Age of Conan - Thoughts?

[Reginald]

Atherin, have you tried any of the beta drivers for your card?  The latest WHQL certified beta driver is 175.16 and it contains a lot of modifications and new features.  I would provide you a link but I don't know what OS you are running and the beta drivers are different for both XP-32bit and 64bit as well as for Vista-32bit and 64bit.  You might also want to look at your mainboard and see if there are any updates for it.  If it has an NVidia chipset then I know there are new drivers out for both the nForce mainboard drivers (again they vary based on your OS and architecture) and their nTune system tools.

As a last resort you'll also want to make sure that your sound card drivers are up to date.  If you want some help send me a PM and I'll be glad to help you any way I can.

[Esri]

Atherin, what Reginald said about sound reminded me that some folks are having issues that look like video issues and are actually sound issues... Have you tried disabling your sound?  Some folks even recommend going as far as removing the board (unless it's onboard). 

[Atherin]

I also disagree.  I am running a 7800 GeForce and with my performance monitor on, I don't get very hot at all.  68C was my max so far.  Very cool.  And my memory video memory and CPU were all in nominal ranges.  Looking at the forums, there are issues all over the board with NVidia cards, 7 series and 8 series.  Hopefully they are taking all the crash reports and putting together a picture and will come out with a patch soon on this. 

[Atherin]

Aha!  Once I got out of the daytime and started doing the instanced nighttime quest, everything ran smooth.  Once I got dumped back out into the daytime with all the associated stuff that gets rendered (including other players and such) POW, crash.

So, in theory, once they identify what is crashing out mid-level nvidia cards I should be able to play (in theory).

[Evander]

I haven't been having (many) technical issue with AOC so far, and I run on a midrate system. Hopefully FC will be able to nail down what's causing the issues - to give them credit, it seems to be a combination of hardware and software issues.

Other than that, the game is fun so far, but I'm with Brasse - it's not giving me the new MMO feel like WoW, LOTRO or L2 did, or even EQ2 for those few weeks I got to play it. There's SOMETHING missing, but I just can't pin it down.

Oh, and sorry, ladies - no male creation options beyond barbarian smashers. I'd hoped to make a stoic, scholarly ToS (Tempest of Set) but the only option that didn't look like he'd been breaking down walls with his face for years looked like he'd been huffing temple incense (he had that wonderful brain-in-orbit stoned look) Had to go female for my casters...yet again.  I give the character creation a 5: Ok, not great. Honestly I think WoW had better customization, largely because most of what you changed there mattered (in the sense that others could easily see it.) It's also hard to change the general expression of a face (you can adjust the width of their mouth, but you can't make them smile).

The environments are nice but a bit linear and the low jumping bugs my pants right off. (I can jump higher than my Barbarian can  in real life, and I'm so out of shape I get tired going up stairs. The heck?) The animals look great, even the critters. The high end, well designed armor looks good (see Brasse's helm, for example) - but I have yet to get any at all - most of what I have is rags. (I'm a level 20 Barbarian) The men are also lacking pants. My Barbarian is currently running around in a loincloth that's 0.0000125 inches from being VERY embarrassing in the slightest breeze. My female toons are more conservatively dressed than him!

The bag issue will hopefully be resolved soon, since the Traders are currently down (they run the Mail, the Auction House and the Bank systems, just so you know) because of a duping exploit.

Overall I think AOC has potential, from what I've seen so far. But it's missing something. I just wish I knew what.

[Kilum]

One of the reasons I am not playing anything at all at the moment is MMO's are basically all the same structure. Quest lines, leveling, looting; some are well put together and some are not. I have read nothing in these comments that would entice me into playing AoC. Btw anyone still playing PotBS? I got bored with that during Beta. Please devs give us something, Anything we can get our teeth into (That runs and doesn't crash a 2 year old system).

Do I sound jaded? Maybe I am.

[Kwee]

Kilum, Pirates of the Burning Seas is very definitely a PvP game.  The publisher has gotten over the "hump" of making it playable for LOTS of computers and video cards.  They've reduced the number of servers so that there are plenty (10-20+?) of each nationality online most of the time.

PotBS has a very viable and important crafting component, and it is a very PVP game. 

[Atherin]

Esri, edit your chat colors.

http://aoc.curse.com/downloads/details/12752/

Problem is, you have to do it after the patcher runs and before you log in.  Funcom replaces that file each time the patcher runs.

[Esri]

Ah, that's what happened! The patcher overrode my change. 

[Victus]

Now that I've played it some more, I do find AoC to be a bit more engaging.  Level 17, and found out some things of note too.

-Once you are lvl 20-ish and leave Tortage (and your initial Destiny quest line) there is no more day-night modes, where night is single player. 
-The cut scenes also are gone with quest givers. 
-You can go back to Tortage via some boat (if I remember correctly).

That being said, I do believe AoC is very much a niche MMO.  I think they realize it won't appeal to everyone, but it will have some strong appeal to others.  The blood, sparse clothing, mature themes and pvp certainly limit the audience.  I play on a PvE server and I hope to engage in pvp later on, I just don't want to deal with gank-fests that seem to permeate the young game. 

I personally like the adult content, and it should ensure less kids running around the game too.  The blood I am indifferent about, though I think the critical combo moves looks pretty neat.  The first 20 levels seem to be made to get players used to the game, and I think it does a good job of it, sort of easing you into things that you will be doing later on, while giving you a "personal touch" via the single player game.  It is a different way of doing things, and it might not be what most of us are used to, I am getting used to the things AoC is doing and find it refreshing. 

I still don't think I am going to switch to it wholesale, but I hope to be able to play it here and there.  We will see. 

So far I agree, the biggest change needed (other than people's hardware issues) is to tweak the UI.  There are a few games with great chat features, and I think they should have implemented them into AoC.  Oh well, lets hope they patch it in. 

~Victus

[decarian]

Update... Level 45 now. Still playing my Ranger haven't even started any alts yet.

I am finding the gaming nice, you can solo as much as you want but will WANT to group for the group quests.

Sanctum of the Lost Souls is just a gorgeous dungeon for the 35 - 42 range.  It requires good teamwork and wipes are fairly common but you can make it through with a mix of about anything. My last group there consisted of A barbarian, a Demonologist, A Tsion of Set and a Priest of Mitra plus me and we were able to do it with 1 slot open we held for a tank that never showed up, so the barb acted as the tank.  Have heard of other groups completing without a healer... heh fancy that.

Quick task based groups or partnerships are common to prevent waiting in lines to kill bosses and such.  I have found the general populace of my server to be well behaved in general... but with 700+ OTG guilded (thats mains only folks, no alts allowed in guild yet) in game that is almost expected.

No graphics or crashing issues on a 1 year old PC, running a 8800 GTX card. I do get a steady memory leak and must reboot oh maybe once a day, but that is typical of every MMORPG for me.

My gripes at this point are all things that can be fixed.

1. Banking / auction system broke - this along with the low capacity of carried stuffs makes life a bit hard on us packrats, got an 8 slot bag with my preorder which helps a bit. The next bag larger I can buy is like 3 gold, well at 45th level I think I have 50 something silver to my name.  They have announced it is a top priority but won't be brought in till they are 100% no duping / exploits are possible. I figure another few days to a week.

2.  Crafting - a lot is broken, they never tested this effectively.  But quest rewards are fine for now. Your first character on a new server is always a bit more raw and gritty than the ones following behind.

3. Guild areas - Well built buildings are buggy or so I've heard... not to mention expensive.  So the guild is holding off on placing until bugs are fixed.  Each day though more and more are steamrolling higher with their mains.  There are large packs of players in their 40's and 50's now and the die-hards are 60+.

Overall the bank / auction is the most annoying thing but it has priority and thats all we can ask.

[Ugruk]

     Nice post Decarian, I'm lvl 38 right now and I can vouche for just about everything you said.  Though I'm not too worried about the trader being up as much as you are I think.  Though it would be nice to be able to get some upgrades to my equipment without having to farm certain areas for rare drops.   But it really isn't that big of an issue at the moment.  Still don't see why you should be having any problems with crashing if you have an 8800gtx card..  Unless you just have like 2gb memory then that might be your problem then.  Seems like people with just the recommended 2gb have problems with memory leaks in certain zones.

     Just wanted to say though that was the most refreshing and informative review I have heard since this thread went up!

[Brasse]

If I fully disable my shaders, I can run the game for an hour or more without crashing, but that means I get no cool spell effects, fire, torches, glowy things... yucko, man. The NVIDIA 7600 GT is still the best mid-range card you can get, and it's disappointing that I have to run it like this.  FunCom has said it's working on fixes for these issues; they know shaders are an issue for a wide range of cards now.

Interestingly, Dec is running on an 8800 card, which a lot o people have problems with. Must be a slightly different version.

I feel really badly for the people who cannot even get the game to RUN, even though they've well cleared min specs.

The lack of BANK, MAIL and TRADER (Broker) are freaking annoying as hell.

I have 4 characters to level 10 (Brasse is 17). My goal is to work up one of each archetype, plus the class voted most useless and gimped at the time I asked - Herald of Xotli. Oddly enough HoX does not seem gimped to me. Maybe it really falls down at a certain level.


Do you guys want a separate forum for AOC? Is it getting too crowded here in the Other Games section?
Let me know.

;-)#
Brasse

[decarian]

Then again maybe banking / trader will be available today! 


 Update Notes - 27th of May / 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

General

Traders and Banks are now available again
Fixed some server and client crashes
Invite to groups is no longer case sensitive

GUI

Added Character Right Click Menu to the Chat
 
__________________
Glen 'Famine' Swan
Community Manager (US) - Age of Conan 


Hmmm... new public forum for Conan would be good I think.  But since their is no Innmates presence and we are scattered to the winds across the servers I wouldn't see a need for a private forum.  This is one of those games where you do need a substantial number playing to defend / attack.  Battlekeep battles are 48 vs 48 max but I anticipate that number will rise over time.

[Esri]

I could have sworn when I read the update notice last night it said 6 AM!!! *sigh*

I agree with Dec on the forum -- an AOC public forum would be nice.