AOC - Age of Conan
Simply the best MMO I have played. I played Everquest 1, Everquest 2, DAOC, WOW, Hellgate London, etc etc. AOC finally caters to the “older” and more mature crowd by adding in nudity, blood, and impressive violence.
Key Features:
- Mounted Combat
- Fatalities (Like mortal combat, awesome!)
- Player Owned Cities
- Siege PVP (Catapults, Towers, etc)
- Single Player and Multiplayer Functions
- Combat System. Not your old boring button mashing. You control how you cast/fight.
I am a level 40 Dark Templar and the game has been quite impressive. While my class is clearly underpowered in PVP, the pve aspect of the game is still enjoyable. Once they fix many scaling options and feats (like talents in wow) I should be a formidable opponent in pvp. The first 20 levels of the game are extremely fast, maybe took 10 hours to complete. The world was vast and detailed, npc’s had amazing voice overs and storylines.
Post level 20, you find yourself not really trained for the world. Sure, you can do the basics, fight, run, climb, search, but tradeskilling is still a mystery. At 20+ you need to travel and do tradeskill quests for resource gathering. I hate this aspect of the game; it’s quite confusing on what to do and where to go. Traveling the in game is horrible, the maps are bad and don’t actually tell you how to get somewhere. Additionally, AOC is still based on old “zoning” technology where each area you have to load.
Level 30 is where you can really start to make your character your own. Finding new quests and areas to fight in is constantly a challenge, but well worth the time and attention. You should now know how to play your class is various situation, and how the game mechanics work. You should start playing around with shield placements and stances as well. At 35-40 you will be doing your first group instance in Sanctum. This is an awesome instance and the combat system really shines here. You start to use your skills wisely and decide what to use in different situations, stuns, slows, knockdowns, pulling, etc.
I just started level 40..so more to come