Age of Conan "the best-looking" MMO

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 6 July, 2011

"But it comes at a cost," admits Funcom.

Norwegian developer Funcom reckons Age of Conan is the "best-looking" MMO.

But, according to game director Craig Morrison, Age of Conan's good looks come at a cost.

"Our engine is a more fully featured and uses the latest graphics technology," he told Eurogamer.

"We're very proud of the fact we have the best-looking game in the MMO space. We're quite proud of that. There are very few games that can compete with us graphically.

"But it does come at a cost. Not as many machines can necessarily play the game on the settings players would like. They see the videos and would like to play it on the same. A player might not always be able to depending on the hardware they have."

That may be the reason, Morrison said, some players endure stability problems and suffer game crashes.

"Players don't like starting a game on low graphics settings," he continued. "They want to see the cool stuff and they want to play the game on the settings we intend and beyond. Their machine is not necessarily capable of playing it.

"We do know that we have that challenge. Not as many machines can play our games as some of the older titles that are more casually focused to try and reach as many people as possible."

Age of Conan this month went free-to-play and re-branded as Age of Conan: Unchained.

Free-to-play members of Age of Conan get a choice of four character classes and two character slots. Bank space, adventure zones, dungeons, raids and mount training are limited. Sieges, alternative advancement, offline levels and veteran points are unavailable.

A premium subscription unlocks all the content. This costs €12.95 a month.

Age of Conan, then, looks pretty good for a free-to-play MMO. And Morrison believes this will keep it relevant for years to come.

"MMOs are a long-term project. For the first few years of its existence Age of Conan was always going to be very high spec.

"But it won't look as dated in five or six years' time as a game that's aiming broader right now will, which will hopefully give it the ability to stick around longer in the market and still be viable for many, many years to come."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (27) Latest comment 11 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • berelain #1 11 months ago

    In fairness, it does look awesome, even today.

    Actually enjoying the game rather a lot since I went back to it.

  • riceNpea #2 11 months ago

    it came at a cost. it was crap.

  • Shikasama #3 11 months ago

    Whats the 'alternative advancement' its the article mentions?

  • iokthemonkey #4 11 months ago

    In other words, it's not our fault we can't code a stable game...

    I have a pretty decent machine that can run the likes of LOTRO on the highest settings with a very solid 60-100 FPS. I have AoC's settings lowered and it still crashes. Sometimes not even mid-game either but during loads. And every time I exit and start the game again, somehow the data gets corrupted and needs checking...

  • kickerconspiracy #5 11 months ago

    Please get Funcom to make a sequel to Dreamfall.

  • jimr9999us #6 11 months ago

    iok, you can't seriously be comparing lotro's graphics to AoC? I love both games, but that's like comparing Paper Mario to Crysis.

  • thebuzzard #7 11 months ago

    Odd, I tried conan again the other day and I dont think it has aged well.

  • strangerism #8 11 months ago

    people have thrown a lot of senseless comments about this game, it didn't deserved to be honest. I am one who played the game since the start (on and off) and always had fun, bearing in mind that is a combat focused game and that's it. Over time it gets tedious especially when u get at the end game, but what mmo is not boring at that point? Don't tell me WOW is not once you reach max level, when do all the time the same grinding raiding etc. Tomorrow it will launch the new PVP server Blood and Gory, where pvp will be more free to another degree, no more guards and many other things to make it more harsh. To people that says game has no content, well its a pvp game the only content you need is more heads to roll.

  • Benno #9 11 months ago

    Its really not, I was playing it yesterday and it looked above average at best.

  • butler` #10 11 months ago

    a pvp game where the pvp was fucking terrible, as i remember, though i'm not sure how it's improved since launch

  • actionfitz #11 11 months ago

    "Age of Conan's good looks come at a cost."

    he's not wrong.
    one look at the prices on the in game store... fuck me blind.
    They could learn allot from Turbine about not being so fucking cynically greedy.
    LOTRO does F2P right. Funcom have been failing at this whole MMO malarcky quite spectacularly fro over 3 years now.

  • Gitsmith #12 11 months ago

    Rift: looks better, and plays better.

  • iokthemonkey #13 11 months ago

    iok, you can't seriously be comparing lotro's graphics to AoC? I love both games, but that's like comparing Paper Mario to Crysis.

    ----

    No, I'm just saying I can play LOTRO (which IMO is a better MMO) with all of ITS detail on full.

    As for the crashes being due to ''machine stresses'' I've just had the game lock into a perma-loop of death, simply because a monster ran out of a tomb, killed an NPC and then didn't reset itself properly, instead going into a continual to-and-fro from two movement points... I had to turn-off the computer to exit. Not good.

  • Kostabi #14 11 months ago

    Pushing the graphics to the upper end of the PC range (at the time) was one of the many mistakes they made with Conan. Limiting the ability to run a game that depends on mass appeal to be successful never struck me as the smartest move.

    They really should have launched Anarchy Online 2 instead of squeezing out yet another fantasy MMO, at least that might have stood a chance with people wanting a change of scenery.

  • Meto #15 11 months ago

    It's a fun game, it looks amazing, and it has a soul. It just has a few playability issues in it (for example traveling).

    Rift has no soul.

  • hobojebus #16 11 months ago

    I havent played this in years so it may have improved but i played the first month and that was enough to ensure i'd never return to this game.

    It was made of fail and lies right from the start and its no wonder we left in droves.

  • Jon1292 #17 11 months ago

    As awesome as it looks, generic fantasy world art style makes the graphics look dated.

  • Atropos #18 11 months ago

    @iokthemonkey

    So you're playing AoC still though? I thought you hated it more than I hate mayonaisse?

  • levitate #19 11 months ago

    iok: don't tell me you returned to AOC after all the vitriol you've blessed us with here over the years.

  • scoop #20 11 months ago

    It's a great looking game, but there are elements which are strangely out of place - the UI hasn't been updated in a long time... not the icons and general interface so much, as the inventory graphics, which are extremely sub-par (they remind me of EQ1).

    I have to agree about the store, it hasn't been thought out very well and seem to just annoy people. Turbine have done a pretty good job, though it's easy to forget they've had the benefit of time to get it right.

    The only problem with AOC is that it doesn't feel like something you can commit to. A great game, but Funcom lack that "big company big vision" thing... they're not very forthcoming with their plans, and don't engage the community very well; and they come across as defensive when they do try to get involved.

  • iokthemonkey #21 11 months ago

    I am indeed playing AoC. But before you get too excited:

    A) It's free
    B) I have nothing else to play right now (long story short but we had an expensive Disney vacation that also included paying for car repairs after we had a high-speed blowout en route, so I either play nothing or play something for free)
    C) LOTRO won't be getting any new content for a couple of months yet
    D) I want to see if they fixed the post-Tortage stuff
    E) It's still got a lot of niggling bugs in it
    F) I still think the combat is just a gimmick and the game seems pretty shallow

    I can't say if it's any better than it was, given that I'm still stuck in the same - admittedly well-done - tutorial/newbie zone. We'll see whether Funcom has indeed improved the game when I leave there, probably in another week or so at the rate I'm playing...

  • ircaddicts #22 11 months ago

    Guild Wars 1, 2 and Lotro would like to have a word with you. As they are ALL better looking

  • iokthemonkey #23 11 months ago

    Guild Wars 1, 2 and Lotro would like to have a word with you. As they are ALL better looking

    ----

    I think ''technically'' AoC has a more powerful graphics engine but I think LOTRO and GW have better art direction.

  • levitate #24 11 months ago

    iok: in some way I am very disappointed in you. At the same time it warms my cold heart that someone who hated something with such fiery passion, with such benevolence and utter disgust, could succumb to it in the end. Just to see if things have changed. Aaah, how I love dysfunctional relationships...

    ..But that's not what we should be talking about right now. Is the game worth trying again? Just because a game is free doesn't mean it should be played. The restrictions set onto freegamers, are they very intrusive?

  • iokthemonkey #25 11 months ago

    I'm perfectly willing to give it another chance but I'm still finding more fault than fun with a lot of it. The combat balance is still off (some quests are super-easy and then BAM! you get jumped by a dozen mobs), the combat itself is still not as smart or strategic as it thinks it is (simplistic button bashing based on where you want to hit your enemy), there are loads of UI bugs and niggles (stances not showing up, the quest guide is bugged to hell, animations are out of synch, you can scale walls through the ground, etc) and there's a real feeling of it being held together with string and prayer.

    It's hard to say how much has improved. All I've noticed is the item stats are now more inline with what you'd expect (i.e. they actually do something) and I'm still trying to work out if they've fixed the progression curve. Previously you'd hit massive lulls post Tortage and I'm just about at that stage now. I'll let you know.

    As for the limitations, the biggest is the class restrictions - only four and they're also dependent on racial background.

    With regard to my hatred, I felt robbed, as I shelled-out close to 100 quid playing an unfinished, bug-ridden crapfest. Now it's free it's at least easier to stomach the shitty coding, memory leaks and random crashes.

  • iokthemonkey #26 11 months ago

    I have to report that AoC is as punishing to play as it was before.

    There are simply too many quests that are too hard to solo (even though they're supposed to be single-player quests) and you'll spend a lot of time dying. It reminds me of playing EverQuest and the game seems to revel in making life difficult for you. There's also a feeling throughout that you're weak - not wary, but weak, as if you're about five levels lower than you really are. MMOs are supposed to make you the hero and whilst nobody expects to be slaying dragons at Level 1, it's off-putting to find yourself dying repeatedly (and easily) at the hands a few on-level mobs.

  • iokthemonkey #27 11 months ago

    Ha! I got neg-repped. I guess that's because I'm a know-nothing care bear.

    Oh and the community is full of anuses, too. Don't play as a female unless you want to be constantly asked to show off your tits.