Since my pc lacks the power to play AOC in all its glory I am forced to put it on the backburner. Its not that I dont think aoc is a fun game or would look great on a new machine. Its just that in order for me to justify a $1000 dollar upgrade, the game has to do more than be just a pretty face.
It has to be a keeper.
Granted, not knowing first hand is a handicap. But having read countless forum post's, video reviews and blogs. I have come to the conclusion that while AOC may not be perfect, it is definately a fun game that many will enjoy.
While the general opinion seems to be that itemization and end game content are not finished. For a casual gamer like myself this is a non issue. Basically, what it comes down to is economics. Cold - hard - cash.
How do you define a games fun level, is it worth $1000 dollars? Is the amount of fun I can gain from AOC worth that much of an upgrade? For me, the answer is "NO".
For me to upgrade to that extreme 1 of 2 things has to happen.
1. The game has to be considered the "second coming" a "must buy" a "10" ala GTA4. (which I will prolly be getting a ps3 and this instead of my new rig)
Thats not the feeling I get from Aoc posts and forums... the feeling I get is its a good game with the potential to be great. That the game is still fun, even though it has not yet delivered on all its promises. It's not even shipping with DX10(I always thought those aoc dx10 screenshots looked a little iffy!)
Or the second thing is
2. My system can no longer play any and all new and upcoming games.
Those are the conditions I look for, and unfortunately AOC just doesnt fit the bill right now. I still play cod4 on a regular basis and enjoy it.
Before I heard about AOC, I new my pc was aging, but I never really thought about upgrading yet...(maybe next year, after taxes...)
Who knows, maybe in 3 months if it hits that "great" tag, perhaps I'll reconsider.
Looks like the streets of liberty city may be my next home for now.
Showing posts with label aoc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aoc. Show all posts
Monday, June 2, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Max Level Crisis - when will endgames matter?
Reaching max level in any mmo has always been a badge of honor. Many of the old school mmo's made it very difficult to do this. But as game designers cater to the more main stream casual player. The difficulty in reaching max level has decreased.
This has had the effect of diminishing the value of reaching max level for many gamers. Not only did you have to reach the max, but you always needed the best equipment and the best gear. It is a constant competition to be number one.
But some players like myself look for more meaning in the endgame activities besides upgrading my own character. Upgrades have their place, but I prefer the feeling of impacting the world or contributing to a greater cause.
What I would like to see is more player driven content for endgame. However, I would like to see the content shaped in context with the game world. Instead of acquiring player owned cities or keeps through gathering resources. I would like to see players garner favor with the king or lord of that region. This favor would then be used as currency to purchase lands.
These king or lord of the region would deed the land to the guild for them to shape as they see fit. It would start as a small village with npc's, shops, perhaps a small militia. The village would grow based on the resources gathered from the guild, as well as quests given by the local lord of the area.
Guild resource gather should be seemless and tie into the proffessions of the guild members. Those who chose to collect resources of their own could do so as well. As the city grows, trade routes are established, alliances are formed and enemies made.
As the village grows and generates money for the kingdom, the village will level up 2 different stages. Similar to guild cities in age of conan. Eventually increasing the might and land of your kingdom. The kingdom would start at the outskirts of the lords land, so keeping it safe from predators, npc's and enemy guilds would be a challenge.
The city growth has to be somewhat seemless and not too much of a grind. Having played shadowbane for some time, one of the main game killing gameplay elements was that a large city took so much to acquire and maintain. Once it was destroyed, usually the guild responsible would quit.
City financial decisions will be made by all max level guild members. I would apply a weight to certain guild officiers. Similar to shareholders, the guild leader may have 10 shares to use for their vote, while a new max level char would only have 1. That way all players are involved, and the most dedicated players are rewarded with more influence on political or financial city issues.
Hopefully having the player cities tied to a local king or lord will alleviate some of the pain of having your village or city burned to the ground. Multiple guilds can offer their allegiance to the same king and compete for favor. As well as opposing factions.
Once max level is reached in an mmorpg, apart from gaining gear and money. The only way to keep the game from ending is to transform it into more of an mmoRTS. The gameplay focus has to go from being player-centric to world-centric
Politics, betrayel, war, famine, disease, peace, prosperity all these aspects of rts gameplay should somehow be implemented. I havent quite figured out a way to do that, but if someone ever does, it will be a great step forward in the mmo space.
who knows, maybe after I think about it for a while I can ramble on about mmorts gameplay elements.
This has had the effect of diminishing the value of reaching max level for many gamers. Not only did you have to reach the max, but you always needed the best equipment and the best gear. It is a constant competition to be number one.
But some players like myself look for more meaning in the endgame activities besides upgrading my own character. Upgrades have their place, but I prefer the feeling of impacting the world or contributing to a greater cause.
What I would like to see is more player driven content for endgame. However, I would like to see the content shaped in context with the game world. Instead of acquiring player owned cities or keeps through gathering resources. I would like to see players garner favor with the king or lord of that region. This favor would then be used as currency to purchase lands.
These king or lord of the region would deed the land to the guild for them to shape as they see fit. It would start as a small village with npc's, shops, perhaps a small militia. The village would grow based on the resources gathered from the guild, as well as quests given by the local lord of the area.
Guild resource gather should be seemless and tie into the proffessions of the guild members. Those who chose to collect resources of their own could do so as well. As the city grows, trade routes are established, alliances are formed and enemies made.
As the village grows and generates money for the kingdom, the village will level up 2 different stages. Similar to guild cities in age of conan. Eventually increasing the might and land of your kingdom. The kingdom would start at the outskirts of the lords land, so keeping it safe from predators, npc's and enemy guilds would be a challenge.
The city growth has to be somewhat seemless and not too much of a grind. Having played shadowbane for some time, one of the main game killing gameplay elements was that a large city took so much to acquire and maintain. Once it was destroyed, usually the guild responsible would quit.
City financial decisions will be made by all max level guild members. I would apply a weight to certain guild officiers. Similar to shareholders, the guild leader may have 10 shares to use for their vote, while a new max level char would only have 1. That way all players are involved, and the most dedicated players are rewarded with more influence on political or financial city issues.
Hopefully having the player cities tied to a local king or lord will alleviate some of the pain of having your village or city burned to the ground. Multiple guilds can offer their allegiance to the same king and compete for favor. As well as opposing factions.
Once max level is reached in an mmorpg, apart from gaining gear and money. The only way to keep the game from ending is to transform it into more of an mmoRTS. The gameplay focus has to go from being player-centric to world-centric
Politics, betrayel, war, famine, disease, peace, prosperity all these aspects of rts gameplay should somehow be implemented. I havent quite figured out a way to do that, but if someone ever does, it will be a great step forward in the mmo space.
who knows, maybe after I think about it for a while I can ramble on about mmorts gameplay elements.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
AOC to have EPIC mini sieges!
Alot of heated debate has been going on since more siege details for age of conan have been revealed. It looks like the starting size for warring guilds will be 48 vs 48. While this number is not set in stone, it has been met with great skepticism from AOC fans.
Myself, Im not really sure its that big of a deal, as long as the fun factor remains. If you figure 8-9 keeps, thats about 900 people involved in keep warfare per week, which is a pretty descent number. Also, this is only a starting number, as game stability improves im sure that number will grow.
Im far more concerned with how this numer will affect resource, maintenance and siege weapon crafting. If a hardcore pvp guild wants to min max and only have 50 to 60 guild members. Is that size adequate enough to maintain a battlekeep?
My second concern would be who gets to select the players eligible to defend or attack, after the pvp points for a guild have been tallied. Will it be the players who contributed the most? Or will the guild leader have total control over the selection process.
Another concern I have is whether people are able to enter the siege after its started, especially if someone goes afk or loses connection. Depending on the timeframe of the attack window(i've heard anywhere from 1 to 2 hours) with only 48 people per side, I would imagine there would be some turnover. Sometimes things come up?
What I would like to see, if this siege system is going to be limited in this way, is some type of queue for entering and leaving the battle. For example my guild consists of 70 players, 60 show up for the seige. The top 48 are selected and begin the battle. The remaining 12 would be in a re-inforcement type queue based on their pvp contributions. After a guild mate dies 5 or 10 times for example they would go to the back of the queue line and the next available guild mate would enter the battle. This would continue rotating giving everyone a chance to experience the battle who wanted to.
Granted that type of solution could be problematic for large sized guilds, but a guild of around 100 active players would probrably fare well in that system. It would also add importance to not dyeing, and since the re-inforcement members of the guild would prolly be less seasoned it would add a nice flavor of realism to the battle.
For me, right now I dont know enough about some of the other mechanics in the game to know if these siege numbers are good or bad.
But hopefully funcom will enhance and improve on this foundation as the game matures.
Monday, May 5, 2008
THE OPEN BETA BLUES
Boy, did funcom drop the ball with this one. With the highly anticipated release of aoc, I was looking forward to new video’s, glowing reviews and walkthrough guides for the first 13 levels. Instead, I got heated debate about how the game is unfinished, instancing sucks, and only high end pc’s can play it.
This was disturbing news indeed, then the news that the open beta was actually on an older client started creeping to the forefront. Of course, being the logical person that I am, I couldn’t not believe this and dismissed it as just a rumor. I mean what kind of marketing genius purposefully releases a buggier game client to the people who are going to be giving the first widespread glimpse of the game. Surely an experienced mmo developer like funcom would have lessons learned from past games and not do that. Boy was I surprised when it was actually confirmed to be the case.
It made me lose a lot of confidence in the people behind the game. At the very least , if you are going to do something like that. Please leave the NDA up, and in full force. I cant help but to wonder with the mish mash of players, pc’s and expectations if removing the NDA for this open beta was a mistake.
Granted with the game approaching its release date, it is very troubling that the need for a NDA is even present.
Perhaps companies should make an effort when conducting open beta’s to inform the player’s what type of information they are trying to gleam from the test. Players need some type of baseline to measure the type of gameplay they are seeing. For instance, if they are lagging heavily and have no idea whats going on. Versus, lagging heavily and knowing that the city has a max pop of 300 but there are 700 currently in game. At least with a small bit of information, beta testers would be more open to understanding why they are getting the results they are saying.
As far as I’m concerned the open beta news has been a disappointment, but I will take it with a grain of salt. I wont be picking aoc up on opening day, but I do still plan on giving it a shot. As long as the release reviews are descent.
Has the open beta given anyone else second thoughts?
This was disturbing news indeed, then the news that the open beta was actually on an older client started creeping to the forefront. Of course, being the logical person that I am, I couldn’t not believe this and dismissed it as just a rumor. I mean what kind of marketing genius purposefully releases a buggier game client to the people who are going to be giving the first widespread glimpse of the game. Surely an experienced mmo developer like funcom would have lessons learned from past games and not do that. Boy was I surprised when it was actually confirmed to be the case.
It made me lose a lot of confidence in the people behind the game. At the very least , if you are going to do something like that. Please leave the NDA up, and in full force. I cant help but to wonder with the mish mash of players, pc’s and expectations if removing the NDA for this open beta was a mistake.
Granted with the game approaching its release date, it is very troubling that the need for a NDA is even present.
Perhaps companies should make an effort when conducting open beta’s to inform the player’s what type of information they are trying to gleam from the test. Players need some type of baseline to measure the type of gameplay they are seeing. For instance, if they are lagging heavily and have no idea whats going on. Versus, lagging heavily and knowing that the city has a max pop of 300 but there are 700 currently in game. At least with a small bit of information, beta testers would be more open to understanding why they are getting the results they are saying.
As far as I’m concerned the open beta news has been a disappointment, but I will take it with a grain of salt. I wont be picking aoc up on opening day, but I do still plan on giving it a shot. As long as the release reviews are descent.
Has the open beta given anyone else second thoughts?
Thursday, May 1, 2008
AOC OPEN BETA REVIEWS UP!
Funcom official site has links posted to a couple of open beta review articles.
http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&&func_id=2426&table=CONTENT
For all those having trouble logging into the beta, maybe this will tide you over a while
http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&&func_id=2426&table=CONTENT
For all those having trouble logging into the beta, maybe this will tide you over a while
AOC NDA LIFTED FOR OPEN BETA!
There will be no NDA for age of conan open beta that starts tonight!
Great news!
Great news!
AOC NDA LIFTED FOR U.S. REPORTERS!
Great news! Hopefully more details about the games mechanics will be arriving soon. You can check out the story here!
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