All Posts by eric1000

What the title says.  Uptime now 21:00 GMT

Cheers :)

Game just crashed and when I try to log back in it tells me that I have the wrong client.  I'm currently doing a verify/repair, anyone else had this issue?

Originally posted by Sheezwack

Just play till after lvl 20 eric, and try a melee character as well then let us know what you think.

 

Some of it has to do with class selection as well, some of them aren't what you might expect from other MMO's.

 

I found melee classes most enjoyable, casters seemed to start off a bit dull but getter better later on, like the PoM, a bit boring until level 10 but after that you get Repulse which is a blast (literally).

 

Overall the Mage classes are where I had the least fun - I'm hoping spell weaving will spice that up a bit.

I intend to.  i want to give the game the most unbiased oppinion that I can and that's not possible without trying the post-20 areas.  This was simply a small review of the 1st 10 levels or a 1st impression if you like.  I expected the flames from some quarters though, you can't express any views on these boards without starting a bonfire with one side or the other lol.

I actually forgot to mention also that I was on Ymir last night which had some latency issues during the play session.  The patch server appears to be down again as I write this, c'est la vie :)

Originally posted by Sheezwack

It's a real shame when people make posts like this.  I mean it is fine to post about the experience you had, but please do not call it a review, when you clearly don't have enough knowledge about the game.

 

The fact that you couldn't see how to zoom into your face on character creation says it all - when you review something you should be paying more attention and trying things out.

 

I'm sorry this is not a "review" at all, it is simply your "experience" as an unexperienced player.

 

Also level 10 is when you start to get some really fun abilities, so why you would do a review up till lvl 10 is beyond me.  Sure first impressions are important, but you should at least make some effort on your part.

 

You will notice that I did say that I tend to rush through character creation.  I missed that particular zoom function and stand corrected.

Originally posted by Crusher

A review after 10 levels. You got to be kidding. It's like reviewing a car without turning on the engine and take it for a ride.

I noticed a posting you did earlier about unbiased reviews. Well sir, "mini-reviews" arnt better either.

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/42807

Odd you and others should say that actually considering most people on these boards await magazine or gamesite previews of upcoming titles with baited breath, previews based on much less than the first 10 levels but hey, that's your opinion as this was mine.  Also I tried to be unbiased and I mentioned both the games good and bad points, however, every review no matter the source is always simply the reviewers oppinion, some will agree and others wont.

I started AoC tonight with mixed feelings.  Half of me wanted this game to be superb, polished and stable.  The other half had doubts with Funcom's track record, the OB fiasco and of course the late start of the EA.  Before going further this is my system:

Intel core 2 quad QX6700 Extreme

Asus Striker II Formula 780i Motherboard

4GB DDR2 800Mhz

2 x XFX GeForce 8800 GTX in SLi

Vista 64 Ultimate

As you can see it's a decently high-end system so all the graphics settings in the game were shoved up to maximum, and the graphics truly are superb.  Unfortunately they are also the games best feature.  I have had no slow-downs, stuttering or anything like that, in fact the game runs very smoothly but on this system I didn't expect anything less.  I would think that mid-range PC's will be able to run AoC on medium settings without too much drama which I will admit is plesently surprising and all credit to Funcom for achieving this.

Character creation is above par for MMO's and I can imagine some people spending quite awhile tweaking their toons look, although a zoom feature to gain a close-up of the character's face would have been helpful.  Even without this though the creation process is better than most MMO's on the market today.  I am not one for spending hours on this however so my character was ready to go in a couple of minutes.

A short cinematic later and I was lying on the beach and was approached by the 1st NPC and recieved the 1st quest.  Ok, I decided on a Stygian Demonologist and anyone that has read REH's Conan stories knows that this is one evil SoB and this is where the game hit's it's 1st small hitch, in that the storyline quests set you up as a good guy working for the good of the kingdom and against the ambitions of Thoth Amon and his thralls.  Being the class and race that I was it would have been a lot better to have had the opposite option and the ability to become Thoth's number one fan but no.  Instead I end up working missions for some drunkard mage in favour of the rebellion.  Part of this is to worm myself into the favour of a powefrul Stygian sorceress as a spy while gaining the added benefit of her knowledge.  Again, as a demonologist this should have been screw the goody goody rebels and teach me everything you know please mistress.  I have only taken the character to level 10 so far but the storyline really doesn't fit upto this point.  The quests do however appear to have been carefully designed to avoid level gaps ( not being able to continue the story due to being too low lvl ) with the only break so far being between lvl's 9 & 10 when I had to go out and kill a few things to level up before I could go on.  This only took about 20 minutes however so no hardship there.

This early part of the game is very linear and heavily instanced and I'm sorry to say that it felt like a chore being led by the hand from one quest to the next with no reason to ever deviate from the beaten path.  Even solo each step is easy to the point of being ridiculous and I got the impression of a tutorial that just didn't know when to end.  Inside the various instances there are fights that will find you outnumbered and you will die on occasion but there is no death penalty, so even for a squishy it's a matter of kill one, die, respawn at the start, run back, kill one, rinse and repeat.  All very tedious.

The much hyped combat system is, in my opinion, a joke.  There is nothing fast paced or revolutionary about it and I think that by level 80 even the most ardent fanboi will be bored to tears with it, although the animations are well done but again that just comes back down to graphics. 

Server stability:  We all remember the database lag that WoW suffered with during OB and on into release, well, AoC suffers from something similar.  All appears fine as you can run around and chat with fellow players but then when you talk to an NPC ( or try to ) or cast a spell etc. nothing happens, the server just doesn't respond to the request and this is one of the same problems that existed during the OB and although it doesn't happen as often now the latency is still there.  This of course will be fixed very quickly I would think but along with login problems etc. it all adds up to a less than perfect game experience.

Funcom reckon that they need to have retained 250k subscribers by the end of the games 1st three months of operation and I honestly don't see that happening, the game, at least in the early levels just isn't good enough.  I will continue to play though to get past lvl 20 and away from Tortage in the hope that the game beyond is a lot better, which of course is a double edged sword.  If the game is a lot better after lvl 20 then FC have seriously messed up the early experience and 1st impressions are vitally important.  If on the other hand the game is much the same after lvl 20 then I think only the most rabid of Conan fans will still be playing 6 months from now.  Level 1 -10 rating   4/10 and I added an extra point because the graphics are so good.  Sorry Funcom but in my opinion at least gameplay is way more important than graphics.

Patcher is up, don't all run at once :)

Go to the game folder, run the file 'simple config' and set it to DX9

If you have not bought the early access you can't login until the official launch date, if you have then a download link will be on your account page.

Originally posted by hdnine

"Unable to connect to the authentication server!"... DOH!

Same here.  Server traffic will be gridlocked with everyone trying to login.

You are running Vista right?

It's a games for windows title so you don't get a desktop shortcut.  Got to Start > Games  and it's in there.

I don't understand why everyone wants WoW dead.  WoW performs an invaluable service to the gaming community like fly paper or perhaps a huge spiders web would be a better analogy.  Think about it, if it were not for WoW then all those millions of pests would be playing the same game as you /shudder

1.  Dual core is fine for todays games, as companies produce more titles that utilise the extra cores then quads and beyond will come into their own.  So short answer is that a dual core at the moment would likely be the better choice but for better future proofing then a quad is better.

2. SLi is an odd thing right now and I have found that with a really good card, 8800GTX for example you don't really notice any difference in performance, certainly not enough to justify the extra expense.

3.  I have only put together a small number of crossfire systems for people and as a whole they perform at a reasonable level.  However, ATI cards have many more compatibility problems than Nvidia and ATI's drivers on some of the range completely suck.

If you have Vista you can run an analysis on your system to see how it measures up.  AoC has a reccomended rating of 4.8 and a minimum of 4.0

Originally posted by Grimm666

My only worry about the Chicken system is that I'll be stuck with annoying gaps in my Tome of Knowledge, because something I need is only found in the PvP zone. For example, I don't like the idea that I may have found 4 out of 5 lorebooks in a Tier 1 zone (one of the recent videos showed some Tome unlocks are part of a set) only to miss the last one, which happens to be stuck in the middle of the PvP zone and therefore be effectively unable to get it. I just don't want to have to plan my character's leveling process by reading Wikis or Thottbots to ensure I don't miss any content on my Tome collecting character(s).

This is a very good point, anyone know if Mythic have said anything about this?

This thread is a prime example of how the fanbois of AoC have completely lost the plot.  The OP didn't even say anything bad about the game, just aired his thoughts about the high numbers and server stress but here they are, coming out in force to stamp on the guys head and eat his goat.  If anything was to kill AoC it would be an in-game community full of these anal retards.  Give it a rest ffs.

Being a real MMO gamer has nothing to do with how rich you are, how good your PC is or wether or not you can speak fluent l33t or try out multiple MMO's a year.

A real MMO player knows his class and how to play it.  He hasn't bought an existing account from ebay with a top level toon attached but has levelled up himself and learned the games ins and outs.  He is someone that others in the community are happy to group with and who is both respected and has respect for the other gamers around him.  He is happy to help out new players and to answer the questions they ask regardless of how silly some of them sound because to that player the question is a serious one and we all started somewhere.  He is not a griefer, ganker or exploiter.  A true MMO gamer is someone that you would be happy to have as a guildmate or someone that you would respect as an in-game enemy.  I would rather spend my time online in the company of people like this than with some half-assed douche bag that buys his gold from farmers and finds fun in ruining other players experiences.

Just my 2 cents.

Originally posted by arkanev

I guess this post is somekind of trolling or something it should be locked.

Or maybe its up to a flame war.. I have no more matches to start a fire..

War is everywhere, even on the forums so just bring it :P

Originally posted by sassoonss

Originally posted by Digna

The keys are supposed to be regional oriented. If you buy US...you get US servers. If you buy Euro retail/CD Key, you get Euro access.

 

I wonder if you could do both...*shrug* oh well.

ty hmmn back to hunting european retailers

www.game.co.uk