Rage Of Conan: Hyborian Mis-Adventures

Well today I finally did it and this time there's no going back. Yes that's right I finally, once and for all, canceled my Age of Conan (AoC) account. I had previously canceled my subscription about 10 days ago but decided to give AoC another go and reactivated it. But now it's done with. To be perfectly frank, in hindsight, I'm pretty impressed with myself for getting so far despite all the bad omens throughout the game since I left Tortage. Unfortunately, however, my level 72 Assassin will join the massed ranks of dormant characters gathering dust in the crypts of Hyboria. I really, really wanted AoC to be worth the monthly fee but I find myself amongst the hordes of gamers logging in less and less every day. The final straw came yesterday when trying to travel from Old Tarantia to Aztel's Approach after doing the Villa dailies in the Noble District. Upon entering Conall's Valley I experienced yet another client crash, my fourth of the day (in a 3hour gaming session) and that signaled my final act in AoC.

I don't usually advocate game bashing but I do think a few things need to be mentioned at this point. My PC may not be at the bleeding edge of performance but it's certainly no slouch either. I'm packing a quad core 3GHz, 4GB 800Mhz RAM and an 8800 GTX under the hood and I cannot get the game to behave in a stable manner even with latest drivers, tweaking settings etc. That in itself is enough to ring alarm bells especially since I've been playing since the Early Access some 7 weeks or so ago. I even upgraded from 2GB of memory just for this game after playing the first 2 weeks to try and help and resolve the client crashing but to no avail. Zoning more than 5 times in one session will cause my client to crash and this is every session. This in itself is very frustrating and does not endear AoC to anyone, even an ardent fan, especially when it takes @5 minutes or so to crash the client out and relog all the way back into the game.

No doubt if you are familiar with the game or the Funcom AoC forums you will be aware of the countless quest bugs and glitches in the game which a fair minded gamer could be forgiven for overlooking in a newly released MMORPG but there are deeper problems than that abound in Conan's realm.

I don't think anyone can dispute the great vistas on view in AoC but unfortunately that's where the immersion in the Conan universe ends. Part of the problem is lack of a real storyline. Apart from the Destiny quest (which has one mission every 20 levels or so) there really is nothing to focus on within the game on a regular basis. The world created by Robert E Howard, which this game espouses to be an online version of, is jam packed full of great tales, adventures and characters. The world created by Funcom feels sparse, empty and devoid of any real passion or inspiration and leaves one feeling disjointed from the game world. This is exacerbated by the decision by Funcom not have a large open world in AoC, rather the world is a series of disparate zones broken up by loading screens, client crashes and bouts of frustration.

One of the main selling points of AoC pre-release was PvP and yet that aspect of the game is completely lacking, at least to any meaningful level currently. If you bought the game purely for the PvP aspect from the outset then you were hoodwinked and probably left the game a number of weeks ago upon realising that at this stage it doesn't exist in an endgame context.

Crafting is poorly designed and implemented in AoC and feels very incomplete, rushed and somewhat pointless. I still cannot find a valid reason for taking a profession and spending time skilling it as stats have little/no impact on general performance especially in the PvP arena. Added to that is the requirement that in order to reach the higher levels of a profession a guild city of tier 2 or 3 level is required and you can see how many gamers may be put off from crafting at all as not everyone will access to such facilities. Initially I did not see this as a serious problem but when browsing the guild list every day and seeing people not log in for days on end and then not all you begin to realise that things are not so rosy after all even from a crafting standpoint.

The list goes on of course, as is well documented elsewhere, but for all of its problems and issues I believe Funcom have made one major Faux Pas.

The Hook.

Where is that part of the gameplay, that part of the online world that makes you want to log in every day and dedicate your time, effort and ultimately money to it? That compelling part of the AoC experience that you can't do without? Crom knows I've looked all over Hyboria for it but I can't find it and if I can't then rest assured there are thousands just like me, but not quite me, in the same position. Of course in online gaming the community is very important but even that is imploding as anyone who has been playing regularly knows. PvP combat and guild cities were to be the Holy Grail in AoC but just like the Holy Grail they have turned out to be the stuff of folklore and legend so far.

Combine this disillusionment with constant client crashes, lack of immersion, no clear goals or objectives within the game, niggling bugs, glitches and gradually the initial frustration builds and builds into a mild anger with the whole situation. This is especially true when one thinks back to the first 20 levels or so and the great promise this title had and how to date it has really failed to deliver, much to the huge disappointment of many gamers including myself.