Author Topic: Age of Conan Shrinkage  (Read 4288 times)

Offline Taith

  • Friends
  • Cogniscenti
  • **
  • Posts: 481
  • Nommer of Worlds
    • View Profile
Age of Conan Shrinkage
« on: February 25, 2009, 10:37:21 AM »
Funcom CFO resigns following $23.3m loss

So Age of Conan has taken a big hit due, they say, to "shorter average subscription periods than anticipated". Looks like their subscription numbers have plummetted and they're merging servers.

Any of you guys try it? I never did, but I heard from people that did that it had its problems.
DC Universe Online (EU PC): Psilance, Psion Hero, Noctirian, Sorcerer Villain
Neverwinter: Theron Dios, Control Wizard (Beholder)
Star Trek Online: Eric@TaithZero
SWTOR: Tarkanian, Sith Assassin (Progenitor) (Inactive)

Offline Mangala

  • Administrator
  • League of Extraordinary Gentleman
  • *****
  • Posts: 7534
  • WTF did I do??
    • View Profile
    • My EVE Blog
Re: Age of Conan Shrinkage
« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2009, 10:44:20 AM »
It was sort of fun until you finished the first 20 levels, then went sucky.  Very graphically intensive as well which gave me some headaches.
"May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk."


Offline Macrune

  • MAADI
  • Cogniscenti
  • ***
  • Posts: 480
    • View Profile
Re: Age of Conan Shrinkage
« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2009, 02:42:46 PM »
As Mang said. First 20 levels...(Tortuga or whatever the area was called) was great. After that the running around was a nightmare and pretty much random nonsense.
It was released far to early and was as buggy as hell, and yes also as Mang said.. It ate gpu's and cpu's for breakfast.

I think it was a forgone conclusion that this would happen.. It was released within a 12 month period that also included the release of LoTRO, WoTLK and War. Not a very sensible move with the state the game was in. Shame though because as has been said before it was the best starting area of any game ive ever played.
A married man should forget his mistakes.  There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!
Eagles may soar but weasel's don't get sucked into jet engines!

Offline Caradir

  • HoJ Members
  • League of Extraordinary Gentleman
  • ***
  • Posts: 3568
    • View Profile
Re: Age of Conan Shrinkage
« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2009, 03:20:05 PM »
as has been said was fun to begin with, i enjoyed it up to 40 then quests became sparse and there was no point.

They advertised the game on having "massive PVP sieges", which wasnt in at release and when they did put it in was buggy as hell, in fact i dont think ive played a more unfinished MMO ever (although WAR did come close)
"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take away from them the power to create money and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money." Josiah Stamp (Governor Bank of England 1928-41)

Offline Taith

  • Friends
  • Cogniscenti
  • **
  • Posts: 481
  • Nommer of Worlds
    • View Profile
Re: Age of Conan Shrinkage
« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2009, 07:03:36 PM »
It was released within a 12 month period that also included the release of LoTRO, WoTLK and War. Not a very sensible move with the state the game was in.

I always figured that was to try and grab the "Bored with WoW waiting for the expansion" market. Their numbers suggest they did grab it, just couldn't hold it.
DC Universe Online (EU PC): Psilance, Psion Hero, Noctirian, Sorcerer Villain
Neverwinter: Theron Dios, Control Wizard (Beholder)
Star Trek Online: Eric@TaithZero
SWTOR: Tarkanian, Sith Assassin (Progenitor) (Inactive)

Offline Keggi

  • HoJ Members
  • The Illuminati
  • ***
  • Posts: 851
    • View Profile
Re: Age of Conan Shrinkage
« Reply #5 on: February 26, 2009, 12:01:50 AM »
i got to lvl 42 by that time the quests had all but dried up, i tried grinding xp but the xp gain was very small so not worthwhile.

yes the first 20 lvl were fantastic in tortage very well done.

once you left tortage though you could begin to see the holes in the gameplay areas seemed large at first but you soon started to think of every area as a box the instancing was too much.

the early dungeons were very bugged e.g the pyramid took me 6 goes to complete because of the bugs i actually killed a boss near the end of the dungeon then at the very end of said dungeon i got the quest to kill the boss i had already killed and he never respawned :(

it is just another case of the backers and money men getting nervous and forcing releases.


Offline Bethor

  • Friends
  • The Illuminati
  • **
  • Posts: 557
    • View Profile
Re: Age of Conan Shrinkage
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2009, 09:02:00 AM »
have nothing real to add, but will post anyway :)

 played it to 40ish . than there were no more quests. I did like the combat system though. better than WoW imo. And the graphics were cool too.

The idea of finishing moves was also new in mmo's and i think it was quite fun to see 3 heads floating in the water after you decapitated some guys.

Only i felt the game ended after lvl 40. There were hardly quests and non as grand as in the beginning.

A shame if you ask me.
LORD HELMET:  I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's
former roommate.

LONE STARR:  What's that make us?

LORD HELMET:  Absolutely nothing. Which is what you are
about to become. Prepare to die.

Offline Jarkko

  • MAADI
  • The Pantheon
  • ***
  • Posts: 1050
    • View Profile
Re: Age of Conan Shrinkage
« Reply #7 on: March 04, 2009, 10:37:06 AM »
I played my ToS to 43-46 or something like that (can't remember), and one of each archetype through the Tortage (to see the whole story of Tortage, as each archetype sees different parts of the story; what can I say, I am a sucker for a good story). I guess I have to mention that I was in the beta from autumn 2007, so I knew what I was heading for. I bought the game because I knew Tortage quests are great. Altough it was quite worrying that I was in the majority of beta testers who were *not* allowed to see the world outside Tortage or crafting system, or much about anything else for that matter (and I have to admit I mostly did focus on the PvP games during testing, which I then didn't play at all after the game went live). The game was released waaaay too early, but its release date had been postponed already so many times it prolly was not an option anymore.

The game has great gfx, but expecially the sounds and music in the game are fabulous. Tortage is wonderful. I sent myself a buddykey which I activated in January, and Tortage is still wonderful and now there are no bugs either. However, after Tortage it did seem the same old story was still true: The quality of the drastically drops after Tortage.

Still, I am not sorry I spent the 40 euros on the game. It has some wonderful things not seen in other games, and it has some fabulous stories. Sadly there are too few of the good stories to compensate for the grind grind grind grind.

The suckiest thing about the game was however that it was absolutely horrible to play something as a group, and I don't  know if that as improved. The guild UI was pure shit, but even that was not as bad as the party UI. People being in same place but different instance... It just felt wrong. Also, the world didn't feel that big because of the travel system.

FunCom has shown with AO and AoC they have a tendency of having catastrophic failures with games at launch. Hopefully they will improve and make AoC a superb game over the years like they've done with AO, because AoC deserves that in my opinion.