Age of Conan

Clueless

Not going to play it myself as I know it would ruin my social life, but I must say it looks amazing.

Anyone think it can knock WoW of its throne?

IBleedRed

doubt it with expansion dropping in november

RedKaos

Im currently playing this actually, heres my mini review if you will:

Graphics: Pretty stunning in all honesty, definitely the best looking MMO out at the moment with some nice scenery, BUT requires a monster of a PC. The finishing fatalities are awesome too - nothing beats decapitating a foe while blood squirts all over your screen.

Sound: Pretty good, makes the game feel epic as feck. Voice acting also seems very good, but only really seems to exist on the first 20 levels.

Gameplay: I really like the combat system, feels like a proper realtime hack'n'slash game that requires more thought than button-spamming. Nice bit of storyline involved with the quests, but the quests themselves in all honesty arent at all that much different than in World of Warcraft.

Content - quite scarce for high levels at the moment...very little to do besides levelling up at lower levels and PVP.

PVP - Again not really implemented yet, on a PVP server you can attack random players but thats it really. They havent really introduced that so called 50 vs 50 siege battles yet.


Conclusion - its definitely the best MMO released since world of warcraft and its not surprising its surpassed 1 million sales. While I DONT think it is a 'WoW-killer' (i.e. destroy WoW's dominance in the MMO market), it will definitely have its strong and numerous playerbase which will make the game grow into a very decent MMORPG. All it needs is a little extra content, some bugs needing to be fixed, and for the PVP system to be implemented properly, then its sorted.

8/10

If you fancy playing then give me a shout -Volkan, Barbarian on the Dagon server.

Count Duckula

I played it for a short while at a friend's house yesterday and didn't think it was up to all that much. The graphics are nice, but nothing else really grabbed me.

For the foreseeable future I'll be sticking with World of Warcraft, and so will everyone else I know.

AdZzUtd

it's all about Warhammer online, when it's eventually released.

Count Duckula

That looks fucking bollocks. Don't think it's going to be up to much at all.

Graphics are *alright*, gameplay looks fairly standard. And what's the point of going through all the trouble of setting it in the Warhammer universe only to then fuck with the lore irreparably? Might as well just make up your own backstory rather than just shove in the Warhammer trademark as a selling point.

I'm fairly confident it'll be highly disappointing.

RedKaos

Try and play on, it gets alot better as you level up. I was pretty underwhelmed in the first few hours of the game, infact the only thing that impressed me were the visuals on my monster of a PC .

But once you get off Tortage (the newbie island) things start to kick off and everything really draws you in.

I think im gonna stick with AoC tbh, 3 years of WoW has made me inevitably sick of it.

RedKaos

That looks to be a very poor WoW-clone imo.

If you're looking out for future MMOs then check out Earthrise and Stargate: Worlds, of course you've got to appreciate sci-fi if you're going to take a liking for both games.

AdZzUtd

It's a pvp game, I just want to see large scale battles, lore for me is irrelevant.

Could be said for most MMORPG's out now, and coming out in the future. It's a PvP game first and foremost, pvp in WoW went downhill as soon as casters became overpowered.

RedKaos

If PVP is your thing and lore is irrelevant, then trust me there are many good PVP-orientated MMOs out there. Planetside and EVE online for starters are brilliant at catering PVP needs.


You're absolutely right, most MMOs nowdays are WoW-clones - thats exactly why I have almost zero interest for WAR. While I continously enjoy Age of Conan, the bits that bore me the most were the features borrowed from WoW funny enough.

What we dont need is another WoW-clone in the market, we've already got WoW, EQ II, Vanguard and LOTRO which are all exactly more or less the same game with a different lore. WAR just seems to be another name to be added to that list unfortunately.

AdZzUtd

Well I played Planetside back when it was border-line popular and it was good, but its too old now, and my friends quit EVE early so never bothered, Warhammer online is where i'll be going when it comes out, EQ II isn't a WoW clone btw - the original EQ was out way before WoW. And if LOTRO and Vanguard are WoW clones but AOC isn't are you basing it purely on the UI or?

RedKaos

Planetside has actually seen a return to the big fights and poplocks since they recently merged all the US servers into one. Werner is dead though - still you should try the battles in the newly created omniserver 'Gemini'.

Theres also actually quite a few things that seperate AoC from LOTRO/WoW/VG such as the combat system, the mature theme, and emphasis on player-run cities to name a few. As for EQII - well WoW-clone or no WoW-clone, that game simply defined grindfest at its best.

Count Duckula

I'm going to wait for Yahtzee on Zero Punctuation before I make my decision

Alex

I'm sure WOW well win this battle easily

RedKaos

Its already won really, there isnt going to be any MMO than will destroy WoW's dominance for quite some time I imagine, especially after the upcoming expansion has supposedely sucked in 2.5million preorders.

Age of Conan will be a successful game with a large playerbase, but it will in no way overcome WoW's suscriber numbers.