WarCry Choice  Posts: 185 Joined: 13 Mar 2007     |
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 Posts: 439 Joined: 28 Jul 2004   | Stephen, you don't live in Durham, NC do you? Obviously you have NOT played the game, or if you have, you are so blinded by your enjoyment of the Conan novels/movies that you are willing to TOTALLY ignore the games HUGE faults. "Forget the potential for ganking and griefing for a moment..." lol "...mainly due to the fact that each zone is complex in its infrastructural and graphical design." - followed by: "My machine is relatively old (AGP motherboard), but even on my graphics card (xfx 7950GT 512MB), I can set the view distance to a comfortable 1000 metres (and push it further if I really wanted to) to get a good scope of any zone in the game." - how is the game complex again? You also state you can run the game(on your "dinosaur" of a computer) on high settings with just a few frills turned of ie. bloom. Uhhh how is this game a graphical wonder again? I don't want to spend an hour picking apart your review, but it comes off VERY fanboi-ish. If you really have an account, log onto the official forums there are about 399,999 UNsatisfied customers. This game is broken from a design standpoint and it is very unlikely it will get fixed. I have already posted a long list of reasons a ton of people cancelled their accounts in the first 3-4 days. This game is a griefing/ganking heaven, while at the same time being the most carebear P.O.S. out there. Most players are max level or in the top 25% of the level cap already. I hit 40 in 8 hours! Lame, lame, lame. If you have $50 burning a hole in your pocket try it out, but I'd wait for Funcom to enable the buddy passes(they gave one with each retail box, but won't let you use em yet.) To try this pile out for free. There is a reason only paying customers can access the official forums. There is a stickied post right at the top that reads "Don't let reading the forums get you down..." ROFL. |
WarCry Choice Posts: 185 Joined: 13 Mar 2007 | Hemi, I frequent the official forums, I've read those posts, but I'm sorry, I have not had those same issues that other players are experiencing. Yes, while there are still glitches (what game at launch is without them?), they have not diminished my overall experience of the retail client. Were you in beta? Perhaps you can compare your own experience of the game to how things were in beta then. Hemi, perhaps you are so embittered with your own disappointment with the game so far that you feel the need to attempt to "pick apart" at my review. I'm sorry things are not working out for you in particular. And might I just add that your "picks" are not substantiated at all; it seems that you are picking for the sake of it. It is glaringly obvious that your own dissatisfaction with the game - no individual reason(s) given - is fueling your apparent resentment of the very positive review I gave this game. Perhaps write your own review and get it published if you truly feel this way. P.S. No, I don't live in Durham NC (I live in Australia), but I do play the game; I'd be quite happy to supply you with my in-game character name as proof, if you wish.
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Posts: 439 Joined: 28 Jul 2004 | hmmm wrote a big, long reply explaning myself. But it got jacked up somehow. Suffice to say I didn't like it and alot of others don't. I am not embittered about this game, just the MMO industry in general. Thanks guys for LOTRO, Tabula Rasa, DDO, Vanguard, Hellgate London, etc. I actually bought a PS3. |
Posts: 1 Joined: 31 May 2008 |
The game has no content post 50, boss mobs arn't itemized and drop no loot. Only 1 zone is available to level in and their are no quests from 55+. Australia was largely unable to play the game the first week due to the servers being down in Australia prime time many days in a row. Your review is not only skips over the issues this game has that prevent it from being something you can even enjoy at max level, you have done a diservice to the readers of this page by the dishonesty of your review. Sadly in this day and age anyone can get a position and be a "Reviewer" or part of the Internet "Press", whats truely sad is that only some people who hold those positions actually feel any responsibility comes with it. Clearly you feel that you have no responsibility to those who would use your reviews as a way to keep from getting a poor quality game. Been playing MMO's since EQ1, and this is the WORST experience I have had so far in the 10+ years of playing. 108 dollars for two copies and basicly it was a total waste. All a PC user that buys this game is doing is paying Funcom to allow them to be a beta tester while Funcom rushes to finish this game so the XBOX360 launch goes smooth. Clearly your personal (Or cash induced) bias renders you unviable as a reviewer. |
WarCry Choice Posts: 185 Joined: 13 Mar 2007 |
There is no disclaimer in this review stating "You must agree with this review" so I welcome the oppositional thought. And no, sorry to disappoint you or crush your assumptions, but this review was not motivated by bribes or any renumatory influences. Is it so diffcult to fathom that a positive review was written because *gasp* things were mostly positive?!? What on earth has the world come to?!?
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Posts: 439 Joined: 28 Jul 2004 | The game is terribly flawed, on a design level. If you like it, thats one thing. But don't brush off the multitude of issues( and I don't mean bugs/glitches all mmos have those) because of your PERSONAL enjoyment of the game. You gave the game high marks in EVERY category and it clearly does not deserve such a shining review. All those who play it will see what I mean, if you can look past those issues and enjoy the game, more power to all of you. But this title was hyped beyond belief and did not even come close to delivering. How are they going to enable DX10 and play it on the 360? I'm also pretty sure a game with 30GB of content (and growing) will NOT fit on a 20GB hard drive. Is there anybody at the wheel over there at Funcom? Once the game is released on the 360(and that is what it was designed for)it will go downhill from there for PC users. I don't own $800 worth of graphics cards to play games that are watered down for a console. I am glad you enjoy the game Stephen, I honestly wish I did. Now we all have to wait for something new...AGAIN. |
WarCry Choice Posts: 185 Joined: 13 Mar 2007 |
Darkfall Online? ;-)
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Posts: 4 Joined: 1 Jun 2008 | Hemi, are all reviewers wrong and you right? Age of Conan is currently at 86,5/100 at gamerankings. And that is without this review.. From what i have read across the net Funcom are patching left and right. Fixing bugs and exploits as soon as they can. Many issues have already been adressed and i'm sure they'll fix alot more in the coming weeks. Reviewers see these problems. They really do, but if they are not gamebraking, and the core fundament of the game is great, it will get high ratings. Remember this ; the game will improve every week from releace due to patches and player feedback. Age of Conan is already a very stable game, for most it runs beautifully (if you have good enough hardware), and people seem to have fun. Those cursing left and right in the forums are the people experiencing troubble with the game. The happy silent majority are playing and having fun. Unless you are a WOW fella Hemi, afraid of people changing to Age of Conan, what is your agenda? The review was well written and covered all aspects i wondered about. Cudos to the reviewer for a job well done :-) |
Posts: 439 Joined: 28 Jul 2004 |
NOOOOO!! You didn't! |
Posts: 439 Joined: 28 Jul 2004 |
Lol...WoW. If you buy the game and actually play it bobbo you'll see soon enough what I'm talking about. As far as Gamerrankings goes ROFL. Do you really think that rankings can't be manipulated? I have no agenda, other than informing people to the shortcomings of a game that in this day and age should not have. Conan is more of the same old same old. Except that it will soon be invaded by every Halo puke on the planet. My hope was for a game that I would play for the next year or so...Conan isn't it, not for me. And not for alot of other people either. Once everybody has gotten a taste of it the hype will die down and its true colors will show. Good luck bobbo, hope you enjoy it. |
Posts: 4 Joined: 1 Jun 2008 | So you find the gameplay in WOW to be better? You don't like the combat system of AOC? If those are your reasons for not liking AOC, fair enough. WOW also had alot of bugs and glitches when it was released, and look how that turned out! If you don't like AOC because it's comeing to the 360 in a year or so fine. But i fail to see how this relates to warcry's review.. |
Posts: 1 Joined: 2 Jun 2008 | Interesting responses... Everyone in my guild (we've been around 10 years now) seems to be having a great time playing this game. There is certainly a silent majority enjoying the heck out of this game. There will always be some squeaky wheels. Hemi is a good example of that. Every MMO I've ever played seems to have a crowd of people that are dead set on hating the game and everything in it. Yes, AOC has some issues, but the core gameplay is so fantastic that its easy to overlook these issue while waiting for Funcom to release a few more patches. |
Posts: 439 Joined: 28 Jul 2004 |
What the hell is it with people thinking that if you don't like Conan that you are a WoW fan? In case you're wondering there have been a couple MMO's out before WoW came along and popularized a gaming arena that was already strong. I have NEVER played WoW. Played UO, EQ, SWG(don't laugh, pre Sony Fuq-up), EVE and then Lineage 2. Still play EVE(going on 4 years) and Lineage 2(since retail). WoW was a catalyst for Dell owners to finally get in on the MMO scene, thus popularizing it cuz little Jimmy can play it on his mommy's PC. The media got ahold of this "new" rage(though most of us had been here for years) and WoW became more popular than it deserved...kinda like Conan. WoW...lol. Maybe thats the only other MMO you have heard of. |
Posts: 439 Joined: 28 Jul 2004 | Aganazer: Yes, AOC has some issues, but... LOL. Every person that likes the game says the same thing. If you truly enjoy the game you are going to look past those issues just as someone who does not is going to point them out. My main complaint lies in the misdirection Funcom uses to get people to purchase the game. A lot of the key aspects to the game are absent and/or disabled(at the time of my playing). The game is SUPER instanced, not what the AOC devs led us to believe. I could go on and on but tire of repeating myself. If you are actually playing the game log into the official forums, there are those that are much more detailed and have a much longer list if faults. The "squeeky wheels" are an 18 wheeler. |
Posts: 2 Joined: 3 Jun 2008 | The list of problems with this game is so big.. so much in fact that it seems to me that this game was in no shape ready for launch, not even by a long shot. I had great expectations of this game and the let down has been a killer. Having read you review I have to say I believe agree with the original criticism, and I don't think it's an honest review cause if it is you are not playing the same game as the rest of us and we would like to get hold of the copy you have. Here is a list of some stuff (and there is much much more ofc): Skills Feats The problem with this is that this it's not a balancing issue, but it's stuff that simply does not work as intended. If everything did work as intended, and they were dealing with balancing issues, I'd be happier No factions Having a factionless game can work out brilliantly, especially if guilds start making alliances. But we need a system that allows alliances or similar. There are so many AoE and cone skills in this game that Massive PvP with help from friends that are not in your faction will result in you attacking your friends. Itemization So say they do add a lot of variating stuff. I'll already be halfway through my levels. If they fix quest rewards so that it gives a broader selection, I will already have done half of them. I won't benefit from it, and a lot of other players would say the same. It's a strange fact that half of the players upon launch have to go through half the game and say "this wasn't satisfactory" and have it fixed when we're passed that stage. I'm not saying they shouldn't fix it because of that, I still love the fact that they do, but again, why wasn't this done before? Base skills (Str, con, int etc) Descriptions (or lack thereof) Flow of information to players In the latest patch there were some undocumented changes yes, but that's not how it should be. We are going to put more effort into being as descriptive as possible in the future, because we have nothing to hide. We keep hearing how we're gonna get full patch notes. Why aren't we getting any? Crafting Mounted combat. High level content Forums Stealth useless in daytime Vagueness Feats say "a portion of this goes to that", only to find it's something like a 1% proc that increases 1% mana regen. It's stupid that we have to respec so many times to realize what's working in what way, and also bump into all those bugged feats. Forums mk. II EU players feel downprioritized to US players. It's as simple as that. Respec cost Instance changing Guild Cities |
Posts: 1 Joined: 3 Jun 2008 | I can agree with this review in terms of graphics quality and sounds quality, both of which are remarkable. The directional shielding system adds a nice twist to combat. The questing content (where existing) is okay, while certainly not new or inventive. Some quests are even pretty entertaining to follow (Chosen by Set, anyone?). I can even live with the heavy instancing, as it really helps network performance and there are usually enough people to group with anyways. But this is where the good stuff ends. There are unfortunately few signs of "diverse and unique gameplay experiences" and "clever and thoughtful design" once you get into group content. The grand majority of boss encounters play out strictly tank and spank with no advanced strategy required. If you are geared enough/ high enough level you win, otherwise you lose. There are no damage spikes or debuffs to react to, and for the most part, it wouldn't even be possible to react to them, because tanks and healers lack emergency abilities. Upon winning these hardly exciting encounters, you get loot that comes with attributes that don't seem to work as of now. The scary thing is, the game is reasonably balanced without them working, so a fix would require changes throughout the combat system the likes of which shouldn't be necessary with a supposedly finished game. I perceive these issues as game-breaking, because group content and gear upgrades are two major long-term motivation factors in MMOs (the third being PvP, which I haven't tried yet, but which is also partly gear-driven). So while the current bugs and imbalances can be waved aside as squeeky wheels, you cannot overlook the broken suspension. |
IT Director  Posts: 845 Joined: 13 Jun 2002    |
OK, this has gone on long enough. If anyone wants to comment on the content of the review, go for it. That's what this thread is for. Anyone that decides to discuss the reviewer is going to take a long vacation from the forums. If you have a problem with a reviewer, you can contact editor@warcry.com with your concerns.
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Posts: 4 Joined: 1 Jun 2008 |
Hemi, i was for instance a key player on my server on SWG...That is before they f-ed it up. I have no problem with you not likeing AOC, but it seems to me that you just want to bash the hell out of it. Most reviews are very posetive. I supect most players are happy aswell. Only those with problems are usually busy bitching around in the forums. This game will make or brake with the avereage Joe. They will take their time leveling, and Funcoms patches will make the game better and better. In a coupple of months most issues will be adressed. I wonder if you will be just as negative then? I sugest you read all reviews at Gamerankings.com or metacritic.com. There you will find a balanced image of the game. A image that will continue to be more and more correct as more reviews are added. I for one don't get why it's that imprtant to you and some others to go out of your way bashing AOC and the review from warcry. I found the review helpfull and well written. The reviewer found the positives to outweight the negatives in a big way, perhaps also counting on the game to improve fast with the patching going on as we debate, hence the great score. |
WarCry Choice Posts: 185 Joined: 13 Mar 2007 |
For all those interested: http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages4/927504.asp
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Posts: 439 Joined: 28 Jul 2004 |
Lol, once again I point you in the direction of the official forums. Not a sketchy source like gamerankings. If you really belive that the hype and "excellent" reveiws for this game are not, for the most part, "manufactured" I've got something to sell you. Check out the reveiw on the cover of PC gamer...lol. You start reading how great the game is, but then realize that he is talking about BETA! WTH? This game will go the way of DDO in a few months. The reason this game is selling so well is THERE IS NOTHING ELSE. Mythic was smart, why release an unpolished product and share the release with AoC. When they can spend a couple more months on it and release it all by it's lonesome(WoW's expansion doesn't really count does it?). If they had, AoC's numbers would have been cut in HALF guaranteed. Especially in the Euro market where Warhammer is king. The reason I am here "bashing" the game is because Funcom ate $50 and there is nothing I can do about it except warn others. Try the game, but don't expect what Funcom promised. |
WarCry Choice Posts: 185 Joined: 13 Mar 2007 |
So how is Gamerankings a "sketchy source"? Are multiple viewpoints not beneficial to the consumer, as you have been saying yourself? I'm not saying you're wrong, but bear in mind that there is always two sides to the coin.
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Posts: 4 Joined: 1 Jun 2008 |
Again, who writes negative posts in official forums? Both you know and i know from experiece that those are the people not satisfied or dissaponted about something. Or they have problems with software or hardware preventing them from running things correctly. Then we have the players that bougth the game and want another game than what they bought, then bitch about it. Then we have the occational troll that gets paid by the competition to write crap about the game. The majority of the players hardly ever go to the forums,because they are happy. They are usually called the silent majority. You for one are not one of those lol ;-) You talk about scetchy sources... Gamerankings collect reviews from all over the internett and the AVERAGE is displayed and each review is usually linked so you can read them if you want to. As i already have pointed out , those in the forums are usually those with issues/problems and what not. THEY DO NOT REPRESENT THE COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE. Never have and never will. You are way off if you thing the forums represent the majority of the players opinions about the game... |
WarCry Choice  Posts: 4048 Joined: 6 Dec 2004   |
What is a review if not a totally subjective look at a game? All a reviewer can do is express THEIR personal experiences of playing a game. If he found it ran well on his machine and looked pretty - great. If he enjoyed playing it, awesome. People forget the number one problem with reviewing MMO games. While those bashing it all admit they got to level so and so, they found content was dull after level X, a reviewer can't be expected to reach maximum level before writing his review. They have to balance playing and writing. Generally - chilllllllllll. Lineage 2 WarCry Site Manager |
Posts: 2 Joined: 3 Jun 2008 | Any review is usually written from a subjective point of view, especially computer games. One could argue how one could write a review of any MMO based on a week or so play, but that's an entirely different issue. I was a big fan of the game and still am, but as I stated some of the things that are wrong in the game are things that Funcom advertised would come with the game at release time! Guild cities, etc. I mentioned a lot of the issues raised in the awareness thread from the official forums (which is not whine thread or a bashing thread), but generally brings forth concerns about issues that really need to be adressed and some who should have been resolved before the game was released concerning central game mechanisms etc. Saying that ppl who point out erros/bugs/flaws through the official forums are all non representative of the gaming community is just as far off as saying the game isn't good and no one should buy it and everyone should think so. Now Funcom didn't wait for whatever reasons they have and so these are lacking. I just question the scoring given by the reviewer cause in two months or so I might well agree but right now I don't feel the game deserves as much praise as it's getting with the serious flaws it has and you don't have to be lvl 40+ to experience them. Then again more game time would surely expose them more to the reviewer who probably has experience some of them already. In general I think the game is enormous and has great potential. I just think if they had given themselves a little more time to ensure core gameplay mechanics worked it would have gotten the launch it truly deserves and that's from my point of view as a fan. |
 Posts: 19 Joined: 9 Jun 2008  | I am relatively new to this whole "replying to posts" thing, mainly because I've never felt the need. But, while I was searching the Internet for random crap I came across a game called Age of Conan. So, I pre-ordered this game, for I had a few extra bucks. I received the game, I played it for a while, and frankly, I was amazed. By the graphics, by the fighting system, and by the fact that you could run around naked. Then, one fine day, I stumbled across forums for the game. Whether or not the were the official forums, I do not know (or care), but I was amazed by the amount of arguing that I found. Some said that the game was severly flawed, while others maintained that it was simply bugged, and they would be fixed. In a panic, I logged on to my account and looked for these serious flaws in the gameplay. To my immense surprise I found... Nothing. I found bugs aplenty, I found a couple unbalanced stats, I even found a couple feats and powers that refused to work properly. But as far as the game-breaking flaws and errors in design... If I could send you virtual crickets to chirp at you, I would put them instead of this sentence. So, I checked back to those forums, told them of my findings, and left. I have not checked back to see how my post was greeted. In short, I have no idea why some people are getting so touchy about this game. I grant that it is not as polished or advanced as WoW, but its only been out for a few weeks. And there has been a patch released this very da |
Age of Conan: WarCry's Official Review
Age of Conan has now been on home computers for three weeks now, and today WarCry gives you its verdict:
This is a review of a different kind: a review from a member of the press and a subscriber to the game!
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