Is it safe to say AoC is another failed MMO?

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Gabe3

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I signed up for the open beta yesterday and something was up with FP download servers because I was only downloading at like 100kb/sec. Is this game worth the time, because I heard its just another failed MMO like the past ones.
 
I can honestly say its nothing new and frankly heading towards another Vangaurd failure. Buggy and boring gameplay.
 
I don't think it's safe to close the books on any game before it is even shipped. As with every game with a public beta phase, there are doomsayers claiming the game is crap, when they simply don't like the game. A person not liking a game doesn't mean it's not a good game and nobody else will/should like it. It just means that person doesn't like it.
 
Collector's Editions are sold out just about everywhere and Gamestop is out of even the regular pre-orders now. I've been told pre-orders in total have topped 450k. No one can predict a game's success in this genre but the numbers are certainly there for it to be a success IF Funcom can iron out some of the performance issues.
 
I tried it. I was mostly looking forward to the realtime combat, but that turned out to be a gimmick. Instead of an auto attack you have three manual attacks, that all accomplish the exact same thing and have nothing to do with "realtime". Ditto combos.

Also, I was genuinely concerned for my hard drive because it simply would not stop thrashing. It's as if I downloaded Conan himself, which btw would explain why it took so long, and he went to town on my poor raptor.
 
Mark_Warner said:
I don't think it's safe to close the books on any game before it is even shipped. As with every game with a public beta phase, there are doomsayers claiming the game is crap, when they simply don't like the game. A person not liking a game doesn't mean it's not a good game and nobody else will/should like it. It just means that person doesn't like it.
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I wanted to like this game but when you have a client consuming over 1.5 gigs of ram and crashing on many different configurations, you start to question your faith in the end product. I'm not going to pay 15 dollars a month to continue to beta test their game after May 20th. Its NOT ready.
 
fdiaz78 said:
I wanted to like this game but when you have a client consuming over 1.5 gigs of ram and crashing on many different configurations, you start to question your faith in the end product. I'm not going to pay 15 dollars a month to continue to beta test their game after May 20th. Its NOT ready.
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Many betas are like this, some continue after retail, others clean up their act. WoW was pretty bad in open beta, not so much in closed, and I think everyone can agree that game turned out to be a success.

I don't think it's safe to close the books on any game before it is even shipped. As with every game with a public beta phase, there are doomsayers claiming the game is crap, when they simply don't like the game. A person not liking a game doesn't mean it's not a good game and nobody else will/should like it. It just means that person doesn't like it.
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What Mark said. The game isn't out yet and it is too early to close the books on it. The universe in which the game is based means that the game has a fan base already and that it has a certain image to uphold so I don't believe that the game will go the way of Vanguard or other MMO's like it.

I personally am not impressed by AoC. The game plays great on my system and I wasn't plagued by the crashes or slow load times like others. The gameplay and areas up until 13 weren't impressive at all so its hard to make a decision based on such low level play. There were some very cool and interesting things about the game, such as the combat and the night/day instances, I'm hoping the pvp works out to be grand, because I'm tired of these pvp mini-game scenarios.

The graphics were decent, the quest log is atrocious, the GUI is horrible, gameplay is above average, the opening area is pretty blah, character creation is good, story seems to be good, and that is what I've taken away from this last week of beta.
 
matmanx1 said:
Collector's Editions are sold out just about everywhere and Gamestop is out of even the regular pre-orders now. I've been told pre-orders in total have topped 450k. No one can predict a game's success in this genre but the numbers are certainly there for it to be a success IF Funcom can iron out some of the performance issues.
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QFT
/thread should've been over already but :D people just choose to ignore this I guess and wanna keep the "doomed it's another vanguard bandwagon" going. continue.....
 
Hellgate london has had one of the worse starts EVER and its still hanging in there. Pre orders could just be hype from people who havent even tried it yet. I doubt 450k people have actually beta tested it.
 
I'm pretty sure I remember WoW's servers not even being up once the game launched, I did play it in beta also however I do not remember how buggy/bad it was during beta for some reason I can not remember. So I don't really think we should judge by these things quite yet.

Also for those who say they do not believe the open and closed clients are different, you are wrong. I have both and have played both, there is differences. So it is not safe to judge the game just on the open beta from Fileplanet which is pretty much a stress test for their servers.

I got in closed and have a Fileplanet account and have both clients (open and closed) installed currently. (I have both installed so I can play with a friend who did not get into closed beta.) I am having quite a bit of fun playing however I don't really want to go too far in the closed beta because I hate doing things twice and I don't want to get too far and have to play it all over again up to the point where I was once my preorder comes in.

I have experienced ZERO game breaking bugs that I have not seen in other betas, my game plays great no lag what so ever other than sometimes while in dungeons I get weird lock ups for a split second, not sure what that is all about but it is a problem with other people as well.

I play with a friend in Ventrillo and he is also having a great time playing and has had not many problems either.
 
wow, judging a game from a pre-release stress test beta lol.

FYI< I beta tested WoW and holy smacks was there problems. Many of said problems were NOT fixed by release and release was a nightmare with major issues b/c the devs underestiamted demand.

Ultiamtely however the devs got it together and built one of the best MMOs to ever get out there. I dont play WOW anymore and have not for over 2 years, however it was a great MMO.

I would not try to compare a 4 year old mature MMO's polish with a just launched MMO.

Finally, in conclusion, there is one reason AoC will be a great success: they are the only fresh game in town. AoC will get blockbuster subs fromt he simple fact there is no competition; WoW's expansion doesnt count b/c its too far out and people want variety now. When I was playing WoW, GW came out and most all of my WoW friends were playing it at same time as WoW. In particular since WoW doesnt delete inactive accounts, alot of people will take the summer off form WoW to give WoW time to put out more content and the new XP pack.

It is interesting to note that the only major research analysis by a securities firm Ive been able to find on Funcom assumes an avg subscription lifespan of only 4mo. I give it longer - 6-7mo. With players alternatiing b/w this and WoW until WoW comes out with the XP or WAR finally launches.

Ultimately, I like AoC, but its not ground breaking imo. It will succeed more than anything else, b/c of good timing. This is good for me as Im an investor in Funcom in addition to playing their game. Its doen great for me so far and when I sell off on launch day, it will likely do even ebtter if today's market action was any indication :)

So try not to slam a game b/c you didnt like it and dont assume it will fail b/c its not WoW-polished yet.
 
Aix said:
Also, I was genuinely concerned for my hard drive because it simply would not stop thrashing. It's as if I downloaded Conan himself, which btw would explain why it took so long, and he went to town on my poor raptor.
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I haven't played the game or downloaded it or anything, but this made me LOL. :D
 
The worst bug that I encountered that went live in WoW was the stupid kneeling+looting bug where you couldn't do anything. That got me killed so many times. :-/
 
I played the PvP Beta Weekend and had a blast despite some bugs that guilds soon found and exploited in an attempt to ruin everyone's fun. The combat takes some concentration to be successful at not the typical click to attack then punch buttons for skills that any idiot can do. I had minimal problems with game play with only occasional lag. The graphics are outstanding and rival any game out there. All in all it was fun and I went out and pre-ordered it. I have Hellgate London too and I can tell you that in it's current state AoC is in better shape and more playable than HG:L is right now.

No one can make the perfect MMO that will satisfy everyone. Not even Blizzard. Funcom has made a very good if not a great attempt.
 
I've been playing the beta since May 1st and I'm loving it. Well definitely pre-order the CE. There are some bugs but nothing that would be serious enough for me to not buy this game.
 
you best preorder asap, my udnerstanding is that many US shops are selling out of the CE. In parts of Europe its alreayd sold out the entire pre-order.
 
I preordered the collectors edition 2 months ago (war mammoth). And I'm pretty damn sure it's money well spent.
 
Inu said:
Hellgate london has had one of the worse starts EVER and its still hanging in there. Pre orders could just be hype from people who havent even tried it yet. I doubt 450k people have actually beta tested it.
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I dunno if I would say Hellgate is still hanging in there, before they took out /who peak server population was only about ~1800 people and that was before the abysmal failure of the 1.3 patch. Problems with the coding are still bad enough that Flagship has started a policy of taking a half hour to an hour to reboot their servers daily!

Anyway, enough of me lamenting the failure of Hellgate. I do have to agree that the timing of Age of Connan's release is likely to give it a fairly good running start and it'll generally be up to how fast and consistent the patches are. If they can get some solid patches out in the next couple of months the game is likely to do well in my humble opinion.
 
AoC is the game that people have been name-checking as the lord and savior of MMOs while slagging off pretty much everything else that's already out for the last couple of years now, so a backlash from people falling over themselves to be "post-Conan" and over it before it even started was inevitable.
On the other hand I've been slagging it from the start as the screen shots have got progressively worse (and because they're planning a 360 version) and I haven't tried the beta, but I still have it pre-ordered because I'm just a sucker for a shiny CE.
 
Why would someone pre-order a game like this? I can see people that pre-order GTA4 because its a good chance the game is kick ass(and it does). But pre-ordering a game like this seems risky.

And if your afraid that they will run out of copys, theres will always be downloadable purchase available.
 
No matter how good this game is, it's unlikely to make much of a dent in the WoW audience. I'm a bit tired of WoW, but after buying LOTRO last year and playing it for about a month, I went back to WoW. Few if any of the new MMOs have WoW's community. LOTRO is by no means a bad game, but just isn't holding interest over the long haul.
 
Gabe3 said:
Why would someone pre-order a game like this? I can see people that pre-order GTA4 because its a good chance the game is kick ass(and it does). But pre-ordering a game like this seems risky.

And if your afraid that they will run out of copys, theres will always be downloadable purchase available.
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Pretty obvious they wanna throw their money away. I assume that was a rhetorical question. This game will be a niche mmo where you either hate it or love it. Lots of people that played beta hate it. Lots of people that played love it. Funcom will be thrilled to have 300k subscriptions I'm sure they're arent looking to grab 8+ million subs like the WoW has. But anything around that number would be a successful MMO after 6 months. About your pre ordering question..people want to have that 'head start' like all mmo's to reach the max level before anyone else. I pre ordered the game and I know already it wont be a vanguard or guild wars. This game will be good don't listen to the naysayers.
 
AoC and warhammer do not interest me. Aion does. Free flight battle system? awesome. Though the PvP movies i've seen are lame.

Aion is the only MMO im excited about.
 
SilverSliver said:
They said the same thing about Vanguard, AC2, Shadowbane and a few other flopped MMO's.
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Yeah, and WoW and DAoC. But they worked out just fine, don't you think? Selective memory is a fun grand thing, ain't it.

Lets also forget that funcom doesn't have the bottomless pockets that blizzard has. And they don't have the source of income (though dwindling) that Mythic has for Warhammer. All our pre-orders should help them though, if they iron out the bugs in the first month or 2 it should be a good fun game.

I was bored of WoW some time ago, and so thats no issue for me. The only competition AoC has for me right now is Warhammer. Which I will also likely pre-order and play and decide which is better. I have more faith in mythics rendition of RvR, but AoC has more uniqueness to it I believe.
 
I preordered because when in game 6 months from now when you say.....wow cool where did you get that ride, how much did it cost, where can i get one etc...... i can say. Collectors edition, your bad, they don't make them anymore.
 
It appears May 10 they are opening up the other areas and letting us see the rest of the game.

Dear Age of Conan beta tester

We hope you are merrily chopping off Pict heads in the Age of Conan Open Beta, and that your journey in Hyboria has been a memorable one so far. You have only seen the beginning though, as we prepare an EPIC ending to your Open Beta experience.

On the 10th of May we are transforming the entire Open Beta into PvP MAYHEM, while at the same time giving you access to all which Hyboria as to offer! That is right, as we take down our servers for a short period we are at the same time changing the entire server rule-set to Free For All PvP carnage! Your servers will ALL become PvP! Participate if you dare, or make a new character and stay in the safety of Tortage!

Details:

* All servers become PvP servers. You can kill each other – no level restrictions on killing or getting killed, but you cannot PvP in the major cities.
* All level 13 characters becomes level 20. Their inventory is wiped, but they have “tons” of money and really nice equipment suitable for level 20’s. Shopping bonanza!
* You have access to ALL zones and ALL levels after level 20!
* You will be zoned to your Race’s Hub (Cimmerians – Conarch Village, Aquilonians – Old Tarantia and Stygians – Khemi)

This means bye bye Tortage! Welcome Hyboria at large, and what a blast you will have. It all starts at level 20, and then it’s up to you, but you can be sure your fellow players will do their best to stop you!

We will get back with detailed information on the exact time it starts on the official Open Beta forums at IGN, as well as on the Age of Conan forums and community site.

You may ask, why skip levels 14-20? The reason is simple – the story. We take it seriously, and we would like for you to experience it at launch.

We urge you to join us for some epic PvP mayhem on the 10th of May, and we hope you will leave Hyboria with a bloodied smile on your face.

Heads will roll!

Sincerely
The Age of Conan development team
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Canadian in Berlin said:
Yeah, and WoW and DAoC. But they worked out just fine, don't you think? Selective memory is a fun grand thing, ain't it.

Lets also forget that funcom doesn't have the bottomless pockets that blizzard has. And they don't have the source of income (though dwindling) that Mythic has for Warhammer. All our pre-orders should help them though, if they iron out the bugs in the first month or 2 it should be a good fun game.

I was bored of WoW some time ago, and so thats no issue for me. The only competition AoC has for me right now is Warhammer. Which I will also likely pre-order and play and decide which is better. I have more faith in mythics rendition of RvR, but AoC has more uniqueness to it I believe.
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SkullE said:
I preordered because when in game 6 months from now when you say.....wow cool where did you get that ride, how much did it cost, where can i get one etc...... i can say. Collectors edition, your bad, they don't make them anymore.
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DAoC was fine in beta. Shadowblades wern't in yet, but the game was playable, fun, and was relatively complete. All the key concepts were relatively fleshed out, ie, keeps, basic RvR, etc. The same can't be said for AoC's key appeal, spellweaving isn't in yet, and sieges arn't either. WoW beta was the same, relatively complete -- it was only in release that things went FUBAR due to hardware inadequacies.

Also, note that the Collectors Edition has no "unique mount" that is any different than what you get from a normal pre-order.
 
It's a nice, juicy lemon. The lack of imagination is killing the MMO market. I'm holding out some small hope that Huxley and/or APB will turn out well, providing us with something besides generic, grind-fest fantasy MMOs that are all struck from the same mold. Tabula Rasa failed miserably at this however, so I'm writing off MMOs entirely until further notice (or until Champions Online, perhaps).
 
SilverSliver said:
DAoC was fine in beta. Shadowblades wern't in yet, but the game was playable, fun, and was relatively complete. All the key concepts were relatively fleshed out, ie, keeps, basic RvR, etc. The same can't be said for AoC's key appeal, spellweaving isn't in yet, and sieges arn't either. WoW beta was the same, relatively complete -- it was only in release that things went FUBAR due to hardware inadequacies.

Also, note that the Collectors Edition has no "unique mount" that is any different than what you get from a normal pre-order.
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Don't forget that spellcrafting and alchemy weren#t in, and that stunguard rained supreme. Ahhh... back when thanes were great and wanted. *cries a bit*
 
Canadian in Berlin said:
Don't forget that spellcrafting and alchemy weren#t in, and that stunguard rained supreme. Ahhh... back when thanes were great and wanted. *cries a bit*
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Balance issues are irrelevant honestly. Judging so far in AoC, balance issues are going to be a huge issue -- but are simply the least of Funcoms worries at this point.

Spellcrafting and alchemy were....in my opinion, were unwelcome additions at the time. Of course, gear acquired in the future made spellcrafting seem tame, but at the time, being able to max suits was another PvE burden in a game that should have stayed PvP oriented.

Stunguard always reigned supreme on my server :D Well, I don't know about after we left, I'm betting Hibs took back over. Stuns aside, it was pretty saddening when some of Stunguards "top tier" realm abilities required the user to die to be able to use them.

But like I said, balance issues aside and that was well down the road in post-release development.
 
Rehevkor said:
It's a nice, juicy lemon. The lack of imagination is killing the MMO market. I'm holding out some small hope that Huxley and/or APB will turn out well, providing us with something besides generic, grind-fest fantasy MMOs that are all struck from the same mold. Tabula Rasa failed miserably at this however, so I'm writing off MMOs entirely until further notice (or until Champions Online, perhaps).
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I expect Warhammer Online will be more of the same. I was really hoping they'd go for WH 40K instead for something a little different.
 
balthan said:
I was really hoping they'd go for WH 40K instead for something a little different.
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QFMFT! If it was Warhammer 40K Online, I'd be all over it. As it stands...meh. Looks like it could be called WoW 2 and nobody would know the difference.
 
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