My Age of Conan Preview

[Skerik]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Lord of the Rings was smooth...you're right. And the numbers weren't even close to the 700,000 that they had to ship to fill orders for AoC. AoC at the end of closed beta played exactly like it does now at lunch. And the forums all use the same server and the same bandwidth, so if that's ridiculous, then dunno what to tell you. Lord of the Rings only had to hold about 12 servers at launch. AoC had an absolute explosion of preorders at the last minute. Not sure what you expect them to do other than have 300 servers sitting back, ready to go, IN CASE people go nuts in the last week and order another 200,000 copies. Kind of unrealistic.

Be mad at them...go ahead. Matter of fact, go ahead and pass on it. I'm not going to get into a pissing match with you about it. I don't know why it seems like so much of this anger is directed my way. Not "so many people are shut out from playing it"...only people who haven't received a copy yet, which isn't their fault. Ordering through Amazon is a pretty big crapshoot for "release day" games of any kind. You would have a forum login, and be able to play, if it wasn't shipping a week later because of Amazon. The biggest snafu is the Early Access.

The anger isn't directed at you. But 200,000 preorder explosion or not, all I know is that I haven't been able to play or discuss the game for a variety of reasons, none of which are my fault except for choosing one of the three online retailers who offered in-game items for preordering and actually thinking they could get it together and ship me the game within the week of its release.

The forum issue is really what sent me over the edge on this whole thing. I can't even talk about the game or read impressions on it, thanks to their great decision to shut off forum access to the outside world even though the game has gone public. That doesn't make an ounce of sense to me and it's definitely not a way to win them any new fans.

[James_E]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Well, I'll add a bit to the impressions.

I picked up the game May 20. Was a bit worried about the system requirements. I have an Acer Aspire 5920G laptop running Vista. It is:

Core 2 Duo 1.5Ghz (which doesn't meet the minimum requirements for AoC)
2GB DDR2 memory (meets rec. spec)
512MB Nvidea Geforce 8600M GT (meets rec. spec)
Lots of HD space (the game eats 32GB!)

I installed, patched.. ran it. WOW. I can run it on 1280x800, medium, turn off shadows and grass and it looks great and plays smooth. 20ish fps in a busy town... 25-40 out in the wild. Very smooth and playable. For some reason inside one of the taverns I'm down to 12fps, but it's ok in that particular area, no battles or anything.

Character creation is cool and lots of options. I created a Mitra Priest and played that dude up until about L6, before creating another one on the server Tcrouch is on. I'm a chick priest "Saracide" on that server, she's up to level 10.

Other than combat so far, the game is like most other MMOs.. get quests, do quests, run around getting xp from mobs etc, but there are some different things in this like how you interact with NPCs, the night-time "single player" mode etc. There's lots of new graphics going on and stuff, hell I can show my boobies to the kids if I want, but that's no big deal.

However.. the combat... wow. 1) you don't just hit a button and "auto attack", you have to plan 2) you can target multiple mobs with melee combat. 3) you have to watch where they are sheilding and do your attacks where they are not shielding 4) you have to take care of your own sheilding (eventually.. right now I just press X to guard.)

The combat really is new and fun. It makes a big difference.

I love the map. The map gives tons of information and is really well organized. Much better than WoW.

The server I'm on is heavily populated and right now... seems pretty mature. Much more than I expected.

I'm just getting into developing my toon a bit with feats, skills etc. Apparently the toon development gets better between Lv 15 and 20 where combat gets even more interesting and feats/skills start to really matter.

Cons:
- Trader not working yet (so no bank and no AH)
- Does still slow down a bit sometimes on my PC
- Servers were down for hours at a time yesterday (didn't affect me, was at work.)
- Going through that initial quest chain in Tortage area for every new toon is going to be annoying... at least in other MMOs new toons of different race started somewhere different.

That's some impressions for now. Still early on, but I like it.

[MachoMyers]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Thanks for the impressions. Thinking of getting this one, especially with my week off next week. Is a free month included with the game ala WOW?

[TCrouch]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Sure is. Pretty standard for any MMO nowadays to have 30 days free, since you paid the $50 for the game and all.

[mgoblue]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Question...I'll be getting a new laptop (primary computer) over the summer, but my current computer could maybe play this if I turn down options (which would be fine)...Can I install on my old computer now, and when I get a new computer install on that one too? Or would i have to buy a new copy of the game?

[Cyros]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Wouldn't your activation/authentication code be more tied to your account than to the computer?

[James_E]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Question...I'll be getting a new laptop (primary computer) over the summer, but my current computer could maybe play this if I turn down options (which would be fine)...Can I install on my old computer now, and when I get a new computer install on that one too? Or would i have to buy a new copy of the game?

Yes. Not a problem. You'll activate on the current PC, create a userid etc. That userid can then be used on ANY installation of the game on any other machine. (But of course you can't log in on multiple machines at the same time...)

[Sully]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

I had a nightmare of a time getting the beta to run on my PC, which easily meets the recommended requirements for the game. With that said, I had very low expectations when I installed it on Wednesday night. To my surprise, everything ran flawlessly. I had no problems with the game at all. The big test for me was the city of Tortage. During beta, I had hitching all over the place. Now, I'm running through the village at about 25-30 fps. I do drop into the high teens at some points, but it's only for a few seconds. There is one specific area where I struggled to reach 10. I believe it was the tower in the middle of Tortage that Strom is located in. I lowered my settings from High to Med today, and the fps instantly jumped up to 30-35 on average. The game still looks beautiful.

Not much I can say about the combat that hasn't already been said. It's amazing, and a refreshing change from your standard MMORPG. I love the fatalities, but am still unsure just what exactly triggers them. It's beautiful teaming up with another player and tearing through an entire area with blood flying everywhere.

[TCrouch]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

The fatalities are triggered when you "overkill" an enemy with a combo finisher. You have a higher percentage the closer they are to death when you hit your finisher for any combo. But they only trigger for combos.

[Sully]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Terry, how much time did you spend in Tortage? What level did you leave at? I have a bunch of stuff to do at White Sands Isle (think that's it), but I remember you saying you skipped those. I'm interested in getting to the mainland, but do I need to complete all of my "night" quests first? Is that the epic storyline?

[TCrouch]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

You can't start "The Final Battle", the quest that lets you leave the island, until 20. I did all of the Underhalls and Acheronian Ruins quests, then was already 20 by the time I started on the last leg of the night quest. I dinged 21 midway through the quest, I think. The first time I did it, I started it right after I hit 20.

[fredropro]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

i rally wanted to play this ame i even bought the zboard for it..... howver i installed both discs, that that patching part came. I let it sit for 3 days and it stayed on the 660mb part it got up to 110mb then i had enough...... I had to in game items too a ring and a mammoth.......I returned it for wii fit.... ill wait a coupe months then try it again

[Sully]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

You can't start "The Final Battle", the quest that lets you leave the island, until 20. I did all of the Underhalls and Acheronian Ruins quests, then was already 20 by the time I started on the last leg of the night quest. I dinged 21 midway through the quest, I think. The first time I did it, I started it right after I hit 20.

Ok, that's the quest I'm on. I just have to wait til I hit 20. Thanks.

[peabody]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Hey all,

What's up? I know I played LOTRO with some of you. I just picked this one up and will create a toon on wiccana (when it finishes installing that is).

Love the message on the install screen, "Installing Resources: This might take a long time"

Look forward to seeing you inside the game.

[MachoMyers]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Just picked up my copy. I actually ordered a copy online but then saw it in the store and couldn't wait anymore. I'll return my ordered copy when it arrives.