Age of Conan

[memoriesuntold]

How is this game? Looking for something new, currently playing Rift but its getting kinda old atm. Was curious to see what others have to say about AoC, i have heard the PVP is the best out there and graphics are amazing, but was curious about the community and if its a dead game, and if the PVE-Endgame is any good.

Thanks in advance

[Coldpro]

Its alright, I found the first 20 or so levels good, eventually the game gets grindy though

[memoriesuntold]

I tried Aion because i heard it was pretty fun but the fact that i couldnt talk to anyone for the first 10 levels even on a retail copy, well that game didnt last long =)

[Lasica]

I've played Age of Conan for over a year on and off. 1-20 is a fully voiced fairly linear storyline mixing it up between the night part of the game where you are alone and the day part where other players may happen along. 20-80 is an open world type game split into zones for various level (so 4 level 20-40 zones, 2 level 40-50 zones, 2 level 50-60 zones, 2 level 60-70 zones, 2 level 70-80 zones and then a level 75-80 zone or something like that). There is some good stuff in these zone but also a lot of kill 30 cannibals/picts/pirates/whatever quests. 80+ is Khitai which is 4 zones of increasingly tougher mobs (e.g. Grasslands is 80-82 mobs, Chosain is 82-83, Kara Korum is 83-84, and Paikang is 84-85). So progress through those zones you have to get gear from faction vendors that has their anti-crit stat on it otherwise the higher level mobs crit you to death very quickly. The higher level zones are tough solo as some classes and some quests there are actually very challenging and interesting. Now as to your questions. PvP is hard, especially starting from scratch. The top PvPers have full AA points and the best gear and may simply prove unkillable to someone starting out. There is a major grind in both gear and AAs to get up level with people who have been playing for a while.... however, they have recently released a new Blood and Glory server which is pure PvP with no transfers or anything so everyone there is starting out fresh. Expect to be ganked.. a lot... I mean a real lot. It is a really raw and bloody pvp game with a lot of really nasty people playing it who will kill you the moment they see you just because. Levelling back near the start of the game on a PvP server often the only way I could quest was to stealth around the place and keep an eye open for anyone that might be out to get me. PvP Endgame... well there are minigame and sieges which are still pretty buggy. It's a gear grind like a lot of other MMOs and on top of that they have added another grind with the prowess/AA points. As for how it plays at max level... yes PvP in AoC can be a lot of fun. Back a year or two now my guild used to lock down zones and prevent other players from accessing raids until they got past us and we had vast battles across entire zones sometimes and it was a lot of fun. I doubt you'd get that level of PvP now but you never know what you can stir up. PvE Endgame... you have the Khitai faction grind which has been improved but is still a grind and the godslayer dungeon grind for gear tokens and then you have 4 tiers of raiding, except the 4th tier is still incomplete... at least it was when I was last playing. There are also some solo dungeons you can do for tokens and gear of varying degrees of difficulty. The raids are ok, nothing near the WoW level of complexity but still some entertaining fights in there. They are fairly quick to complete (at least the T1/T2 raids are) but getting people to do the same raids over and over was getting more difficult. With free-to-play option recently released it is probably worth taking a look if you are interested. Just don't buy anything from their cash shop its a bit of a rip off. Subscription is cheaper.

[Digglett]

The first half is AMAAAZING, as people have said. I keep hearing the later end of AoC is grindy, and not as good. It makes me sad, if they kept up what they did in the first half for the whole game, it would be amazing, and a very good competitor against WoW. :/ I'm only at level 20 myself, so I can't really tell you myself if that is true,