Making an online game these days is tough, as there are few interesting settings left to force into the bizarre mould that is the MMO.
Luckily for us, there's a chauvinistic lore-trove waiting in the wings: Robert E. Howard's Hyboria - the world of shirtless sword-swinger Conan the Cimmerian - which has now become the most brutal MMO in existence.
At the start of Age of Conan you can pick one of 12 classes, split into four different archetypes - Soldier, Priest, Rogue and Mage - of which most fall into the generic roles of tanking, melee and ranged damage, healing and spell-damage.
While these innovations don't break the MMO format, they certainly crack it.
Pirate Hell
The first 20 levels have you hidden in the fully voice-acted pirate haven of Tortage. Here, you learn the basics of your chosen class through a mixture of single-player questing - your Destiny Quest storyline, which happens only at night - and the more standard MMO quests, which are accessed by manually flipping the island into daytime mode.
The single-player fare is a series of missions that take you from being a newly arrived slave to the one responsible for the overthrowing of evildoer Strom and his Red Hand troops.
Throughout this you get introduced to the combat mechanics, the strange way in which AOC does conversations (see Dialogue with the barbarians box out), and some of the more engaging parts of AOC's overarching story.
The Destiny Quest is an interesting and innovative way to teach you about your class, and is a joy to play thanks to the reasonably involving storyline, decent voice-acting, and the fact that you're basically playing in a solo instance - something that MMOs have needed for a fair bit of time.
The single-player quests offer the potential to level your character as you would during the standard daytime quests too - meaning your midnight story adventures aren't at the expense of your character's development.
The Destiny Quest is certainly one of the most engaging parts of levelling to 20, but it doesn't completely satiate the levelling curve, which requires you to jump into daytime to reach milestones (10, 15 and 18) before going on with the next part of the nighttime yarn.
They dissonate alongside the story-heavy solo content, replacing calls to arms with monster bashing, but overall this is a well-executed ride through the first levels of the game.
Problems arise in that not only is Tortage the only starting city in the game, it can't be skipped.
Getting through this tutorial stage takes at least six hours, and on your first go you'll find you have to do most of the quests available to scratch your way up to the end of the nighttime saga.
The Destiny Quests change depending which class you're playing, but the different chains lead towards the same conclusion, and most of your time will be spent in the daytime picking up animal parts and killing tribesmen in the same few instances.
Comments
44 comments so far...
kremlik on 17 Jun '08 said:
A bit harsh reveiw defalting to WoW compearing yet again, when if you ignore the 'goly of WoW' considering that was just the same in it's first few months in the US (we in the EU got lucky and got the 'patched' version a few months later).
However the bulk of it rings true although a good MMO, it's not a great MMO... yet. A lot is still missing and the FFA pvp servers have thrown FC a curveball as they didn't expect the 'masses' to think 'PVE server hath not the pvp required for this game' (untrue btw) and start screaming that 'Free For ALL' PVP is 'unfair' (well duh) thus leading to a few pvp system addions and changes, but again unlike a certain Tabular Rasa this game wont be a 'looking to be 'finished' in 6 months title' more like 2-ish...
The game as said has most of it's core there you can quite happly get to level 80 without many issues ('issues' include certain guilds camping the lower end quest bosses for cash for their cities gggrrrrrrr...) but FC need to get their finger out quickly as WAR and Wrath are only months away (if not delayed) to have the content needed to keep players playing
Mogs on 17 Jun '08 said:
I stopped reading after that. Seriously, pull your heads out of your asses.
berelain on 17 Jun '08 said:
Two issues I have with this review.
Firstly, the combo system doesn't have input lag. You don't just press the buttons as soon as they appear and hope it recognises them. Its about timing. You press the first direction after your initial attack, then when the next attack animation nears completion, you press the next button as it highlights.
Really, its not such a difficult thing to grasp. I've never had a single problem pulling off a combo, apart from when I press the wrong button in my excitement.
The other issue is the graphics. Yes, Conan is a pretty demanding game. But my PC is far from powerful, and yet I can run it at an eminently playable 30-40fps for the most part, on a fairly clunky AMD Athlon 3200+, 2 gigs of RAM, and a Geforce 8600GT with 256mb ram. Those are hardly killer system specs, and yet the game is sitting there in 1280 x 1024, high detail, with only shadows turned down (characters only) and ground detail turned down. But I have 16x AF and 2xAA and still get very playable framerates. And that hasn't been patched in- the games been running that well since I got it a few days ago.
Still, most of the points are fair. AoC has a long way to go yet to be everything it wants, but I don't really get why the reviewer is thinking of it as a story driven MMO. Lord of the Rings Online reigns surpreme in that regard. But AoC is a highly entertaining, brutal, and mature MMO thats a little different.
_Marty_ on 17 Jun '08 said:
Any fantasy MMO that comes out is going to be compared to WoW - so it is and so it shall always be.
Agreed. Funcoms next endeavor, The Secret World, is much, MUCH more interesting for a start.
briangriffin on 17 Jun '08 said:
this reviewer is a douche. Again we get the comparison to WoW, are we still gonna compare to that old chestnut in another 20 years time. Also what MMO doesnt begin with bugs, issues, lack of content etc etc i played EQ and EQ2 and both got boring as hell after a while. and ive heard of people playing this game on old ass machines and its been totally playable, its highly scalable.
Yeah it needs more content but they are adding stuff twice a week and this game will just get better and better, its got tonnes of praise from other sites. Whats wrong CVG didnt funcom pay you to kiss its ass?
Iokmonkey on 17 Jun '08 said:
Whilst beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I'm running on a 2.8 single core processor with a crappy Nvidia 7800 and the game looks pretty damned good to me, running at a very playable 25-60 FPS.
As for the combos, the reviewer missed the point. It's not about bashing the keys as fast as you can. It's about getting a rhythm and the flow of the attack right. Again, I've had no problems pulling off combos or getting them recognised and - as I started above - my PC is below the supposed minimum spec for the game.
Yeah, AoC has some flaws, but what MMO didn't at launch? Right now I'm having a lot of fun with AoC - the quests are interesting (it appears the reviewer isn't paying attention to WHY he's doing stuff - the storylines/lore is a big part of the game), the combat is fast and fun and the Tortage quests are actually engaging, particularly if you take the time to play different archetypes.
Is it as technically sound as WoW? No. Is it more fun? Oh yes.
derFeef on 17 Jun '08 said:
oookay, mr. reviewer did not know how to use the combo system and therefore his opinion is it is not working? The combo system is fine, just watch the screen and animations, its spot on.
Anonymous on 17 Jun '08 said:
Of course the reviewer is going to compare it to WoW, because that's where 10 million-odd people are going to get their frame of reference.
I actually agree with much of the text of the review, although it's another inexplicable case of slating a game and then giving it a way-above-average score.
Just another MMO, for me.
Asvin999 on 17 Jun '08 said:
this is a great review, finally some people who can see through the hype unlike the rest of the fanboys here who cant stand their game getting an average review.
Iokmonkey on 17 Jun '08 said:
As I said, it's all in the eye of the beholder. I'm playing the game and having a great time. If you're not, your loss...
HOWEVER, the point is that the reviewer here makes a mistake with how the combat system works but passes it off as a flaw in the game. That's bad journalism, not bad game design. If he doesn't like the game, fine. But to criticise it for something that he's clearly not understood, then that's unacceptable.
briangriffin on 17 Jun '08 said:
i think the reviewer should go back to serving happy meals at mcdonalds cause yeah hes clearly missed the boat here. I played his precious WoW for a few days and i thought it was incredibly boring and come on, its soooo dated now, I actually preferred Everquest 1 to WoW, plus I could never take it seriously, its just too cartoony, like a kids game. Id be interested to see what AoR turns out like, somehow I think it will get its ass kissed by CVG and im sure it will be good, im just bored of elves and orcs and dwaves and the usual fantasy cliches....
briangriffin on 17 Jun '08 said:
and yet CVG will say that GTA4 is the best game ever made! Look how boring and repetative that gets after a short while!
Dajmin on 17 Jun '08 said:
I think it sounds perfectly fair. It has some nice ideas, but all in all it's just another MMO, albeit with an adult theme.
I like the idea of a combo system, but lag is always going to be an issue. If it's a US server, the game will start looking for the keypress at least 150ms before you see it, then it'll take yet another 150ms before it recognises you've pressed it. And that doesn't take into account any frame rate issues or population server lag. Nearly half a second is more than enough time to fail a QTE.
The fact that it takes until level 20 (and if the review is to be believed 6 hours) to get out of the starting area, I can imagine it feeling far more like a chore than an enjoyable event. I'm aiming this at MMO vets like myself (6 years in EQ1) rather than people enjoying the new franchise.
Iokmonkey on 17 Jun '08 said:
I've got to disagree with you there: WoW, although very stylised, is an incredible-looking game. Sure, it's not everybody's taste and the over-stylised character designs are impractical and not to everybody's tastes, but when you see some of the locations, they're pretty amazing - stuff like flying over the mountains into the Wetlands is incredible.
The problem with WoW though is it's caught up now in its own power-struggle. Every patch introduces another +10 Sword so the next patch introduces the +11 armour to counter it, then next patch sees the +12 sword to counter the +11 armour, with the next patch introducing the +13 armour to counter THAT and... well, you see how it goes.
The other big problem with WoW is the high-end content shifts the focus completely from PvE/quests to PvP/raiding, both of which hold little interest for the supposedly "more casual" audience it's designed to appeal to.
briangriffin on 17 Jun '08 said:
WoWs art direction is superb, dont get me wrong, its just I always wanted something more mature, this is why i prefered the EQ games (ok EQ1 is incredibly dated now)
originalbadboy on 17 Jun '08 said:
From someone who has actually played the game I can say that the review pretty much sums up my attitude to the game.
It looks nice but runs like an absolute dog on every system I have tried (and these are prtty good systems, min dual core 4GB RAM, 8600GT 256MB GPU) even Crysis runs better than this!
Simply put this is an MMO , it ahould have scalable graphics to the point where you can make it playable (and dont start with any 'your machine isnt configured properly cos im an IT engineer so I know it is)
Add that to the fact that the game in its current state is pretty boring in all honesty and actually gets worse once you get past level 20 sums up my feelings on the game.... Agreed with review 100%
Iokmonkey on 17 Jun '08 said:
But that's just it - it's not about sending timings in a "twitchy" style. The review is wrong. The way the system works is that when you press the attack combo, LOCALLY you're prompted to enter a sequence of strokes/mouse clicks. If you succeed, it's then sent to the server. It doesn't bounce your clicks/misses back and forth as you do them. It's no more laggy than, say, hitting your Bash button in EQ1.
And how long does it take in WoW to get a Night Elf to a level where they can travel outside of Darnassus? Up until BC, you were stuck there for about the same amount of time until you were a high enough level to brave running the Wetlands. And the 6 hours thing is also way off. I'd say you're looking at closer to 4, tops, maybe less. I'm running my third toon through the Tortage quests now and still loving it.
But yeah, AoC IS more "hardcore" than WoW. But is that a bad thing?
Iokmonkey on 17 Jun '08 said:
Your machine isn't configured properly.
Joking aside, you missed the "Advanced" Tab on the Graphics settings - that allows you to totally re-scale the graphics. Don't just set it to "Low" and think that'll fix it.
I'm running on a machine that isn't anywhere NEAR what you've described and it's perfectly fine.
But as I've said, each to their own. I'm having a great time of it.
Iokmonkey on 17 Jun '08 said:
Now see, I couldn't play EQ2 as everything was khaki and everybody looked inbred.
That and the fact that it was rubbish.
EQ1 I played for a lot of years, but looking back it was pretty flawed. Great at the time but it really did punish you for playing, especially at higher levels...
briangriffin on 17 Jun '08 said:
the starting area is very good in this game, its not like EQ where you kill rats and mice outside the gates, your fighting pirates, tribesmen, giant apes from the get go, and the quests are quite exciting...
Demoki on 17 Jun '08 said:
haha yeh good point
Demoki on 18 Jun '08 said:
Sums up your attitute? sums up your I.Q.
redperil68 on 18 Jun '08 said:
Well I only have slightly higher spec than that and I am running it on high settings at 1920 X 1080 resolution very very smoothly and looks great.
512MB 8800GT E6300 dual core overclocked to 2.8 GHZ 4GB RAM total cost about 200 quid... not exactly breaking the bank... and plays Crysis at High
nee50n on 18 Jun '08 said:
I don't know what it was specifically (maybe the PVP-experience of high level player ganking low level players) but I just really hated this game.
I suppose the important component of a good MMO is the people you play with and the atmosphere of the community - but some of the people on the server I was playing were just horrible - load of racist and sexist s**t going on.
From my impression and I may be wrong but there was no moderating going on and this is a really important thing in my opinion, because unlike real life where what you say has consequences - here people think they can get away with saying anything. I was initially attracted to the game because it was supposed to be a mature game - but I found anything but. Some of it made the adolescents on WoW sound conversational.
Asaron on 18 Jun '08 said:
I was baffled by that statement too, but I read the rest of the review anyway.
briangriffin on 18 Jun '08 said:
Yeah ive encountered some morons spouting racist comments which I find strange considering this is meant to be for an older audience.
The ganking and camping of regeneration points is also a problem, but this is currently being addressed by funcom.
My only other issue is that it doesnt seem to have too much of a social community right now, I havent grouped once yet or been asked to group (maybe I smell or something
kingfink on 18 Jun '08 said:
Ok not everyone in the world (although most magazines these days assume it) played WOW. I did install and play the trial.
Now im not saying that a game should be judged on its first 20 lvls, but I found WOW a bit dull and unaccesable to a noob like me.
AOC is different since everyone is starting at roughly the same time so there does not seem to be any high lvl snobbery (yet). Im sure it will eventually end up with the same problems. Why give a reveiw to someone who is going to compare it to another game he/she obviously plays and loves.
I really am enjoying AOC. As are almost all the people I have met so far. Ok there are bugs, but every game released has bugs. At least there are updates twice a week to deal with these.
Maybe a review of this should have been delayed a few months and then judgment passed.
Hypoboxer
briangriffin on 18 Jun '08 said:
Right on the money there!
Donald73 on 18 Jun '08 said:
A pathetic score of 73 %,and the partly "shallow" review where key elements have not been review, I find myself for the first time,shocked that U guys,our heroes in the gaming world,can "slaughter" this great game..
Shame on you PCZone..SHAME!
mars505 on 18 Jun '08 said:
Great Review, anyone who has been playing mmo's for the past 8 years pretty much sees through the shallow and uninspired content in AoC.
A lot of mmoer's where hoping for a real diverse game but instead got a theme park ride with breast and blood.
Think our last hope for a truly innovative and pvp oriented game will be Darkfall. Well until Straybulletgames shows off more of their current mmo project.
Again, great review and I'm finally glad to see real reviews come down the line instead of the first series of puff articles from blog sites.
Great Job .
jvgp100 on 19 Jun '08 said:
For god's sake, when will you people get this simple point: this is a PC ZONE review. CVG put it up on their site due to some deal they have with Future. The people behind this review had NOTHING to do with the GTA4 review, WHATSOEVER. NOTHING.
Iokmonkey on 20 Jun '08 said:
Obviously that's your experience of the game and I wouldn't dispute what you'd encountered, as I'm sure it's what your experience of the game was.
However, I play on the PvE servers and have encountered - on the whole - a very mature crowd of players. Many is the time I've come up to a Quest spawn to find others waiting for it and had them ask if I'd like to group with them so we can "share" the kill. I've had players give me blue items (items are colour-coded based on rarity/performance) which they could have easily sold for cash to other players. I've had people wade in and help me during bad-pulls.
So whilst there may be issues on the PvP servers, that's not indicitive of the general game population. I don't mean to sound p**sy about it, but generally PvP servers attract a certain sort. Not every PvP player is a 12-year old ganker, but a lot of them are...
Iokmonkey on 20 Jun '08 said:
Keep in mind though that there is a lot of innovative content in the game. You just may not have seen it yet. City-seige PvP, Guild Cities, skirmishes, it's all there and a lot more innovative than WoW's PvP events and "city building." Hell, even EQ2 at least gave you your own inn room.
As for the "breasts and blood" comment, I don't think that's fair at all and you're picking on two very obvious "flaws." For me, that content is simply there. I don't get excited or offended by the boobs and gore. I think pulling those points up for discussion is an easy target - "OMG TEH BOOBEHS"/"I was outraged by the game's graphic ape-on-donkey sex scenes and cannibalism."
It's a shame you didn't enjoy AoC, but personally I'm having a great time of it.
Iokmonkey on 20 Jun '08 said:
Sadly, all one needs to do is fire-up any Xbox Live game and you'll hear that too. I don't think the racism/offensive terminlogy can be criticised as being a negative for the game itself. As I said above, it's a PvPer thing in many cases, as PvP tends to attract a "certain type" in many cases.
Yeah, you smell
marduk82 on 20 Jun '08 said:
I see CVG is employing monkeys now. Im sorry but the reviewer clearly has very little knowledge of mmos and the fact they couldn't even manage to string together a 3-hit combo suggests maybe they have problems with games in general.
If you're using WoW as the yardstick to measure how good an mmo is these days then you really don't have a clue.
Tortage is the worst part of the game, to say it's the best means your playing the game as a solo game as opposed to an mmo as it is intended to be played. Get someone who knows how to play mmos to review mmos please, not someone who think s this is supposed to be the new baldur's gate.
mars505 on 20 Jun '08 said:
I found no innovation in the content, maybe you can point it out for me. Go here collect this number of this, go kill this number of that , go visit A then B then C and kill boss D....
All standard mmo content, which has nothing jelling it all together except the Conan name. If this was just a pc game then I could really see it getting a better score, the fact that they label it a mmorpg, makes it completely different ball game when considering the various parts that make up a top AAA mmorpg.
AoC has none of the qualifications of a AAA title.
AoC fans do yourself a huge favor, go pick up Vanguard SoH for 10 bucks in your local bargain bin, then play the 30 free days all the way through, then log into AoC and feel the true difference between a mmorpg and a console online game.
krang on 22 Jun '08 said:
FFA PVP system is just what a game needs. AoC is not a 12+ game, it is a game of blood and honor. In my time while I was playing MMOs this was the only thing pulling me forward. This community that is created when a MMO game like AoC is made has a codex of its own. Game is simply a tool that real ppl aka players use to make a hierarchy in which honor, wisdom, competition,... is that what matters. Sides are made and than the war starts. If you try to play a MMO solo, you will never experience the true meaning of a MMO. MMO is about making and uniting groups of ppl with different attitude and same goal, and that goal is being the strongest in their little virtual world. The best way to achieve this is when We pwn You. Games are suppose to give you the ability do those things that you can't do in real life, so if you want to "kill" play AoC, and if you want to do quests or pick flowers, play WoW or go outside and pick the god damn flowers.
Iokmonkey on 23 Jun '08 said:
Re-read the section of my post you quoted.
I've played plenty of MMORPGs in my time. Is AoC the best? No. Is it fun? Oh yes. If Vanguard is so great, good for you. I hope you have fun playing it. Personally I'll stick with AoC, as I'm enjoying it. And last time I checked, I thought that's what games were supposed to be for...
SAMAST3R on 20 Jul '08 said:
This looks like a good game, but compared to LOTR online or WOW (i suppose) its not the best of titles.
Anonymous on 16 Aug '08 said:
7.3?
Way too high. About 7.2 too high imo.
DataAngel on 23 Sep '08 said:
I was a that much of a sucker to actualy play this for 2 months and got myself to lvl 50 as a guardian.
I've kinda always played a tank class purely because i love it but in conan omg with the bugs in the release of the EU version and with the constent monotonous quests conan has its very much a average MMO with glory glory graphics (which is all show btw) as the gameplay is shyt! combat could really use some work but don't get my wrong the idea is sweet but can get confusing.. the threat system used for tanking is totaly shyt and really needs work not to mention the bugs the game has but tbh for me the worst offence was when you hit lvl 50 you can not for the life of you progress without guild member joining you to lvl which means the so called solo to 80 is just rubbish!
One example of a glitch is as a guardian you can charge into combat very much like the warrior class in WoW but if you attack right after the charge it Sling-shots you a mile across the map and sometimes even off a cliff! once or twice you can kinda get used to it but after a few times it can really p**s you off!
Also as for the minimum spec to run the game are a total lie!
No way a 5 seriss graphics card can run conan my arse!
a 7600 series card really has a hard time!
my 8800 GTS 512mb could only run it on Medium setting ffs I can run Crysis on Full everything!!
All in all in my view is the game was totaly unfinish and shouldn't have even been released on that date and needed another beta as the game content and engine really could have been better!
since then i've cancaled my sub for my totaly cramed pre release account and gone back to WoW and hoping for something good from WoTLK as this was a total let down and a waste of £50! (2 copys*) as for score 5.0 tops
Iokmonkey on 8 Dec '08 said:
You know what? I'm man enough to admit that everything I posted above is BS.
AoC does a superb job of making your first 20 or so levels a lot of fun. It's one of the most polished and interesting games I've played for a long time. But once you're past that...?
It turns to s**t, plain and simple, as I discovered to my horror.
I cancelled my account a month or so after I posted the above and now would like to publically apologise to anybody my comments may have influenced into trying this pile of steaming crap.
Go play Lord of the Rings Online instead.
PetreTerror on 30 Aug '10 said:
It is not my way man
Google
Yellow6 on 17 Oct '11 said:
Yes, the machine I use for AoC is a bit lower spec than yours....game runs fine.
You are an IT engineer?
You must be right then, Michael Schumacher has never crashed a car and the Titanic was unsinkable.
What is the saying about a poor workman blames his tools or in this case AoC?