Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures

First off, for the people who have played beta and complained about bugs, I beg you to re-consider buying this game. Everyone is saying how polished it is since beta.
Also this is not a full review, I've been in Early Access and played the final product alot so this review is to try and give you an idea of the game and what to expect. I will delete this review eventually and write a full blown review when I reach end-game level.

Do you remember when you played your first MMO and you got that magic feeling in your stomach that you just couldnt get rid of?
I never thought I'd feel that again... untill now.

Well first things first, character customisation. You can make anything, from a rugged bearded barbarian, to a beautiful femme fatale. So the girls who were worried about not being able to create a 'pretty' character do not fear because you can.
This game is very similar in the way Oblivion's character customisation worked with sliders, but the face models… more »

First off, for the people who have played beta and complained about bugs, I beg you to re-consider buying this game. Everyone is saying how polished it is since beta.
Also this is not a full review, I've been in Early Access and played the final product alot so this review is to try and give you an idea of the game and what to expect. I will delete this review eventually and write a full blown review when I reach end-game level.

Do you remember when you played your first MMO and you got that magic feeling in your stomach that you just couldnt get rid of?
I never thought I'd feel that again... untill now.

Well first things first, character customisation. You can make anything, from a rugged bearded barbarian, to a beautiful femme fatale. So the girls who were worried about not being able to create a 'pretty' character do not fear because you can.
This game is very similar in the way Oblivion's character customisation worked with sliders, but the face models for AoC look completely different, and in a good way.

They have some really interesting classes also. But I'll leave that for you to read up on. But dont expect if your playing a Bear Shaman for it to play out like the WoW shaman. Remember this is a different game and this means the classes are regarding Conan Lore.

Okay next part, you enter the world, first thing you notice, talking NPC's. This does add that next level of immersion in games. Your not required to read a wall of text before you do quests. You can sit back and listen to the NPC talk or just skip and quest.
Firstly the Guide will pop up onscreen.
This is basically there to remind you that this is not a 'point and click' game. You still have to point and click at times, but YOU designate where your sword is going to swing.
Sounds difficult? it isnt.
Imagine the AI enemy your character is about to fight has 100HP.
Three arcs will appear on him indicating which side of his body he is defending, if he is fully shielding one side and you hit the side he is shielding, then it will knock about 5HP off and he'll probably kill you before you kill him if you keep hitting that side. If you hit the side he ISNT shielding, you will take roughly 30-40 HP off. But the AI are very clever, if you continue to hit the same side, they will change their shielding to that side and so on.
I was quite surprised to see the enemy constantly changing their shielding arc to where I was hitting.
Very clever indeed.
I was mowing down three enemies at a time within five minutes.
The graphics are by far the best graphics on any MMO to date. You can argue all you want, but on DX10 with high settings... I havent seen anything as good as this in the MMO genre. The sound and environment immerses you instantly. Sound is a big part in any game for me, and from the wild grunts of me swinging my sword, to the background music in new area's it really is to put it bluntly... awesome.

I've already shown my friend this game, he started as an Assassin. After getting through the first few levels he got the ability to hide. He hid, then walked up behind an enemy, and did a fatality move. Which is basically a death move, remember Mortal Kombat?
His dagger flung straight into the back of the enemies head, and then watched his corpse just drop to the floor with a massivle critical. His next words were 'I'm buying this game'.

The brutality is always there in this game, so if you like easy point and click and fairies, then dont get it. If you like decapitations, blood and gore then get it. Its quite polished, I have not encountered any bugs yet. The interface could do with some improvements as with other things, but these will come as the game develops.
I'll see you in Hyboria.

Just to get it out the way first; yes there's some issues at the moment with this game. It's an MMO, and a big one at that, and to be frank I expected it to be in a far worse state than this. Perhaps I've been lucky, but it's not crashed at all for me. In fact, personally I haven't had any difficulties at all so far on my way to level 30.

What problems I know of have been ones I've read about on the forums, and there are quite a few. However, Funcom are working flat out fixing things, with patches and corrections going on every day or so, and problems are being fixed fast.

I've also read some complaints about the "high system requirements", but if I may be brutally honest, that's just stupid. It's a brand new game with very impressive graphics, and enormous play areas. It looks stunning, and yet on my machine, which was high end more than a year ago (and hence upper mid-range now), I can still ramp all the graphics sliders up to maximum and it stays at a playable… more »

Just to get it out the way first; yes there's some issues at the moment with this game. It's an MMO, and a big one at that, and to be frank I expected it to be in a far worse state than this. Perhaps I've been lucky, but it's not crashed at all for me. In fact, personally I haven't had any difficulties at all so far on my way to level 30.

What problems I know of have been ones I've read about on the forums, and there are quite a few. However, Funcom are working flat out fixing things, with patches and corrections going on every day or so, and problems are being fixed fast.

I've also read some complaints about the "high system requirements", but if I may be brutally honest, that's just stupid. It's a brand new game with very impressive graphics, and enormous play areas. It looks stunning, and yet on my machine, which was high end more than a year ago (and hence upper mid-range now), I can still ramp all the graphics sliders up to maximum and it stays at a playable framerate. So to those of you moaning that World of Warcraft doesn't need such a powerful PC, I say OF COURSE IT DOESN'T; it's game engine is over three years old for goodness' sake! Progress means extra oomph requirements; live with it.

Anyway, bile vented (messy!), to the game. It keeps hold of many of the accepted systems of MMORPGs, so systems such as abilities, action keys, feats, and many of the shortcut keys will be familiar to WoW and EQ2 players (among others). This makes sense, as many players coming to the game can get on with appreciating what is new rather than needing to re-learn systems unnecessarily.

But it's the differences that make Age of Conan interesting. The combat system is far more direct than other MMOs, with three keys directly controlling left, right, and frontal attacks. Initially this seems excessively simple, with you simply choosing the angle of attack based on where the opponent's defenses are concentrated (in a visible aura surround thier character). However, advances in level bring combos, which take the form of triggerable abilities that ask you to press attack keys in an appropriate order to pull them off. Initially used as "special attacks" to complement you mundane assaults, these quickly become the only way to fight if you want to survive. This is an elegant system, as the complexity grows along with your character, allowing you to get familiar with the basic game mechanics before throwing you into the combative deep end.

The graphics are beautiful, wlthough I was disappointed with the skin textures on the main avatars, but that's a very minor quibble when the landscape you're running through looks so lovely.

The combat looks brutal, with great gouts off blood sluicing off your blade as you slice your foes open, and occasionally a particularly vicious "fatality" triggering, resulting in limbs and heads flying off in wonderfully gory detail.

Most importantly however, this game has a gritty, dirty, believable atmosphere which most fantasy games lack. It's dark, violent, centred almost entirely on human characters, and suffused with a grim humour that permeates every aspect of the game's presentation.

So in summary, the problems are all fixable and, seem mostly centred around the later game, so only the rushers are likely to hit most of them before they are fixed. For me, the more human feel of this game sets it apart from anything else out there at the moment. It's not a game to replace Warcraft or Everquest or City of Heroes. It's one to play in addition. I believe that's what the creators, who clearly adore the Conan lore, intended, and I think it was the right way to go.

I hope my thoughts have been helpful.

Age of Conan is an interesting game on many fronts but first lets get a few things out of the way.

When the game was launched it was bug ridden, unbalanced and full of exploits. Much of what is reported here was true but the key to that statement is WAS true. The fact is that much of what people have reported here is no longer true. There are far fewer exploits than before and while no MMO will ever be exploit free exploits are continuously fixed.

The combat system is far more balanced and number of "God mode" builds have been erradicated. Thats not to say there isn't still siginifcant balancing and "fun" modifications to do but they are diminishing with each patch.

The quest hole in the early 60's was eradicated with a new area and whilst there is still a large hole at 75+ the next patch should fill this hole.

The game as a whole has matured considerably and the leveling experience is now pretty smooth. There is certainly still some issues with quests not… more »

Age of Conan is an interesting game on many fronts but first lets get a few things out of the way.

When the game was launched it was bug ridden, unbalanced and full of exploits. Much of what is reported here was true but the key to that statement is WAS true. The fact is that much of what people have reported here is no longer true. There are far fewer exploits than before and while no MMO will ever be exploit free exploits are continuously fixed.

The combat system is far more balanced and number of "God mode" builds have been erradicated. Thats not to say there isn't still siginifcant balancing and "fun" modifications to do but they are diminishing with each patch.

The quest hole in the early 60's was eradicated with a new area and whilst there is still a large hole at 75+ the next patch should fill this hole.

The game as a whole has matured considerably and the leveling experience is now pretty smooth. There is certainly still some issues with quests not working as intended but these are very few and far between, well documented and trivially repaired by the GM's.

As a framework and as a game AoC has considerably more to offer than most current MMO's. The fighting control method and the graphics offer a huge scope for future development and upcoming patches offering more endgame content and a re-itemisation of the entire game making items worth more (and potentially providing an economy) are also coming.

AoC has its flaws (lack of endgame content, poor raid loot system, poor itemisation, leveling holes after 75 etc.) just like an other MMO but as of right now the game is a LOT of fun and can offer many 100's of hours of gameplay for the money. The game will only get better from here and now is a great time to give it a go.

G

No customer support .. canned responses and severe lack of GMs.
Bugged game .. patches that are announced and never come duping more ppl into another months subs.

1 village in the whole game is actually complete. The lvl 1-20 area. I enjoyed it. Just to be let down later.

lvl20+ = lack of content , grunting NPC's , grind fest ,Open Instances where high lvls camp bosses and the lower lvls dont get a chance to do their quests. Boring items/weapons/armor which give no satisfaction in obtaining. Broken crafting system which is also unrewarding. The targeting system is bad too giving only 2 targeting options. Not to mention the countless bugs that should have been fixed during BETA.

In the first 2-3 weeks reviews are great , that is until ppl get past Tortage and see what 90% of the game is actually like. The reviews soon turn bad and for good reason.

The forum moderators are extremely biased, and close threads at a whim.
I asked for help/GM/email support… more »

No customer support .. canned responses and severe lack of GMs.
Bugged game .. patches that are announced and never come duping more ppl into another months subs.

1 village in the whole game is actually complete. The lvl 1-20 area. I enjoyed it. Just to be let down later.

lvl20+ = lack of content , grunting NPC's , grind fest ,Open Instances where high lvls camp bosses and the lower lvls dont get a chance to do their quests. Boring items/weapons/armor which give no satisfaction in obtaining. Broken crafting system which is also unrewarding. The targeting system is bad too giving only 2 targeting options. Not to mention the countless bugs that should have been fixed during BETA.

In the first 2-3 weeks reviews are great , that is until ppl get past Tortage and see what 90% of the game is actually like. The reviews soon turn bad and for good reason.

The forum moderators are extremely biased, and close threads at a whim.
I asked for help/GM/email support for 4 weeks and only ever recieved canned responses. The GM system allows u to enter a petition in game which is never answered . And if u log off the petition gets cancelled.!!!! I spent 14 hours logged on waiting for GM support for broken quests which never came.

The only reason this game could even get 1/5 is the graphics, Tortage( the one and ONLY starting zone) and some of the mature quest content.

Could have been alot better .. A real letdown

Funcom have really shot themselves in the foot with this one. The first 20 levels (the tutorial) are simply outstanding. Everything is polished. This gets 5 stars.
20-40 - 4 stars - The novelty starts to wear off, but there is still a lot to be done and you do not really have to grind that much. In additioon some of the zones are downright beautiful.
40-60 - 3 stars - Ok it's still beautiful, but there is a severe lack of content once you hit above level 50 (sure you can keep doing the daily quests in the noble district, but they are very repetitive). In addition the buggy (and thoroughly expensive) crafting system is now available at this point and that just dissapoints you even more. You are now aware of how fundamentally unbalanced it is(specifically healers are the best in pvp, then casters, then barbarians, then Conquerors/Guardians, then lastly Dark Templars/Assassins thanks to the ability for casters to kite melee all over the place and still have a full mana bar to… more »

Funcom have really shot themselves in the foot with this one. The first 20 levels (the tutorial) are simply outstanding. Everything is polished. This gets 5 stars.
20-40 - 4 stars - The novelty starts to wear off, but there is still a lot to be done and you do not really have to grind that much. In additioon some of the zones are downright beautiful.
40-60 - 3 stars - Ok it's still beautiful, but there is a severe lack of content once you hit above level 50 (sure you can keep doing the daily quests in the noble district, but they are very repetitive). In addition the buggy (and thoroughly expensive) crafting system is now available at this point and that just dissapoints you even more. You are now aware of how fundamentally unbalanced it is(specifically healers are the best in pvp, then casters, then barbarians, then Conquerors/Guardians, then lastly Dark Templars/Assassins thanks to the ability for casters to kite melee all over the place and still have a full mana bar to nuke, whereas melee can't do squat as they have used all of their stamina for sprinting and thus cannot do any combos).
60-80 - 2 stars. There is a severe lack of content here. Repeating wanted/daily quests or farming the death camps in a group is not a fun way to level. Not to mention that if you are on a PvP server you have all the bored lvl 80 people in Kheshatta with nothing to do apart from grief others.
Level 80 (endgame) - 1 star. The PvP system that was promised at release is still not released (mid July). The Siege warfare is now working, however you need a full tier 3 city before you can do that and most guilds are falling apart before getting that far when there people get disillusioned with the lack of content or class balance.
Female characters still have the attack speed bug where they swing in melee slower than male characters (how the hell this got past QA before the game got released I have no idea). This results in combo's taking longer to complete (and as it's the last button of the combo that triggers the "mega" damage results in a severe DPS loss in both PvP and PvE).
This could be such a great game, the ingrediants are all there. It looks simply stunning (though beware you do need a very good PC for it), the music is outstanding, there is a huge amount of RICH lore and the classes seem a good mix (in theory), however Funcom have really failed to deliver on the execution and implementation and as a result the active player population is plummeting as more and more people hit 80 and find out that there really is nothing left to do apart from a couple of buggy raid instances (or get bored and quit at level 50).
In addition the horrendus ingame customer support (they use a petition system where you keep having to update your petition every 4 hours otherwise it gets deleted, and the average petition takes 24hours+ to answer due to the lack of GM's ingame, 1 per server is the current rumour)., along with the godawful forums (anyone who posts legititmate concerns can end up banned from the forums for 6 months, let alone question why someone else has got banned or a post locked) has resulted in many people just quitting.
I really wanted this game to succeed. But sorry Funcom, if you wrap a turd in golden wrapping paper it's still a turd. Thanks for ruining what could have been such a great game. I'm gutted that the quality of the first 20 levels was never repeated throughout the game. The entire QA team should be shot (or maybe they should actually hire some people), and someone should tell the forum moderators that posting legitimate concerns or asking questions does not consist of a bannable offence (there is a reason why you need to be registered to read the official forums...