Stefson*dot*com

Okay, so in the previous post I told you about the fact I started playing Funcoms freshly released massively multiplayer game, Age of Conan. I also said the game did not meet my expectations, and in this post, I’ll try and state why it didn’t.

First off, this is my very personal opinion. So if you’re out there enjoying the game, kudos for you. And I really mean that. Crush some skulls for me on the battlefield.
But, because I’m seeing a lot of “Age of Conan is the best MMO I’ve ever played” & “Age of Conan is the most innovating MMO ever” kinda post on various forums, I couldn’t stop myself from dedicating a topic on my blog about it.

Lets get some stuff out of the way.
Age of Conan is definately not a bad game. But for me, it not a good game and certainly not the best MMO out there.

Why not?
Well, for starters, there’s the continuous zoning and instancing in the game. You can’t set two feet without a loading screen (This sentence is exaggerated and added for drama purposes only!). It totally breaks the game and the massive feeling of a huge, persistent world for me. Age of Conan doesn’t make me feel like I’m part of something.

This brings me to the second part, the differentiation the developpers brought to the game by seperating certain aspects. At the beginning of the game, the creation of an avatar, he or she has to follow certain quests in singleplayer mode. Meaning, an NPC brings the player in a singleplayer instanced mode where he or she has to follow and complete the main quests that amplify the meaning (of your avatar) to the game.
Lord of the Rings Online also does this, and I really hated it. It rips your character out of the “world” and gives you (your avatar) a very linear feeling. Now, it’s true when you say that MMO’s are linear by nature. If you get down to it, all you do is level up and keep levelling up. You need gear (loot) to accomplish this, so you look for equipment (also linear). Most MMO’s introduce loads of mini-games and mini-features to keep you interested, but in general, we (The MMO players) all are monkeys sitting behind a computer doing the same thing over and over again.

This brings me to the part of “innovation“.
Funcom often used the words “innovating” and re-inventing the genre” when talking about Age Of Conan. If you have to give credit where credit is due, you have to congratulate their marketing departement. The game got hyped immensily the last couple of months. And with good results, more that 400k players since launch. Not bad in a post World of Warcraft world.
But here’s my gripe, I can’t find to much innovating and re-inventing.

The combat system AoC has in place has been promoted over and over again. For those of you that don’t know the game, there is no auto-attack function in the game. Every hit & bash on a mob has to be executed by the player himself.
In theory, this sounds cool, but to me, it sucks. Period. If you’re not into hours of button-mashing, I recommend you roll a caster character. True, every MMO has a certain degree of button-mashing, but AoC take it to the next level thanks to their combo system. Every move (or most) can trigger a combo move, that in return has to be executed as well. A combo move usually means higher damage or something.
But like I said, after two or three hours of gaming, your fingers (and your brain as well) will definately be in need of some rest. Or maybe I’m just getting old(er).
This combat system sure is new to the genre, but successfull? Maybe for others, but not to me.

Another part of innovation is the goal of the game.
The ultimate goal of AoC is offcourse to level, and then to take part in PvP warfare. Sieges, guildbattles, PvP, the whole nine yards. The game has always been marketed with terms like war, destroy, kill & rule.
For those of you thinking ‘Cool where’s the nearest PvP server?’, I’ve got bad news for you. There is no real PvP system in place. At least not at the moment. Maybe Funcom will implement something in the future, who knows. But the fact remains, there is no real incentive to PvP, no system to keep it in place. Sure you can go out on a PvP server and PK someone that’s questing and stuff, but again, there’s no incentive.
Let’s no start the whole PvP vs PvE debate again, on what’s actual PvP and griefing. But, it is my opinion, if you design a game around PvP, and market it that way; because that is what Funcom did; wouldn’t it be wise to to have a completed PvP system in check at launch. The feeling I get is that the PvP part got implemented real quick at the end of development.

A little example: Like I said, there is a lot of zoning, so when you travel (zone) to another part of the map, you have to wait with a loading screen on your side. Now, if you play on a PvP server, chances are that you will get Pk’ed while zoning in. Some call this PvP, others call this griefing. But one could also call this bad game design. For a game that’s been built around PvP, doesn’t that strike you as odd?

To go a bit offtopic, I’d like to point to another MMO currently in development that features full open PvP: Darkfall Online. Their solution to this is an alignment system, meaning your actions (PvP wise) have consequences for your avatar. Good and bad! This is something that should have been implemented in AoC from the start.

Enough about the PvP.
Lets get back to the ultimate goal of the game, levelling. Levelling in most MMO’s these days means one thing: Quests. And lots of them. Unfortunately, AoC also suffers from this. The usual kill x amount of rats and deliver this item to that person can be found o’plenty in AoC. Not very innovating right?

On the bright side, the game looks beautifull. If you have a state of the art PC system, you can enjoy awesome designed landscapes and zones. Also, it is refreshing to see an M-rated MMO, and kudos to Funcom for daring to take the risk to openly say the game is targeted to a more adult audience.

To finish, a litle something about the patching. Funcom has been hard at work at releasing the necessary patches and updates to fix things and bugs. I can only hope they keep up the pace. Players are levelling at an astounishing rate, and new content is the only thing to keep players interested and get them big bucks. Not to mention the new MMO’s that will be release soon. Warhammer Online anyone?

Lets finish this extremely long post.
Is Age of Conan the innovating MMO they said it would be? No, not even close.
Is Age of Conan exciting and fun? To answer this I’ll have to be very honest and personal, no it isn’t. I really had to try and keep an interest in the game to login every day. But at the end, it just didn’t give me this awesome feeling I need in an MMO.

Will AoC be successful? Hard to say.
Funcom has a heavy task ahead. They have to really pump in some content to keep players interested.
Do I recommend you to play the game?
Why are you listening to me anyway? Just make up your own mind and see for yourself. You’ll find out soon enough if the game can trigger your subscription interest.

To all that are still playing, enjoy!