Age of Conan Open Beta Writeup

[macroduo]

Age of Conan (http://www.ageofconan.com/)

The Age of Conan Open Beta began yesterday afternoon. I have been looking forward to this opportunity to test the game again so that I can further solidify my feelings about the game and determine once and for all if I will be playing AoC at release. It is my intention in this writeup to convey my true opinion on what I have experienced from levels 1-13 and then pass judgment on the parts of the game that I have played.

Article Source: Here

 

[Delameko]

I'm playing in the closed beta (I'm allowed to talk about now the open beta is out, right?).

I'm playing it via Bootcamped XP on my Jan 08 Mac Pro. Its smooth as anything for me, with only occassional pauses when entering a new area.

I had pre-ordered it, and I like it, but I cancelled my pre-order.

It looks nice, but I don't like all the loading screens, I don't like all the single player stuff (I'm assuming this gets less as the game goes on?) I've played 8 of my characters 12 levels in a solo instance.

I like the unique classes, but wish there was more races to pick (I know, this is limited by the Conan universe, but still), there's only three types of human.

Mostly it just doesn't seem as involved as I'd like it to be. Its like the success of WoW has made all MMO makers think they need simplify things. I'm not dissing WoW, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the simplified RPG experience that made it so popular.

I might play it for a month or two in about six months when all the bugs are ironed out - although I didn't see that many myself. Certainly less than the Vanguard beta. From the forums it seemed like a lot of Vista people were having trouble.

 

[macroduo]

yes, this one has too many places which is similar to WOW. hard to innovate in fantastic MMORPG field.

 

[Huntn]

Macroduo,
You mentioned your "PC" I just want to confirm what hardware you're playing on, if I missed it?

WoW was my second MMO after Planetside. Planetside is more of a shooter that I played for almost 2 years. WoW is my first and favorite fantasy based MMO, although I'm now retired after about 2 years of participation. I have played a variety of other MMOs such as Vanguard beta, Ryzom, LOTR Online beta, Sword of NewWorld beta, and Guild Wars.

You made a comparison to Guild Wars. I agree that instanced space greatly reduces immersion and that is why WoW remains my favorite as you could actually meet people out in the countryside and join up randomly, which is impossible in the first Guild Wars I tried. In Guild Wars, the towns were the meeting places and the countryside was instanced. Is this how AoC is?

You also mentioned single player. Would you say AoC is single player friendly?

And just how open is the AoC world? From the start I loved the open nature of WoW, where you can explore very large areas with hardly a screen load, including the transition from countryside to town.

Thanks!

 

[Delameko]

Macroduo,
In Guild Wars, the towns were the meeting places and the countryside was instanced. Is this how AoC is?

You also mentioned single player. Would you say AoC is single player friendly?

And just how open is the AoC world? From the start I loved the open nature of WoW, where you can explore very large areas with hardly a screen load, including the transition from countryside to town.

The areas are divided up, with a loading screen inbetween each. In beta the loading time is quite long, but its been promised by the devs that this was due to some caching that was removed or temporarily disabled or something. If it was significantly reduced I'd consider playing.

So far I've found it very single-player friendly. So much so that I forgot I was playing an MMO. They've even got single-player instances.

 

[Huntn]

The areas are divided up, with a loading screen inbetween each. In beta the loading time is quite long, but its been promised by the devs that this was due to some caching that was removed or temporarily disabled or something. If it was significantly reduced I'd consider playing.

So far I've found it very single-player friendly. So much so that I forgot I was playing an MMO. They've even got single-player instances.

If you could clarify the instanced areas- In Wow instances were specific areas like a cave or fort entrance with very large open common areas making up most of the landscape. In Guild Wars, instanced areas were everywhere outside of town depending on which exit you took. In essence GW was completely instanced. Where does AoC fall between them?
Thanks!

 

[Delameko]

If you could clarify the instanced areas- In Wow instances were specific areas like a cave or fort entrance with very large open common areas making up most of the landscape. In Guild Wars, instanced areas were everywhere outside of town depending on which exit you took. In essence GW was completely instanced. Where does AoC fall between them?
Thanks!

Not like Guild Wars, closer to WoW.

Early on you're in the city of Tortage during the day. You get a mission for Tortage at night - Tortage at night is a single-player instance of the city.

 

[Huntn]

Not like Guild Wars, closer to WoW.

Early on you're in the city of Tortage during the day. You get a mission for Tortage at night - Tortage at night is a single-player instance of the city.

Thanks for the info! I can see the value of single player instance for the game to provide a personal experience. Lord of the Rings Online had the same thing in the starting portion of the game.

 

[Dorfdad]

Anyone play this on an Imac in bootcamp with the Radeon 2600 Pro 256?

Will it play "GOOD" on this system or am I just wasting time...

 

[Huntn]

As posted on Arstechnia.com:
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

Recommended
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz (E6600) or better
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 or better
RAM: 2GB or more

Enhanced for: DirectX 10, 64-bit processors, multi-core
Supports Parental Controls on Windows Vista

 

[Sijmen]

Huntn, the 2600 is two generations newer than the 9800.

 

[Huntn]

Huntn, the 2600 is two generations newer than the 9800.

Oops... thanks for the correction. I corrected my post.