I picked up the game about a week after it came out. Which means 3 weeks ago
First the bad news... The minimum specs to run it are horseshit. I have two computers, 1 which is at the bare min specs required and another which is quite above the recommended reqs.
The first computer won't get past the character creation screen. I'm sure I could tweak the three year old monster into submission but then I would have to put it all on low setting and that would just be a shame because this is really a beautiful game.
The new computer is a 6600 quad with 4 gigs ram running under 64 bit Vista and I picked up a ATI 3870 w/ 512mb from best buy that was on sale. It was $250 but they had it -$120 off so picked it up for $130. I'm not an ATI fan but hell, can't beat the price. The game looks STUNNING. I can pretty much set everything to the highest detail and it runs smooth. (At this time there seems to be some problems with some of the ATI cards not running at their full potential with the game. It's definitely a problem with the game but to be honest I haven't noticed anything. My FPS are usually in the 40's outside and when in a dungeon I'm running in the 130's+. The foliage is breathtaking with the grass swaying in the wind and the detail in everything is amazing. There is a nice sound track running in the background that sets the mood.
Other tech issues at the moment. There seems to be some hard lockup issues since a new patch last Monday. It hasn't been affecting my Ranger but my it seems when I play my priest then the game reboots my machine 3 or 4 times in a 2 or 3 hour period. I think it has something to do with spell animations. But these are minor tech problems and I'm sure that will be fixxed.
The game is sweet. The combat is pretty active and takes some getting used to. You definetly have to be on top of your character much more as opposed to WoW.
The classes are undergoing some renovations. In PvP the main two healer classes (PoM and ToS) are pretty unbeatable unless you can burst damage them. They can usually heal thru your mana pool (if you are a mage) or thru your stamina pool (if you are a rogue or soldier class) and once you are drained they can take you out. Priests also have pretty good crowd control skills, I can wade in a mob of 6 or 7 with very little problem whereare a mob of 3 with my Ranger takes a bit longer to kill.
The Mage archtypes got the shaft again with AoC. The Demonologists is one of the weakest classes in the game and have recently underwent a revamp. I haven't tried out my Demo lately since the last patch and will have to check and see if the new patch has actually helped him out. Mages here have the same problems as WoW. Very little health, no armor, and very little survivabilty. While it is true that mages are supposed to be paper targets they are also supposed to deal the most DPS which is limited only by their mana pool. The only difference I see in the mages here in AoC and the ones in WoW is the fact I don't have to play waterboy.
Rangers are a fun class to play and almost perfect for PvP. The last two patches have done some "stealth" nerfing to the class however. It seems that mobs and PC's chance to evade, dodge, or block an attack has increased to an insane levels. At the moment, only the casters are enjoying combat. I do like Rangers but I get tired of turning tail and hiding most of time. The only other complaint I have about the class is that it is a combination of The Wayfarer class (from beta) and a ranger class. They basically just shoved a feat tree and pasted it onto the ranger class. At the moment a few (ok a lot) of ranger feats are kinda bugged. Traps share the same cooldown, the higher tier feats are kinda worthless, and some just don't work at all. (Pitch pots for instance.) And now they've made this root immunity with other characters include Mez shots so...it's worthless to drop a leg hold in order to get the hell away in a fight. (Unless you wait 60 secs, lol). But like I said, with the right spec rangers can get away from any melee character and live.
Is it a fun game? Yes, I enjoy it much better than WoW. Of course UO will always have a special place in my heart.
I think this game has potential. It's 3 weeks old and there are A LOT of bugs and game content which is missing. But hell, it took WoW about 6 months to get rolling.
I like the mature content (although it seems a lot of immature people are playing.) It's no fun when I'm questing and a guy 39 levels above me comes around and one shots me. I tend to hide a lot on Deathwisper. For the most part I don't die and if someone attacks me for no reason then I just stalk them with my Ranger and kill an hour or two that way until they whine and cry and I force an apology outta them. They are putting the Fugitive system in to try to cut down on killing lower level PCs, it should be a good idea. People already seem to be complaining about the plan though. No one wants to lose gold or an item when they die RED. Fucking amatuers...I remember getting everything when I killed in UO. Nothing better than all those rune stones and house keys, lol... It made it more fun to risk losing everything IMHO. It seperated the chaff from the wheat.
This is a long post I know but I would recommend AoC to anyone as long as they have a system capable of playing it in all its glory. I think Sieges will be cool once they get the Tier 3 stuff fixxed with guild villages. And their patches seem to be breaking more they are fixxing so patch day is always going to be fun. It's undergoing growing pains at the moment.
The quests below level 30 are pretty complete and amazing, you won't run out. Hell I solo's all the way to 40 and didn't have any problems. Now I just need to find a guild and maybe I could make some new MMO memories.
Your opinons of AoC?
Linear Mode
