Zero Punctuation: Age of Conan
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Very Funny review. Thanks Yahtzee.
Though I fail to see all the MMORPG hate here in this forum, WoW is good. Everybody says you need to "Grind" the same thing, over and over again. Thats the really stupid way of leveling. Quests are the best way to go. Yes I know, the quests are nearly the same, being kill x amount of y. I do agree that it does become repetitive (Which I guess you would call a "grind") but its all about getting to the max level. You see half of the game before 70, and the other half when you hit it.
To some, that seems like absolute crap, to me, it actually rewards you for going the whole 9 yards. (Well you also need a couple of friends, but hey, if you play your class well, you might actually find a group and start to like the game.)
I think why WoW is so successful is the fact that you don't need a friend to level to 70, you can get to 70 without a single bit of aid from a friend. In AoC (So I've heard from people who play it, correct me if I'm wrong) but you need a couple of friends just to get past level 20... WTF?! What if none of my friends are on? Am I just STUCK here until one comes along? Yea... not gonna play that game.
Though I fail to see all the MMORPG hate here in this forum, WoW is good. Everybody says you need to "Grind" the same thing, over and over again. Thats the really stupid way of leveling. Quests are the best way to go. Yes I know, the quests are nearly the same, being kill x amount of y. I do agree that it does become repetitive (Which I guess you would call a "grind") but its all about getting to the max level. You see half of the game before 70, and the other half when you hit it.
To some, that seems like absolute crap, to me, it actually rewards you for going the whole 9 yards. (Well you also need a couple of friends, but hey, if you play your class well, you might actually find a group and start to like the game.)
I think why WoW is so successful is the fact that you don't need a friend to level to 70, you can get to 70 without a single bit of aid from a friend. In AoC (So I've heard from people who play it, correct me if I'm wrong) but you need a couple of friends just to get past level 20... WTF?! What if none of my friends are on? Am I just STUCK here until one comes along? Yea... not gonna play that game.
Or with too many devs who refused to fix reported issues in a frantic attempt to make release...
srsly, don't blame the testers. Anything you complain about has, in fact, been reported a zillion times. Devs, however, are too busy being cooler than the rest of us to actually play a game, and understand what makes fun.
Also, there are reasons why I play on a European rp server. The people actually manage not to be useless tardbabies, reasonably often.
And he so shoulda played a demonologist, or a Herald of Xotli. This review could have stood some full lovecraftian squid transforms.
And he so shoulda played a demonologist, or a Herald of Xotli. This review could have stood some full lovecraftian squid transforms.
AoC was about as fun as most MMO's can be, that is to say, I enjoyed it for a short while, but the fun quickly began to wear away when the things that set it apart from MMO's began to fade into the background and it became as tedious as WoW usually is, I figured at the point where it all began feeling the same I might as well go play the game I'm already level-capped on.
I liked the battle system for awhile, but my particular class was the equivalent of a razor sharp death napkin, which meant that I was likely to die about 5-10 seconds into any given fight, making the combos just longer than my usual life expectancy.
Meh.
I liked the battle system for awhile, but my particular class was the equivalent of a razor sharp death napkin, which meant that I was likely to die about 5-10 seconds into any given fight, making the combos just longer than my usual life expectancy.
Meh.
Oh my god, I actually didn't laugh at all at this one, probably because it turned into another hammering of World of Warcraft towards the end (and therefore bashing MMOs in general).
One thing that made me smile though was the Mega-Imp. There has to be a T-shirt of this guy.
One thing that made me smile though was the Mega-Imp. There has to be a T-shirt of this guy.
I got to level 38 in AoC...
Not a horrible MMO, but there's something missing for some reason, I just couldn't get into it. Canceled before the first month was up.
Yahtzee's got this game pegged pretty good.
Not a horrible MMO, but there's something missing for some reason, I just couldn't get into it. Canceled before the first month was up.
Yahtzee's got this game pegged pretty good.
well done as allways, though what you and shit-loads of other people need to understand is that WOW stole pretty much everything from EQ and other games that came before it. NO world of warcraft is not THE mmorpg everything ells is based on, its just another "rip-of" if you may...
Sadly negative attention doesn't always work. I remember I was playing a competitive FPS clan a few years ago and I posted a YouTube video the SouthPark episode of WOW to make the game. Sadly it had the opposite, sparking interest in a few of our players that eventually dropped out to play it full time.Isaac Dodgson said:
On a side note, on Yahtzee's final summary, honestly, who doesn't want to live in a Boris Vallejo painting?!?
As an AoC player: It was a very funny review. Fairly accurate, and just a wee bit lacking on telling what is actually good in the game.
Oh well... fact remains: WoW is 4 years into maturity, AoC is 2 months old; so of course it hasn't reached as far, what the heck did you expect?! WoW is still(!) trying to iron out bubbles in the wallpaper.
And of course he got ganked... that's another big "D'UH!". Of course people are going to try to nibble his shins off when he runs aroudn as a nude female! It's just so childish that anyone that is legally old enough to play the game (i.e. 18+) sees him as being a kid that shouldn't be playing the game and thus tries to show him why. So females can drop their tops, yeah. After the first screenshot of that was revealed it wasn't funny any more as anyone that even aspires to maturity will attest. So if anyone does run around on the server nekkid just to show boobs, of course they will get ganked.
Personally I bite my tongue every time I see people that glaringly display their immaturity for everyone to see, in order to not bite their heads off and get kicked from the server by Funcom. Just today I found someone - on a roleplaying server - that had named his character "Solidsnake" and was part of the "S.T.A.L.K.E.R" guild. I mean, come on! Find the nearest retail outlet and buy yourself some creativity, chrissake man!
No I didn't gank him. I just walked up to him and at least meta-RP'ly sized him up before telling him to his face he had a really silly name and Snap Kick'd him in the chest, sending him flying five feet back before turning around and walking away from the silly little twerp.
Anyway... I'm going off on a tangent here. The review was spot on. And I will keep on playing the game because I find it has much promise... not to that the server I play on has an entire guild made out of people who roleplay... well, come on over to EU-Aquilonia and see for yerself. ;-)
/S
Oh well... fact remains: WoW is 4 years into maturity, AoC is 2 months old; so of course it hasn't reached as far, what the heck did you expect?! WoW is still(!) trying to iron out bubbles in the wallpaper.
And of course he got ganked... that's another big "D'UH!". Of course people are going to try to nibble his shins off when he runs aroudn as a nude female! It's just so childish that anyone that is legally old enough to play the game (i.e. 18+) sees him as being a kid that shouldn't be playing the game and thus tries to show him why. So females can drop their tops, yeah. After the first screenshot of that was revealed it wasn't funny any more as anyone that even aspires to maturity will attest. So if anyone does run around on the server nekkid just to show boobs, of course they will get ganked.
Personally I bite my tongue every time I see people that glaringly display their immaturity for everyone to see, in order to not bite their heads off and get kicked from the server by Funcom. Just today I found someone - on a roleplaying server - that had named his character "Solidsnake" and was part of the "S.T.A.L.K.E.R" guild. I mean, come on! Find the nearest retail outlet and buy yourself some creativity, chrissake man!
No I didn't gank him. I just walked up to him and at least meta-RP'ly sized him up before telling him to his face he had a really silly name and Snap Kick'd him in the chest, sending him flying five feet back before turning around and walking away from the silly little twerp.
Anyway... I'm going off on a tangent here. The review was spot on. And I will keep on playing the game because I find it has much promise... not to that the server I play on has an entire guild made out of people who roleplay... well, come on over to EU-Aquilonia and see for yerself. ;-)
/S
This review hit home with me. Since I started out as a male necro and found myself quitting the game shortly after lvl 25. He hit on the biggest issue, the game is not finished yet. The developers admitted as much in letters they sent out to the community.
He however did miss out on the horrible chat system they have which is completely backwards, broken guild setup/options, and the non exsistant customer support.
Just waiting for Warhammer Online to come out. Evolving cities, living guild that gains exp/bonues, Realm vs. Realm warfare, and of course the darker more detailed storyline. A game that actually pits you against a realm of other players instead of a mindless AI.
He however did miss out on the horrible chat system they have which is completely backwards, broken guild setup/options, and the non exsistant customer support.
Just waiting for Warhammer Online to come out. Evolving cities, living guild that gains exp/bonues, Realm vs. Realm warfare, and of course the darker more detailed storyline. A game that actually pits you against a realm of other players instead of a mindless AI.
Lucky us... Another horrid game with the graphics equivalent to the n64... So... excited...HadesWTF said:
Oh by the way, I must mention one thing Yahtzee did get wrong in the review: that of the big nerd. The big nerd who would complain about Daisy McSword-Boobs's haircolor does not exist around the Conan franchise. What Yahtzee is talking about is the Tolkienites.
Let me illustrate by an example: since I like to roleplay in these games, for my stock character Sayvara in Lord of the Rings Online, I made a backstory taking place in a self-madeup military academy in Gondor and posted this on the official LotRO forums. In a response time that proves that information must be able to travel faster than the speed of light in vaccuum, I had a bunch of tolkienites trying to hack my bum off, saying I could not use that story.
"Why not?" I asked. "Is there anything that is not reasonable in this, or that is in direct violation of established lore?"
"Well.. no", came the reply, conceeding my point in that it was in fact a reasonable backstory, and no, there was nothing that expicitly contradicted any of the six main books, including Simarillion even though the game license didn't even cover that. "...but that doesn't matter..." said the head tolkienite, "...because it is still wrong!".
Now I concider myself patient, so instead of telling him to take a stool-pill concisting of a Zweihänder, business end first, I asked why exactly this was wrong. "Well", said the head cenob... tolienite, it was wrong because if I supposedly ordered the book "Letters from Tolkien", a collection of correspondense from John himself, and read between the lines in these letters, I would be able to see that this sort of thing could probably not happen in Gondor because that is just the way everyone is are according to this guy's interpertations of John's long since silenced invisible brainwaves. So because of this, my - as I thought - elaborately crafted backstory, should be scrapped immediately and I stop polluting the forums with such lore-breaking rubbish... spake he.
Now if I lost you up there, don't feel sad, because I was a goner by that time too. This is the kind of person that Yahtzee mentions in this review, and thankfully, the Conan mythos doesn't have these religious zealous fuckwits around it because Robert E. Howard was no J.R.R. Tolkien. Conan is a pulp production, nothing else. People are not in it for the fine wristings of a linguist who invents fictional languages to all races in the book; but for the gore, ale and whores, ok? This game is not about pretty re-creations of Rivendell with fine limbed elves gracefully gliding around paradize on Middle-Earth. No, this is about vice, plain and simple.
So far I have counted the following "sins" in Age of Conan.
- Foul language.
- Gore. Bloodspatter is everywhere.
- More gore. Fataliaties are meticulously modeled variations on how to end someone's life hard, brutally, and - in some cases - extremely messilly.
- Unrination. Yes, NPC's can be seen taking a piss.
- Prostitution, and plenty of it.
- Slavery.
- Alcohol.
- Drug use/drug addiction.
- Human sacrifice.
- Homosexuality, male and female.
So no... the Big Nerd is not here.
/S
Let me illustrate by an example: since I like to roleplay in these games, for my stock character Sayvara in Lord of the Rings Online, I made a backstory taking place in a self-madeup military academy in Gondor and posted this on the official LotRO forums. In a response time that proves that information must be able to travel faster than the speed of light in vaccuum, I had a bunch of tolkienites trying to hack my bum off, saying I could not use that story.
"Why not?" I asked. "Is there anything that is not reasonable in this, or that is in direct violation of established lore?"
"Well.. no", came the reply, conceeding my point in that it was in fact a reasonable backstory, and no, there was nothing that expicitly contradicted any of the six main books, including Simarillion even though the game license didn't even cover that. "...but that doesn't matter..." said the head tolkienite, "...because it is still wrong!".
Now I concider myself patient, so instead of telling him to take a stool-pill concisting of a Zweihänder, business end first, I asked why exactly this was wrong. "Well", said the head cenob... tolienite, it was wrong because if I supposedly ordered the book "Letters from Tolkien", a collection of correspondense from John himself, and read between the lines in these letters, I would be able to see that this sort of thing could probably not happen in Gondor because that is just the way everyone is are according to this guy's interpertations of John's long since silenced invisible brainwaves. So because of this, my - as I thought - elaborately crafted backstory, should be scrapped immediately and I stop polluting the forums with such lore-breaking rubbish... spake he.
Now if I lost you up there, don't feel sad, because I was a goner by that time too. This is the kind of person that Yahtzee mentions in this review, and thankfully, the Conan mythos doesn't have these religious zealous fuckwits around it because Robert E. Howard was no J.R.R. Tolkien. Conan is a pulp production, nothing else. People are not in it for the fine wristings of a linguist who invents fictional languages to all races in the book; but for the gore, ale and whores, ok? This game is not about pretty re-creations of Rivendell with fine limbed elves gracefully gliding around paradize on Middle-Earth. No, this is about vice, plain and simple.
So far I have counted the following "sins" in Age of Conan.
- Foul language.
- Gore. Bloodspatter is everywhere.
- More gore. Fataliaties are meticulously modeled variations on how to end someone's life hard, brutally, and - in some cases - extremely messilly.
- Unrination. Yes, NPC's can be seen taking a piss.
- Prostitution, and plenty of it.
- Slavery.
- Alcohol.
- Drug use/drug addiction.
- Human sacrifice.
- Homosexuality, male and female.
So no... the Big Nerd is not here.
/S
Just out of interest, where are you from? In my corner of Australia we laugh at those who pronounce it any other way.star_topology said:
I think they just take a hard line on "first"-style comments, for obvious reasons, and extend this to anything posted before the commenter could possibly have watched the video they're supposed to be commenting on.something_clevar said:
Anyway I don't actually have all that much to say about this episode; it was worth watching and didn't anger me in any way, but neither did it leave me in stitches.