Zero Punctuation: Age of Conan

[Fivedkp]

This review was very accurate and funny. Most of Yahtzee's points and ideas were correct being a
former player of AoC myself.
AoC needs to be refined and not released before it finds all its bugs.
Also he is right about the gaming culture in AoC who are a bunch of guys who think they are great because the game tells them they are.
I had a level 80 Ranger and couldn't believe i had to grind so much to even get there. I think i spent like 3-4 days grinding from 51-60 and more for 60-70 and 70-80.

 

[RyanGannon]

...Does anyone else find it slightly amusing or at least ironic that the website has a large splash advertisement for the game in the background whilst Mr. Croshaw has rated it no more than meh as far as mmorpg's go?

Anyway, I liked this one, the intro is growing on me, the outro not so much i don't really know why, but i'll let it go.

Absolutely, this was almost the same with Assassin Creed when they had the box ad for the limited edition right beside the video.

 

[A-D.]

Which one of those games has 10 million subscribers?

Best Quote ever, seriously. Look at the Box of WoW now please, see the Age Field? Says 12 aint it? Well..at least in the EU it does, now going from that point we know that about 80% of those people are below the big 18. Doesnt speak much for quality there. Also Blizzard cares shit about any RP on their Servers, even those meant for it, i have played there a year ago and trust me, its like that. So whatever, 10 Million Players means exactly nothing when its a stupid audience that is happy with just Items and more Items to endlessly grind for the rest of their lives, also, considering the Levelgain, play WoW, you will hit 20 in about 2-3 Days, now go to Lineage 2, try getting level 20 there and unless they changed something about it thats going to take more than one week, so its obvious why WoW is more successful, its just downright pisseasy. Which in turn brings me to my next point..

Who came up with it trying to compare every fucking MMOG/MMORPG to WoW or the like? Just cause they fall under the same category doesnt mean they are exactly the same. No, i dont want to hear the mechanics and blah, i played alot of them, before WoW came out, so there is a difference, sure in the end all have grind, all are a bit about the leveling and shit but seriously, its the box it comes in, whats around it, in WoW, its not much, Warcraft Lore had enough Depth, did they use it? Not really. Lineage 2 has less Lore to hold onto but does a little better job there, so does AoC, why not, if you have to grind do it in a nice fashion? With a interesting story attached to it instead of "Go there and Kill that". They arent all just made for level XX and itemset A etc, nope, some were made for roleplay, you know..where you can actually play a character in that world, get immersed in it and dont just feel your balls swell cause you took down Uberboss Y and got Item Z..

Otherwise the Review was straight to the point, AoC needs work, but if they can pull that off it might actually work quite well and IMO its already better than WoW and thats not cause of naked Boobs, if i want that i ask my Wife, there i can even touch them

 

[Anitoon]

awsome video.
ooooooooh whos up for mirror's edge? i hope he reviews that one.
i wonder what game he'll burn next?

 

[Aptspire]

Thinderella, the Necromantic Naturist XD

 

[Squeaksx]

Heh, why do most people believe that if someone says something bad about something people will sprout up to defend it? I play and love Age of Conan and I find him to be quite agreeable on some points. To answer his question on terms of armor usefulness, he was a cloth class and they tend to hardly need armor for anything besides stat boosts. If he had played a soldier class trust me you would have needed it, heh. Besides that I have come to the sad conclusion that in order to socially filter a game from the 'tards you have to either make it completely unintuitive and uninviting (See EVE) or just not fun (See City of Heroes). One thing that seems promising to me is that the patches have been taking the game into the right direction. I also admit that this game has an incredible likeness to WoW with differences in the fine details, but that is simply because WoW hit onto a winning formula and whoever denies that is a bloody liar. All we have to wait for now is for someone to improve on it.

 

[Plasmar]

I've yet to play an MMO that wasn't as appealing as constipation; it's painful and you have to sit there for hours to get anywhere.

 

[Entharion]

Shame on you! wasting your reviewer integrity on reviewing MMO's!

Neh what I'm trying to say is... GO review some real games.. like Wii fit. cause you're fat

 

[Squeaksx]

Shame on you! wasting your reviewer integrity on reviewing MMO's!

Neh what I'm trying to say is... GO review some real games.. like Wii fit. cause you're fat

Wow I feel the hate for MMORPGS. I guess it only appeals to the PC master race and not you peasant console gamers, mwahaha!

 

[MikePhilbin]

imagine that - millions of sweating stay-at-home doughboys reading the end credits wrong and doing their MMORPG homework with THEIR clothes off, not their avatar's.

or you could always go watch Chuck Palahniuk's CHOKE movie trailer [http://mikephilbin.blogspot.com/2008/07/choke-movie-trailer.html] which looks way sexier than an armour-shy bronzed avatar with her boobs chopped off.

 

[Evan Waters]

Which one of those games has 10 million subscribers?

Best Quote ever, seriously. Look at the Box of WoW now please, see the Age Field? Says 12 aint it? Well..at least in the EU it does, now going from that point we know that about 80% of those people are below the big 18. Doesnt speak much for quality there.

That's... bizarre logic. It's an inferior game because under-18s play it? (And I question your analysis of demographics as well.)

And it's not really that WoW is the greatest MMORPG of all time, who knows, it's that being the most popular MMORPG out there by several orders of magnitude means that it's undeniably going to have an influence on other MMORPGs. Put out a muhmorpuhger, especially one in the heroic fantasy genre, and you will inevitably be judged in comparison to World of Warcraft, even to say "hey, this is really quite different." Which Yahtzee doesn't think is the case, apparently.

 

[Eremiel]

@A-D. : Remember in the Brawl review he mentioned fanboys? Watch that review again. You fit the description perfectly.

As to the review itself.. I liked it. It mirrored my own thoughts fairly well (and yes, I also noticed that you can get pretty damn far without using any kind of armor).

 

[Odjin]

@A-D:

Please tell me one MMO which is
1) Not a huge grindfest
2) Immerses you into the world
3) Allows you to roleplay

...

...

None? Thought so since all MMOs are alike and the obvious grinding kills any even very subtle attempt to immerse into the world. It's also very immersive if you hit the "Pay Shop Only you moron!" line every other step and immersion also goes down the drain if you know exactly that 99% of the players around you are pants-wetting, non-mature, nose-picking wanna-be-gamers that just are good because they slam all their pocket-money into PayShop to get the cheap items with which they can own any experience and skilled player who plays "fair and sqaure".

No. MMOs NEVER are going to be anything worth the time of pro gamers ( with taste and skill ) unless the companies really start to think this entire game type over.

 

[Evan Waters]

I would argue that saying that "pro" gamers "with taste and skill" shun an entire genre is a breed of fanboyism in itself. Trying to get into a maturity contest over what video games one plays is rather stupid.

 

[Primalmoon]

While I agree that Age of Conan is mostly a clone of World of Warcraft, you picked one of the two classes that showcases it the most. The two real mage classes (Demonologist and Necromancer) are pretty much copy+pasted from other MMOs. As such, of course armor is fairly useless. Additionally, all of their survivability comes from two spells: one that buffs your defense, and one that provides an absolute reduction to damage taken. Those help your character more than a cloth sports bra ever could.

However, I believe you would feel differently about the game if you had played any of the melee classes. Not enough to like/love the game by any stretch of the imagination, but at least give it a slightly lesser reading on the WoWness-scale. While Funcom has touted their innovative combat system, the userbase has determined that this was supposed to be "slightly different [melee] combat system". With that in mind, playing Age of Conan and not trying their combo system is like buying a ticket to a bad movie, buying some stale popcorn, and leaving the theatre before the previews are over. The experience is just as bad, but it's for the wrong reasons.

 

[CatmanStu]

Firstly, let me just deal with the obligatory yaying or naying by saying (heh, that rhymes. Sorry where was I) by saying yay.
I always enjoy Yahtzee's reviews as there seem to be precious few people out there that respect the value of decent narrative in games, and fewer still people who feel this way with a voice.
But let's get of the soapbox and talk about the game; that's right I'm in a forum and I'm getting off of a soapbox, this must be how Mandela felt.
Of course I haven't played AoC, but I have played WoW in the past and that was enough to put me off MMORPGs for life. I was playing as one of those wizard things that can suck souls and summon demons and I had been playing for about a month. I had just got the courage up to take my meagre wizard type thing out of the safe area and go exploring where more dangerous quests resided. On my travel I came upon another wizard type thing who was at a similar level to myself and seemed to be outnumbered. Throwing myself into the fray I summoned a creature who evened the odds and soon we were standing victorious. My colleague responded by addressing me in a language that looked like English with all the vowels removed, to ask if I wanted to team up.
To cut a long story short, two minutes later he got us in a fight with a group of enemies who were all individually strong enough to beat one of us to death with the corpse of the other, and the icing on the cake was when he buggered off and left me to die, shouting "NOOOOB!!!" as he left. (I needed a friend to tell me what a noob was).
Alarm bells started ringing at this point, after it happened a couple more times I decided that MMORPGs are the domain for those people who argue about whether Star Wars has been ruined and who of Microsoft or Sony is better.
MMORPGs are a good idea on paper, but society just isn't ready for them.

 

[phillipwallace]

After 4 hours of fumbling through equip menus I gave up with AoC. I appreciate the effort, but monkeys in people suits cannot write video games, and anything that dialog heavy is bound to topple over under the weight of it's own bullshit.

Never got into the WoWc sub-CULT-ure. Most of the cats I know that play them turn into unfeeling lumps after a few days. Their little beady eyes secretly checking out my "equipment menu.," while I tell them to get some sun and un-equip their ***** materia.

 

[Tumbler360]

Sigh, please get this thing loaded on another server. Every wednsday I have to load this thing multiple times. It sucks to start watching the video only to have it time out after 30 sec to one minute because the server is overloaded...

Youtube?

Something, either get a better server, or get some partners who want to host the file.

 

[RussDCA]

"Akin to squeezing the bubbles out of freshly applied wallpaper while riding a unicycle"!

How the shit do you come up with them Ben??? Hehehe...

FuZion.

 

[mephidrossxx]

At the same time of the Age of Conan advertisement in the background. How ironic.