So as everyone knows by now, Funcom has invited ex-Age of Conan players back for two weeks. I like to give things (and usually, people) a second chance, so I happily signed up. I spent an evening getting everything patched (client was still installed) and then the next night I logged in my level 32 Scout and…found that I had not a clue as to what I was doing. Plus all my skill points/feats/talents/whatever they are called, had been reset and I had even less of a clue as to how to spend them. I didn’t last very long in that session.
Today I decided I’d start a new character to get used to the game anew. Started playing and noticed how nicely the game ran. I had the settings on high (making the world look sumptuous) and was getting 50+ FPS on the starter beach (I’ve upgraded video cards since I last played). Combat was fun and fast and engaging. I started to think to myself “Yeah, I can see re-subscribing to this for a month, while I wait for Champions open beta.”
Then I arrived at the gates of Tortage and remembered… I really loved the start of the game the first time I played it, too! By rolling a new character I’d stepped into a (probably non-intentional) trap! I really did enjoy Age of Conan from level 1 to level 20 the first time I played it.
Thankfully I caught myself before getting caught up in self-hype and re-subscribing. Tonight I’m going back to my 32 Scout and will take the time to get used to him again (a much easier task to focus on during weekend play sessions, in any case).
I’m still willing to give AoC another chance, but I need to play at the levels that caused problems the first time around, if I’m going to get any value out of the 2-week trial.
Well, I had to level up from scratch as I did not have an old account. I played that of a friend who did not subscribe and also did not want to come back for a while.
I just left Tortage, and the 50 fps you mentioned drop to 24-26 in Tarantia, but my system is not that good, I guess this is acceptable.
I will go to the Khopshef province as I already know the Wildlands of Zelata next. For some reason I find the do this, do that, kill this, kill that quests annoying – this did not happen to me in Aion, though Aion definitely has no other kind of quests, pretty generic, too.
Oh well, let’s see. I fear a lot of people will play 14-30 days AoC while waiting for Aion. They fixed bugs, but there are still some (my hair changes sometimes color while zoning) and bugfree does not mean new content either. They made gear more important and fitting to area/level of the player, but this is actually more the state the game should have had at launch, not at “re-launch”.
I’ve been really tempted to go back to Star Wars Galaxies during their month of free play during July, but I’ve resisted. I have to keep telling myself that there is a reason I left that game when the NGE hit, and a shiny new lightsaber and Force Lightning does not a quality MMO make because they’ve not changed a whole lot in the game since I’ve left from what I’ve read.
I wish I had started playing AoC at some point because I’d like to give it a shot. I’m looking for a really casual MMO right now, and sadly, the best I can think of is re-starting WoW and leveling an old character to 80 on a new server.
I resurrected my AOC account as well. As Longasc said, I’m finding the quests annoying in AOC. The main problem for me is that they seem to require a whole lot of running around compared to other games out there. But I’m also impressed with the improvements they’ve made since launch.