Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Review

Fair. Still not willing to give any more time to MMORPG's at the moment, but seems like they've done a decent job at least.

Let's hope it sticks around then. Variety is the spice of life.

Rating pretty much echo's my opinion, the game has loads of promise but the GUI is letting it down all over the place. If FunCom can get that sorted then it'll be great.

Fair review.

EG; as this games been out a while, can't we get in-game screenshots which show actul gameplay and UI rather than PR shots?

an 8 Fahey?

you been drinking the halo 3'erade again?

so this pos scored the same as MGS?

I tried all the archtypes, before finally sticking to the demonologist class, gave up at 37, real innovative combat, melee does the head in and caster gameplay consists of using 2 buttons over and over and over again

yeah I can really see why this game was worth an 8 (but MGS was O SO broken and O SO fractured, friggin EG reviews...)

Same score as MGS4? I can't believe they're saying it's the same genre, amount of fun, cost, graphics, main characters, levels, controls... plus some other fanboy gibbering of someone who didn't read the review. Sorry, couldn't resist :P

Seriously, if it offers the usual free weeks trial I'd probably give it a go, then realise my machines pathetic and I'm overreaching my poor PC, and go back to WoW with the new level for obtaining a mount. The combat in particular sounds great, although I think I'd be awful at it.

Sold!

one bug bear about the review
'Even one of Conan's strongest points could be an Achilles' Heel of sorts - the intense nature of combat means that this isn't a game you can play with one eye on something else, as you can with levelling, gathering or doing daily quests in WOW.'

Tell me why this is bad? Imagine the latest game from MS or Sony didn't require you to look at the screen? Imagine a review of halo, or GT5 - 'Yea its great, you can watch tv while you play it'.

Anyway, can't wait to get t'internet back and get stuck in

This review is a fucking disgrace.

This game deserves no more than a 5/10.

Way to earn your advertising dollars lads.

*Edit* I'll leave it unedited because it describes my initial reaction on seeing the score, but it does sound a bit personal in retrospect. Apologies for that, but I stand by the 'aghast' reaction.

Gaol, is it that bad?

Trust me, with Euro 2008 getting very exciting, trying to level up in this game while watching the football is a pain in the arse!

But yes, a completely daft excuse for an Achilles' Heel.

The game is extremely broken in many places and they're slow to fix the quest bugs. In fact, they still havent fixed some major quest bugs. However they are updating stuff all the time and the game is already evolving despite only being out a month.

The bloke in the first screenie seems to be fighting Spider Jerusalem. Weird.

5/10 sounds about right, the grafics engine and sound etc deserves some credit, but it ends there

Some quick notes about Conan as I'm at work:

- Half the abilituies do the same shit
- The combat is mindless simon-says input - its appalling. They've replaced auto attack with 'press the sequence of buttons to do more damage'
- Classes are ill defined and broken
- PVP is a joke
- The world is a horrible instanced collection of levels
- Immersion is sorely lacking
- The upper levels have little ciontent
- There is only one newbie area, Toratage
- Tortage is a non-descript village with a mind numbingly dull quest line
- Poor community features
- No reason to group
- Crafting sucks ass
- Artistically its just horrible

This game does little of the things you expect of a good mmorpg.

Blimey some people are really bitter about the MGS score.

@Goal

Jesus man, what did conan do you? Break into your house and kill your dog?

you sound like you hate it:)

I hate horribly inaccurate games journalism more.

There won't be many playing this after the free period, its a very limited game. The review here treats it as a one player rpg which is allowed to be shit because it declares itself an mmorpg.

It doesn't even have basic grouping dynamics worked out, something we've had since frickin Everquest.

@lennon

it's not only the MGS score

this game just isn't worth an 8, if it's so hard to score points on EG... how on earth can this one get an 8? maybe it really does have something to do with this "click to buy now" banner...

just ask the people who played it, people quitting all over the place (like I did after three weeks...)

erm. tortage was always the `entry` point for the game, to help u learn how to play it etc.. if you've not left tortage then you havent started playing the game properly, so complaining about `high end` stuff means ya just repeating other peoples comments as your own

@anomagus

I think Conan came into his room as he was levelling up on WOW pulled the plug on the PC, took a dump on his keyboard and mouse - can't think of any other reason why it would deserve the 'outrage' of a comment like "this review is a fucking disgrace", unless a game review warrants such a reaction? I mean it doesn't, does it?

Do you want a hug Gaol?

@koji_m - But its only an opinion. Having been playing MGS 4 this week I can appreciate the score EG gave it. Its very good but not great. I just dont see the point in getting all frothed up about a number.

Dont listen to Gaol, he's very biased as we found in the official thread. Somethings fishy.

6/10 from me.
Stable engine?? No no no no no no. This game famously crashes on most PCs within half an hour of playing with the now famous 'out of memory' error. First your mini-map will gray out, then your main map, then your framerate then BOOM, yer out....check out the AoC forums which are afire with punters bemoaning this.
My character is a credible lvl 46 atm, 2 grouping only to take out bosses when need be. And 6 grouping for the instance which are set at the end of each 10 levels, ie lvl 29-30 (Fortress) and 39-40 (Temple of Burning Souls)
I was unaware the STR stats i've been choosing my gear upon doesn't actually do anything. This is most annoying.

There is nothing to see here, move along. Come back later.

"On the class front, Funcom seems to have got most of the balance right from the outset."

...which must be why everyone is re-rolling casters for the PvP game, right?

The in-game economy?
- There's an exploit where some mini-bosses are dropping far too much gold - the code divides the gold up between the number of players in group 1 rather than the raid as a whole, resulting in everyone in the raid getting a lot more money if they put just one person in the first group. Funcom's fix is to delete all posts about this in the forums.
- The game is very susceptible to bot farming. Resource nodes restock 10% every few minutes, so just park a bot by the node and set it to right click every 10 minutes. Don't worry, the game is bugged so that you bot doesn't get attacked, you can leave it there all day long. Plus if two people click the same node when there's only one resource to gather, both get one. If ten people click the same node, all ten get one. If twenty bots are set to click the same node 24/7, bye-bye economy...

Bugs like this have been in for a long long time. Weapon stats have never done anything since beta began. While Funcom deserve praise for fixing most of the graphical glitches that pagued beta, the fundamentals of the game remain weak. Of course if you thought Tabula Rasa was a decent MMO then you're probably frothing at the mouth over AoC.

@ lennon

haha, true true

I'll take some chill pills and let this one sink in a bit ;-)

maybe they just need to stop putting numbers at the end of reviews alltogether

Wow, 8? 6 or 7 from me, not more.

Graphics are good, animations quite poor. Plus, the graphics engine and the servers can't handle more than 20 vs 20 people fighting at the same time in the same zone, when they promised 200 vs 200 battles (what a laugh, now).

Gameplay is interesting at first, but the whole combo system gets soooooooooooo tiring over time. Instead of pressing 5 to unleash a special attack or power, you have to press 5 + two or three arrows in a specified order, and it's always the same pattern.

The world is terribly small, one of the smallest ever. Moreover, the game uses instances a lot. Go to the next area, loading screen, instance (limited to a hundred-ish players). Enter a house, loading screen and instance. Enter a cave, instance. Etc, etc... You die, loading screen, even if the resurrection point is 2 feet away from you!

Gaol's summary of AoC is absolutely on the money.

It's a very boring MMO to play, and very dull to look at. I got to level 22 and frankly have no desire to put myself through any more of the tedium to level further.

Even though I quit raiding on WoW I can't stop playing. It's fun. Funcom's MMO is definitely not fun.


Also, SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT THE STUPID FUCKING MGS SCORE. It's an 8 now get the fuck over it.

yeah well if you want to play "hard-ball" with your scoring you have to be consistent

how do people get to lvl 22 ish and think they know the game? You have no idea of the pros and the cons of later level play. Lvl 1-20 is pretty much solo play anyway.

One of the things that killed the immersion for me was the incredibly slow spawn rate for quest items. Need to pick up 6 crates for your quest? There are exactly 6 of them in the whole world, and when someone else picks it up expect about 10 minutes of waiting before they respawn, followed by a mad rush to get to them first.

Very slow respawn of mobs is also an issue.

Doesn't ever feel like an actual world at any point, since travel from one place to another is instant and featureless.

The combat system is great for a while, but now I'm bored with it.

On the plus side - boobs.

I've played this game since launch and I think the review is pretty accurate, The tortage storyline is actually really good - and it is less buggy than lotro at launch - i think gaol must be playing a different game to me (if he's played it at all) - for anyone who has played any mmorpg I'd recommend giving it a try even if you dont subscribe i think you get your 30 quids worth with the first 20 levels

pah. if this was miyazake's "future boy conan" then i'd be interested.

Hypercubes post is innacurate, bordering on a lie.

What does kill the immersion is the series of instances.

"how do people get to lvl 22 ish and think they know the game?"

I've played enough to know the combat is boring, the graphics are dull, the overinstancing ruins immersion, the quests are poorly laid out, etc, etc..

Why would I want to continue? 22 levels is more than enough to make my mind up about the game. It's boring.

This game is broken as hell. I played it. Was pretty disgusted with the awful UI and the myriad bugs. It seems it's ok to release a broken game as long as it's an MMO because 'oh it'll get fixed down the line'. Bollocks to that. I mean there aren't a few bugs here and there, where the game isn't flat-out broken it's just bad. The interface is seven shades of awful, you can't even see group members on the map. There is some meat to the gameplay but until they completely overhaul the interface and fix all the bugs, do not bother.

MGS4 will never "be an 8". One of EGs reviewers thought so, just. Fair enough. Ive got friends who would give it a 3! Doesnt change my opinion about it. Best thing ive played since Galaxy or HL2. Or MGS2.

Anyhoo..about Conan. Im with Gael. When will people begin to rate MMOs on the same grounds as other games?
Seems like just becouse its an MMO, you get an extra +2 for the effort and hard work or some bullshit like that.

Oh, the combat sucks? The classes aswell? Crashes? Artistically mediocre? Jeez, its an MMO for gods sake! Cut em some slack! Bam 8/10.

Atleast there aint no 60min cut-scenes! Those things will grant you a -1 by default. BEGONE UNPLAYABLE PIECE OF ****.

Nothing 'fishy' about my opinion, I played till the 30s and am just calling it as I see it. Erinan sums up the combat nicely.

8/10 for such a broken product is frankly disgraceful. I'm not disputing other folks right to enjoy it, hell some people even liked Vanguard. It takes all sorts. But any journalist worth their salt should see that almost every aspect of this game is deeply flawed.

Meh as the review says the beginning of the game is fun even with the crappy game engine (my pc even exceeds the recommended settings, but quests gets dull and repetitive after level 20-30. Also Stygia is the only place with a bit of atmosphere at least with my settings. I am not subscribing might be back later if they get more content in and patch the game engine.

I have to agree with the comment "If you're gonna play hardball with the scores, be consistent." An 8 for this is EXTREMELY generous, an 8 for MGS4 is just cynical. I can't put it any other way. That game does things that are completely unique and amazing, this does not. Conan right now is a 5/10 at most.

Why didnt Oli review this btw? Thought he was the guy into MMOs, no? Or am I mistaken?

That pic of Conan on the front page looks more like Xena without makeup on.

haha this sounds hilariously awesome :D

dudefella:

An 8 for MGS4 generates pagehits.
An accurate score for Conan does not.
Simple logic.

Wish EG could go back to the way it was a few years ago. Ie, not full of shit.
Oh, and can we just get Ellie here please? Ellie, review more games ffs. Relevant games. Double shifts now pl0x.

Really surprised by this 8 from EG of all publications. AOC is a 7, albeit a strong one, IMO. The odd thing is that the tone of your review is almost entirely reminiscent of a 7, too :\

@dudefella/krelle/gaol

I think you've all hit upon a really good point actually, are reviewers giving MMO's more benefit of the doubt? Answer, probably.

If a game is broken upon release it is going to be (rightly) slated, however because an MMO is always going to be patched, tweaked etc, then it's 'okay as it'll be fixed along the way' which is not the point. If the review clearly stated the score and then added a 'this score is representative of future patches/fixes etc' then perhaps that's more fair?

Hypercubes post is innacurate, bordering on a lie.

Duh, no it's not. I've been playing the game nearly every day since release, in the Stygian desert area with my HoX I was waiting ages to get some crates, along with a bunch of other people. The scorpions that needed to be killed for an item were wiped out by a previous player and the respawn rate was glacial.

So, I say to you - where is the lie? These are my experiences in the game. I've got nothing to gain from not telling the truth. So instead of slandering me, why not try and show the plus points of the game?

@ gaol
'But any journalist worth their salt should see that almost every aspect of this game is deeply flawed.'

what you mean is any journalist worth their salt agrees with my opinion - whereas rob has spend his time to debate the pro's and cons all you have done is posted a rant list with such eloquent posts as 'Half the abilituies do the same shit '

there are a lot of bugs but the underlying game is good fun, there was nothing there that made me want to switch my machine off, if the quest didnt work i just went off on another one, and the combat is much more interesting than the point and click of wow, sure it may be 3 button presses instead of 1 but it still seems a step forward especially after lotro which i quit after getting bored of the same button presses for every mob i encountered

as for the comparisons scorewise to mgs4 surely mmorpgs need to be judged alongside other games of the same ilk, so getting an 8 maybe easier than and 8 for a crowded market such as Racing games for example

overall i think the review is fair - and that the xbox 360 version of conan will be very interesting

Yeah, I mean this score is no way based on the game in its current state, they are scoring potential, an ethereal entity, which is absolutely ridiculous. Imagine if this was a single player RPG, and +str stats and mounts didn't work at all. Would that get an 8? Of course not, it's ridiculous that this gets a free pass because it's an MMO.

Gaol isn't that spot on the money;

"Half the abilituies do the same shit"

Classes of the same archetype will obviously have the same base ability sets. The four archetypes vary drastically between each other.

”The combat is mindless simon-says input”

No. Its not. Mobs change their defensive stance depending on where you repeatedly hit them. This then opens it up to abilities, which may have a multiple sequence to initialise it. In wow you press a button and get a result - no brainer, a trained monkey could do that. In Conan it requires you to pay attention, otherwise you lose the combo, it goes into cool down and you have to wait till it comes online again. That can mean the difference of life or death.

”Classes are ill defined and broken”

They certainly aren’t ill defined. You have the option of one of four archetypes. Healer, Dps, tanks and nukers. That’s the basic setup for any mmo afaik. Now the three sub-divisions make it more interesting as then you start having defensive priests and offensive priests etc. But that’s exactly how wow does it. Conan actually makes it more interesting by making the classes good at stuff that is typically outside their roles in other MMOs. For Example, the aforementioned HoX (my class) which is essentially a melee-based mage.

”PVP is a joke”

I guess that’s just one person’s opinion. The little I’ve engaged in PVP (usually as self-defence) I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve been able to counter, use abilities, fight and kill my opponents.

”The world is a horrible instanced collection of levels”

I agree to this. It’s a shame to have such an immersive experience soiled by instancing to this extent. I didn’t mind it in tortage, as it was mostly going between day and night, but now in the open world every location is disjointed. One minute you’re in a city, the next BAM, a desert. Or a mountain range. The sense of travelling is virtually non-existant. No waiting for boats and chatting with other ppl. None of that “I have to travel THAT far?” . No real sense of discovery or exploration. Its like every zone is a big square sandpit.

” Immersion is sorely lacking”

is it really? Every quest is fully voiced up to 20. Sneaking around at night is exactly as you’d expect. NPCs behave differently to one another. Tombs and crypts feel eerie and forgotten. If you can be immersed in this world then it isn’t the right world for you.

”The upper levels have little ciontent “
Agreed. But then ive not really had the chance to experience much past 35. So far there is plenty to do and plenty to see. Wow had very little content past 50 when it launched. No UBRS no raid content. People hit the cap too fast and people complained. Every mmo that has been created suffer from this, and every mmo that will be created from now on will suffer from this. And there will never be a way to solve it. There has to be a point when an mmo has to be released, but the beauty of mmo’s is that they are allowed to grow with their community, and conan is no different to that.

”There is only one newbie area, Toratage”

That’s a negative?!? Ok then – how about a different story line for each of the archetypes? WoW might have 4 areas, but this has 4 points of view on the same storyline so that you get the complete storyline. I think this is a better approach for “immersion”


“Tortage is a non-descript village with a mind numbingly dull quest line”

Matter of opinion. If you found that storyline mind-numbing never ever play wow with its “I need 5 wolftails for no apparent reason” quests. Yes Conan has these but at least they are narrated well. Tortage is filled with little stories about things happening on the mainland, of things that will fill you with wonders if you ever manage to get off the island.

“Poor community features”

That’s a little too vague?

No reason to group
No reason? The game gives you heroic content right from the go! A lot of the quests are not soloable. It might be easy enough to not bother with the group quests and still get to 20 and leave tortage, but wheres the fun in that? Theres more risk for doing a group quest, you get better rewards and its ultimately more fun to play in a group.

”Crafting sucks ass”

yes.

”Artistically its just horrible”

It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t think points like this are ever valid. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. I personally love the more realistic style of this game, but even though it has a more realistic feel, some of the architecture has a more whimsical feel to it that is very in keeping with a fantasy world. Spires twist, statues stand hundreds of feet tall and they all still sit well in this world.

mikeck:
Exactly. EG probably tried to adress this problem by not reviewing the game at release, but a month later (when some patches would be in place). But, it seems like they still went into the trap of scoring the game as it "would had been" if every problem had been fixed already. Just, that their not. ;c