Age of Conan review

[beanbandit]

WoW on release was one of the most buggy games I've ever played. That still seems to be managing though

Being honest i can't remember having many issues when WOW was released, biggest issue was the log-on servers on day one. I'm not saying there wasn't any, they just weren't as bad as what i've seen so far in AoC.

Nice read Acrobat,very informative.

First thing tonight i'm going to reclaim my 24Gb

[acrobat]

Seen people talking about pre-ordering this so thought I'd try to help keep this up to date if possible.

There was a big patch yesterday and it made a big difference. I read about it and then I tried it out (still have it installed), and I have some friends who wanted to see it, so we played through a few more levels. There are some people still having some issues, but now, the majority of people have had a massive performance boost. All the stuttering/hitching problems have either gone or been greatly reduced. And the enormous loading times are now a lot quicker. It also seems way more stable. No crashes to desktop or blue screens of death (for me anyway). I logged in and tried it briefly (I still haven't deleted it yet), and my crappy class improved slightly thanks to them fixing one of the broken spells. They have added spell effects too, and there are sound effects to go with the spell effects. So it makes feel a lot more like a finished game now.

They also said on the forums that my particular class is unfinished and will have more stuff added by release day. Not sure how much, and not sure if they will do the same for any of the other classes, but it's something at least.

It basically reminds me a lot of Diablo or Neverwinter Nights or something. The fights are around 10-20 seconds, and that won't ever go up much. So it's still too fast for me, and it's all about doing your few best skills/spells as fast as possible. But with nice graphics and decent sound and spell effects, it is pretty compulsive. The thoughts of sieges is something that would spur me on a bit too.

I'm still not too keen personally, but if they could do another few patches like that, and maybe add some more zones and more quests, and if the new stuff they give to my class is significant, then it could change my mind. I'll have to wait and see. It's released on the 20th, but the people who pre-ordered get in 3 days sooner. So basically, I (we) will know what the retail version is like in just 8 days.

[acrobat]

This'll probably be the last update I make seeing as it gets released in a couple of days. I played it yesterday evening after not playing it for about a week, and there was quite a lot of improvement.

To be precise, there has been a major patch *every day*, for the past 3 days straight, and there was one just a few days before that too. So basically, 4 patches in the space of a week. If anyone was waiting to see a miracle patch, this is probably as close as I've ever seen in any beta I've been in.

The performance is really good now, and the polish is amazing. All the little bits and bobs that were very beta-ish (like progress bar text saying "ProgressBarTestGoesHere" and stuff..), all that has gone now. It's now like the finished game and the fixes and tidying are amazing. I doubt there are many broken quests any more - if any. Also, all the spell effects are now looking better, and all the spell icons got completely replaced with an entire new set. So whereas before I had numerous spells that were sharing the exact same icon... all that is much better now, and the icons are great.

Also, my terrible Necromancer class improved too. They must have been listening to the testers because it is now much stronger. My nuke damage basically doubled, I now have a spell that can hold a mob in place - only for a few seconds, but that is significant in this game. Pet damage went up too. Also they gave us an AE fear, which makes a massive difference... as you can imagine. And most importantly of all (to me at least), they re-did the Feat Tree (like the Talents in WoW), so it's now much more balanced, but it gives new stuff. I bitched at them for not having a lifetap, and they didn't exactly give me one, but they gave various effects that achieve the same thing - like an occasional heal each time sometimes, when you land a spell etc.

So basically it's looking like a proper game now, and not some dodgy indi game. I gotta give them credit for tidying it up amazingly well.

I'm still not going to buy it though I really wanted to like it but I just can't get into it. When combat is so incredibly short, it just feels wrong to me. It's a lot like Oblivion in that respect, so if you like Oblivion, you will like this game. I just feel that it's a bit short on quests and zones and there isn't anything else to do, so it's all about the combat. And I just prefer different combat. I think it will be a favourite game of lots of people though.

[kalniel]

Nice, good to hear how it's improved.

[MasterFlash]

Thanks for that acrobat, just what I needed to here Its been very interesting reading your experiences of the 'inside'. Im pre-loaded ready for Saturday, cant wait.

Regards

Baz

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Thanks acro. great mini review and it seems as though they are realy working hard in making this game bug free