May/086
First Impressions: Age of Conan
The Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Open Beta launched on Friday, May 2, 2008. The launch was pushed back about 6 or 7 hours due to some last minute patching issues. But when 17:00 EST rolled around, my friends and I all logged into the game and began our adventures in the perilous lands of Hyboria.
Now, before I begin talking about the gameplay and what not, I will first address the sheer size of this game. The download was almost 13GB and you needed an additional 26GB of space to install the game. After the install, obviously you could delete the 13GB installer to free up some more space, but 26GB, this game had better be like virtual reality. Sadly, you will be disappointed, probably just because the game is still in Beta and the graphics were limited, but I can’t really see this as a viable reason because of how large the game is, all the graphics should be there. So, for a game nearly 3x the size of World of Warcraft, you get nearly the smae graphics with a little more gore.
What I liked
I really liked the PVE in Age of Conan. I played multiple classes up to the level cap of 13 in the beta and I enjoyed the singleplayer PVE as well as the multiplayer PVE. The single player PVE, or the Night time quests, were all scripted out wonderfully and they were truly a joy to play. Sadly, with the level cap so low, I cannon comment more on the PVE because I haven’t experienced the late game. Alas, my friends who are in the invite only beta say that the PVE maintains its level of brilliance throughout the entire game.
What I didn’t like
I wish I could say something about the PVP but as soon as I entered my first PVP encounter, Age of Conan literally broke my computer. I had to do a system restore to a few hours back just to regain access to my system. This happened to two other of my friends and caused us to all promptly uninstall the game. Wham, my adventures in Hyboria were over just like that.
Verdict
I didn’t play enough of the game to give an honest verdict, although I can say that I did enjoy playing the PVE that I got to play. I probably won’t buy this game just because I pre-ordered Warhammer Online the day gamestop offered it for pre-order. Just a little fact, amongst my friends and myself we gave Age of Conan an affectionate nickname of “Age of Crashnan”.
If you had a similar experience in the Age of Conan Beta, or a completely different one, tell us about it in the comments so we can get every side of the story for this game.
Update: Remember that this Was for the Age of Conan Beta, and I hope the Real game will be MUCH MUCH better!
Update: Read my thoughts on the game after it was released! The game is much better and this post doesn’t do it justice. Read Take 2 Here.
May 5th, 2008
First impressions, good game but full of fucking fail.
May 6th, 2008
I think (hope) AoC is going to be great game, a couple of months after launch, but frankly Im amazed at the poor state of the open BETA, my blog post fairly much sums up my thoughts http://www.mmorpgrant.com/2008/05/funcom-aoc-fileplanet-beta-fiasco/
Oh yeah I had to pay to BETA?, whats that about?
May 6th, 2008
@Barbat, I was also utterly astonished by the poor quality of the Open Beta, I might check out the game in a few months, but I doubt it because Warhammer’s Beta should be out by then.
May 13th, 2008
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September 17th, 2008
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July 11th, 2009
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