Comments on: Jalum reviews Conan

By: Seen in May at Kill Ten Rats

Seen in May at Kill Ten Rats — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 05:04:32 +0000

[...] and pretty much all of Tobold and Bildo’s sites for late May. Need a leveling flowchart? Jalum’s review that I linked earlier is probably non-relevant, especially since the miracle patch(es) seems to [...]

By: Ardwulf

Ardwulf — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:08:58 +0000

The amount of bad information in circulation about AoC is very high. Jalum’s review (which I have yet to see – the link is dead for me) would appear to fit into that category of bad information. This is less Jalum’s fault than it is Funcom’s – it’s their responsibility to get up-to-date information out to the public, and at this they have failed pretty miserably throughout the prelaunch countdown.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:24:04 +0000

It does seem that the game will look pretty bad on older computers. I just hope upgrading will be worth it.

By: Bildo

Bildo — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:03:31 +0000

/hijack

http://bildos.blogspot.com/2008/05/bildos-age-of-conan-beta-review-long.html

/endhijack

Resume regular comment reading.

By: Openedge1

Openedge1 — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:50:30 +0000

I have the “recommended” system as noted in the specs for the game (and with Vista to boot)…and as anyone should know if you use minimum requirements on ANY game, you are going to have to turn something down..
Anyways…recommended system…the game ran 40-60FPS on high at 1440×900 on a 56″ HDiLA TV…
Zero crashes, but as people were around, some minor hitching and some lows to …GASP…30FPS..(but way better than LOTRO which everyone touts as the “stable” king)…and the gameplay was fun, refreshing, and really works (if you FOCUS, and learn how to do it…)…when I could control when my fatalities would happen, I knew I had it down pat!

The fact I keep seeing people say a “2nd Vanguard” etc is so far from the truth, it is pitiful what people will do to make a game look worse than it is…the doom and gloom was pretty sad..
The game ran flawlessly on 3 systems I have in house…3 different types of systems…all at “recommended” or higher spec…
This game is on my buy list for sure..

PS: As an added note..I also base gaming decisions on what my wife thinks of games…and a lot of people think AoC is geared towards males…so, when she played and got her first fatality within 5 minutes…she saw the blood spatter the screen…then said to me “Oh my…that was…satisfying!”…I knew AoC was going to be great!

By: Bildo

Bildo — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:54:15 +0000

Not to mention the 9600GT is uber cheap and runs just as well (if you get the superclocked version from EVGA). Sure they won’t hit WoW sub numbers, but Funcom knows that and never aimed for it.

This game will be their first mainstream hit, bugs or not, because it’s ACTUALLY fun to play for those who can run it.

By: Rog

Rog — Tue, 13 May 2008 03:59:36 +0000

Ethically, review a beta based upon game mechanics, not performance. There’s plenty of time to review performance the day the game is out.

There have been so many games where the beta performs wildly different than release, no matter how close or “gold” the game has gone. From most accounts, it’s already improved since this review was written 10 days ago.

Developers always deserve the benefit of the doubt unless there’s a bunch of other obvious problems going on at the company, etc.. This so clearly isn’t the fiasco of Vanguard, which was a disaster in so many more ways than just performance.

That said, Funcom does list fairly high “recommended” system requirements. I’d say they’re going for a niche market for sure. I’ll happily play it, as I’m sure plenty of others will. Nvidia has certainly sold a great deal of 8800GT cards, check Steam’s survey and you’ll see it’s the most common chipset now.

By: Boddler

Boddler — Tue, 13 May 2008 03:51:36 +0000

I’d imagine the first comments by Artemis-X- hit the nail on the head–your friend’s system is generationally older than what he believes it to be, and his technical problems aren’t allowing him to see past them to the phenomenal game itself.

This game really is a blast… and you’ll keep hearing that from many more people.

By: A55cl0wn

A55cl0wn — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:00:30 +0000

I have a fairly old machine with a 6600GT and am playing the beta. It’s no “Oblivion”, but it doesn’t look TOO bad, and it runs really well.

As far as the difficulty is concerned, if I run around like a jerk waving waving my wand of many-blinky-lights and uber death at some panthers, I expect to have my ass handed to me. …now should that wand happen to be just a plain old stick, why am I poking panthers with it? Get the gems and run you fool! :)

Same goes with the guards, I don’t know about you, but I still have the plain old stick (boat oar or something), and whacking the guards upside the head does tend to piss them off, and as a result, they do tend to smite me. Don’t do it man.

By: Sente

Sente — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:57:34 +0000

I’ve played in the up-to-level-13 open beta and a little bit after they turned it 20+ and FFA PvP.

The game worked fairly well after the PvP update performance-wise, whereas it was certainly staggering before that. And it looks very nice on medium settings.

I agree with Lufia on pirates and panthers – you find them in different parts of the city and the isles, you can certainly avoid them. You just cannot walk around in the whole area assuming everything will be at the same level.
And if you do the night time solo play, the mobs will scale with your level. So it will be different from the corresponding day-time mobs.