Anyone else looking forward to this game? I've been looking for a MMO the past few months that is more casual friendly due to work/school time constraints. I think AoC is the closest so far. From what I've read, AoC takes out some of the timesinks like farming repair money. Also from a few of the videos I've seen, some of the end game dungeons are designed to be completed in just a few hours, not 10 or 15 bosses like WoW did with its end game. Not to say all of AoC's end game is like this, but at least some of it is.
I've signed up for the beta and still hope to get in and take a look before release. The game has some very interesting features and a lot of promise but even now I think it's still too early to say if it will live up to it's potential or not.
This and Tabula Rasa are the contenders for the next major PvE-centric MMO.
yeah there aren't any quantitative reviews yet, just impressions from E3 and the website mostly. I'm not sure I'd even get the game on release date, might wait a few weeks and see how the general reaction is. Plus Assassin's Creed is scheduled to come out in November, so that can hold me over while I decide if AoC is worth trying out of not.
Some of the more interesting features:
- Spell casters can create 'spellweaves' a combination of spells that have powerful effects.
- You can fight from horseback
- The initial levels of the game are completely solo (1-8 out of 80 I believe)
- combat system uses the mouse (or gamepad) to swing, fire and cast instead of a button push. No auto attacks
- many different styles of pvp such as drunken brawls (drunkenness effects combat), battle-grounds with varying rules, and large siege battles (not clear: siege and castle/city defense may only be against computer opponents)
- max level is 80, characters advance through different stages of each class and there are prestige classes as well
- player run cities which have to be defended from npc run cities that appear nearby
- first MMO to use direct-x 10 although DX10 is not required to play
The initial levels 1-5 have to be single player only. At level 5 you pick an archetype (soldier, priest, mage, rogue). From levels 5-20 you can choose to play single player or multiplayer. From what I've read, multiplayer is day time and single player will be night time (you go to an inn to move ahead to morning/night). Could create some interesting quests that depend on the time of day, and need to be completed both solo and multiplayer to finish the chain. At level 20 you pick your class, 3-4 depending on which archetype you chose at level 5.
I'm pretty much set on getting this now. Was reading more E3 impressions (Santa Monican Adventures 1-3 ). One of them said that almost all of the end game dungeons are designed to be completed in 2-4 hours due to knowing that more mature gamers meets working people who can't commit 12 hours a day.
This thread has me a little worried: AoC Forums
I had been noticing lots of talk of PvP while I've been reading the forums lately and very little talk of PvE, so I decided to ask people's thoughts. Seems everyone is a PvP nut and nobody cares about instances.
This gives me some hesitations about picking the game up now.
Looks like a great game. I am actually really excited about the PvP aspect of it though. Like someone said in that thead you linked, kris, once you get into PvP, its damn near impossible to stop.
From what i have been reading, this seems like with the player housing and cities that it is going to turn into the good aspects of oldschool UO PvP, which used to be so amazing.
We'll see how it turns out, but i would (and am going to) hold off judgement till the game comes out. Who knows, maybe you'll like it.
I'm going to have to wait until there are previews from videogame websites, the forums and my impressions are that this is PvP focused. Part of that is that most people are interested in this, so they give the most info on it. Looking at all the guilds forming for AoC, there was only 1 that is planning on going on a 'normal' server. The rest are all PvP guilds with a ton being RP-PvP. I found one guild that claimed to be a small PvE guild, but on their website it says 150-200 members is their target (from their past games) and they all love to PvP. go figure.
I hate pvp so I'm not doing any of the Border Kingdom stuff, it'll just be if there is enough to do leveling up and post level 80. The only pvp I have ever done is in first person shooters since it is an even playing field and even then, I haven't done it in a couple years. I just play the single player parts of shooters.
Interesting. Anarchy Online (same developer) had/has a strong pvp element but you coud play the entire game w/o engaging in it if you were careful.
I found this very interesting tidbit in a preview:
The game designers are also utilizing a beefed-up version of the ACG (auto content-generation) system made popular by Anarchy Online. With this, they will be able to create vast dungeons in seconds, which can be further refined into static playable areas with missions and quests with a relatively small amount of effort from the design team. Hopefully this will effect vast amounts of content, as well as well-thought-out and well-scripted events in that same content. One of the things that is so painful about online games these days is the lack of content, simply because it’s so hard to make an environment like that from scratch. With an ACG, this process is automated and all that’s left for the designer to do is tweak what the program has come up with.