Thursday 28 August 2008

Why I quit Age of Conan

I've not updated the blog in a while now, and there's three main reasons for that. Firstly, my computer's graphics card is having a tantrum and is making it extremely difficult for me to perform such complex tasks as switching my PC on. Thankfully, I'm abroad at the moment on another PC that happens to function perfectly, but while this sounds good it actually only makes matters worse because the internet connection I have out here in South Africa doesn't allow me to game. The third reason why I've not updated the site is because I cancelled my Age of Conan subscription after a month.

You readers will be far more interested in the last of these reasons. Some of you will be puzzled, because I actually sounded quite positive when I was writing the first couple of entries of my Age of Conan blog - and I was feeling positive when I wrote them. Trouble was, as soon as I got off the newbie island (Tortage), the realities of the game hit me hard. So, a quick run down on why I quit AoC, at least in the short term.

1) The game is essentially unplayable in the main world with my machine. It sort of held up on the newbie island, but the more crowded full game world was much harder on it - particularly the cities. If I got 2 frames a second in the cities I considered myself lucky. The answer, of course, was a new graphics card - but I can't really afford one right now and it's rather annoying to have to buy one to play a MMO when I can run Crysis on medium settings with the one I've already got. Of course, this is a double edged sword - it means in three years time, AoC will be able to run perfectly well on most computers and it'll still look great, but right now it's just too demanding.

2) The gameworld is dull. True, I've only seen two of the starting cities and I've not gone to the Cimmeran starting city that sounds pretty cool and snowy and all (I was a big fan of Halas in EQ1), but the ones I saw were tedious and badly designed. The home city of the Aquilonians is very classically-inspired, but the problem is that it's not all stunning marble and the like, it's just white stone. I'm aware that the designers were trying to create a realistic city, but it just ends up boring instead of impressive. I feel they've hemmed themselves in creatively with the 'realistic' setting, even though they didn't need to. You can have beautiful cities that would never exist in real life and still maintain an aspect of realism, you just need to leave out flying houses and elves and stuff.

Worse, the actual zones are equally tedious. Lots of open plains and grassland and stuff, and it looks pretty realistic - but that absence of creativity strips the zones of the character they had in other MMOs. Darkshire in WoW or Darklight Woods in EQ2 were very stylised zones, but they were awesome for it because of the very distinct visual style. I'm not saying AoC can't do it - Tortage was beautiful because it was full of so many bright colours and spectacular scenery, but the full gameworld doesn't seem to deliver.

3) The game design is boring. The quest design is awful, much like in EQ2's poorest zones and measurably worse than anything that was in the pre-Burning Crusade WoW (I couldn't comment on what came in BC, as I quit well before it arrived). The quests are literally just "go to x, kill y" or, worse, just "go talk to x, then come back". But the zone designers have committed a cardinal sin in not really having quest hubs, just having quest givers and quest targets scattered all over the zone. Some of the "talk to x, come back" quests have NPCs who are several zones apart, for pete's sake. I can understand if it was an epic quest of some kind, but they're not. It just seems the quest writers were entirely devoid of inspiration when they plied their trade on AoC. Couple this with boring zones and the fact that literally everyone you meet may well attack you on sight, you haven't really got compelling game play.

Oh, and most of the world is blocked off from you until you reach a certain level, which is a truly TERRIBLE idea. I want to go exploring the world. I loved it in EQ1, and I'd spend hours exploring high level zones with low-level characters. WoW I'd try and scout out the high level zones with my stealthed rogue, and I loved it. You won't let me explore the world, I'll take my money elsewhere. Worse, too, most of the zones are linked via instant travel reached by talking to an NPC. Personally, I can't think of anything worse - it's like the griffon rides in WoW, except you don't have to walk there first and you don't get to see the world unfold below you as you travel. It all conspires to make it feel like AoC has a tiny world, even though it patently doesn't. But when you travel from one place to another instantly and can't visit most of the zones anyway, you get bored very quickly.

4) The combat is repetitive. Sure, it looks better than in most MMOs, but that's only due to the quality of the animation of the player characters. The actual combat system is average, from what I've seen of it. I'm not saying that the standard MMO combat model is particularly good, either, but I've found it actually provides a more varied combat experience. AoC combat is literally just me firing off my most powerful combo, which will one-shot most player characters and also most monsters too. If it doesn't, I just do it a second time.

In EQ2 my Shadowknight had two full hotbars of combat skills, and my rogue in WoW could alternate pretty well between flat-out DPSing or stunlock/backstabbing, but more importantly both had methods of crowd control. AoC probably has one-on-one combat on par with other MMORPGs, but fighting multiple enemies feels more uncontrolled and frankly less skilled. I could be fighting two enemies with my WoW rogue and I'd be DPSing one while keeping the other stunned with all my stun skills, for instance. Combat with multiple characters in AoC just seems to go down to killing them one at a time, as fast as possible (perhaps adding some extra damage to the group with AOE skills).

5) No grouping. I haven't done a dungeon in AoC yet, which is probably due to my low level, but might also have something to do with the fact that I either kill or hide from any other player I see in the world, and they do the same thing. However, I don't think the dungeons start till about level 35, which is somewhat above my level. Anyway, I mention this in combination with the combat system. I just don't think AoC's combat system will lend itself to group dungeon crawling as well as standard WoW-esque combat does. Just a hypothesis, but it's enough to put me off playing.


So, that's why I parted ways with AoC. I might consider coming back at some point in the future, but certainly only if I have a new graphics card. There was just something about the game that was slightly lifeless and devoid of character, and I'm sorry to say it didn't grab me in the same way that most MMOs generally do. I can't quite put my finger on it precisely, despite having listed the above reasons, and I've read the same from other bloggers. Shame, really.

As far as what happens next for this blog, I may consider picking up EQ2 again. I played all the way up to level 65 when I could go back to Kunark, and then I quit because more important things took over my life. It seems somewhat of a waste to leave it there. But the problem with all that is that I'm starting a full-time job in a week, and there's a new expansion pack coming out soon called the Shadow Odyssey, which means Kunark will be empty when that arrives. Also, my enthusiasm with EQ2 has dropped somewhat due to the fact the devs appear to have stalled somewhat, and refuse to address the important issues affecting the early-to-mid game where a lot of the zones date back to release EQ2 and are therefore unbelievably poor. I'll keep posting, though. Expect a post on the Shadow Odyssey and my updated views on EQ2 to come up soon. After that, I might broaden this blog out to all online gaming, or I might look at some more of the upcoming games.

1 comment:

Loner Gamer said...

I am happy to see you back on this blog. Another great article, thanks for sharing what happened to your AoC gaming experience.