"Unless Funcom somehow screws up"-- That was my mantra for over a year prior to Age of Conan's release. There were so many features that sounded great when discussed in dev interviews and on the AoC forums, I was so pumped for this game. Never before had myself and my friends / guildmates made such plans for a game prior to release-- and I feel burned for it.

I love the core game, the combat has been fantastic, visuals are stunning and the immersion is good as well. The city construction is cool, but turns out hollow since the cities themselves don't do much, especially on a PvE server where you can't run around and shoot arrows at each other from the walls.

Funcom has created what I feel is a great leveling up game with good solo fun, but it's not a compelling group experience. It's especially lacking in quality dungeons for small groups at Endgame. The crafting is bland and there are so few things to fiddle with besides just running around and killing mobs.

'Massive' Mistake?

Funcom is determined to push the 'massive' aspects of Sieges and Raiding, which is a direction leaving me cold. They're now working on even bigger Sieges, even bigger Cities and even bigger Guilds (in the form of Alliances). What happened to the original plans for PvP questing in the Border Kingdoms with smaller fights over resource areas and towers? Without that stuff, they have no initial buildup into Sieges, so they're trying to leapfrog higher to provide progression.

How can their game engine support 300-player Sieges? It doesn't even work well with the current Sieges or even their standard Raid size of 24. Anytime I've seen more than a handful of players casting at once, things get out of sync and characters pop in and out of existence. Hell, even just the streets of Tarantia the NPCs blip in and out. Their solution: Drop visual effects from other players? Ugh.

A perfect example of how screwed up their PvP system is: When a Siege is about to take place, all other players are kicked out of that Border Kingdom. Not that the Border Kingdoms have much to do anyway, they're complete wastelands, but this mechanic ensures Funcom will never be able to bring Border Kingdoms up to par with the pre-release expectations.

Even if they fix what's broken now, they're not even close to the Endgame they should have had.

I really feel as though Funcom has made the wrong game for their Dreamworld engine, which seems far more appropriate to smaller groups. It looks spectacular from a solo perspective. They should stick with their strengths.

Where I'm stuck

They're now dicking around with balancing, mostly for PvP and Raiding with a few things just thrown in to slow down the gangway pace of leveling. The glory of the combat is getting watered down fast as they reduce the number one fun factor of the game. Due to their recent changes to balance out the gender damage issue, my Polearm Guardian's animations seem stuttery and unnatural. =(

The Apprentice obliteration was a huge blow to my daily fun, the day it hit was the day I played significantly less since I can no longer team up in a meaningful way with Michelle or Lurch as well as most of my friends and family-related guildmates.

So what am I left with? I can compete with the 12-to-1 ToS ratio that's AoE'ing the snot out of the high end mobs in Kheshatta (no thanks) or I can do Villas over and over again. I can't even spend my time collecting resources for my Tier2 guild city because they won't fit in my bags unless I first spend 22.5g to progress my Architect skill. Crafting as a gold sink != fun. I'm left feeling very unenthusiastic for anything gameplay-related, I'm just socializing with my friends, which I can do regardless.

So it's moving on time

I'm going to be parking Bello, my level 77 Guardian for awhile. Perhaps a short while, perhaps a very long while, it all depends on whether Funcom brings in content I'd actually like to play. What's in the game at the high levels right now is lacking, I've just plain run out of things I'd like to do.

I thought I would have been able to hold out a minimum of six months.

I've been leveling at a steady pace and I think I detect some cries of alarm from guildmates seeking to catch up. It hasn't seemed rushed, I try to hold myself back, but my Polearm Guardian is too much fun dammit.

Kheshatta is the level 80 zone in this game and I have to admit in my first visit I was underwhelmed. Perhaps I've yet to find the hidden gems in the zone, so I'll withhold any deep criticism, who knows with first impressions right? Desert landscapes don't appeal to me on the surface.

Atzel's Approach on the other hand, has proven a surprising alternative. I expected to be moving on by now but it goes all the way from 60-75. It's cleverly laid out, whomever the zone designer was he has my deep respect because Atzel's Approach has layers. Like onions, or better yet a layered cake. Oh yes, my analogies suck.

I just wrote a poetic description of the place that was borderline brilliant, but I nuked it for sake of explorer spoilers. =P   Discover the zone on your own terms, because this good stuff is too far and between in these games.

Yay. A little while back they shrunk polearms to toothpick sizes, now they're adjusting them upwards again. I'll have to compare screenshots, but here's hoping my Guardian can feel reasonably intimidating again.

Update: It looks to me as though they've normalized some polearms a little better, they aren't longer but I think they're not as thin as they used to be. I could be imagining it though, because if it is a change it's a marginal one. =/

I hit level 50 last night.

I'm starting to fill my character's shoes well, figuratively and literally (nice boots!), because at this point I think I can finally say I've got a groove on the nature of my class. Or at least my class with a Polearm spec.

Here are some mish-mashed level 50 ponderings / rants:

• Mob AI is becoming significantly challenging at 50: Mobs with fear, stun and cower effects. Mobs that shout for adds. Mobs that heal themselves. Mobs that run and grab some more buddies. It's getting significantly more difficult to solo, but I like it.
• Gathering resources is almost too easy (more on this soonish), but it's certainly more fun than in other recent games.
• Polearm reach combined with collision detection makes for an awesome combination. It's insanely satisfying to handily manage 5 mobs plus adds.
• Polearm Guardians suffer from a lack of weapon choices. I find myself not able to choose a weapon based upon appearances, but have to settle for one of the two common choices at this level if I want anything suitable for actually killing stuff with a reasonable DPS. Compared to the wide selection of swords, I'm feeling stiffed in this area.
• Funcom's official Guardian forums are dominated by players with assumptions from other games. This is especially true for those who rushed to 80 and are firmly carrying their assumptions into AoC's raiding. Sword & board to me equates to sword & bored. I'll be sticking with my polearm and milking the most out of it.
• The gear is great in appearance overall, kudos to Funcom's art department. But the itemization generally stinks, I finally reach level 50 and all of the gear is just a colour change from the same models I've been looting since 30. Apparently there are some unique items (like my boots) from group dungeon bosses, but that means all of the soloable gear is just the same.
• Funcom's solution to the itemization problem is they plan to add more of the unique stuff onto the loot tables for soloable outdoor bosses. But we don't just need more unique stuff, we need better ordinary choices. One common model with just colour and minor detail variations for 30+ levels doesn't cut it.
• I hate capes. I wish they hadn't put stats on capes, either that or let us hide them. I'm wearing a more subdued cape with lower stats rather than my 'Superman' red cape from the Sanctum quests.
• I want bigger bags.

Level 50 feels like a good time to reflect. My complaints feel pretty minor and I'm not the least bit bored of the game.

The combos, the finishing move animations, and just the high quality animation overall-- I would be hard pressed to return to any MMORPG without these features, AoC has thoroughly spoiled me with the combat.

Bello, my Aquilonian Guardian, is looking good at level 20. He's escaped the confines of Tortage and has moved on to the world of Hyboria at large. So far though, he's mostly sat around Tarantia while his controller (that would be me, Rog, heh) sniffles and sneezes trying to kick a nasty cold.

I have managed to poke around a few places, doing some casual exploring. It's all so huge and overwhelming at this point.

I've also decided that for now at least, Bello will be my main character. And as such, I created our guild (Left Hand Path) under his name. His guild title is Chaos-lord, which is pretty suitable. Hmm. Chaos-lord Bello. Yeah I like it.