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What, exactly, is so bad about this game?
madeux
Member Posts: 1,786
Please forgive my ignorance, but I would like some clarification on this issue.
Those who dislike this game seem to REALLY dislike this game. There's a lot of passion and hate behind their opinions. Where is this coming from?
Is the game really that bad? Were their expectations simply too high? Is it all due to early release bugs and a lack of content? If they started today, would it be better?
What are it's good points?
For what type of player is this game ideal?
Comments
I can only address the issues that I have encountered. There were numerous problems with AoC upon release. The gray map bug was a huge inconviences as well as the female attack animation issues. These were two bugs that never should have been in a shipping MMO. Finally, in game siege combat was just awful.
However, these three issues have been fixed. The positive aspects of the game have been advanced as well. AoC is graphically among the very best looking games out there. The combat style contains nice reactive elements. I have really enjoyed both the new solo and group instances. Both types of instances are well thought out. Finally, I really like the story elements that are in the game.
Thanks for taking the time to give a thoughtful answer. I'm currently downloading the free trial, I figure it's worth a try, but I figured I would do some background research so I'd know which issues to watch out for.
I liked AoC. I have reactivated before and will probably do it again. I think one of the problems with the MMO community is that they don't like the idea that ANYTHING would ever get old. My thinking is that video games always have a period of time when they are new and exciting and then other things come along. Just because someone sees flaws in a game deosn't mean that it sould be discounted completely as "Horrible". I played AoC for about 3 months total and didn't see that many problems with it. I do think games get over hyped and sometimes people have too high expectations. I have gotten to the point where I don't complain when a NEW mmo comes out and it's not perfect, doesn't have end game, needs re-tooling, balancing, bugs smashed. It's all a part of persistant world games as I see them.
1. I loved the graphics, animations, and atmosphere
2. Loved the music
3. The first 20 levels are about 10 hours of pure fun. Solo fun, but still fun.
4. Story and Setting. You can't beat Conan for mysterious, exotic, and sexy. I've read the comics for years. Very much lives up to the style of the comics.
One can talk about the lack of content but that can be fixed but there are somethings that simply cannot be fixed.
1. Terrible combat system - Hitting a hotkey and then 3-5 directional arrows goes beyond simply being tedious in that it limits options and thought in combat and turns combat into follow the arrows. The combat system lacks options. While one waits 10 seconds to finish a combo one could do so many other things as one does in MMOs with more complex combat. It is a simplistic system made for those that want to play games without thinking. It works well in levels 1-20 and solo. But the combat system shows its flaws in grouping and raiding. Its a system that does not function well in groups and raids. If they could admit their flaws they could simply let people macro out the directional attacks and increase the combos speed up the ones that take 3-5 directional keys and suddenly there would be time to do a lot more in combat. But even with drastic changes like I have suggested it will never be able to compete with games with more complex combat systems.
2. Dishonesty and Greed - More than the lack of content Funcom's dishonesty and greed has killed this game. People will forgive poor and missing content but they cannot forgive greed and lies. Limiting open beta to level 13, hiding the lack of content, lying about the state of the game, paying people like Avery to spread their lies and propaganda on message boards like this and hyping the game to maximize short term sales left a very bad taste in players minds.
3. Bad reputation - Games can recover from bad reps. But what Funcom did here was similar in terms of its rep as to what SOE did in NGE. Gamers may forget but it will be a long time. AoC and Funcom are saddled with their rep. They received a ton of income selling close to a million boxes but they have effectively killed any long term future this game may have had.
4. Community - Hands down the worst community to ever play a MMO. Bty appealing to peoples worst instincts and marketing the game on sex, nudity, gore and decapitations they targeted the 15-25 year old kiddie audience which converged on AoC as their savior. The problem is this audience quickly drives off other players and they have no patience or attention span and they quickly leave themselves for the next new thing.
5. Easy Mode - This game was made for the simplistic 15-25 year old ADD kiddie audience. To do this the game was made simple with no depth, skill or work needed. Just lots of flash and eye candy but no substance. This game made WoW look super hard, complex and diificult.
6. The game should be free to play - Essentially AoC is a simplistic single player game with some MMO aspects. I cannot see why someone would play AoC over a good singleplayer game. It does not have the content or depth to justify a fee. It would simply be better to play a singleplayer game with some MMO aspects and no monthly fee. Even a game like guild wars not only has more content but much better design.
Most of all what has essentially killed and doomed AoC is its dishonesty, greed and now awful reputation. Without the lies motivated by greed this game would still have a future and people would be willing to give it chance. Now AoC and Funcom are universally hated.
Its a shame as AoC is not a bad game for what it is a simple game for people who do not want to think while playing a MMO.
Thanks for taking the time to give a thoughtful answer. I'm currently downloading the free trial, I figure it's worth a try, but I figured I would do some background research so I'd know which issues to watch out for.
The trial I believe takes you through the first area (Tortage). You get a decent feel for the combat of the game (ie either caster or combo driven). I kinda of enjoy both styles.
If you play on a pvp server, prepare to be ganked ruthlessly in white sands / underhalls during the daytime quests. I swear some of those peeps ganking on white sands have no life. You can level out of there by using the night time quests to avoid said gankers thou.
I only played for the first three months, so I can only speak from my personal experience, but most of the reason that I stopped playing was because the PvP was not very good. The combat was unique and refreshing, but players seemed to care more about item rewards than actual territorial disputes or clan loyalty. And the game was not capable of creating enough of an engaging territorial dispute, because all anyone cared about was loot. When I first started the game, I was under the impression that loot was not as important as in other games, specifically for PvP.
I quit once they announced the PvP consequence system because it sounded stupid and limiting to me. I'm not the type of player that attacks lower levels, but it seemed like they were trying to restrict the PvP that was already almost absent at the time. Maybe there are better incentives for it now, but after WAR failing me for almost the exact same reason, my hopes are not very high.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
There were plenty of things I really enjoyed with AoC; the enviroment, the music, the characters and so on. But Funcoms attempt to make a new combat system really didn't feel right with me, I never enjoyed it, and felt tired everytime I was about to fight, you're probably thinking: "hey fat bastard, just because you're a lazy ass doesn't make the system a bad one.". And you're probably right, I'm lazy because I don't want to choose between hitting left, center or right when I'm about to smack someone's head off. I'd rather have more talents which gave skills you could use; nipple-twisting and groin-kicking being the two major skills ;-) I felt so bored after hitting one guy on the left side for 3-4 punches to make him "protect" himself there so I could use the combo which landed on the right side.
I can say that I really want to play Age of Conan as I really enjoyed the setting, but it's that one thing I can't deal with, and that's the combat-thing-a-ma-jig.
There anger has no merit IMO.The game is decent enough for sure,i think where it fails is that it does not deliver anything new.The problem is that WOW also copied EQ and delivered nothing new,yet we don't here the same complaining.
AOC is in a long line of other games,that COULD have been something real special,but it sort of did the normal things and left it at that.Do i think AOC was perhaps rushed out the door?maybe if you think they had planned on more content originally,but as the game was released,it was quite good,nothing really wrong except some pet peeves as to witch i always have a few.
If you look at the largest subscription game [WOW]what exactly do they do that is any different than AOC?they feed you a carrot to chase,END GAME gear and mounts,really that is quite superficial gaming that takes very little effort and very little manpower to pull off.Raiding is like the most simplistic form of content a developer can create,so if this is what the masses were hoping for or crying for,they need a wake up call,as that is not true gaming.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
One more thing about AoC which I didn't enjoy that much, it felt like you were guided to your goal at all times. You were unable to wander freely, at earlier stages that is, and were pointed in the direction you were intented to go - There's paths leading all the way up to the end of the quest or wherever you're supposed to go, it's like I don't even have a choise. I'd like to get a "Go into the forest of <some weird name> and find the necklace of <some even weirder name>, follow the path until you see a large tree, there go east until you see some rocks." - You get the direction, although you can decide wether to follow that road or to explore at the same time. More of a sandbox approach, that is.
As has been stated before a lot of the issues has been fixed, but that isn't what you asked, so I am going to tell you my issues with the game. Keep in mind these are my issues other folks miliage may vary.
Number one would be the community. Yes one would think that a M rating would garner us servers full of adults...the exact opposite is true for the most part our PVP servers are full of smack talking Buttheads whose main objective is shock talk. Our CM's basically let this Lord of the Flies Mentality rule the day. "Hey it's Conan" they say...I then tell them nowhere in Conan did people graphically describe doing their Mom while dressed like Suzanne Summers.
There are many freaks in AoC...they all fall under the heading of Erotic Role Play guilds....and while some of them sincerely RP an alternate lifestyle that is non intrusive to those who don't wish to be part of it ; the vast majority are teen-aged boys trying to see how many taboos they break before Funcom bans them.....the only problem is Funcom doesn’t bother, so they keep pushing the envelope.
Number two would be the loneliness that number one has given the PVE servers. A lot of folks on the PVE servers are refugees from the PVP servers...they like the game but by the time they get to the PVE server they want to have as little as possible to do with their fellow players.....yes you can have that Lone Warrior vibe that Howard wrote many times about, but this game kicks ass when you have a good group of people doing a dungeon run or hanging out in a tavern. So currently finding friends much less a guild that isn't fly by night or that fits into your play style can be problematic, as I said there are a lot and I mean a lot of fly by night guilds, folks go to larger raid centric guilds, end up just playing solo not speaking to anyone.
Now my issues are probably far and away from what most don't like about AoC, for me the game has come a long way since launch and is a lot of fun.....the cringe worthy moments for me have more to do with how the community and how grouping is handled than any thing else
One can talk about the lack of content but that can be fixed but there are somethings that simply cannot be fixed.
1. Terrible combat system - Hitting a hotkey and then 3-5 directional arrows goes beyond simply being tedious in that it limits options and thought in combat and turns combat into follow the arrows. The combat system lacks options. While one waits 10 seconds to finish a combo one could do so many other things as one does in MMOs with more complex combat. It is a simplistic system made for those that want to play games without thinking. It works well in levels 1-20 and solo. But the combat system shows its flaws in grouping and raiding. Its a system that does not function well in groups and raids. If they could admit their flaws they could simply let people macro out the directional attacks and increase the combos speed up the ones that take 3-5 directional keys and suddenly there would be time to do a lot more in combat. But even with drastic changes like I have suggested it will never be able to compete with games with more complex combat systems.
2. Dishonesty and Greed - More than the lack of content Funcom's dishonesty and greed has killed this game. People will forgive poor and missing content but they cannot forgive greed and lies. Limiting open beta to level 13, hiding the lack of content, lying about the state of the game, paying people like Avery to spread their lies and propaganda on message boards like this and hyping the game to maximize short term sales left a very bad taste in players minds.
3. Bad reputation - Games can recover from bad reps. But what Funcom did here was similar in terms of its rep as to what SOE did in NGE. Gamers may forget but it will be a long time. AoC and Funcom are saddled with their rep. They received a ton of income selling close to a million boxes but they have effectively killed any long term future this game may have had.
4. Community - Hands down the worst community to ever play a MMO. Bty appealing to peoples worst instincts and marketing the game on sex, nudity, gore and decapitations they targeted the 15-25 year old kiddie audience which converged on AoC as their savior. The problem is this audience quickly drives off other players and they have no patience or attention span and they quickly leave themselves for the next new thing.
5. Easy Mode - This game was made for the simplistic 15-25 year old ADD kiddie audience. To do this the game was made simple with no depth, skill or work needed. Just lots of flash and eye candy but no substance. This game made WoW look super hard, complex and diificult.
6. The game should be free to play - Essentially AoC is a simplistic single player game with some MMO aspects. I cannot see why someone would play AoC over a good singleplayer game. It does not have the content or depth to justify a fee. It would simply be better to play a singleplayer game with some MMO aspects and no monthly fee. Even a game like guild wars not only has more content but much better design.
Most of all what has essentially killed and doomed AoC is its dishonesty, greed and now awful reputation. Without the lies motivated by greed this game would still have a future and people would be willing to give it chance. Now AoC and Funcom are universally hated.
Its a shame as AoC is not a bad game for what it is a simple game for people who do not want to think while playing a MMO.
wow - you really took the time to write all that negativity. Man, you need to refocus on positive issues. Anyways you have been too eager in the number of subjects
1) Ok, some people love it some hate it. No worries
2 and 3) Ok as well, you are of course entitled to feel what you wat. However should be one bullit point, not two.
4 and 5) No problems here only that you could sum it up as community.
6) Not really valid. Its your personal oppinon. Funcom earns a profit on AoC and therefore they choose to continue to sell the game at a monthly rate. This simply makes sense.
So to summarize. There are 3 issues with the game.
- Combat system not for everyone.
- A lot of people feel that Funcom tricked them
- The community is viewd as bad by some people.
I would ad a 4 th that many have mentioned. The game is designed in a way where it relies heavily on instances. Some people truly hate this. ( i dont)
All points can be argued and many people love the game. OP is doing the right thing. Trying for himself.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
Ahhh.... one more player who has not played AoC since launch...
FYI the combat system was fixed 8 months ago. Advanced combos don't take 5 keys anymore, they all have been reduced down to 1-2 keys for the most part, with the advanced combos taking 3 keys max.
And... "one could do so many other things as one does in MMOs with more complex combat"? Yea, looks like you haven't even played the game at all...
Because, to me, all of the western MMOs have slow and boring combat, except AoC. Fortunately we have AoC and the asian mmos to save us from the slow boring mindless gameplay of western MMOs. They are all adding the same exact quests over and over again and trying to add some diversity with some added layers of storylines... they can add how many layers they want it still won't save us from the slow and boring gameplay.... and you are calling this "more complex"?
But I 100% agree with you on the Funcom lying part. The way they have handled the launch fiasco is a real shame.
Streamlining the combo system into 1-2 directional keys instead of 4 or 5 only means that Funcom doesn't know where to go with this system and that it prefers to just copy WoW's insta-hit combat, which kind of diminished the meaning of having a combo-based system in the first place. Though I must say I am pleased that it doesn't take 5 directional keys to execute a certain action (as it is completely tedious and totally ludicrous), it still begs the question - why not remove combo-based combat in the first place?
The fact is AoC is after one year becoming more and more of a WoW clone, and that is something entirely different than what the developers promised to us. They repeteadly stated they wanted to create an alternative MMO, something different from WoW, yet immediately after release they realized they can't cope with their "alternative" combat and concepts, and soon jumped onto the good old WoW-copy wagon.
So, what is so exactly bad about this game? It's becoming a WoW clone, it's becoming something completely opposite of what they advertised it to be.
I'm not one of those HATE AoC, I only did the free trial for no other reason than it was a free trial. Just wanted to see what a M rated game looked like but I didn't even finish the trial as my wife and I were laughing ourselves silly over the game. I tried it just last month so this is a current view.
The problem area's I saw:
Someone else here already said it pretty straight forward; 'the first 20 levels will take you about 10 hours'. For me, I had already hit level 6 before I even left the beach and started into the jungle during the tutorial. This tells me that the game is geared to max level play and all the levels before that point are pretty much just training on how to play. The big problem here is the end game HAS to be such to support the max level players. PoTBS kind of had the same thing (leveling took longer). Maxing out to play the end game was seen by many as THE thing to do. Too bad the end game was lacking.
Combat combo keys. Always felt like playing guitar hero with the little 'do this' key's showing up. There are better ways to do this and if anyone wants to see it, take a look at a single player game called Mount and Blade. What AoC was trying to do with it's combo keys, M&B does with just the mouse and right mouse button. And they had it about 5 years ago.
It really is a graphic's hog. Use the guide here and set your graphics to low first chance you get and then work it up slowly as you play the tutorial. I only got to medium so I couldn't tell you if the game was as good looking as others say and my comp is a last years setup.
The Good:
The different server types were a good feature.
There was a 'gore' button that knocked down some of the graphic's.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
I never played on a pvp server in the 2 months I played this game, I agree very much with what todeswulf says about the community.
I will add that I found very little if any reason to group on AoC, sure there were epic instances, but really players hardly did black castle which was the lvl 25ish epic instance. So your first epic instance experience is at lvl 35ish with sanctum, and really you can lvl quite easily without even doing sanctum. Waiting until about lvl 35 for a reason to group for me is boring.
I'm not an advocate of forced grouping on an MMO, I do like to be able to solo when I want to, but being that this is an MMO there should be a little more reason to group apart from the occasional epic instance here and there.
EDIT:
I just wanted to add, there isn't really anything extremely bad about this game and that is my opinion of course. In it's defence I will say that AoC has some of the best graphics I have experienced in an MMO.
I'm sorry if I sound like a fanboi but, I think conan is very awesome and yes I have a 80 and played more than three months lol... Played at the release and it blew chunks. But now I came back and its very good i get no lag on a 7600 gt lol.. Anyway great game.
Now Playing: Guild Wars 2/ Diablo 3
For a game centered around PvP, it has a horrible combat system. The combat system has been made better as of late, but at the core it is just horrible. Maybe, if they work on an expansion or a big content patch that revamps and changes the combat system, then it can be considered a great game, but that takes too long and way too complicated as a rational change. If I'm not mistaken, they are working on a new MMO and I think they'll have much to learn from what happened with Age of Conan.
It only costs 5Euro now pick it up and see for yourself
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
The combat system is in no way "complex". It is as simple as in about any other current mmorp. Having to press 3 buttons for an attack instead of 1 doesn't make it complex, but rather annoying for some. Plus it only counts for the melees, while casters go with the common combat sceme of single button-pressing.
The combo-system Funcom wanted to sell as an innovation was in fact a sidestep to make it appeal to the console-kids who play the game with a joypad. Sort of some special moves as known in Tekken and the likes, along with a "finishing move".
That was back in the days when they were dreaming that this game would make it to the Xbox360. Also the heavy instancing leads to the believe that it wasn't only because of limitations of the engine or today's hardware, but rather due to limitations of gaming consoles which usually have to load content every few meters.
Directional attacks... Check
Combo system.. Check
Collision detection... Check
Active blocking... Check
Adjustable shields... Check
4 direction dodging... Check
Fatalities... Check
For an MMO thats pretty complex I would say.
No quests really...
Alot of missing sounds and voices...
No decent quantity...
Too much missing to make it fun.
Life is about Living, Sleep is about Dreaming, Games are about Strategy!
The biggest problem i had was no flow between the lands. Each land had few links (and no good ones) with the next and each zone felt too much like an instance. Aside from that i disliked how dungeons were done (confusing at what level to start them at or even what dungeons are being run the most).
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom