Brian C's favourite upcoming title, I think, this. I must say, when I heard there was going to be a Conan MMO, I did groan. Loincloths? Leather bikinis? Arnie accents? Hoi.
But wait. There's some proper horse riding going on in there, in an environment that's looking pretty bloody good.
They used horse mo-cap too!
Avatars are interesting: there seems to be a ton of customisation options - and they're super realistic, like Star Wars Galaxies (although not as handsome). The demo here shows only male characters though, and the single woman in it is a damsel in distress needing rescuing. Ho hum. Where's Red Sonja, eh?!
Overall, this one looks like it'll appeal to Conan fans, Gladiator fans and anyone who wants their epic a little more realistic (but only a little) than WoW. Presumably the lore is going to be way better too, although I'm not sure how important that actually is to the overall success of a game - after all, WoW's lore is frankly diabolical.
I wouldn't mind a gallop about that land, though. Hoo, it looks good.
I have to say I enjoy the WoW lore, it's a lot of fun and fairly massive these days. No George R. R. Martin but then that's not what it's aiming for.
As for how good AoC will be, pretty decent but not mind blowing if the beta leaks are any indication.
Posted by: Pete | May 01, 2008 at 16:56
Well, so far - through one tech test, an open beta, and a closed beta - (ALL requiring new 13gb downloads!!) - I can officially say 'it's pretty, but it sucks'.
Why does it suck? Cos it's the buggiest beta I've ever been involved in (and I've done a few). I have an identical PC to a friend (we built them at the same time), and he can run the game, I can run it and lock up after 20 seconds of gameplay. It has huge loading times, there are loads of instanced areas (like Guild Wars, so it's not a true persistant world), go swimming and you come out of the water bald, you'll frequently turn to face away from what you're fighting. Classes are imbalanced to such a degree that warlocks in WoW are going on strike! With the early access downloads starting this weekend - I'd have to say I feel it's about 6 months away from 'ready'.
Early zones are lush, later zones feel rushed and thrown in (whether they patch to improve them and are just getting the early bits 'pretty' for the new subscribers I don't know).
Combat IS more involved that WoW, no autoattacking here, so that's better... but it just feels to me like a wasted opportunity. It could have been great, but I think it'll fail due to not being polished, and not being a 'real' breathing world like WoW.
Posted by: WandringSoul | May 07, 2008 at 11:37