[jstutman]

Not mine personally, but that of the subbed community.

Disclamer: im no fanboy...this is my review of the game, im a realistic player, what you fanboys normally call a troll.







good things:

»» stunning graphics and detail

»» fatalities

»» char animation in general are not bad

Not so good things:

»» combat system »» it feels nice..but at lvl 80..when people have to press the combo+upper right+lower left+lower right+up+upper left for exemple a 5 key combo..pressing the keys without any mistake..when you are running in circles trying to hit a jumping rogue and have to pay attention where he is running and what he is doing,... same for your char isnt very easy task...its easyer to press one key and make the combo with only one key press..humans are too lazy and practical to like the system...( many will use gamepads to record macros to use combos in one key)

Really bad things

»» the size of the world overall and zones is too small..any lvl 80 saw everything there is to see even without trying

»» loadings everywere...doors, zones, taverns, caves »» it should have loadings only in places like dungeons, or if changing from one big part of the map for another...keep loadings at minimum

»» instancing everywere »» ok its good to have instancing in dungeons, but in zones? instanced zones its ammo breaker..it should be a common world to all players....its needed in aoc..because we would have 3000players in tortage all at the same time and its impossible, all quest npcs would be sorrounded by people, mobs always killed and camped etc...so to solve this why not make more starting areas? like in any other mmo? make zones bigger so that more mobs can be added and more people can be in a zone, make soft loading in the zones like in vanguard...

»» no freedom to go anywere »» go swim and then feel an invisible wall, at least make it like wow..getting tired and its about to die because its getting to far away from the coast...,tortage that is 25% of the total game is made of roads...paths, no freedom, after 20 it gets a bit better but still no freedom, you are always sorrownded by mountains, or trees..have some large path to follow, zones are small...

»» no replay value »» make a char to 80..and then make another..only thing different is the class..the rest is all the same...no new zones, nothing..a lvl 80 knows every inch of the map ingame just by leveling once...



What did funcom give us thats new and revolutionary?»»» beautifful graphics and enviroments

What step foward in the mmo industry funcom did?»»» did 5 steps backwards

What did funcom give us with aoc? »»» a beautifull game that is clearly unfinished, has a smaller then normal world, has an annoying amount of loading everywere, has instancing in all zones of the small map ingame...( hyboria complete map is big. game total playable map is small )

Another

Past lvl 40 there are too few quests to correlate with the lvling (its as if they were doing great with quests when developing the game and then they sorta ran out of time). The ratio of quests post 45-50 drops.

Zones are so small. If you look at the entire world of Hyboria, they only use about 15% of the world and the 15% of this they did pick you cannot explore 100% of it. Only about 70% of it is explorable. The rest is invisible walls.

But post 45-50 you're pretty much grinding a lot because there are too few quests and some of the quests you do get does not work and a couple zones you need you cannot really go into without technical difficulties

Another

Guild wars, but with a monthly fee

[evomac]

To each, their own. The problem is right now is that everyone is comparing it to WoW, which really isn't fair. WoW is now 3 1/2 years old, but now it should well be a polished product.

Compare WoW @ Launch to AoC at launch and you will see that the AoC launch is a lot smoother. I mean back @ launch days of WoW, once we hit 60 all that their was to do was your Ony key quest and try to raid Molten Core... which were both riddled with problems. Server stability was a mess for the first 2+ months or so in WoW. So far in AoC, not 1 lock up or network instability.

As for the combat system, I think it is pretty fun. I like that their is no auto attack. For the combat strings @ 80, yes you might want to macro some, but its still a lot more engaging than your normal MMO system.

Long story short, the game is just a week old. For launch, it has been very very solid with a lot of room for growth. It is definitely aimed at the more mature MMO players, which I personally like about it. If you are on the fence about it, I'd say give it a shot. It's a good time so far

[SteveLord]

A lot of people say its buggy.

Personally, I won't pay monthly for a buggy game promising many features later on.