Age of Conan: Then and Now

Since my time in Age of Conan (AoC), I have noticed a lot of players in my guild are one of three types. They are (1)new players that have been scooped up by the most zealous guild recruiter ever, (2)they are returning players looking for changes and improvements in the game, or (3)they are alts that are leveling to the 25, 39, and 59 PvP brackets.

Then

When AoC was first released in 2008, it had promise of being one of the top PvP games to date, some of the best graphics in the MMO scene, and a combat system that peaked the masses interest.

Although very promising and good game in it’s own right, AoC’s release wasn’t flawless. Many gamers couldn’t handle the high demand graphics that Funcom had so diligently worked on. The forums started to get littered with computer hardware questions and “what specs” are you running on your comp.

A lot of AoC’s down fall was, I think, due to the amount of instanced zones. Everything is instanced, and you can even go from one instanced zone to another instance of the same zone. The problem with this style of game play is there is no freedom, or feeling of freedom to the player. Game play is bogged down by loading screens and wait times. From a PVP perspective, this causes a real lack of any type of “world” style PVP. All of these can be a real hassle to anyone just wanting to log in and play.

Another reason why the game didn’t “take off” as well as it was hoped, can be found in small key decisions to appease a good amount of PVE players by increasing and making the raid/PVE gear on par and even better in some cases then the PVP gear after the patch 1.5 was released. This is commonly referred to as the game changing patch for most players. A game that was heavily marketed for a PVP crowd just scooped out the PVPers advantage by boosting gear that could only be attained via PVE.

Some times when we can’t balance and properly manage two teams we end up losing on both accounts. Thus we find AoC’s numbers in subscriptions steadily falling for the last year or so.

Now

From my play time, it would seem that the recent influx of “new” players could be attributed to the down tide of any new MMO in the current market, and the recent fail of games like Aion and Champions Online.

Low level players being griefed by more heavily geared and lower level toons, suggesting that they are either alts from a cap level 80, or twinks running the Whitesands bracket.  This presents a few problems from anyone “trying” to come in fresh to the game. Even with a big clan/guild, you can’t nag them to watch your back all the time, or call for help periodically.

Although not game breaking, the griefers can be overcome if you are willing to invest the time and effort that it takes to compete and level to end game. As far as I know the end game could be more broken, have more of a treadmill then World of Warcraft or others (WAR), or just plain not be enjoyable, which could be the reason we see so much “mini-game” activity.

From the technical perspective as gaming and hardware in general have become more readily available to the masses, AoC system demands aren’t quite as game breaking as they used to be. My new machine runs the game in “PVP/RAID” video setting mode with a constant 28.0-30.0 FPS. I am currently running this off an Asus G60 laptop, so its by no means “great” but will do the trick for times to come. I haven’t noticed any real game breaking technical issues while playing. A few odd combat bugs and some LOS issues but over all it has been a seamless experience.

My ONE gripe is when I’d like to switch characters, the log out option always brings me to the user name/password screen, and not the character selection screen. Other then that I’d have to give AoC an over all positive score. With hopes that Funcom will take more direction from its community and less from other games that are failing, when they go to release “Rise of the God Slayer”.

P.S. Bad move Funcom, just bad.

~Game on

Kaldeem