Age of Conan

Originally posted by bcrankshaw

I voted yes but I want to elaborate a little .My sentiments have been echoed in some other posts

Firstly I don't blame MMORPG.COM for the inflated initial review , the game was released almost perfect for the first 1-20 levels and the high score was accurate .I appreciate  the post where Jon  explained the reasoning behind the review and how the dynamics work behind the whole reviewing process at MMORPG.COM.As we all know almost every game website gave AOC high reviews ...and so did we . Lets take a step back and think of the whole AOC phenomena and the hype .For years people waited for this game ,websites existed where people spent hundreds of hours discussing the game  and the new revolutionary features. People were saying how this the first true WOW killer and the Funcom marketing machine really did a good job.Almost everyone really believed this game was going to be amazing ...we all got pulled into this .Funcom then disingenuously made sure that the first 20 levels were perfect ..so anyone playing it or reviewing thought ..." amazing game ..awesome "

I remember the first real shock I got that not everything was as polished outside the starting area was the voice cuts being non-existent . Now we all know  the game started showing serious issues and imbalances the more you advanced ..to the point for many where it was almost unplayable .

AOC set a precedent ,no game company  ,IMO,invested as much into marketing as Funcom.It reminded me of the great Enron scandal ...a seriously dysfunctional system that no one really new about until later.

I don't blame the game companies for high reviews as we all believed that initially ...or I can hope for is that the next time there is another "AOC " ..reviews are done as objectively as the can be..and when the faults are apparent then the game websites highlight that so newbies to the game can be made aware

This disaster of AOC lies with Funcom end of the day ..they must be judged ...not gaming websites

Well then these reviews are a worthless waste of time done by amateurish monkies if it is so easy for a company like Funcom to just throw a party and make 1/4 of the game look good.

Yet if someone calls them what they are, worthless and lacking in any real inisght or information, people bust out the "they are professionals are you a professional?" card.  Well guess what the professionals do a worse job than most of us on these boars apparently.  Heck even the crazies seem to be right more often.

You can't have it both ways.  Either they are well meaning fools or they are corrupt.

Because almost no one thinks they get things right.  Even Tal Rasha comment above doesn't say they did a good job.  Merely that they were unequipped to do the job right.

Well guess what?  Incompetence or inability is not an excuse.  You can't do the job right t hen write that in your article and make that company look bad for hiding things.

Excuse after excuse that is all there is.  And that is all they are is excuses because there are obvious and easy solutions possible.

sigh......okie, I give a quick review. After years of hype and fan boy drooling over screen shotsof  Age of Conan I am here to tell you it's not worth playing..........

The game is slow, boring and unimaginative. The graphics are decent at higher levels, but when turned up that high the game slows to an unplayable crawl. Though my system far exceeds the requirements of the game, I can only play at the "Low" settings, which means textures that look like Quake 2 and boring effects. For a game that consumes 24GB of hard disk space you'd really expect more on the visual side. Even when set at "Low" I frequently have to stop moving to let things "catch up".

Even worse, I can never play for more than an hour before the game crashes. This is such a common issue that they even address it in a recent survey. Though it is common, it hasn't been fixed.

The fighting system, which is supposed to be revolutionary, feels just like a hundred other button mashers found mostly on consoles. It is more tedious than fun, and adds nothing to the game. On top of that it just doesn't work very well.

The quests are all cookie cutter - go kill this guy, go fetch this, go tell this person something for me, etc. You have done all this before in better MMOs. Yawn.

Small annoying problems abound in AoC. Hiding doesn't work very well - you never know when they AI will see you. You can only sprint for a few seconds at a time because your stamina drains at an alarming rate. Loads times are still horrible, although they have improved over the development of the game. The world that has been created isn't very visually appealing, though it isn't for a lack of content. The NPC's are all the same type of character - all weathered old soldiers who are angry at something but need you to run some lame errand for them because they are too busy .

This game gets boring fast. If this were a real review I'd tear into it further, but it's not worth the time. Just don't waste yours!

Reading so called "professional" reviews is mostly a waste of time.

People will try and claim "theres no conspiracy",but they are just putting forth a bad argument and then defeating it.

Its not about some organized conspiracy.its about self interest.

Games get bad reviews, they sell less, they spend less on advertising , both parties lose.

No conspiracy needed.No direct open exchange of bribes needed.Its just self interest.

No need to even consider the effect of  the mindset of fans writing reviews.Because even that boils down to self interest.

You want to get an accurate picture of a game,put the time into reading what  its players say about it.And for the love of every myth that man embraces,wait til the product is out for a while before leaping.

The relationship between print advertising and reviews is known and as old as the hills. I personally experienced it when I released a game in 1992 and bought advertising. Back then it was more a matter of will your game get reviewed at all, than about the score. It was print media or no media back at the time.

Is the above an indictment of the "game reviewing industry?" No, I don't think any jounalists lied about what they saw in Age of Conan. However at the time any new game is released, the whole story may not be available to be told.

The problem as I see it is that it's unfeasible for any individual reviewer to spend enough time in an MMORPG to really know it. Too many aspects of an MMORPG don't become apparent until you are part of a community playing. I suspect most game reviews are written after a relatively short solo examination of a game. In the case of AoC, I think most writers wrote their reviews based on the Tortage experience. That experience was awesome. I remember being floored myself.

Back in 1992 the reporters who reviewed my game played maybe 20 hours each--one of them a bit more because he genuinely liked the game. In AoC I played 4 to 6 hours daily for weeks. I didn't start getting unhappy in AoC until about level 50 when content got thin. I didn't angry until I hit the end game and began to realize the extent of the problems. That was a full 60 days into the game--almost the entire lead time for a print publication between putting an issue to bed and when it's available on the stands.

Reporters for print publications reviewing AoC could have only seen whatever pre-beta dog and pony show Funcom gave them. Is this  an indictment of the "game reviewing industry?" No but it's another example why print media is less and less relevant--especially for MMORPGs.

I have SEVERAL thoughts regarding this particular issue.

I'd like to start off by posting my original review here: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/186176

Now, I wrote that within a month of purchasing and playing Age of Conan, and it is what I felt to be a hard-hitting review. I touched on numerous points that I felt were specific to those playing at the time, as well as general concerns to the population of the game. I would not consider myself a biased person at all, either.

The problem with reviewing MMO's is that, as the reviewer, you have to generally make an educated guess at the future of the game, while still highlighting the pros and cons of the present state of the game. At the time that was written, I felt the game was lacking in many areas, HOWEVER, Funcom is a company with a large customer base, experience in the MMO field, and some deep pockets. I felt that, given those variables, all the problems I mentioned in my initial review would be quickly remedied over the next few months. Hence, why I warned people against buying the game until I felt an appropriate amount of time had passed.

What a reviewer can not do is account for the general incompetence/unwillingness of the game's company. I would never have guessed Funcom to hire volunteer fanboy-GM's on their boards, such as Lufkin. I didn't think Funcom would allow rampant exploiting and duping to go unpunished for such a long period of time. I expected patches would be tested before hitting the live server, and tested thoroughly. All of my personal mistakes in assessing this game were based on basic observations and calculations that led me to believe the game would dramatically improve over time.

Sometimes, you're right, and you're praised as a king. Other times, you're wrong, and you're flamed like a troll. As the reviewer, as a GOOD reviewer, it's your job to put personal feelings aside, to look at the facts, to highlight relevant information that the consumers would like to know about, and to do the best you can to give a balanced view of the game.

In my opinion, you can't do that easily unless you can dedicate LOADS of time to the game. I disagree with the remark about the whole "Just give me a level 50 and let me see the game" remark. By doing so, all you'd have done is seen the worst part of the game (especially at the time of release; Field of the Dead was a total nightmare). Jon's review got a lot of criticism, but there was no way to know that 1-25 were nearly flawless at the time. It's just like how, when I hit 80 and prepared to raid and siege and everything else that is AoC end-game, there was no way for me to know Yahkmar's Cave was 100% exploitable, or that Sieges improperly ejected people from one team to balance out the number of competitors in the zone. We couldn't have guessed that cities weren't providing bonuses, or that raid gear was wholly pitiful, or that Kylikki's Krypt has an epic zoning problem. However, I wouldn't have been able to see this if I hadn't gotten there on my own, with my guild.

On the other hand, I can't help but agree in many senses regarding the industry as a whole.

I'll add more to this post a little later. I want to make sure my thoughts are organized for part 2 of this post.

I believe game reviewers should only be ex-game developers. They know the ins and outs of the games and the industry, and therefore will most likely not compare the recent game review to a World of Warcraft wet dream.

It would be like a group of judges instead of a LaN PaRtAy.

The reason AoC got such good reviews, was because Funcom knew the content being reviewed was almost flawless.

'Tortage' will become the new gaming term for 'scamming' and 'duping'.

GM: Greetings! How may I be of assistance today?'

Player:  Hi, some noob just tortaged me :(

GM:  Omg, really?!  Don't worry, this lowlife will be contacted and expunged.  We do not want this kind of trash in OUR game!

Player:  Great, glad to see you care about your customers :D

GM:  You guys are our family!  Tortaging will NOT  be tolerated - who do you think we are?  Failcom?!?  Have a great day!1!one..

     I never use a reviewer to decide whether to buy a game or not....They are often given freebies by companies and often either play for a very short time, get a short demo from a company rep, or get some otehr representation that makes the game look better than it is......If I want info on a game I'll look it up online and go with actual users......Yeah the public can be brutal at times but overall I find they are much more in depth and will be more honest about the state of a game.......