Age of Conan Review

[Cody Bye]

When Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures hit store shelves, there was a flurry by many MMOG gamers to pick up a copy and begin their journeys through the dark and bloody lands. For the past few weeks, Ten Ton Hammer's Cody "Micajah" Bye has been traversing those same hills and dales of Funcom's recently released Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, and he has taken the time to weigh in on the epic fantasy MMOG. Aimed squarely at those gamers still on the fence about Age of Conan, Cody's review is an in-depth look at the good and bad in Age of Conan and we hope you enjoy it!

Although the weapons are often much more varied in their style and structure, the selection of items in the game needs to expand. Thankfully, a recent patch seems to have introduce better itemization within the game, but MMOG players are often never happy unless they have a whole treasure chest full of hats, boots, swords and staves to choose from. Monsters also need to have their loot tables increased to give players a chance to pick up some terrific armor or weapons off of their corpses. Luckily, the quests within Age of Conan do provide quite an assortment of armor and weapons for players to earn, if they’re willing to undertake the quest. Who wants to play an MMOG without the phat loot?

To read the entire AoC review, click here!

[Milthuran]

Totally agree about the itemisation. Even quest rewards are often worthless, and maybe it's just because I haven't played other characters as much, but more often than not my PoM really does seem to get short-changed with quest rewards she can't even use.
I don't get the armour vendors either, the ones I've seen so far (only 38) haven't had anything better to offer than what you can pick up from the most common drops.
Good review though, you covered most things I can think of. One of my main AoC gripes is how brutally zoned the world is. Having to talk to NPCs to travel to some zones feels cheap and makes the world feel much smaller, even when some of the zones themselves are quite large.

[Miralyn]

I've played to level 10 but since then apparently WoW started dropping some of the items my toons were looking for and I have had scant time to play. I did like the game and being able to, as a necromancer, fight a mob and not get my butt handed to me was a lot of fun.

I agree with you about the social aspect. This is something that these developers just seem to continue to drop the ball. Yes part of it is 3 years of WoW (being my only real MMOG played) but some of it is that it just feels clunky and difficult to use. Hopefully they will fix it.

I hope the game continues to do well as I think there is room for it in the marketplace but I hope enough people will give it a try. Funcom has a great window of opportunity here with WoW in a lull and Warhammer a couple months away to really cement themselves as a legitimate game in the marketplace...I hope they can do it.

[Darke]

An excellent and honest review. /agree on many points and I think you hit the nail right on the head when it came to combat/spell system. All in all, well done!

D

[Blackmyst]

I made the call on the game...for me...about a week ago.I cancelled my subscription and haven't played since.Why....without going into it again adnausium....I expected fun pvp.....crafting......great adventuring.

What I got.....chaotic unstructured pvp.......no structured gvg pvp except end game battlekeep warfare(and thats only a promise).....and broken incomplete poorly designed crafting(that cannot be accessed until you are level 40 of 80) .

NET NET... stunning world environment(dull clothing and weapons ...not the ones pictured in the AOC videos/screenshots)... a pve grinder.

Might the game become....sure.Then maybe not.I see a game in early beta form.I won't reward its creators with more of my money..until they prove to me they have delivered what was initially promised ......and not delivered.

[Cody Bye]

This game is certainly not in early beta form. I've played a number of games in early beta, and they're really almost unplayable. AoC certainly is not that.

Also, I don't think the AoC devs really promised early PvP. In fact, most of that wasn't really talked about. PvP and crafting were two features that were the least talked about coming into launch, and I think you may have fooled yourself into thinking that they were going to be huge epic events in game. That said, I do agree with some of your comments.

[heerobya]

I just bought a new BFG 8800 GT OC 512mb and have been debating buying Age of Conan just to see how well my new card runs it... because I played in both Fileplanet and Gamespy betas, had a 8600 gt 256mb that just didn't cut it. The gameplay was fun, but the bugs were very apparent. (yes, i know how to tell the difference between game bugs and errors because my vid card sucked)

But unless things have changed much since then, I just don't know if it's worth it to buy AoC yet...

I (hopefully) will finally get into WAR beta at the end of July (please please Games Day Chicago please) so I'm not sure buying the game just for the free month of game play is worth it.

[Cody Bye]

The game is much different than the FP beta. In fact, the launch game from today's game is different. That said, it's entirely up to you.

[Blackmyst]

Well..when a company designates at least as many if not more servers as PVP servers and even creates a special cultural warfare server (BANE)..one would think they are expecting..... and in fact they recieved a large part of their subscriber base on those PVP designated servers. What did the players get in the way of any pvp structure ? Zero...zip...nada.Just run around and see who's head you can lop off..even your own guildmates. IMO that is falling far short of a companys responsibility to provide some focus...rational..benefit and fun from the rampant ganking that one would expect...and of course did happen.In fact they have had Mythic's WAR(rvr/pvp centric) looming over them for years.Certainly one would think that a thought or two reguarding AOC pvp would have crossed their mind.How do we retain our pvp population when WAR is introduced ? What alternative can we offer ? Why will AOC subscribers want to stay rather than stray to the next hot game(WAR) ? Certainly pvp with just the very limited battle keep combat that will only occur occassionally( and for now cannot even be initiated unless you DON'T have a battlekeep)won't keep the "boys down on the farm" so to speak. FC has even started to react to the pvp critcism by talking of future plans for guild alliances and other battle locations besides battle keeps for players to focus their pvp energy( so I think they may be starting to get the message).



And now a word about my writing style.For some I may come off a bit strident and opinionated.(raises hand and pleads guild to both counts).For me..if I really care....and am interested....I have a POV....and I'm not shy to express it.Some may be put off....some may simply not like it.For me...I see it as a little spice...and if I can stir the pot a little bit...isn't that far more interesting? I hope you'll agree.

[Lizante]

The reviewer uses the word "lackluster" more than once and that truly fits AoC in it's current state.

I've dubbed AoC the "Not Ready for Prime Time AoC." It was released too early and because of that, FunCom will be continuing to patch this still very much of a closed beta product for a number of months yet.

As I've also stated before, I refuse to pay FunCom $50 and $15/month to continue to beta test their game.

FunCom is, indeed, working hard to correct the myriad of challenges they faced when they chose to release AoC too early.

In my estimation, Age of Conan will be of release quality in 3-6 months.