice our concerns. Luckily the mmo market is big enough so that we can always find something to play, so if game makers do not deliver we are not sentenced to paying for betas or quitting the whole genre.
I actually was worried about AoC when it was being shown in Leipzig and the Siege Content was done 100% by AI controlled characters.
Ah well all us jaded Vanguard ex-players will welcome the ex-AoC crowd into the fold of let down players.
Of course if they had all listened to us before they would not be dissapointed - the whole situation was completely obvious to old Vanguard players because we had lived through the exact same thing and knew the signs and had heard it all before.
Almost word for word from Funcom was the same crap put out by Sigil. You were warned.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
"With the number of bored high level characters growing daily, full PvP is exactly as much fun as stabbing yourself repeatedly with a butter knife."
That is a great quote!
Gotta love how when a good review that reveals the truth about AoC gets released all the fanbois ignore it, but when a player tries to express their own thoughts and opinions they get called a troll and to stop passing around lies when it was all truth.
This review is basically saying the exact same things as the so-called trolls have been talking about since launch...lol After reading this I seriously have no idea how anyone could consider this worth playing, especially with all the "were working on" "It'll be patch in later" "updates are coming this summer" excuses!
This is a pathetic MMO once again by Funcom and I truly believe they have earned the #1 spot over SOE!
As an ex-VG and ex-AO player who tested both games in beta as well as AoC you are right. I tried telling people what the game was and how it was so far to the opposite of what the devs were making it out to be.
Though now I am in another beta (thanks A-ron if you ever read this) and I am having a blast!
That and plating MGS4
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Who says its the truth? You havent even played the game, its not like you know first hand yet you continue to troll these boards?
When someone who likes the game tried to express opinions on things it gets beat down on. This review is posts by a mythic fanboy and has been quoted about 11 times now.
You want to believe the review fine. Believe me when I tell you to jump of a cliff you wont be hurt. Go for it, you and the disney sig wont be missed.
I count 5 people in this thread who have always had it in for AoC, some who havent even played the game others with 5 hrs under their belt...
Who says its the truth? You havent even played the game, its not like you know first hand yet you continue to troll these boards?
When someone who likes the game tried to express opinions on things it gets beat down on. This review is posts by a mythic fanboy and has been quoted about 11 times now.
You want to believe the review fine. Believe me when I tell you to jump of a cliff you wont be hurt. Go for it, you and the disney sig wont be missed.
I count 5 people in this thread who have always had it in for AoC, some who havent even played the game others with 5 hrs under their belt...
Do you mean the the review is written by a mythic fanboy, or that the thread was started by one?
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
That makes no sense. Playing AOC is like driving down a road with huge pot holes. Would you say "This road is really well done aside from these pot holes every 30 feet.", or "This road sucks. It has a lot of pot holes." Most people would say the former, because we expect our roads to be paved and maintained. We also expect a game that has MOST of its features present and working.
Who says its the truth? You havent even played the game, its not like you know first hand yet you continue to troll these boards?
When someone who likes the game tried to express opinions on things it gets beat down on. This review is posts by a mythic fanboy and has been quoted about 11 times now.
You want to believe the review fine. Believe me when I tell you to jump of a cliff you wont be hurt. Go for it, you and the disney sig wont be missed.
I count 5 people in this thread who have always had it in for AoC, some who havent even played the game others with 5 hrs under their belt...
Do you mean the the review is written by a mythic fanboy, or that the thread was started by one?
The reviewer proudly touts it on the yougamers forums. He also doesnt like unfinished games so thats why he was giving a shit review, its also been put to him that everything he reviewed was not the whole game or even half of it, the bugs played a big part for him and for that the game suffered in that review. Shame he didnt wait a week longer alot of what he nags at is fixed.
Who says its the truth? You havent even played the game, its not like you know first hand yet you continue to troll these boards?
When someone who likes the game tried to express opinions on things it gets beat down on. This review is posts by a mythic fanboy and has been quoted about 11 times now.
You want to believe the review fine. Believe me when I tell you to jump of a cliff you wont be hurt. Go for it, you and the disney sig wont be missed.
I count 5 people in this thread who have always had it in for AoC, some who havent even played the game others with 5 hrs under their belt...
Exactly...The people complaining are ones who havent been playing. Also I'll say that those rare individuals who stay up day after day fueled by RedBull and Hot Pockets just to hit max level first are a bad source for information. AOC is a fine game and is getting better by the day. Just look at the complainers...always the same people. Look at their post histories. Sad.
I've stated my opinion a few times on these boards. I wasn't an AoC "fanboi" or "hater" going into the game. I did the pvp beta weekend and was left with positive impressions that made me excited to start playing early access.
Tortage kicked ass. The lack of voiceovers after tortage didn't bother me that much... it's probably expensive and time consuming to do the voice acting. It's fluff, and I liked that they are planning on doing more voiceovers for lore related quests in the future. So that's cool.
The game really started to bug me around pyramid of the ancients. That place is garbage and bug ridden. then I did Sanctum of Burning souls and it pretty much summarized my eventual feelings of AoC. Pretty, but lacks polish and substance. The bosses and trash were just flat to me. AI seemed poor and one of the bosses didn't even fight back. Stats do hardly anything so your main upgrades are health, stam, mana and regen.
Then I reach level 40 and I have 2 zones, one a lagtastic crashfest known as field of the dead, and the equally laggy (but not as crash prone, but more buggy quests) noble district. OK field of the dead was fixed, and I was able to enjoy leveling again. I barely squeaked to level 50 with these two zones. Got to eiglophian mountains and the amount of quests just dropped off. one zone to get to late 50s is pathetic.
Then you had to do the monstrosity known as the main system (cistern is ok since it's short and sweet) and this place makes prefix scholomance look fun. Do companies ever learn from the mistakes of others?
I'm just underwhelmed. As I level up, I just see more shortcuts, less polish, more annoyances.
The review is pretty spot on, if a bit harsh. I think its worth 50 bucks for most people interested in rpgs. I think there's fun to be had. But it has a lot of work to go to sustain your interest. Some people quit after a few days, I see myself playing for another few weeks before I'm done. Just wanted to get a character to 80 because I enjoy questing and leveling and seeing characters get more powerful. I just have zero interest in end game. If I want to raid, wotlk I'm sure will be a better experience and the pvp announced today doesn't excite me either.
If you're mostly a pve-er (like myself), you'll get 50 dollars worth out of the game but imo WoW will still be a better experience for you. If you are a pvper, there's zero reason to buy AoC now. Maybe check back at the end of the summer. It has the potential to be better than wow, but only time will tell. But by that time, Warhammer will be close to release so the next few months will be critical for AoC's long term survivability. It won't be able to touch pve content available in wotlk, and Warhammer and even Aion could provide more compelling pvp.
Avery, you are about as biased to Funcom as they come.
. I am just wondering how many players will quit in the coming months.
The reviewer proudly touts it on the yougamers forums. He also doesnt like unfinished games so thats why he was giving a shit review, its also been put to him that everything he reviewed was not the whole game or even half of it, the bugs played a big part for him and for that the game suffered in that review. Shame he didnt wait a week longer alot of what he nags at is fixed.
Ok, read over about 30 pages of his posts (1400and something posts) and I really dont see much of anything that makes it look like hes out for AoC's blood or that hes a devoute mythic fanboy or any another post that mentions mythic as if they were the gods of MMOs.
He does state that yes, he hates unfinished games. Any normal person would, and AoC was infact unfinished as in a -ton- of crap was broken and/or missing. You cant deny this, no one can. Yes its common for MMOs to be released unfinished because MMOs are never finished yada yada yada... But the is a difference. Funcom purposefully polished the whole Tortage 1-20 game to be pretty and awe inspiring. They made sure it was that way because they know that MOST reviewers play the first few levels and will base a review off that (like http://pc.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r26352.htm).
The rest of the game was pretty much the same as it was in beta where most of us complained that it wasn't ready. They told us the whole "We have an updated client thats being tested by our internal team and rest assured you will be suprised when launch comes." Yeah, launch came and what we got was the same half busted system with higher res graphics.
Thing is the review was not what someone yourself wanted. You love the game and his words cut deep so your out to discredit what he says or what his opinion of the game is. Its understandable, we know you have been all for this game since day one and seeing scores and reviews like this feels like a kick in the jimmy. But So far the reviews that have been coming out have been pretty on par with his review, so whats thier excuse? Are they Mythic fanboys as well? Are they out to sink AoC out of some unknown hatered?
And yeah, stuff was added after the review was made, big whoop. Should he wait to give a review of the game in 2 years when its somewhere near perfection? I agree that reviews for an MMO cant be treated like its a single player game where what you see is what you get and should be done in stages, but if every review were to be sunshine and roses we would have a crap ton more companies making us pay to play beta products.
You can be a big fan of a game all you want, but you have to face reality at some point and accept the good and the bad.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Let us not forget SOE on this list.
Where does he criticize gameplay in that article? I saw nothing on the 3 pages.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
"We'll get to the long laundry list of gameplay issues in a separate review, coming soon."
So he used gameplay as a segway to the upcoming review. As for the emphasis on 'long' its not as though it was pure BS. The game has a long list of issues and they keep getting worse as the fixes come out. So instead of sugar coating or being polite and saying 'Many Gameplay issues' he went for how he saw it, as how many others saw it as well.
Thing is, Funcom is not new to MMOs. They released AO in a horrible state and one would think they would have learned how not to release a game. Then they release AoC which, aside from not having AOs stability issues at launch, is still a really poor example of a sophmore release. And I can see where a reviewer would be on gaurd over a company that has a history of bad support and execution. Those of us who suffered through AOs beta and launch knew how FC loves to use smoke and mirrors as well as missdirection to try to make it look as though they care about the playerbase when its obvious they care more about pushing out one project asap so they can move onto the next.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"