Post by Gilvan Blight on May 7, 2008 11:06:45 GMT -5
Note: I am currently in the Closed Beta for this game and had to sign a NDA, so can only review the first 13 or so levels, the Tortage city area. There appears to be a lot more to the game then what is mentioned here (including mounted combat, mass warfare, siege battles, realm vs realm battles, pvp, etc). Check the Age of Conan website for more details.
Quickly: Rather fun, great quests and graphics, may not be ready for release, and not for everyone.
[glow=blue,2,300]Summary:[/glow]Arguably the most anticipated MMORPG at this time. Conan has set out to break the mold of the traditional MMORPG and usher in a new era of online roleplaying.
The story is a huge part of this game so I will start with that: you start off a slave on a slave ship caught in a fierce battle. During the battle your ship is sunk and you wake up on an unknown beach with no memory of your past and no possessions to give you any history. The only thing you do have is a strange mark on your breast. You start of in scraps of clothing with only a broken Oar as a weapon. After meeting a creepy mystic dude that warns you that the near buy city of Tortage doesn't look kindly upon slaves (which they know you are by our manacles) and starts you off on your first quest to kill off your old ship captain.
You will quickly find your first scantily clad damsel in distress that is as wanton as you would expect a Conan woman to be, no matter what your Toon's gender is. You free her after killing of the pirates that tied her up and raped her and she helps lead you to the city (not really she just kind of stands back and claps as you brutally kill things). Once finding your old captain, then completing a few other side quests you get into the city of Tortage proper. This is a typical Conanian city, ruled by a corrupt ruler who answers to the evil sorceress who is the real power behind the throne. The city is an interesting mix of side quests and main quests. In an unusual twist you can swap between night an day. During the day the city is muliplayer and you can work on side quests, the night time is instanced and you work on main quests. You eventually find someone willing to help you get your memories back buy teaching you how to become a brutal killer again, and the rest of the beginning of the game revolves around completing tasks for this man and his friends. I don't want to explain every quest but here is a quick summary of one thread: talk to woman, find out her brother is missing, bribe guard to find out what ship he came in on, talk to ships captain, find out kid had plague, bribe guard to find out where plague victims are held, kill guys to get key to holding area, save kid, find out he was poisoned, tell sister, get kid healed, get revenge. All very in character with the R.E. Howard Conan universe. At any time in the middle of these types of quests you can jump back to daytime and complete a huge number of side quests for the various people in the cities (like killing some pirates and 'donating' their gold to the local whorehouse).
The game system itself: there are three races to choose from. They are all human, but from different areas of the Conan universe. The race determines the look of your character as well as what character class you can play. There are a wide variety of classes that are your usual mix of MMO types, from Tanks, Damage Dealers to Crowd Control. Conan mixes these up a bit though by having a magic wielding Melee class (Dark Templar) and a melee healer (Bear Shaman). Again you can check the AoC website for lots more info on the classes. One account gives you access to at least 10 different characters.
Inventory is bag like ala Diablo, Warcraft, etc. The biggest difference you can't buy bigger bags. I hear they get bigger as you level up, but I found you never had enough room for the stuff that the mobs would drop. Every quest I would end up dropping a few items and having to hit Tortage again to empty out.
Combat is the biggest unique thing in this game. Combat is real time and somewhat dexterity based. Your movement keys WASD are also your dodge keys, which is done by double tapping them. Dodging gives you a temporary boost to defense and deflection. There is also a block key X. These combined with three basic attacks. An attack to the left, to the right and down the center. The shield system ties in with the types of attacks, all enemies have these bars around them that kind of look like parenthesis }, those indicate how well the mob is guarding that side, you want to always be attacking the side with the least number of }. In addition you can manage and move your own } to defend a weak side etc. All of this is combined with all of the abilities you get when you level up to form the combo system. The combo system is basically the fact that all of your special attacks combo with one of the basic attacks. So if you get an ability like Critical Strike, it may combo with a left attack, so when using Critical Strike you always want to follow it up with a left attack, etc. To complicate things even more you have non-melee abilities like ranged spells, buffs, healing and de-buff. Now all of these attacks and abilities are all mapped to your traditional 1-10 skill boxes you see in most MMOs... this means you run out of room fast and have to become adept at swapping between skill bars. All in all it's the most intense and interactive combat system I have seen in an MMO.
Okay what else have I missed: leveling is typical, you get more hit points, more magic points, more stamina (required for combos and for running). Once you get to level 10 you start getting feats, these work like Talents in World of Warcraft, where you pick one per level and the follow a tree structure. By level 13 I didn't get to play with this much so can't say much about it. There is a skill system as well, but it's odd. Skills suddenly show up as you level, for example at level 5 I suddenly could increase a climb skill. Every creature you fight around your level gives you skill points that are spent on your skills.
I thought of something: Graphics. Truly the best looking game out there right now. It's beautiful even on the lowest setting. The whole time I was playing was during Server Stress Tests and there were times things were laggy but that's to be expected during a stress test. It's hard to tell at this point how bad full graphics will be, but it's good to see that the low settings are still higher then any other MMO.
[glow=green,2,300]The Good:[/glow]The one thing that really stood out to me as a great thing in this game, at least for the first part, is the quality of the quests. All quests start with a cut scene and are fully voice acted. You get a variety of dialog options instead of your typical Accept, Cancel you see in most games. Besides having this the quests themselves were better designed and more varied then other games of the same type. The example above should show what I mean. There is a depth there you just don't get from "kill 6 lizards". Now the side quests often are just things like "kill 6 lizards" but the main quests were much more engaging. The graphics are the next big plus, as noted above, even on the lowest setting they look great. In an instance I could mange over 47fps even on the highest settings. Multiplayer ares weren't so forgiving though. I both liked and loathed the combat system. I loved how interactive and engaging it was, you actually feel hurried and panicked. I love the fact that I only need one account for multiple characters, but this isn't unique to Conan. They captured the Conan feel exceptionally well. The M rating fits well in this game and you definitely get the idea you are playing a bad ass mofo who can dish out the violence. They even included Mortal Combat like Fatalities though I never did figure out why they would happen some fights and not others.
[glow=yellow,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]The inventory problem drove me nuts. Imagine playing Warcraft with only one bag, it's that bad. Or remember Diablo, having to pass over hundreds of items and pick and choose what to pick up. Combat, I noted I loved and loathed it, here's the loath part: once I got more abilities then I had slots on my basic action bar for I just couldn't find a good way to set up my UI to be effective. I don't know if I should have given up on low level abilities or if I should have put the basic attacks on a different bar or what. Combat swapped from excited interaction to frustrated key mashing. I'm sure there are people out there who figured out a good way to do it and would share, but I never figured it out. This whole combat system will definitely not be for everyone. It's what I personally think may cause this game to fail. Due to the nature of combat the game is not nearly as accessible as say WoW or Lord of the Rings Online. I know my wife would never want to play something that requires that much timing and key pressing, nor would my Father, and many others I can think of.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow]Okay note any or all of this could be fixed by the time the game was released, it was a Beta I was playing and it was during a stress test. Horrible loading times. When swapping zones sometimes you could go to the kitchen make yourself a sandwich, come back eat half of it, use the washroom and then come back to find yourself almost 90% there. Even when you zone in you have to wait for all the loading to catch up and all of the graphics to load. Many times not all of the textures would load. This leads to some rather amusing looking items like people which black and white checkered mustaches, or orange and black mutton chops, or black and white alligators, or big black checks where there should be trees. Along with the loading times were intermittent lag bursts. These were enough to drop my FPS to 14 or 17, which was deadly with a real time based combat system. Sometimes the game would just freeze up while trying to do a mouselook only to run fine for the next half hour. Everyone on the game had some trick to have the game use less memory and many worked, but you shouldn't need to do things like set your program to only use one processor (on a Dual or Quad system), turn off shaders, and only use anti-aliasing at 6x, to make things run smooth. I only hope for their sake they get these issues fixed in the next 9 days, if I bought a game that had these kinds of bugs I wouldn't be subscribing.
[glow=purple,2,300]Overall:[/glow]So overall we have a game that has a ton of bugs still to be worked out, with little time to get them fixed. Assuming they do get them fixed (which is surprisingly usually the case when this close to launch), what you have left is a great realization of Robert E Howard's world. They did an amazing job on the look and feel of the game. There is no mistaking this for anything but a Conan game. A very in depth, interactive and voice acted mission system is responsible for most of this. Amazing graphics finish it off. To me though what will make or break this game is peoples acceptance of the combo based combat system. It's more involved, intense and dexterity requiring then anything else on the market. It starts to feel like a Fighter more then an RPG at times. Some people will love this, especially PvP fans as their own skills will be tested as well as their ability to max their characters. Traditional RPG fans will probably be overwhelmed by the speed and complexity of the system. I'm undecided at this point if I will pick up this game at release. If I wasn't already subscribed to other MMO's I would definitely pick this up as my new one, but having just installed Lord of the Rings Online I think I will stick with that for a while, and take another look at this one in a few months and see where it has gone.
Quickly: Rather fun, great quests and graphics, may not be ready for release, and not for everyone.
[glow=blue,2,300]Summary:[/glow]Arguably the most anticipated MMORPG at this time. Conan has set out to break the mold of the traditional MMORPG and usher in a new era of online roleplaying.
The story is a huge part of this game so I will start with that: you start off a slave on a slave ship caught in a fierce battle. During the battle your ship is sunk and you wake up on an unknown beach with no memory of your past and no possessions to give you any history. The only thing you do have is a strange mark on your breast. You start of in scraps of clothing with only a broken Oar as a weapon. After meeting a creepy mystic dude that warns you that the near buy city of Tortage doesn't look kindly upon slaves (which they know you are by our manacles) and starts you off on your first quest to kill off your old ship captain.
You will quickly find your first scantily clad damsel in distress that is as wanton as you would expect a Conan woman to be, no matter what your Toon's gender is. You free her after killing of the pirates that tied her up and raped her and she helps lead you to the city (not really she just kind of stands back and claps as you brutally kill things). Once finding your old captain, then completing a few other side quests you get into the city of Tortage proper. This is a typical Conanian city, ruled by a corrupt ruler who answers to the evil sorceress who is the real power behind the throne. The city is an interesting mix of side quests and main quests. In an unusual twist you can swap between night an day. During the day the city is muliplayer and you can work on side quests, the night time is instanced and you work on main quests. You eventually find someone willing to help you get your memories back buy teaching you how to become a brutal killer again, and the rest of the beginning of the game revolves around completing tasks for this man and his friends. I don't want to explain every quest but here is a quick summary of one thread: talk to woman, find out her brother is missing, bribe guard to find out what ship he came in on, talk to ships captain, find out kid had plague, bribe guard to find out where plague victims are held, kill guys to get key to holding area, save kid, find out he was poisoned, tell sister, get kid healed, get revenge. All very in character with the R.E. Howard Conan universe. At any time in the middle of these types of quests you can jump back to daytime and complete a huge number of side quests for the various people in the cities (like killing some pirates and 'donating' their gold to the local whorehouse).
The game system itself: there are three races to choose from. They are all human, but from different areas of the Conan universe. The race determines the look of your character as well as what character class you can play. There are a wide variety of classes that are your usual mix of MMO types, from Tanks, Damage Dealers to Crowd Control. Conan mixes these up a bit though by having a magic wielding Melee class (Dark Templar) and a melee healer (Bear Shaman). Again you can check the AoC website for lots more info on the classes. One account gives you access to at least 10 different characters.
Inventory is bag like ala Diablo, Warcraft, etc. The biggest difference you can't buy bigger bags. I hear they get bigger as you level up, but I found you never had enough room for the stuff that the mobs would drop. Every quest I would end up dropping a few items and having to hit Tortage again to empty out.
Combat is the biggest unique thing in this game. Combat is real time and somewhat dexterity based. Your movement keys WASD are also your dodge keys, which is done by double tapping them. Dodging gives you a temporary boost to defense and deflection. There is also a block key X. These combined with three basic attacks. An attack to the left, to the right and down the center. The shield system ties in with the types of attacks, all enemies have these bars around them that kind of look like parenthesis }, those indicate how well the mob is guarding that side, you want to always be attacking the side with the least number of }. In addition you can manage and move your own } to defend a weak side etc. All of this is combined with all of the abilities you get when you level up to form the combo system. The combo system is basically the fact that all of your special attacks combo with one of the basic attacks. So if you get an ability like Critical Strike, it may combo with a left attack, so when using Critical Strike you always want to follow it up with a left attack, etc. To complicate things even more you have non-melee abilities like ranged spells, buffs, healing and de-buff. Now all of these attacks and abilities are all mapped to your traditional 1-10 skill boxes you see in most MMOs... this means you run out of room fast and have to become adept at swapping between skill bars. All in all it's the most intense and interactive combat system I have seen in an MMO.
Okay what else have I missed: leveling is typical, you get more hit points, more magic points, more stamina (required for combos and for running). Once you get to level 10 you start getting feats, these work like Talents in World of Warcraft, where you pick one per level and the follow a tree structure. By level 13 I didn't get to play with this much so can't say much about it. There is a skill system as well, but it's odd. Skills suddenly show up as you level, for example at level 5 I suddenly could increase a climb skill. Every creature you fight around your level gives you skill points that are spent on your skills.
I thought of something: Graphics. Truly the best looking game out there right now. It's beautiful even on the lowest setting. The whole time I was playing was during Server Stress Tests and there were times things were laggy but that's to be expected during a stress test. It's hard to tell at this point how bad full graphics will be, but it's good to see that the low settings are still higher then any other MMO.
[glow=green,2,300]The Good:[/glow]The one thing that really stood out to me as a great thing in this game, at least for the first part, is the quality of the quests. All quests start with a cut scene and are fully voice acted. You get a variety of dialog options instead of your typical Accept, Cancel you see in most games. Besides having this the quests themselves were better designed and more varied then other games of the same type. The example above should show what I mean. There is a depth there you just don't get from "kill 6 lizards". Now the side quests often are just things like "kill 6 lizards" but the main quests were much more engaging. The graphics are the next big plus, as noted above, even on the lowest setting they look great. In an instance I could mange over 47fps even on the highest settings. Multiplayer ares weren't so forgiving though. I both liked and loathed the combat system. I loved how interactive and engaging it was, you actually feel hurried and panicked. I love the fact that I only need one account for multiple characters, but this isn't unique to Conan. They captured the Conan feel exceptionally well. The M rating fits well in this game and you definitely get the idea you are playing a bad ass mofo who can dish out the violence. They even included Mortal Combat like Fatalities though I never did figure out why they would happen some fights and not others.
[glow=yellow,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]The inventory problem drove me nuts. Imagine playing Warcraft with only one bag, it's that bad. Or remember Diablo, having to pass over hundreds of items and pick and choose what to pick up. Combat, I noted I loved and loathed it, here's the loath part: once I got more abilities then I had slots on my basic action bar for I just couldn't find a good way to set up my UI to be effective. I don't know if I should have given up on low level abilities or if I should have put the basic attacks on a different bar or what. Combat swapped from excited interaction to frustrated key mashing. I'm sure there are people out there who figured out a good way to do it and would share, but I never figured it out. This whole combat system will definitely not be for everyone. It's what I personally think may cause this game to fail. Due to the nature of combat the game is not nearly as accessible as say WoW or Lord of the Rings Online. I know my wife would never want to play something that requires that much timing and key pressing, nor would my Father, and many others I can think of.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow]Okay note any or all of this could be fixed by the time the game was released, it was a Beta I was playing and it was during a stress test. Horrible loading times. When swapping zones sometimes you could go to the kitchen make yourself a sandwich, come back eat half of it, use the washroom and then come back to find yourself almost 90% there. Even when you zone in you have to wait for all the loading to catch up and all of the graphics to load. Many times not all of the textures would load. This leads to some rather amusing looking items like people which black and white checkered mustaches, or orange and black mutton chops, or black and white alligators, or big black checks where there should be trees. Along with the loading times were intermittent lag bursts. These were enough to drop my FPS to 14 or 17, which was deadly with a real time based combat system. Sometimes the game would just freeze up while trying to do a mouselook only to run fine for the next half hour. Everyone on the game had some trick to have the game use less memory and many worked, but you shouldn't need to do things like set your program to only use one processor (on a Dual or Quad system), turn off shaders, and only use anti-aliasing at 6x, to make things run smooth. I only hope for their sake they get these issues fixed in the next 9 days, if I bought a game that had these kinds of bugs I wouldn't be subscribing.
[glow=purple,2,300]Overall:[/glow]So overall we have a game that has a ton of bugs still to be worked out, with little time to get them fixed. Assuming they do get them fixed (which is surprisingly usually the case when this close to launch), what you have left is a great realization of Robert E Howard's world. They did an amazing job on the look and feel of the game. There is no mistaking this for anything but a Conan game. A very in depth, interactive and voice acted mission system is responsible for most of this. Amazing graphics finish it off. To me though what will make or break this game is peoples acceptance of the combo based combat system. It's more involved, intense and dexterity requiring then anything else on the market. It starts to feel like a Fighter more then an RPG at times. Some people will love this, especially PvP fans as their own skills will be tested as well as their ability to max their characters. Traditional RPG fans will probably be overwhelmed by the speed and complexity of the system. I'm undecided at this point if I will pick up this game at release. If I wasn't already subscribed to other MMO's I would definitely pick this up as my new one, but having just installed Lord of the Rings Online I think I will stick with that for a while, and take another look at this one in a few months and see where it has gone.