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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

um, have you looked at other parts of the world in WoW? It seems you are making a judgment on once very tiny part of the game? level 6 is all you went to? That can be done in like what an hour? I think before you trash a game you actually look at more of it then one small area.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[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:WoW's peaked.

[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.

[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 Internet swords motif, there are several free-to-play MMOs available.

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.