AoC, my take so farFollow

graphics - stunning.
character models, for the first time in any fantasy mmorpg i have played, the character models are just flat out stunning. especially the female models. the enviroment is very enguaging too. better than EQ2 or Vanguard.

game play - very quest and story line driven. other than that, same ole same ole. kill stuff for loot and levels. more like LOTR than others i suppose with all the scripted dialoge with NPCs.

fighting - not as good as D&D online, but superrior to the rest. 3 differant swings and combos that are triggered by gee wiz buttons. fights are short and sweet as opposed to the super long and tedious fights in EQ and EQ2. closer to WoW in that respect.

its a great core game to start building from. but if they dont build on it, soon, it will be another flash in the pan like Vanguard. it will last longer than Vanguard because its not so group dependant, but it wont take long before people are crying for more.

classes - your core favorites are all there. warrior, fighter, rogues, healers, necros, mages, rangers. would like to see a monk added, mabe an illusionist too for some added color.

very pretty game to look at.

some things they didnt get right.

1. way way to many servers. very underpoplated, and unless they plan on adding half a million subscribers in the nextfew months, they will remain that way. should have started with mabe 3 pvp and 5 pve at most and added on as their player base grew to maintain a decent player number on them. expect to see server mergers within the next 6 months.

2. no dwarfs. WTF?

3. no diversity in races. you play a white, brown, black man or woman. the end. they look awsome, but no dwarfs, orcs, trolls, lizards, cats, dogs, rats, etc etc etc.

4. every one starts in the same place and spends the first 20 levels there. yawn. by the time you play one character through, you will have absolutly no desire to roll another one. even EQ2 gave you two places.

5. no fun stuff. or havent seen any yet atleast. levitate, invis, fear, illusions, root, snares, slows.very much like LOTR. if your a figher you melee. if your a caster, you cast a couple spells and then you melee. but even LOTR had dwarfs. there are mounts i hear. havent seen any yet however.

6.like LOTR, the casters are not alot of fun and they take a serious beating. atleast in the early stages. the pets look cool, but they dont tank, and you cant controll them. they attack what you attack but wont attack untill you do, even if the mob is beating the tar out of you. at lower levels, my necro has 2 bleed spells, read dots, and one dd spell. plus two pets that dont really do melee damage, they do bleeding damage. ie, small damage over time and make the mob more suseptable to your melee damage. they are more a debuff and minor dot than a true pet.

like LOTR and AC2, funcom just doesnt get it about casters. and while the undead pets look cool, without armor or some type of snare/root spell, casters are gona suck wind. if you trip a combo, you get a 2 minute temporary pet that can tank. but again, you cant controll it, and it poofs after 2 or 3 fights.

7. equipment requirements. EQ2 and Vanguard are wimps. quad core and the best video card if you want to see something past the medium setting. you will need atleast a duo core and last years best video card to get to the medium setting. big chunk of the market left behind.

about the mature rating......

tits, blood spatter, dismemberment, and every other quest giver saying "biotch" or "that whor". personally, doesnt add enough to the game to make it more intersting to me. infact, all it accomplishes is to make me turn it off when the kids are around. would have traded the M rating for dwarfs and some fun stuff in a heart beat.

btw, for you parents, the mature content filter eliminates the blood spatter, dismemberment and naked tits, but it doesnt elimenate the "biotch and whor" comments by the quest givers. be warned.

they went for a more mature and serious feel for the game and they did that with some of themost outstanding looking character models i have ever seen in any online game. but if they dont add some "fun", and combine the servers, soon, its going to feel more like a console game than an online game and console games have a whole lot more cool stuff in them.

as it is, i give it a couple months. but it is a far far better platform to START building a game from than Vanguard. the quests and story lines are very well done. the character models are awsome looking, and the world is as good as the best on the market.

the first 20 levels in any new game are the best they have to offer IMO. would love to see a WoW with these graphics.

you leave out the fun, you guarentee a short stay. you have one starting area, even the kids will get boared after a few characters. you set the system requirements too high, you can mabe count on 5 percent of the potential market IF EVERYTHING else is in line. you ***** up the casters, you loose 60 percent of the potential 5 percent of the market you might of had because of the system requireements. "m" rating? what the hell were they thinking? there goes another 30 to 40 percent of the 5 percent of the potential market they had because of the system requirements.

considering the casters, i take it back, it wont last as long as vanguard did. vanguard had better casters and they stripped alot of the "fun" out of them compared to EQ1. EQ1 had awsome casters...before they started ballancing everything.

its LOTR with a better looking world, cussing, tits and blood spatter. and no dwarfs. enjoy.

Oh I wouldn't say that, but only because you said it first.
Id rather look at real life naked boobs.

Always time for Boobies,,,,

True, but it's always funny to see what Shadowrelm thinks is important and what he doesn't understand. For instance, SR doesn't understand the concept of licensing which is why he's mad that he can't play a dwarf in AoC or cast bolts of lightning in LoTRO.

Joph, it was wrong for you to point out the source material for the games inspiration. You have ruined the op comments, simply ruined them.
Not to say I wasnt thinking the same thing, when i read his comments on not being able to play a dwarf.
Robert E. Howard is the author of the original Conan SR read him for some fun.

Tare I dont have to insert a pic of elne's bodice. I have it as my screen saver.
Anyone who wants to see said Bodice Live and in person will have to attend Balticon 42 this weekend at Hunt Valley Marriot hotel, Hunt Valley Md.
[link=http://balticon.org[/link]

And you had better request the hug, if you are not known to her. She is very quick with the cane and there are lots of folks besides myself who know where to drop bodies in Bodymore, Murderland.

Now, now, we all have our little obsessions. Right, Ambrya?

Then you don't really understand it and just want another generic fantasy MMORPG.

Nobody plays this game for tits. In this day and age, the tits in AoC are about as arousing as your hairy ***. Seriously, one alt-tab and you have a world of free ****, why would anyone play a game for small and crappy pixelised "tits"??

Dunno, I'm prety sore the 40-year uld vargin know how to spel.

Hey, and normally I'm all about the corsets and the way you end up wearing your boobs around your ears when you have one on, but I don't mention mine in 4-5 posts in a single morning.

********* In WoW, I'm having more fun in my 30s than I ever did in my 20s. You're an idiot.

I still haven't seen any, no fair!


As for the game itself, not a bad beginning, nothing truly spectacular (intro movie is pretty good though) and I just feel that someone who starts to play mmorpg's might have a bit of a hard time to adjust to it.

Only lvl 6 for the moment though, plenty more to see and do. I'ld have been much higher if I didn't waste almost an hour on the German server, for some reason it almost took that long to notice that everyone just kept speaking German.