Age of Conan: Forum Topic: Age of Conan Open beta Review by lani on the GameAmp Network

lani

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Age of Conan Open beta Review

Age of Conan, Open Beta.

Funcom, in conjunction with FilePlanet did what's probably the weirdest 'Open Beta' I've so far had the privilege of participating in.
First of all, it wasn't 'open' at all. Only those people with a paid for FilePlanet / IGN / Gamespy subion could get in. With a total of 50.000 keys. Any other company would have called this a stress test. Funcom even belatedly admitted to the term 'Open Beta' being a poor choice in that regard. Having called it the IGN Beta would have been better, more correct for one. Then again, this is the company that's charging people already pre-ordering the game for their 10 day head start. Pre-order head-starts by the way were conceived as a means to lessen the Launch crush, the load on beginner area's. Paying extra through pre-ordering means you pay for the honor of helping out the Publisher/Developer to spread out their server load at launch. Funcom/Eidos go a step further apparently and introduce a surcharge on those head-start days in addition to the extra cost for the pre-orders.
But you get a woolly mammoth, an XP enhancing ring and/or a mountable rhinoceros in exchange.

The second astounding thing about the Open Beta wasn't so much that the client's resource foot-print and overall stability, maybe I should say lack thereof in stead, was reminiscent of early post-launch Vanguard. No, it was that pretty soon, various leaks from Closed Beta sprung, mentioning how this Open Beta client was actually a very old version, pre-dating the PVP (test) weekend. Very, very weird. I mean, if you're going for a High-End PC required MMORPG in a post-Vanguard era, you know that you're limiting your market to those people who have a system that can handle Vanguard, which for the most part will consist of people who tried Vanguard. People who are very much afraid the next 'Third Generation' MMOG will be as disappointing to them as Vanguard was to most of them. So, maybe you should not use your 'Open Beta', which really is the MMORPG demo game, to make each and everyone of them remember the bad old days of having to defrag your hard-drive to even be able to launch the bloody game, that makes your high-end system behave like an 486 SX with faulty memory. Especially not when you realize 90% of potential MMORPG players still doesn't have a machine capable of decently running Vanguard. And most certainly not when you actually don't have to do that, since you have a client that's stable and performs. But maybe Funcom didn't want to let that out yet, initially.

I thought, I hoped, I prayed, and was nearly convinced by "in the know people" that Funcom had learned from Vanguard's bad release. It was the second worst launch ever after all, only topped by that most infamous of launches, Anarchy Online. Which as it happens was Funcom's first venture into the MMORPG genre. So they knows they have a reputation to overcome. Why then did they dump this not-so-open beta on people? I can't help but feel this will hurt them. Then again, AoC is topping the sales charts through pre-ordering. Maybe they feel the cat's already in the bag. If 200.ooo - 300.000 people buy the game and play for just one month, they'll probably have recouped on their investment. Some more people buying, or people hanging around for a few extra months and they start making profit.

Still, I'm soooooo glad I pre-ordered this game!!!
I mean, yes the client was buggy, I had to defrag my hard-disk to even get above 10 fps and I dreaded the popular instances because running into more than two players at once would freeze my client for 30-45 seconds, but of course the mob would not likewise freeze. But I also finally decided to retire my old, trusty, faithful G7950 GXS with 512MB that's become my second most treasured videocard (nothing will dethrone the Millenium G200 in my heart) for a 8800 GTX series and I'm even contemplating upgrading my motherboard because it's the limiting factor to my memory size. Heck I can afford the mobo upgrade, so I can go from 2 to 4 MB maximum (sticking with 32 bit for now so really 3.6) but I'd need 4 strips of new memory too. Maybe after I get my pre-summer bonus (a kind of 13th month except it's been held back from your salary for 12 months prior).

From about 5 minutes into this game (not counting Character Creation) I was hooked. Mind, it took me about the same time to get hooked on vanguard followed by 8 months of denying the game just wasn't living up to its potential and stopped being fun after about 5-6 months.
The lush verdant jungle of starting the island and the teeming city of Tortuage are alive in a way I've not seen in any other MMOG yet. Vanguard came close, but that game had gorgeous graphics and vista's. but crappy animation and audio that you thought sometimes had something to do with the images, or maybe not. Age of Conan blends all aspects of a game that make it wonderful to play together in a way that clicks, even if the clicking sound sometimes indicates an incoming system-crash. Almost immediately you realize Funcom hasn't just dropped another MMO on us, but they really understand immersion. It's a simple gimmick, but changing camera angles and presenting you with 'private' NPC dialogue, a lot of it voiced over and lip-synced (somewhat) really makes it more personal. A touch you find in single player RPG's on nearly every platform, but altogether missing from the MMOG scene. And it's just one of many little things that make this game's world more vibrant than any I've seen so far.

The twitch-based combat may be a bit ungainly at first, but soon enough you get the hang of it. The field manual, (an in-game manual for the game) while obviously still in development and due for some tweaking, quickly helps you sort out the basics of hitting where it hurts (i.e. where the sod isn't blocking) and how to set your own shields. Throughout most of the starter island setting one in each direction and making sure to vary your own attack directions works pretty well, at least it did for my Barbarian. I've not tried that much Ranged combat, but it's really no surprise that even mages are close combat capable in this game after a few swings. It's fun to learn and fun once you learned it. Mastering the technique ought to be fun to. In fact, a lot of the fights on the starter island were pretty easy until you start to push the level envelope, then you get owned every once in a while.

The world is gorgeous, and it breathes live. I really, really enjoyed doing the personal story-line, the destiny quest chain which is the solo-content that you need to participate in at least once from 1-20 as we've been told.
Don't worry, you get to mix and mingle with people from about level 5, when you reach Tortuga city. But in between the 'regular' mmorpg gathering of 40 crocodile skins for a reward and whatnot there's a compelling personal story-arc that differs based on your Class-group. The 'private' dialogue scenes I mentioned help a lot with the immersion there. I very much hope this is the way post-Tortuga content is done as well.

Sadly, and this is another something I don't understand about Funcom, level progression and thereby gameplay is limited to levels 1-13. You never get of the islands unto the mainland. On the one hand I can understand this. I mean, you don't want to show "everything" in Open Beta and
have people drop off (not purchasing the game) because they've already seen it. A risk to any Open Beta. On the other hand, the island of Tortuga is what everyone's been seeing. It's what 80% of all the video footage released by Funcom shows. Along with a few pre-rendered bits and cut-scene pieces we've been shown since pre-production. Not normally that big an issue, people do understand about not handing out the game for free through Open Beta, but when you combine it with a, pardon my Stygian, crappy outdated Beta client, it gives people the feeling the rest may not be finished yet. Which is not the signal you want to send out through Open Beta, mis-named or not.

But I really can't wait till I get my pre-order and discover all that for myself. Despite the many references to Vanguard's crappy launch, I feel AoC is in much better shape today than that game was after 3 to 8 months out. I'm buying the 'this is not nearly as good as the Closed Beta client which kicks a donkey's anatomy' "leaks". And besides, I very much enjoyed Vanguard for a long while too. And that game had all the sexual innuendo of a granny in a rocking chair.

I did not get to see any PVP in the Beta so far, it might not be in this client. But it's not my thing, so I've not been actively looking yet. Maybe after I maxed out (heh, reached Level 13 and finished all quests) on one each of the four main class-group options I'll look into that.

05/05/08 14:18

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Grifter0408

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RE: Age of Conan Open beta Review

Ok, I will add my preliminary review as well. I wont be as indepth or maybe as long written as Lani but I will give my take.

Graphics: AoC has some outstanding graphics if you card can run them. Much like Lani I am running 8800 but a GT Superclocked inside a recently built computer. So I can run this game on max settings but I am lagging. I believe this is due in part to the game and not my PC (as well as overwhelming number of people on the game at one time...or maybe my server). The landscape is very lush and vibrant. Nothing seems too static or just a graphic layer for image purposes. Water flows like water, lava seems to have the illusion that you would touch your monitor and get burnt. I definitely give the game an A for its graphics.

Character Creation: I didnt find this too involving, very basic like most Fantasy MMOs. Change hair color, skin color, hair style, eye color, and maybe a scar here or there. I have become spoiled by CoH's in depth character design, but then again CoH doesnt have armor. So why spend hours design a character to only have it covered up later on by loot. C for adding cool tattoos!

Missions/Quest: Really nothing unique here but then again what can you do. Every MMO, and even RPG games have abut the same mission setup. Kill this creature to get XXX item or maybe talk to this person and learn this info. I will say though the ability to do solo missions like a non-MMO game is interesting. Switching to night allows for solo content and if you get bored with that you can always head back to day time to mix it up with your fellow MMO'ers. This is very cool for someone such as myself that likes to play alone more often than not but still allow for grouping if desire. I would rate Missions/Quest as a B.

Combat: As par for the Grif course I took the rogue class. I was a bit lost in the beginning, when I started to play I only saw these 3 arrows. I learned after a few clicks they represented the cutting direction you would perform when pressed. Soon I would learn their true importance. After you level and gain new powers/attacks they become part of the combo attack system (at least for rogues...havent tried other classes). When you would click an attack a corresponding arrow would light up, when you clicked that arrow in succession you would perform a combo that could destroy your enemy in a nearly one shot maneuver. Sometimes these combos would decapitate or just remove the throat of said enemy in good old fighting fashion. Now I am not sure of this, now that I think about it could only be solo play but when you perform a life ending combo blood would splatter on the screen. Someone verify if this is only solo, I dont recall it happening during the day. Overall I give the fighting system an A for the cool combo setup. The Mortal Kombat finishing maneuvers are cool but not a selling point to me. After a few times it gets to be whatever.

Im not going to say this game has potential because every new MMO has potential. But its really hard in this day in time for any new game to try and compete against he juggernaut of WoW. The only thing it can do is offer something that WoW cant offer. This game has very cool graphics and fighting style but is that enough to draw a crowd away? Maybe, maybe not. I am unsure of PvP, like Lani, because I have yet to see it. This is just a preliminary viewpoint of a person only to level 8.

While I still have a few more days to play this game I am going to try other classes, and level up some more to see what else there may be. Hopefully try some PvP (if its an option) and maybe I will consider sub'ing this game over my next option of LOTRO which I have been wishing to go back to when I have money.

05/06/08 08:36

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Phedre_D

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RE: Age of Conan Open beta Review

QUOTE

Reserving my copy today... bit late I know lol. But I need something to do well not playing GW XD

Yay! The more Ampers the merrier! I know there will be three different flavours of AOC. An US version, a German version, and a rest of Europe version. Does that also mean that the servers are split up like that too? Or can we all go cross servers if we want to? With Vanguard I went for an US server. I was thinking/planning to play on a EU server this time. And maybe/probably I don't even have a choice since we will get our release 3 days after the US.

05/06/08 15:44

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lani

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RE: Age of Conan Open beta Review

QUOTE

Ok, I will add my preliminary review as well. I wont be as indepth or maybe as long written as Lani but I will give my take.

Character Creation: I didnt find this too involving, very basic like most Fantasy MMOs. Change hair color, skin color, hair style, eye color, and maybe a scar here or there. I have become spoiled by CoH's in depth character design, but then again CoH doesnt have armor. So why spend hours design a character to only have it covered up later on by loot. C for adding cool tattoos!

Let me be succinct then. There's a Basic Customization in AoC and an Advanced Customization. You describe the basic version as the advanced one has more sliders than CoX' CC has...

Ok, so much for succinctness, let's get verbose!!!
AoC goes for the anatomically ~~realistic~~ pleasing style, with realistic human characters, so it naturally misses out on a lot of the extravagance you'd find in a cartoonesque human/elf/giant/troll/robot avatar creation tool like the one in CoX.
But rating it so low just because it misses those not-quite-matching blurry edged 2-tone overlays of COX is a bit unfair. If you want to compare COX with AOC, you should only use the 3D bump-mapped clothing in COX and then AoC beats Cryptic's creation fair and square. Still, comparing the two games is apples and pears imo. Total different ballpark, not to mention target audience. You want to compare it to something similar, pick Vanguard. AoC beats that game in skin and hairdo options pants down.

QUOTE

When you would click an attack a corresponding arrow would light up, when you clicked that arrow in succession you would perform a combo that could destroy your enemy in a nearly one shot maneuver. Sometimes these combos would decapitate or just remove the throat of said enemy in good old fighting fashion. Now I am not sure of this, now that I think about it could only be solo play but when you perform a life ending combo blood would splatter on the screen. Someone verify if this is only solo, I dont recall it happening during the day.

The "life ending by combo" process is commonly referred to as 'Fatality' and is a requirement for temporary bonuses for some classes (i.e. Rogues) and are also the way to summon undead assistance if you're a Mage. Pets are more like an AOE?DOT spell than 'classic' pets.
Small bits of blood (black on medium settings) will squirt with any stroke, but the Fatality animations are the most goriest, sometimes to the point of cheesiness.
My barbarian (rogue class) for instance, throws her two blades into the chest of her opponent and then leisurely strolls up to reclaim them. Something that looks a bit odd with 3 additional foes pounding away at her in the mean time. Luckily she's invincible during the Fatality animation. With a two-handed blunt weapon she uses it to find out what her foe had for breakfast...
Anyway, they aren't just for show.

QUOTE

But its really hard in this day in time for any new game to try and compete against he juggernaut of WoW.

Not nearly as hard as it is for some people in the audience to let go of the idea that an MMOG should even try to compete with WOW. Funcom's chosen to make a game they think people will like to play, not to compete with WOW. If you're looking for that line to work, go visit the WAR forums, as WAR will be more like Warcraft Online than WOW ever was, partially because Warcraft's a Warhammer ripoof of course. But comparing a Third Gen Gfx heavy MMOG with one leg already on an Console platform to Blizzard's 2nd Gen Low-tech Gfx juggernaught goes beyond apples and pears into fresh fruit and rotting vegetable comparison.
Try looking at it as a game you might or might not want to play, not in how it compares to a game you already stopped playing because it wasn't fun anymore.

Not trying to attack you personally on this Grif, your comments are representative of a mindset (commonly found amongst ex-WOW players) that's detrimental to themselves and the game genre and inherently flawed according to me :-)

QUOTE

Yay! The more Ampers the merrier! I know there will be three different flavours of AOC. An US version, a German version, and a rest of Europe version. Does that also mean that the servers are split up like that too? Or can we all go cross servers if we want to? With Vanguard I went for an US server. I was thinking/planning to play on a EU server this time. And maybe/probably I don't even have a choice since we will get our release 3 days after the US.

The three client versions are:

Neo-Berlin
and surrounding territories
VIOLENCE NEIN!
Sex is cool.

The Holy Christian States
of America
SEX CAUSES COOTIES
Blood is great, though

The Free European
Socialist Paradise of Brussels
We’re a bunch of degenerates.
We can take anything.

Which really means the Gore's off on German clients and the nipples are off on the US version. These are client-side differences, not Server-side.
Given the huge amount of network-data the game generates, about 70% of lag experienced during Beta turns out to be network-generated when you compare the Underhalls Night-time (solo) to Underhalls Day-time (multiplay), I expect we'll find there's going to be US and EU and possibly Asia servers. I don't know if this will be like NCSoft's preferred DVD Region-like client-per-region or SOE's preferred toggle-your-region option. I hope for the latter.

MMORPG (Roleplaying): Mostly Men Online Role-Playing Girls
MMORPG (Acheivement): Miserable Malcontents Online Rehashing Past Glories
MMORPG (PvP): Macho Men Obviously Really Prefer Griefing
MMORPG (itemization): Misers May Obfuscate Recently Purchased Gold
MMORPG (Social): Virtual Worlds with Virtual Wealth and achievements, but with Real People with Real Feelings.

05/06/08 17:16

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lani

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RE: Age of Conan Open beta Review

QUOTE

Yay! The more Ampers the merrier! I know there will be three different flavours of AOC. An US version, a German version, and a rest of Europe version. Does that also mean that the servers are split up like that too? Or can we all go cross servers if we want to? With Vanguard I went for an US server. I was thinking/planning to play on a EU server this time. And maybe/probably I don't even have a choice since we will get our release 3 days after the US.

Just ran across the price-plan for subions here

North America & Oceania

Monthly Per Month Total
1 Month 14.99 USD 14.99 USD
3 months 13.99 USD 41,97 USD
6 months 12.99 USD 77.94 USD

Europe

Monthly Per Month Total Total Incl. VAT*
1 Month 12.99 EUR 12.99 EUR 14.94 EUR
3 months 11.99 EUR 35.97 EUR 41.37 EUR
6 months 10.99 EUR 65.94 EUR 75.83 EUR
* VAT only applicable in EU member states

United Kingdom

Monthly Per Month Total Total Incl. VAT
1 Month 8.99 GBP 8.99 GBP 10.34 GBP
3 months 8.39 GBP 25.17 GBP 28.95 GBP
6 months 7.69 GBP 46.14 GBP 53.06 GBP

Europe and EU effectively will be paying 23 USD monthly.
As Funcom is a Europen company, this makes sense, though it sucks. It also is a pretty strong case for Funcom following the NCSoft model rather than the SOE model.

MMORPG (Roleplaying): Mostly Men Online Role-Playing Girls
MMORPG (Acheivement): Miserable Malcontents Online Rehashing Past Glories
MMORPG (PvP): Macho Men Obviously Really Prefer Griefing
MMORPG (itemization): Misers May Obfuscate Recently Purchased Gold
MMORPG (Social): Virtual Worlds with Virtual Wealth and achievements, but with Real People with Real Feelings.

05/09/08 09:46

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smokebam_07

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RE: Age of Conan Open beta Review

i pre ordered it but i dont think im gonna be paying 5 bucks for the head start im just gonna wait for oppening and use me mammoth then and that was a pretty dick move of them making it pay for head start

05/10/08 22:05

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lani

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RE: Age of Conan Open beta Review

Wait, XBOX live is 20 US a month?
Dang, it's 60 EUR a year here.
I suspect we'd be paying a slightly reduced monthly sub for the XBOX version.

And I won't be paying for the head-start either. Play.com just doesn't get the pre-order concept. They're going to ship the Pre-order boxes on the 20th. Effectively, pre-ordering with Play.com means I might be getting a late start compared to buying it in the local shop at the 20th.

05/11/08 01:03

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Age of Conan: Forum Topic

Age of Conan: Age of Conan Open beta Review