I tried to give Funcom’s Age of Conan a chance, I really did. Being a fan of the studio, and looking forward to their next MMO, The Secret World, I was hoping that it wouldn’t be as bad as people had said it was. I gave it the best half of a week, but when the starting zone (which people say is the best for storyline / questing) is pretty lacklustre, I don’t think I’ll continue.
It’s not all bad, I guess. The graphics are certainly pretty, and the starting city of Tortage is pretty well designed… but that’s not going to make up for the flaws. The combat system leaves me feeling like I’m just randomly mashing buttons until the enemy is down. And if one enemy gets pulled, it seems to chain pull every single mob in the area, leaving you doing another grave run, only to be slaughtered again as soon as you respawn. The quest system seems imbalanced as well – I’m trying to do quests marked as green in my quest log (under my level), but still being slaughtered because the mobs are a higher level than me. So it shouldn’t be marked as green, right? And the inverse happens as well, where I can do orange / red quests with ease. And there’s plenty of other niggles, such as the lack of a customizable UI, dialogue trees that I don’t really care about, and plenty more.
Throughout my playtime, I find myself in a constant state of confusion, thinking that there’s something I’m obviously missing. Maybe I’m not using the combat system correctly, maybe I’m not in the right area, even though it says I should be… there’s a definite lack of structure for a starting zone that’s supposed to teach the player the ropes. So like I said in my last post, the offer still stands if anyone else wants to try the game out. Just let me know.
As for myself? Back to World of Warcraft, I guess.
