Age of Conan's "Kinda" Launch and Massive Pre-Orders

While some are already enjoying the joys of Age of Conan via the early launch, many more will soon be enjoying the fruits of Funcom's labor. An amazing 700,000 copies of the game are being shipped to retailers for day one sales and in some locations pre-orders will not be filled due to server limitations. Between this and the new Warhammer game on the way, should Blizzard be worried, or will Wrath of the Lich King continue to hold their competitive edge?

WoW's peaked.

[SatanicPuppy]

I think there is definitely room for something new; a lot of people have been talking about WoW's mass market appeal and it's true that it has a great mass market appeal. It's definitely brought the cult of MMORPG to a much wider audience. I wonder how many people though, have really thought through the implications of that?

The most common implication I've seen tossed about is the whole "WoW has dumbed down MMO's forever, and oh, how I long for the EQ/UO good old days." There is something to that; certainly WoW showed MMO publishers how to make a product that's friendly to the masses. In this case, it's "defer all the annoying repetitive grind until the endgame", rather than forcing you to do it during the leveling process.

What it also did was pull a huge number of non-MMO players into the mix...Players who've picked up the basic skills, and maxed out a half dozen characters, and are now bored to tears with WoW's pointless and repetitive endgame grindfest. For all that it's different from what came before, it's still pretty typical, and lessons learned in WoW will transfer quickly to other MMOs.

Basically, they created the ultimate MMO gateway drug. Now a lot of new products are hitting the market, and I think WoW will see a lot of defections as players who've hit the upper limit and gotten everything it's possible to get in the game, start looking for a new challenge and a less happy candy colored world.

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[Aix]

In this case, it's "defer all the annoying repetitive grind until the endgame", rather than forcing you to do it during the leveling process.

Wait, "kill 10 bears" then "kill 10 scorpions" then "find 10 doodads" ad nauseum in order to get from level 23 to level 24 is not the "annoying repetitive grind"? Sheesh, I'm glad I quit playing at level 40. Everybody kept saying "wait until the endgame, then it gets fun."

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[SatanicPuppy]

Not compared to UO or EQ...You have all the same problems, but add to that the hefty death penalties, and the larger time sinks, and you understand the true meaning of futility.

There were times when I played EQ where I was tired, logged on, and then got killed, and sat there staring at the screen while the realization that, if I just hadn't played, I'd have saved myself hours of extra meaningless work.

The WoW endgame is amazingly tiresome. You have to have a guild, which means guild politics, guild drama. Y

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[Qetu]

[..] another quest sequence in Nagrand has you running around picking up monster droppings.[..]

That quest is shit.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Fozzyuw]

I think WoW will see a lot of defections as players who've hit the upper limit and gotten everything it's possible to get in the game, start looking for a new challenge and a less happy candy colored world.

I think this really sums up WoW right now. It's not that AoC is "better" than WoW, it's that WoW is killing itself with a nearly 2-year release between expansions and game progression.

MMOers want to continue to progress their character(s). 2 years is FAR too long to give people really something to progress with besides horizontal progression with a couple new dungeons thrown in once in a while.

Having Beta tested AoC, I think it's an ok game, but I do not see anything in there that I think is "better" than WoW. Except that it's "new". That means new classes, new lands to explore, new quests to do, more levels to grind. That's what people are really going to be leaving WoW for. Progression. If WotLK came out today, AoC wouldn't be so "big" in the news right now, nor would people be "leaving in droves" to play something else.

I'm sure most of the people who will leave for AoC will be back for WotLK. Until then, I think it's great to eat up the new stuff as well as it being particularly fun to be apart of an MMO launch. Given that a lot of new people start MMOing with WoW, this will be their first major chance to play an MMO from launch. I'm just waiting for the servers to crash at the stress and all the kiddies to come out in droves to forums and start flaming funcom for being worthless programmers. hehe It happens in ever MMO launch.

Two years wasn't an issue

[Shivetya]

You have to compare your thought about waiting even two years between expansions because it gives a false impression about the game. WOW released a lot of content between opening day and TBC and is doing the same between TBC and WOTLK. Is progression restricted to leveling? If releasing expansions at a regular clip was all it took to be a success then how do we explain the lack of population for EQ and EQ2 now? Yes they are both big but not on the scale of WOW.

AoC is coming out way way too early. It ju

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[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Basically, they created the ultimate MMO gateway drug. Now a lot of new products are hitting the market, and I think WoW will see a lot of defections as players who've hit the upper limit and gotten everything it's possible to get in the game, start looking for a new challenge and a less happy candy colored world.

One of the aspects of MMO that Blizzard seems to understand really well, but no one else has to date is the value of the networking. All the supposed WoW-killers have technologically limited their potential users to a small subset of what WoW supports. This is understandable to some degree, but they have all taken it to extremes by emulating other games system requirements instead of mainstream games like WoW, the Sims, etc. If 60% of WoW players have a system that can play a new game, can you expect up t

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[Thrymm]

I had played EQ a long time before skipping off that train for Dark Age of Camelot since I loved the Realm vs. Realm for a time. When WoW came out, I bought it, and it was fun, however eventhough the graphics were awesome, I didnt like the cartoonish look of the toons. That alone didnt turn me off, the fact it was rather easy to race to 60, and when questing people wanted to do green quests more than trying for the red quests for a challenge.

I went back to EQ 2 years ago when they opened the progression ser

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[Kagami001]

I like happy, candy-colored worlds.

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[Opportunist]

WoW simply did a few things right that went wrong in other MMORPGs. First, they already had a good franchise name, Warcraft. It's been an established name in the game world, already drawing in a lot of people just simply for the name. This created a sizable basic userbase that included old MMORPG players as well as people who played the Warcraft series so far and decided it's cool to try an MMORPG in that world.

But what really let WoW take off was that it managed what other MMORPGs didn't get to: Pull your

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SatanicPuppy]

Too much leisure time is one thing, but most people blow some time on pursuits that are purely pleasure, and WoW is no better or worse than most of those. I used to play WoW; I played a lot during a period where I was freelancing and doing contract work. Played a lot less when I started in on a full time job. Less still when my first kid came along.

If I can find time to play WoW, have a full time job, a kid, and a social life, what's the problem? People always treat it like there is some character flaw in playing an MMO, but they ignore the fact that the person'd be playing some other game, reading a trashy novel, or slacking in front of the TV.

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[morari]

Unless you are playing quite often, it's simply not worth the subscription fee. That is assuming it's worth the price to begin with, which may be debatable given the continuous expansion packs that eventually become necessity. That's how I see it at least. If I had no life and could play it for several hours a day almost every single day, then the subscription price might be justified (assuming the combat wasn't of the boring click-n-wait variety). But since that isn't the case, it's essentially just a wast

Re:WoW's peaked.

[MBGMorden]

Why is it that 2 trips to the movies, lasting MAYBE 6 hours tops, is treated as worth $14.95, but a game needs to be played "several hours per day every day" to meet the same value? We'll assume 30 hours per week as a nice approximation of "several hours per day every day". What you're then saying is that an entertainment venue is too expensive to you until it gets below $0.50 per hour. Just how broke are you?

Understand that I'm not questioning whether or not you want to play the game in the first place - that's a fine and legitimate reason. But you've taken a different stand that it's not worth it to people who DO want to play a limited amount of time.

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[MBGMorden]

oops. Meant to write "30 hours per month", not "30 hours per week". The math works as I intended but I used the wrong word there.

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[morari]

To be fair, I rarely go out to the theater in part because movie tickets are horrendously priced. I don't have any sort of television subscription for similar reasons. Just because something is of comparative value doesn't necessarily mean that it's a deal.

The other thing is that you must first go out and purchase the game before you are even hit with the subscription fee. The game is probably cheaper now than it was originally to purchase in store, but that's still an initial investment on top of a month

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[Talderas]

You can download the game for free, along with the Burning Crusade expansion for free, then just start paying the subscription. I don't recall whether when the new expansion comes out if they require you to buy the game or provide the expansion for free for download, though most people buy the game anyway just so they have the hardcopy of the disks for reinstallation.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SL Baur]

Add to that the growing number of expansion packs that are needed for the entire experience and you could have already bought one or two games that don't require a monthly fee. Furthermore, everyone I know that plays an MMO pays for two accounts so that they can play with their wife or husband.

That's still not a big deal. Movies tend to bore me. I've got said 2 family accounts. I'll be in line to purchase WotLK when it is released.

In no particular order:

1. I like grinding games. What makes or breaks a game for me is how long it takes to get bored. I've been bored with WoW at times, I didn't play at all between Christmas and April, for example. The boredom has never lasted and I'm back to leveling my second level 70.

2. Blizzard is unusually responsive to real criticism of game mechanics. I started playing about a month before the BC expansion. In that time, there has been a steady improvement on all the issues of the game that have irritated me the most. I'm sorely displeased with what they did to boar pets in the last patch, but I guess that just means I'll have to change specs on my hunter. The other changes they made, the new island, etc. were all positive, welcome additions.

3. It's a computer game that works on systems I use. I play on a Mac Powerbook Pro. WoW is also a platinum Wine application. Will Age of Conan or Warhammer support Mac OS X?

Basically, the cost is negligable compared to the amount of enjoyment I've gotten out of playing it. That's me and apparently to many others as well because the subscription base keeps growing.

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[smbarbour]

Have you tried playing an MMO that doesn't require you to play every possible hour you can to keep up, such as EVE Online?

There are no levels, only skills, and they continue to train even when you are offline. It costs about $20 to start a subscription and $14.95 thereafter. If you devote enough time, you can even pay in-game currency for game time, which results in free play.

The game is constantly being updated with expansions that cost nothing to the player.

Of course, if you wanted to stick to the Inter

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[ichigo 2.0]

There are two big differences between WoW and Eve. Firstly, Eve is much more PVP oriented. If you're the kind of guy who frowns upon ganking low level players in WoW, then stay far away from Eve. You need to be ruthless to get ahead in Eve and I suspect most of the top players would sell their own mothers for a few ISK.

Secondly, Eve is not for solo gaming (ok this is pretty much point 1 rehashed, so sue me). The only things that are feasible alone are mining shitty ore in empire space and doing crappy low-

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[smbarbour]

It's a common misconception that someone with fewer skill points is always at a disadvantage. Skill points only get you so far, you have to know what you are doing and how to handle every unique situation. For instance, the largest alliance in the game, "GoonSwarm", has a massive amount of members, and a fair percentage of them don't have a clue what they are doing (though there are plenty of them that do). Throw a bunch of them at an experienced player, and the experienced player is going to die.

Additio

Re:WoW's peaked.

[MBGMorden]

And if you go to a see a major rock band, you can expect to pay several hundred dollars for a couple hours of entertainment. Why these major price differences?

How about: supply and demand? and cost of the product?

Maybe I'm just seeing different bands, but I've been to quite a few concerts and NEVER paid more than $75 for a ticket. That's beside the point though except to establish an even higher upper limit of what entertainment can be worth.

As to supply and demand, that only applies to physical goods. For services, particularly access services such as cable, satellite tv, or membership to a gym, you're looking simply at demand. We're talking about an access issue here. There is no "supply and demand" on a monthly access fee to a game. The price is simply set at what people are willing to pay.

Lets compare WoW to other video games, because that actually makes sense.

It only makes sense to compare it to video games in the same genre. IE, MMORPG's. All of those charge a monthly access fee because they have to facilitate running their servers to power the infrastructure. About the only similiar game that DOESN'T follow a similar pricing model is Guild Wars.

For the price of WoW+expansions you could buy buy a new game every couple months. If you are only playing a few hours here and there this is probably better value. If nothing else, at the end of a year you've got half a dozen different games to play whenever you get the itch.

Only if you're into those type of games instead. You have to think though: how much play time do you get out of those games? I get between 6 and 15 hours out of most games these days. 40 hours for some huge RPG. At $60 a pop, that's 4 months of WoW time in which one can play a lot longer if they wish.

Plus, if you are only playing a game like WoW sporadically, its almost impossible to accomplish things, you are perpetually miles behind your friends, you are left out of the social element, its hard to get into a worthwhile guild or group when you do login... so now you are paying $15/month for a much poorer experience than the game has to offer.

That's a personal opinion, and you are free to rationalize that WoW might not be worth playing if you don't play it a lot. Many people do play pretty sporadically though and are just fine. In my guild, pretty much hang out and have fun. Our raiding these days has been whittled down to 1 ZA run per week (that is sometimes canceled) on Tuesday nights, and various 5 mans/heroics whenever guildies feel like it. Sure we're not going to go whup up on anything in the Sunwell, but we have a lot of fun together playing.

My basic point is not that "WoW is OMG teh awesomeness and every1 should play it!", it's that "it's too expensive" is a pretty poor excuse unless you're living in a straw hut. Saying "I don't like the game so I'm not willing to pay for it" is one thing. Saying that "I'm not playing it because it costs too much" is something else.

On top of that, relativism kicks in. The people gettin the most out of the game, playing 60 hours a week, are paying 0.6 cents per hour. And sees FAR more of the game for that price. Me, on the other hand, averaging 10 hours a month, was paying 1.50 per hour for a much reduced experience... I was paying 25x times as much per hour as the hard core player to futz around in crappy neglected parts of the game struggling to find groups to go into crappy instances, while he explored the end game content that was actually interesting. That's a tough pill to swallow.

That's the same with ANY unlimited access venue though. The guy who goes to the gym for 4 hours every day compared to you going twice per week is paying less per hour than you. The guy who eats 6 plates of food at the local buffet compared to your 1 is playing much less for his food than you. The guy who downloads 250gb of files per month compared to you downloading 15gb is paying much less for his bandwidth than you. It only makes a difference if you let it bother you. If you discount what other people are doing, and simply justify it to yourself whether or not you wish to partake in the service to begin with, then it works out much better.

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[SydShamino]

Huh? The subscription fee is like $15 a month. That's less than two movies at the theater (assuming you don't buy snacks), or a evening bowling, or a new hardback novel. Those other things are six to ten hours of enjoyment, tops, which translates to just two to three hours a week of WoW for the same thing.

Break that up into an hour Saturday morning while the kids watch some shows, and a half hour twice a week while waiting for dinner, and it's a downright reasonable way to spend free time. It's the same

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Ephemeriis]

Unless you are playing quite often, it's simply not worth the subscription fee. That is assuming it's worth the price to begin with, which may be debatable given the continuous expansion packs that eventually become necessity. That's how I see it at least. If I had no life and could play it for several hours a day almost every single day, then the subscription price might be justified (assuming the combat wasn't of the boring click-n-wait variety). But since that isn't the case, it's essentially just a waste of money.

Obviously, to the folks who do pay the subscription fee and do play the game, it is worth the fee. Regardless of how much/little they play.

There are folks out there who pay multiple hundreds of dollars for a bottle of wine or a cigar. There are folks spending $100+ a month just for cable television. What's wrong with spending $15 a month on WoW, even if you only play for an hour or two?

Worth is highly subjective.

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[Z34107]

Sigh. It's fine if it's not exactly your cup of thistle tea, but you don't have "no life" or "play it for several hours a day almost every single day" in order to enjoy World of Warcraft.

$13 a month isn't all that expensive of a hobby. For someone with a healthy BMI, that's, what, 3 fast food meals you gave up to afford your WoW fix? And, it's easy to quit, because they'll keep your account and characters around nigh indefinitely should you ever return. (Of course that makes it easy to return, too, bu

Re:WoW's peaked.

[MBGMorden]

Totally agree. People need to learn to let others live the way they want to. To too many people someone spending 3 hours bored out of their mind at a local bar is somehow fundamentally better than that same person having fun for 3 hours in an MMORPG. Sure YOU might prefer one or the other, but why worry about others who happen to take pleasure from different activities than yourself?

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[Brigadier]

replace 'People' in "....People need to learn to let others " with either 'my wife', 'my girlfriend', or 'my mother'. Lets be honest if you take care of your responsibilities they are the only ones who still have a problem with you playing games.

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[je ne sais quoi]

To too many people someone spending 3 hours bored out of their mind at a local bar is somehow fundamentally better than that same person having fun for 3 hours in an MMORPG.

I find it relaxing to play a MMORPG and have my characters spend their time in the bar, you insensitive clod! :)

P.S. You'd be surprised how many people like to play drunks in RPGs, I think it must be because it's more acceptable to that because "it's only role-playing".

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[mc900ftjesus]

A bar? That would even be considered "doing something."

People, somehow, will tell you you're wasting time playing video games and that it's dumb and childish or whatever. You've heard it before. That same person will sit down and watch 3-4 hours of TV every night of the week. Probably some riveting stuff like American Idol, House, CSI:Junk Science Theater, some manner of home makeover show even though they don't own a single power tool, or some other crap.

Yet, if you sit and do something that requires s

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[t0qer]

Less still when my first kid came along.

Heh it was the exact opposite for me. My wife isn't exactly a night owl, so the first few months when the baby had to be fed every two hours I'd stay up till dawn playing WoW with my daughter parked by my side.

Only problem with this playstyle is it limited what I could do in WoW. No more 4 hour grinds, let alone trying to find players to raid with at the later hours. Eventually I just gave up on WoW and went back to FPS gaming. I got so bored with FPS gaming tha

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[Ephemeriis]

"... start looking for a new challenge and a less happy candy colored world"

What about the real world?

(said with a bit of sarcasm and a tad seriousness)

If the only reason to leave WoW is to play another MMO game, then, maybe... Have you have played WoW for several years and still want more "challenges" why not "Get a life"? *sigh*
Seriously!

Why is there always such negativity associated with MMOGs? Why is there always the suggestion that people should stop wasting their time and go do something else?

Most folks have some leisure time. Some people have more than others...but most folks have at least a little. And generally speaking folks will do something fun with that time. Some people read books, others watch TV, some play board games, some go out drinking, some play video games, some listen to music, some make music... Why is any one of

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[Daimanta]

I'm sociophobic you insensitive clod!

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the real world?

Nah. Too much grind.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[cHiphead]

I agree, once I started playing Real Life (TM), suddenly I was getting paid real money to work and do repetitive actions for hours at a time, and with that money I could afford women and drink, and I went forth and drank and hath women.

But watch out how fast you level, now I'm married with a kid + 1 on the way, and I suddenly find myself needing to work exponentially more hours to have any of the glorious monies, and have started thinking about paying money to play games again cuz its cheaper than drinking. ;)

Cheers.

PvP games

[shawnmchorse]

Just based on the fact that it's a PvP oriented game, I know I'm not really going to be interested in it. Same goes for Warhammer. As someone who has much more fun in PvE play, I appreciate games where I can expect that there won't be huge changes made based on PvP concerns.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Just based on the fact that it's a PvP oriented game, I know I'm not really going to be interested in it.

Actually AoC is not heavily PvP driven if you don't want it to be. Both PvP and PvE servers have a huge amount of PvE content. The only difference between the two are the PvP servers have open world PvP and the PvE servers do not. Their is raiding, dungeons and quests and you could very easily never PvP in the game at all and still have a huge amount of things to do.

If you like PvP then the game has a lot to offer, with world PvP, PvP minigames, and larger scale seige warfare. If your looking for only PvE

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[KevMar]

People are looing for the next wow killer. The new products know they can not fight with Blizzard directly. But what they can do is make more targeted MMORPGs that can pick up where wow leaves off. WoW can be the gateway drug that gets people addicted.

AoC and War focus on the PvP side and look to build a solid base that wants that. They will have PvE elements, but if you are a real PvE'r keep looking. AoC does have a good quest system and pulls you into the story. The shinning element is the seige Pv

Re:PvP games

[Ephemeriis]

People are looing for the next wow killer.

People are always looking for the next -whatever- killer. Folks were waiting for the EQ killer, folks were waiting for the DAoC killer, and now folks are waiting for the WoW killer. It seems to me that a lot of people just don't really understand how MMOGs work...

They're all very similar. They'll have different settings, different themes, different gameplay dynamics... But in the end it's all the same kind of stuff. Kill critters to get better gear and more experience, so you can kill bigger critters to get better gear and more experience, so you can kill the biggest critters to get better gear and more experience... It's all grinding, all of it. It doesn't matter what game or how they try to hide it - all MMOGs boil down to grinding eventually.

What really makes or breaks a MMOG is the community. The setting/gameplay/quests/whatever will keep people interested for a while... But once you've hit the level cap with a character or two and you're at the point where you're raiding 'til your eyes bleed, what keeps you coming back is the people around you. Either friends that you enjoy playing with or competition to be the best. Take away the community and you just aren't going to have a game that is worth playing.

There will certainly be some folks who leave WoW (and all the other MMOGs out there) to play these new games. And they'll race through the content to see everything that's there. And they'll raid and get some nice gear and level up some alts. But unless there's a reason to keep playing they'll quickly get bored and go play something newer and shinier as soon as it is available.

Please dont comment without knowing about

[unity100]

what you talk about.

aoc is not pvp oriented. there are more pve servers than pvp servers at the launch, and not only there is mind boggling massive pve content. neither the content is boring like whatever crap was back at wow when i played.

No, there is pvp for both pve and pvp

[unity100]

in pve servers, you have a huge zone, borderlands, that has ffa pvp in it. guild battlekeeps and other stuff, all battlegrounds are to be in that zone. rest of the world is not ffa pvp in a pve server. but, the thing is, pve server will have the same kind of endgame pvp as the pvp servers. so thats something very handy.

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[CodeBuster]

I find that people who claim to dislike PvP have very often not tried it for themselves. You say that you enjoy PvE play, but for me there is nothing like going head to head against other players in a free-for-all type world where anyone can attack anyone else at anytime, anywhere, and for whatever reason. It really brings out the realistic and dangerous aspect when there is completely open PvP and that is what makes the games fun and challenging in ways that no AI can presently match. Also, there are not n

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[bidule]

OTOH, you have graveyard trolls who just sit on your body to deny you play time. Their only pleasure is to stop others from having a good time.

I find that people who claim to enjoy PvP have not experienced that. They have enough play time that losing an hour doesn't bother them, they'll level fast enough that griefers can't catch them and/or they spend so much time in-game that their skills are too good to be an easy prey.

I was on vent with someone trying the PvP realms in AoC, he couldn't even log off beca

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[shawnmchorse]

I really don't have much direct experience with WoW. I tried it briefly when it first came out and it just didn't grab me. My wife plays it though.

Lord of the Rings Online and City of Heroes are the two games I have played that were concentrated on PvE, and didn't really seem to let PvP concerns affect that. There is some PvP in both games (now), but they're obviously just side areas for those that enjoy that sort of thing. I'm fine with that...:-)

Early Launch went well

[Anonymous Coward]

I played under early launch, and the experience was surprisingly smooth. I had zero server or client crashes. A number of minor graphical glitches, and one bugged quest. Other than that, it was a great experience. Oh, and I was playing on a Mac, running Vista, via Bootcamp.

Yes, probably a problem for Blizzard

[HomerJ]

As good as World of Warcraft is for some people, a lot of people I know that used to play it just had enough of it. You play the same game for years, you tend to get bored of it, new content or not.

World of Warcraft won't be going anywhere for at least another couple years, but I'd expect at least either AoC or Warhammer to get into the millions of users and take a chunk out of WoW's userbase.

Re:Yes, probably a problem for Blizzard

[Achoi77]

I believe most likely that Blizzard isn't going to make any sweeping additions untill they see a proven formula that works. Once they see something that works, then they will jump in, begin development, pump millions to polish it up and resume the top spot.

I pretty sure Blizzard still has their trump card hidden in preparation for the next wave. The 'world pvp' in WoW is a joke, Blizzard is currently just dropping little breadcrumbs in their pvp space to prevent people from defecting too quickly. But right now they still have technical hurdles they have to overcome (how do you have thousands of people in a zone without excessive lag, all the while not causing the servers to die in a fiery mess?), but they have plenty of time, and a good amount of property, and a large enough consumer pool to deliver a desirable product - when the time is right. It's just not at this moment - which sucks for us consumers.

Once WAR comes out and Blizzard sees that they are beginning to lose subscribers, they will release their new world pvp setting beyond just Northrend. Right now they are just waiting for to someone to press the big red button first.

Conan will...

[Mr. Beatdown]

Conan will crush it's enemies, see WoW driven before it, and to hear the lamentations of its (very few) women.

Re:Conan will...

[Capt James McCarthy]

Conan will crush it's enemies, see WoW driven before it, and to hear the lamentations of both its women.

Fixed.

Re:Conan will...

[WankersRevenge]

hahahaha ... great quote ... My wife and I just watched Conan the other day. She rolled her eyes when I popped it into the dvd player, but after the first ten minutes she was hooked. At the end of the movie, she said she was surprised that she liked it. Besides the T&A elements and the horrific lines ("Two or three years ago, there were just another snake cult, but now, they're everywhere") and Arnold's wooden stares, it's a great fantasy flick with a great soundtrack. I mean, how many Hollywood fantasy films hold a philosophical question at the heart (what is the riddle of steel). And James Earl Jones was a kick ass villain, using his charisma as a weapon. Check it out again if you have some time to kill.

Re:Conan will...

[everphilski]

That's not the Conan I know and love.

Conan the Librarian: Don't you know the Dewey Decimal System?

I played AoC's beta...

[HerculesMO]

And it's a decent game, very buggy (although it was beta) and ran very choppy on my reasonably good machine (4GB ram, 8800GTS 320MB, Core2 Duo).

For others it ran well.

The PvP is pretty good -- think of it as a type of "Guild Wars" game. The classes are EXTREMELY imbalanced, where the ones that can 'stun' can stun you for a half hour. You can get DoTs that last a long time, and all you do is cast it, and run away -- eventually the other guy dies.

World of Warcraft will not be unseated or even touched by this game. It's going to be a rush to try it out, and you'll see everybody go back to WoW. WoW is simple to play (not a lot to figure out, it gets more advanced as you level), it takes a very little power machine, the classes are VERY balanced, and every instance and dungeon is well thought out. It's not to say that the game is that great either -- but the social aspect of WoW is a lot nicer than AoC will ever offer, and it's why they have 9 million subscribers. Because it's easy to group, easy to socialize, and easy to play.

AoC is a good game for those looking for a 'hardcore' experience, or Guild Wars on steroids. I don't know about WAR, but I'm patiently waiting for beta access (fingers crossed!) to see how it plays out.

Right now though, I am sticking to WoW.

Re:

[Cheeko]

I'm one of the early release players AND I played in the closed beta for about 4 months.

While the beta did have its minor issues in the end, you can tell that they were definitely holding back on the production client/game in the beta and focusing heavily on testing the game systems.

The look and feel of the game upon release blows away the beta. The client is half the size and much more stable. I played from launch until the servers came down for the first patch (about 30 hours, minus a few hours to sleep

Class balance? NERF!

[Skadet]

classes are VERY balanced

NERF ROGUES. Stunlocks FTL

not quite

[unity100]

if you take down all the graphic settings, it will still look like better than wow, and will run on normal machines.

My take...

[Drakin020]

I got in on the early release. Managed to get to Lv 9.

I was not impressed. The combat system is cool for about an hour or 2 then it's somewhat annoying. Mages are overpowered in that you cast one spell and the enemy dies.

Also everyone has Hide (AKA Stealth) yeah...everyone. There are some limitations but the ability is still there.

I think it needs a bit more tweaking, but again I'm not to thrilled with it.

Re:

[Cheeko]

Everyone is OP until about 15-16. The point in the early levels is to learn the game.

Even as a healer I was 1-shotting things up until about 12.

After that it tails off and you need much more damage to kill things.

Level 9 is not a good enough sample to judge a whole game IMO.

Re:My take...

[XanC]

Everyone should have some basic idea about how not to be seen.

All I know is not to stand up. Is that the trick is this game?

Conan hardly competes....

[ivan256]

WoW fills an enormous niche. A game like Conan, no matter how great, will likely find it isn't even competing in the same market.

WoW runs on crap hardware. When something like 95% of your customer base is a "casual" player, that's an important (of not the important) feature. The shitty $400 Laptop or $300 PC you bought from WalMart will probably give you a satisfactory experience playing WoW, and it's likely that the vast, vast majority of WoW's customer's are running on low-end machines. Conan doesn't even have a shot at those customers. They can't even run the game if they wanted to.

If you want to de-throne WoW, you've got to build a well marketed, feature and content rich MMO that runs on today's low-end machines. Otherwise you are selling to a much smaller market than Blizzard.

This is nothing new for Blizzard, either. All their games have always been targeted at low-end (mainstream) machines. And they always sell like crazy. This isn't a coincidence.

it runs on low end machines

[unity100]

it doesnt lock itself down to low settings however. if you have a high end machine, a crossfire or sli, it gives what you ask for.

unlike wow, which is set to run on a laptop, and run on an ultra fast gaming pc as it runs on a high end desktop.

aoc basically makes you able to go to a whole different world with its graphics and realism, whereas wow takes you to l337 land.

From what I've seen of Conan...

[Skuld-Chan]

I don't think it will make much of a dent sadly. The game is still too unrefined, and the animations are pretty horrible.

WoW didn't just get mass market appeal overnight - they actually did it by giving gamers a very polished MMO. WoW players complain about bugs all the time, but really its small potatoes to what came before - and none of these bugs are what I'd call critical.

Re:

[Colonel Korn]

I'll have trouble playing another MMO (I quit WoW 6 months ago after playing since beta and raiding since MC was novel) unless it offers the degree of UI flexibility that WoW does. I dislike the UI in most games, but it doesn't bother me too much because I can work around it. I tend to like minimalist UIs if they're not going to be perfect, so something like GTA4 is pretty nice for me. But when I actually care about being competitive, which is something I've only felt in an MMO, default UIs never hold up

please stop the bullshit

[unity100]

really, which game is that one you speak of ?

the aoc im playing knocks the socks off of any other mmo in graphics, detail and setting.

Re:

[Cheeko]

Are you judging that off beta or release? While I didn't think beta was that bad, I was amazed at how much better the release client is. They definitely held back in beta.

Fancy MMO's MEH...

[hyperz69]

Give me my Red Dragon and Exiled. The old BBS days. We had Ansi Colored Text... and we LIKED IT like that.

Re:

[oodaloop]

You and your fancy colored text. Back in my day we had Pong!

Re:

[Yvan256]

You and your fancy electronic ping-pong. Back in my day we had board games!

Re:

[Digestromath]

You and your fancy 'board games', back in my day we used to sit around the fire and tell stories, just waiting to die at age 20 from any number of diseases, predators or starvation.

Greetings!

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new Barbarian Overlords!

Linux and Mac compatible??

[Foofoobar]

I dumped City of Heroes after I got my MAC. I was tired of having to log out of Linux to play COH and decided I was just going to dump it entirely and just install WOW on my Mac. I can also play it on Linux via Cedega/WINE really well. Yes this is maybe 10% of the desktop market total but WOW caters to it and as a result is the dominant MORPG for Linux and MAC players. Windows players have a million options to choose from for MORPG's and tons of people fighting for their dollars while 40% of college students are all purchasing Macs and nobody is fighting for this disposable income market.

Seems like someone other than Blizzard would see the wisdom in supporting OpenGL and this expanding market

AoC has come a long way in just the last two weeks

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of the complaints about the client, animations, and performance have been resolved in just the last few weeks of the beta. The difference in performance is astounding.

There are many players using mid-range to even lower range systems that are getting very decent performance with the client. As with any MMO of course there are bugs, and as with any MMO they will be corrected in time.

If you haven't actually played the game in the last week of beta or as part of the early access then whatever opinion you have about it is most likely based on very flawed and incorrect information.

I think WoW will be many peoples last MMO game...

[bleh-of-the-huns]

I know this was a factor for myself, atleast in the late 20's early 30's age category.

I played EQ for 7+ years from early beta, I played EQ2 for abit too, but ended up playing DAoC for abit before moving to WoW. I spend years, thousands of hours, played in the lead horde guild for that time, and got completely burnt out just before the first expansion pack came along.. with multi characters all at level 60....

Once I quit, I have not started a new game, and do not plan to, and I am sure I am not the only one... Those of us who started playing in our late teens early 20's, have probably had enough, especially those of us who finally have families or significant others who demand our attentions, and real life things like going out, playing sports (I mountain Bike) and hobbies (I woodwork), I would just not have time for a game, hell I barely play my Wii or Xbox (original) anymore, I just do not have the time.

Re:I think WoW will be many peoples last MMO game.

[Ephemeriis]

I know this was a factor for myself, atleast in the late 20's early 30's age category.

I played EQ for 7+ years from early beta, I played EQ2 for abit too, but ended up playing DAoC for abit before moving to WoW. I spend years, thousands of hours, played in the lead horde guild for that time, and got completely burnt out just before the first expansion pack came along.. with multi characters all at level 60....

Once I quit, I have not started a new game, and do not plan to, and I am sure I am not the only one... Those of us who started playing in our late teens early 20's, have probably had enough, especially those of us who finally have families or significant others who demand our attentions, and real life things like going out, playing sports (I mountain Bike) and hobbies (I woodwork), I would just not have time for a game, hell I barely play my Wii or Xbox (original) anymore, I just do not have the time.

WoW will also be many people's first MMOG. Sure, there are folks like you (and me) who started playing these things a few years back and don't really have the time anymore because of friends/family/work/whatever. But there are also plenty of people who are just now entering their 20's and 30's and have plenty of time to spend on MMOGs.

What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

OK, I downloaded the trial of World of Warcraft a few days ago to see what all the fuss is about. The game seems to work as thus:

1. You see a mob walking around.
2. You right click on it, you fire a few arrows at it, it runs towards you, you automatically fight it.
3. It dies, you get some xp.
4. Do it a few more times and level.
5. Goto 1.

I got up to level 6, and that seems to be all the game really has. You get more powerful with each level, and better equipment, and can fight more dangerous things, but the game's still exactly the same. Instead of clicking on a level 1 boar, you click on a level 6 scorpion or something. Does it actually get more fun when you get to the really high levels? The combat system is awful, worse than Golden Axe which is like twenty years old. All this modern technology and it's like playing an old text-based MUD: "you hit the boar for 10 points of damage, the boar hits you for 5 points of damage etc."

It's very slow walking around, and there isn't much of interest to look at. There are a couple of small villages, some dirt tracks, and not much else.

Quests seem to be either:
1. Kill ten things, bring its drops back.
2. Carry something from one place to another.

Apparently this is the greatest ever MMO, ten million players, bigger than Jesus etc. and I was completely underwhelmed. The graphics are pretty uninspiring, the world is a bland orange with no real features or vegetation: you sort of expect roadrunner to go past at any moment. NPCs just stand around doing nothing other than giving you quests, other players don't even talk to you, it's like playing a single player game.

I tried Everquest 2, which is pretty much exactly the same game but with better graphics and a worse interface. Are all MMOs like this? If so I really don't see why they carry so much interest.

Re:

[mdm-adph]

I gather from your post you experienced all of this alone, right?

The joy of an MMO is, believe it or not, playing with other people. If you find a good group of people to hang around with, it can be an absolute blast. I seriously don't care what the game looks like -- I've met so many interesting people from all around the world through MMO's like WoW, and I wouldn't trade that social interaction for all the fancy DX10 LEET HD BLOOM effects in the world.

Re:

[immcintosh]

Translation: Yes, that's all there is to the game, but you get to do it all with other people.

Re:

[morari]

Yep!

That ridiculously boring combat system is the main thorn in every MMO's side. Clicking an enemy only to watch as you automatically take turns attacking is not fun or interactive in the least bit.

Age of Conan does seem to want to rectify this to some extent. How well it turns out is anyone's guess though.

Re:

[Endo13]

Congrats, you played an Orc hunter to level 6. That's like reading the title on the cover of a music CD and deciding you know all about their music and that it sucks.

Re:

[Endo13]

Whoops, sorry for mistakenly assuming your hunter was an Orc. Clearly it was a Troll.

Re:

[paitre]

Sounds to me like you started off as an Orc or Troll.

Their starting area (Durotar) is -deliberately- barren - it's supposed to be. The Orcs were driven into one of the more desolate parts of the world after the second war, since it was about the only place they could find some peace and quiet.
If you want cool shiny graphics and lots of eye candy, start off with a Blood Elf. Even the Tauren area is pretty neat (but then, I -really- dig the American Indian 'flavor' to the lore around that race).

But that all s

Re:

[Kildjean]

The main appeal of a game like World of Warcraft is the story behind every nook, character or issue in the game. Back when wow was just "the old world" it was a different blend of graphics, an interesting story that by the time you get to lvl 70, you see why the alliance is fighting the horde and why the horde is not at all that much "evil". I play a game for the story and background it had. Vanguard had all the uuuuh ooooh ahhh a game can have... better graphics, a world so huge you would get lost... in

Re:

[Colonel Korn]

Lots of your comments are spot on, but the game really does get better. The biggest complaint you seem to have is that you right click and auto-kill things. At more advanced levels of the game, you might use 10 special (manually activated) abilities in a single solo fight, some of them requiring very precise timing and contextual decision-making.

If your only goal is to level or finish a quest, you might use fewer abilities and not have to think, but if you somehow get into the game (I'm sort of baffled at

Re:

[brkello]

Yeah, if you read 10 pages a book and stop you probably won't get it either. The first part of the game starts very slow for casual people to get the hang of playing. Getting to level 6 takes about an hour so you really don't have much of an idea what is going on after playing so little. The higher level you get, the more skills your learn and the more interesting combat becomes. Some classes are more interesting than others and some suit different types of play styles.

I don't think everyone has to lik

Re:

[EQ]

Does it actually get more fun when you get to the really high levels? It's very slow walking around, and there isn't much of interest to look at. There are a couple of small villages, some dirt tracks, and not much else. Are all MMOs like this? If so I really don't see why they carry so much interest.

Its like sex.

Yeah, you can do it by yourself like you did. But its repetitive and boring, as you found out.

Its a lot more fun with someone else. Especially if they really know how to play well.

And you saw only the beginner area. You missed all the exciting advanced content, plus as you get better at it, its a lot more enjoyable. ;-)

Considering I can play WoW on a 6-yr-old laptop...

[mdm-adph]

...I don't think Blizzard has anything to worry about (1.7Mhz P4, 512MB RAM, 32MB Geforce 2 -- 20-30 FPS). WoW plays wonderfully on integrated video -- it's one of the few games that does.

Age of Conan Does Look Interesting...

[morari]

I don't like MMOs and never will. The very fact that I have to pay to play the games keeps me from caring. Outside of that however, I find that Age of Conan (in theory) fixes a lot of the problems inherent within popular MMOs. The most obvious of these problems being the ridiculously dumbeddown combat. Clicking on an enemy and watching as your character takes turns attacking it is not fun. I don't know how well Conan's system works, but real time, actual skill-based combat is sure a step in the right direction anyway you slice it.

Robert E. Howard's "Hyborian Age" is the perfect setting if done correctly. It certainly puts to shame all of the weak "high fantasy" out there. It's just a shame that it's being relegated to an MMO which may or may not even catch on with the population.

Re:

[Colonel Korn]

Lots of people complain about arena pvp, but it was always my favorite. I have a netherdrake on my defunct rogue from 3v3. This is another area where WoW does pretty well. There are 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 arena matches with serious in game rewards. The difference between 2s and 5s is huge. Then there's BG pvp, and then depending on server, open world pvp. BGs mostly killed that, though, which is a pity.

The Answer is No

[moore.dustin]

...and it is an emphatic No.

WoW brought non-gamers into the fray and can boast 10 million users as a direct result of tapping a new market of non-gamers(Non PC Gamers at least). Wow did not turn these people onto PC gaming on a larger scale though, it isn't opening doors for others genres (or games in this case) to get these users. These users playing WoW, that would have otherwise not be playing anything on a PC are, 1) Not looking for another a new PC game and more importantly 2) are still very happy with what WoW is giving them given the longevity of its sustained user base. If a company wishes to tap the same users that made WoW wildly successful, they have to earn it! Blizzard created its new market by drawing people to their game and other companies will have to do the same. The point here is that a company cannot just make a game and sell a bunch of copies early on and claim to be challenging WoW. Instead they have to start well, sustain growth AND THEN they may be able to draw the new coveted market Blizzard has cornered at present. Let us not forget that WoW did not really take off with the Average Joe for a good 12+ months after it went gold(at least).

These other games may get some of the gamers that knew the genre's(MMO) landscape before WoW and actually care to try other MMO's. They will not eat into WoW's new bread and butter - in fact, they are all just scurrying around for the crumbs.

Re:

[unity100]

Because the cult of Star Wars, which far far surpasses that of Conan, made SWG a huge success among the crowd in question right? The answer is no. Also, it is not a small fraction of 10 Million subscriptions, in fact Blizzard defines the term to avoid this confusion.

hahahahahaahahaaa.

well, actually the answer is YES, until soe screwed it over.

swg was stellar in the first 3-4 months, when it was filled with many sw fans. the atmosphere was so good that, i could just log in and wander around for hours, enjoying star wars atmosphere, created by that many fans in the game. (and im coming from starcraft background, note that, its hard for me to stay around without hard action).

then it started. in order to pull in people from other games, sony started to pour in cr

System Requirements Indicate WoW will Remain King

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I don't think it likely either of these will dethrone WoW. First, the system requirements for both seem to be missing the "midrange computer from two years ago" that is the normal target for mainstream games. As such, they're only hitting the relatively small "extreme gamer" market. Next, there is no support for the Mac, which cuts out 14% of the total US market and much more of the game buying market. Third, losing a small portion of the market because of requirements can lose you much bigger portions of the market because these are networked games. If just one person in a group of friends has a Mac or a lower end PC, the entire group may well decide to stick with WoW or some other game that they can all play (especially if that one player is the cute co-ed gamer in the dorm).

Really, there is nothing wrong with either of these games, but they just aren't targeted at the same demographic as WoW, or if they are they are very poorly targeted. Some day someone will come out with a WoW-killer but I don't think either of these are even viable candidates.

Re:System Requirements Indicate WoW will Remain Ki

[Uncle Focker]

First, the system requirements for both seem to be missing the "midrange computer from two years ago" that is the normal target for mainstream games.

Required OS: Windows Vista/XP Processor: 3GHz Pentium IV RAM: 1GB RAM Video Card: Shader Model 2.0 and 128MB RAM: NVIDIA GeForce 5800 or ATI 9800

Outside of the 1 GB Ram, the requirements are for hardware that is many years old at this point. The requirements don't even require a system from 2 years back. The CPU and Video cards they require them would have been old hat in a system back in 2003.

In the words of Conan on this development...

[Upaut]

CROOOOOOOOOM!!!

End Game...

[SoylentRed]

There are a few things I find myself hoping for in AoC.

1st - as I've gotten a bit older (Yay... 30 in a week... And yes I know - 30 isn't old... I said older...) I have far less time to play MMOs. From what I understand the leveling time in AoC (when compared to other MMOs) is far less to get to top level. (Last I heard from beta was about 3 days of /played time to get from first to last level... and this didn't change for release.)

2nd - raiding for me isn't an end game solution. Yeah - I played WoW -

Re:

[Skadet]

(And yes - I understand they system has changed now that BC is out and it is better - but what do you do...)

Let me emphatically tell you that it is NOT better.

I was in a Hyjal/BT guild for some time, and it's more of the same. When I first hit 70 and ground Kara over and over and over, I figured, "Man, Tier 6 content must be so much better and interesting than this stupid grind!!"

It's not.

It is EXACTLY the same, and generally BT (and Archi in Hyjal) is even harder -- as expected, but artificially so

Age of conan has been a blast

[unity100]

and still is. i got into early access and i can say that im gonna be in for a loooooooooong time. (forever, if they keep the in game content top notch in expansions, like they have done for launch). ive never been a fanboi of anything, ever. so you can read what i type below as the sincere experiences of a gaming veteran.

im an uo, swg, wow veteran. (not counting countless other brief stints like eve, potbs etc). though i enjoyed some or many aspects of all these games, none of them whacked my mind outta

This is what will kill WoW...

[Digital Vomit]

What will kill WoW, in the MMORPG market, is a game where much the content is generated three ways: carefully designed by the developers, randomly generated by the game, and created by the players themselves.

Imagine a game where you can design you own swords and armor, or build your own houses. Players can build their own cities, running markets and shops (perhaps the shopkeep can be one of their 'alts', or their player when they are not online) -- even set up their own questgivers (perhaps you need some number of rare items to build your own magic device). Toss in the random spawning of troll villages in the boonies, or brigands on well travelled roads, and combine that with an epic main storyline created by the game designers with the usual castles and quests.

Until we get a game with more dynamic content -- mainly, random and user generated -- I can't really see anything displacing WoW. That game just does to many things right, and not one of its competitors appears to be building on that.

Age of Conan

[initialE]

It says here [wikipedia.org] that Conan is 61. But then again it says here [wikipedia.org] that Conan is 45. So I guess I have to shell out a few bucks and play the game to find out what is the age of Conan.

Has anyone actually read a review of AOC? CRAP!

[plasmacutter]

from what I read, it's utter crap.

It certainly does not qualify as an RPG.

Particularly: it combines the twitchy experience of an fps with the annoyingly complex button combos of a fighting engine.

This game is for the CS/Halo3 crowd and the DOA version X crowd.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[loafula]

I bet your WoW toon is a Troll, too.

Re:

[Gorm the DBA]

You mean....you mean...you mean they prevented people from creating stand along copies of their work so that people could play the game without paying for it, using pirated copies?

ZOMG! They are the DEVIL!

Of course they shouldn't take appropriate action to make sure that people obey the licensing restrictions they agreed to when purchasing the product. That would be evil.

They wrote it, they are within their rights to say "No, we don't want you using it this way". You want to play a RTS that has mul

Re:

[Lunatrik]

> Blizzard does not allow mods like Valve does.

Additionally, you must be using a fairly narrow definition for "mods". I played a number of incredibly clever maps for both Starcraft and Warcraft 3 - while not total conversions like Valve allows for, I would certainly define some of the upper tier maps as "mods".
Not to say Blizzard isn't evil.. they nerfed my priest!

Re:

[Endo13]

You're absolutely right. I myself finally quit playing WoW, but it's a pretty safe bet they got 10 new subs at the same time to replace mine. Their number of subs is still increasing. Ten million and counting (if not 11 mil by now). I wish there were another better MMO coming soon to replace WoW, but there's not. Nothing anywhere on the radar will even make a dent. AoC and Warhammer will both have less than 500K subs at the end of this year, and WoW's number will still be going up as well.