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| From: Eidos
List Price: $39.99
Buy Used: $1.98
You Save: $38.01 (95%)
New (41) Used (34) from $1.98
Rating:  164 reviews
Sales Rank: 1469
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows Xp
Genre: adventure_games
ESRB: Mature
Media: CD-ROM
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows Vista
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: SAGECPUS00
Model: SAGECPUS00
UPC: 788687100670
EAN: 0788687100670
ASIN: B000RZPW9W
Release Date: May 20, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: includes case, game and manuals in good condition with artwork.
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| Customer Reviews:
Bleh - Nothing Special, Let Me Explain May 28, 2008
Timothy Lovett (Boston, MA USA)
33 out of 40 found this review helpful
You may not agree with my review but for those of you who want an honest and objective look into it please stick around.
There are several things wrong with this game that make it generally not quite as great as it could have been.
These issues are: easy of leveling, tedious collection styled quests, massive empty zones, problems with resource skill gathering, lack of voice content, few zones, lack of a decent travel system, ease of travel between starter cities, darkness, generally bland armor, dumb AI, lack of a good faction system, guild creation, instance zones, and weapon selection.
I probably have heated a few of you up so feel free to respond to my comments if you disagree but I'm honestly hoping some of these issues are addressed within the next few months as the game begins to grow stronger.
Ease of Leveling:
One of the most unique aspects of the game, I believe, is the ease of leveling I've found within it. I understand that with 100 possible levels there is room to allow quick leveling but when your character can handle 3 or 4 same level enemies at once he tends to level much faster than he probably should. I don't know but this is my first week (I got it Friday) and I'm already in the high 30s.
Tedious Collection Styled Quests:
I understand I can ignore quests altogether but the game seems to focus in on collection and kill count style quests more so than anything else. Why not kill 50 of a certain type of enemy? How about the same quest in a different zone with similarly level enemies? It's just very very repetitive. Not to mention, for the most part, on non-collection quests, you'll be forced to run through dangerous grounds to light something on fire or break something only to find all the enemies in the area are dead from constant farming. Farming is an issue with newer games but I think when you ask your players to kill 50 of a certain type of enemy you encourage it more than anything.
Massive Empty Zones:
For the most part, when you don't find farmers at every corner, you'll find yourself running alone. The game world is huge! It's just most of the time you'll find yourself running through the huge world. For instance to get to a secondary town in the barbarian area you have to run through a zone that has all of the same level enemies but takes nearly ten minutes to run through. It seems like, yeah, it's much larger than games like WoW but it isn't the size that matters but rather what you do with it?
Problems with Resource Skill Gathering:
Alright so you're allowed to gather resources from level 20 on. The thing is the resources only exist in this barren zone full of no enemies (from what I've seen) so you can spend an hour running around and find nothing at all --- no people, no resources. The good thing though is while you may not find one resource you may bump into a different type. With Age of Conan anyone can gather any of the resource types removing the significance of the gather role of resources.
Lack of Voice Content:
When you start the game on the newbie island you'll quickly be amazed to find everyone has voice content. You'll be equally surprised that when you leave the newbie island no one has it anymore. The developers say they're going to add it in over time but I don't really see their incentive given by the 20th level a higher majority of people are likely to stick around regardless of the sound if that's the only thing that bugs them.
Few Zones:
Again, as a mentioned above, there are massive zones but there are also very few of them. This means that as a level 20, let's say, you're stuck going to any of the level 20 zones setup for each of the different starting cities (3 of them). That doesn't leave people who like to explore (or find a variety of monsters) much to do. If you like the idea of running around endlessly looking for an enemy to fight or camping a certain enemy this won't bother you but I think there is something about variety that this game lacks in general. I also found it unlikely I'd be wandering into the higher level zones until I did hit some barrier level that made it easy enough to handle a few enemies. So I'm stuck with 3 choices (which I stick to one because it takes me a half hour to run to any other through the barren zones).
Lack of a Decent Travel System:
Binding yourself to a main city is allowed but besides that there is a general lack of a travel system. There are way points in the game which, when you die, you spawn at whichever you select so people often get themselves killed to save time instead of running. The death penalty is laughable so it's not worth wasting the time running.
Ease of Travel Between Starter Cities:
One of the strangest things about this game is how easy it is to travel between the starter cities. From the minute you leave newbie island you can quickly jump from one city to the next for free making it possible to explore all the cities in the game with little effort (besides a 20 minute walk through the barren cities) almost instantly.
Darkness:
This is more of my own complaint than something that really should be fixed I guess but the game is way too dark and there are no items (torches please) to turn on the lights. I've known scores of people who actually turn off the game during the night-time parts of it just because they can't see anything. The deserts are the worst with this because it just is so dark. I think it's brighter in the dungeons than it is outside.
Generally Bland Armor:
The armor doesn't really stand out. You get a new piece at level 30 let's say and it'll look almost the same way as the level 20 one. The only difference will be a +4 to the armor rating. It just feels like the armor lacks variety and it doesn't have a good way of really standing out. Also 'good' armor pieces fall so frequently from monsters I've come out of a run of an area with 3 or so of the same chest pieces. It's just bleh.
Dumb AI:
I've pulled enemies standing directly next to each other, on several occasion, and watched as the enemies did nothing to alert their friends I was fighting them directly behind them. For the most part there is no real AI and you never really get the feeling it would be all that hard to fix a pull to your liking. Yeah, once or twice a bad pull will happen, but as long as the enemy initially sees you, or walks over to you while you're fighting, they tend to ignore what's going on around them. Doesn't seem realistic.
Lack of a Good Faction System:
I feel like each quest I'm doing is for the few copper they'll give me and not to award myself any form of faction with a group. Just seems like as soon as I kill whatever 50 things they want me to kill next I move on to the next group of 50 things (from the same quest giver) that were sitting next to those 50 things. It's really this tedious and it doesn't make sense why they made it this way. Not to mention most of the different types of enemies look almost identical so there is little variation between monsters besides location and name.
Guild Creation:
There is no real control on the process of creating guilds (which may be alright I guess) so there are tons of one person guilds out there. It just seems like the process isn't as well developed as it should be considering a portion of the game is centered towards it. It just seems like a fancy grouping system as opposed to anything significant --- yeah you can rank people but it seems bland at least so far. Perhaps later on it'll get more interesting.
Instance Zones:
The zones are all instanced including the main cities. This makes the load times really fast, yes, but you rarely see people and it makes group in zone much harder. I tend to group at the dungeon location so I find myself trying really hard to find people with no luck when I need them. You'd think this would stop the camping but it's still there. I can hardly imagine what the world would look like without the instances because the camping would be that much worse. It just seems like to deal with issues like this they need a world with more variety, less collection quests, no instances, and more servers.
Guild Cities:
I've seen that the guild cities are also instances. I'm unsure how this will affect gameplay and will have to keep an eye on it as more people join but it honestly sounds somewhat stupid... Why build a city if it's within a closed environment?
Weapon Selection:
The weapons in the game seem to just get a little better each time and you tend to get rewards with weapons of your level or higher so there really isn't a reason to worry about finding a new one. It just seems trivial.
I don't know the whole game seems like a good idea but it's just nothing compared to some of the others on the market. A little more time developing a stronger system of travel, the trade skills, and other aspects would have made it more interesting. Cutting down on the size of zones in favor of quality of zones would work as well. Hopefully at the higher levels things get more interesting... I just hope Conan doesn't ask you to kill 50 dragons or something tedious like that.
I like the game it's just I don't like it enough to keep paying the fee as it stands now.
Also, one last note, funcom has released mounts with some preorders (or Amazon curved bow from amazon). It also releases other items with orders of things like keyboards and mice... It just seems like it's trivializing its own item system to release items that should be gained by normal processes as a reward for buying from them. It's like they're mixing the cost structures of a pay for play with a pay for upgrade which may hurt the internal game economy depending upon how excessively they continue to do so. Who wants to work hard for an item when you can buy a keyboard and get it that way?
 Totally overhyped, shiny outside, shallow inside May 25, 2008
Elikal (Berlin, Germany)
24 out of 33 found this review helpful
Sure, never has a MMO world looked greater, sure the new, "harder" atmosphere is thrilling when you start AoC and sure, the combat is interesting with it's action.
But that's were the good ends. With AoC it is like with the mighty wizard of Oz; he seems to be strong and great, but once you look closer its just a thin man behind a curtain.
First off, the steep technical demands will likely rule out a lot of potential players right away, adding the still frequent crashes, lockouts, and the plethora of bugs, it is clearly still beta.
Funcom has advertised their character generation as "you could identify another by appearance" and the reality is far from it. Most faces look more or less the same, women all barbie-style and men... men all look like they fell into a lawn-mower headon. The one halfway acceptable face is usually taken by everyone, and the sliders dont substantially change the face, not in the way other MMOs like SWG or EQ2 allowed to look really individual.
The good beginning in tortage with its 20 levels of more or less soloing through a story is neat and obviously it's were the greatest work went into. Outside Tortage you will find a lot of browns and grey and oh more brown and greys. The regions of the first levels after 20 didnt look so stunning to me. Sure, technically up to date, but little that caught me. Its a bit the Vanguardian soulless-ness in the later landscapes.
In terms of gear (armour/weapons) the game is outright underwhelming. Most clothing looks like a potatoe sack or tailored by a blind, not that a MMO must be a fashion club, but a fantasy game could really have shown a bit more to be excited to have someday. So dont expect many stunning cool armor or robes anytime in time game. Also in terms of loot... you better forget hoping for cool loot at ALL. I thought I had seen the worst in Vancraps endless loot list of skeleton bones, badger livers and other vendor trash. In AoC you will never loot anything to make your 2 hours evening worth the grind.
And grind it is, since after level 30 (of 80 levels!) the number of quests dwindles dramatically! Often you will find yourself with no quests at all, so you need to grind mobs to the next level. Outside the fantastic quests of Tortage, the quests are dull and uninspired, the most mindless Fedex of "kill x of these" or "fetch 20 of z" ad nauseam.
Action combat seems nice enough at the beginning, however, there is a trick. First, once you are around 40 you have the skills you ever get, and then its only the skill tree which keeps you going. So more or less, the game exists only up to mid-level and beyond that... the game is in a more or less alpha-state. Since the progress is always the same lines over Tortage and the rest is also quite streamlined, the replayability seems to be thin. While this action combat feel refreshing and exciting at first, in the long run you realize it is always the same clickfest. Just apply the strongest 3 combos to key and you will click just these three button all over, and its easy win. The entire shield and defense thing is rather superfluous, given the fact that in those fast paced fightings you'll rarely be able to react in time shifting shield around you. So all in all, what feel like cool action feels like a very redundant clickfest over time. Since in every combat a few slashes usually decide the outcome of the battle, there is little time - or need - for tactic anyway. But at least Funcom honestly described AoC combat as "like Counterstrike", so there wasnt much to exect anyway for a MMORPG-player.
One of the most annoying features is that AoC bring instances to new heights. EVERYTHING is instanced and zoned, so if you leave the instanced capital of your race, you come into a copy of the next outside zone, and with bad luck your group gets split all over the copies, since they dont seem to hold many players. It kinda takes the MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER out of the MMORPG.
If you are faint of heart you also are advised to stay FAR away from PVP servers, since they are, at least atm, a gankfest. Nude women running around killing everyone as far as they eye can see. All in all the level of immaturity is surprisingly bad, given the fact the game is only legal for ppl 17/18+. With the lack of a RP-PVE server the roleplay is narrowed down a lot and doesnt give much diversity in the possible roles you may play in this dark and nasty world. Not that I mind dark and nasty, but if EVERYTHING is dark and nasty, it gets old very soon. In asmuch an IP with only humans to select, only 3 cultures and lore all narrowed down to "brutality" and "barbarians", the world feels a little too limited and shallow to me, at least in the longer term when the novelty wears off.
Overall the game has some interesting aspects, but nothing to keep the serious MMORPg player for long. Once the initial hype wears off it will be seen for what it is: more show than substance.
 If your system can't quadruple the minimum reqs don't bother June 1, 2008
K. Mayer (Phoenix, AZ)
23 out of 32 found this review helpful
My husband and I bought this as an alternative to the monotony of WoW. Our systems meet the suggested requirements (and doubles the minimum req's) even when setting everything to lowest detail possible, the video lag was crippling.
Unless you have better than a 512MB video card and 4 Gigs of RAM, you will likely be disappointed in the experience. Most of our friends had the same problems and quit as well.
 Stop the "Amazon Reviews" instead of the AoC reviews please! May 20, 2008
Eivind Nag
22 out of 33 found this review helpful
All the existing "reviews" are of how poor the amazon customer service is, its got NOTHING to do with how great this game is, amazon, please delete the "reviews" so people wont mix the stars of AoC with your own!
Bloody Amazing May 20, 2008
Lok'Var (USA)
20 out of 28 found this review helpful
Pros:
-Beautiful Graphics
-Fun Combat System
-Huge World with memorable Quests
-Mounted Combat
-Guild Cities/Castles with Sieges
Cons:
-Interface needs serious work
-Requires a fairly decent machine
-25GB (and growing)
-Group combat is very fast paced and often descends into chaos
Overall the game is insanely fun to play. The combat is spectacular and eliminates the constant 2-2-2-2-2-3 that other MMOs are stuck with. The quests are engaging, though some people might not like having to read so much and make choices. PvP seems fairly balanced so far (level 26) though one or two classes need some tweaking. The interface is absolutely horrible at times, but this is something that can be fixed. Bottom line is that while there are definately some issues with the game, they are not serious ones. The core gameplay is fun, entertaining, and in my opinion far better then anything you will find in WoW, LOTRO, Everquest, or any other fantasy MMO out there. If you have a machine that can handle the game you should go pick this one up as soon as you can.
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