Death of a Game: Age of Conan

How Funcom's MMO Age of Conan died.
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#DOAG

[@Why_are_you00]

Best comment I ever saw on the AoC forums right before release was, "Will the nipples be ready for launch?"

[@Movie_Games]

I made multiple alts and went through Tortage multiple times. I've never seen a game go from awesome to terrible so quickly. Whatever they did in Tortage needed to be done for the rest of the game.

[@kieranmoynihan1161]

Despite what was said in this video, it was actually not really necessary to grind out levels by farming mobs for anything but the last few levels (and that could be avoided if you weren't trying to do it as quickly as possible). There were more than enough quests to get you almost all the way there without running out.

[@Movie_Games]

@@kieranmoynihan1161 I played the game. There were quests, but they were your standard WoW quests. It lacked the story and sense of adventure that was in Tortage.

[@kieranmoynihan1161]

Movie Games Fair enough.

[@Interessâncio]

I played 3 months just in tortage...good times.

[@MrRealAmericanvalues]

@@kieranmoynihan1161 Perhaps. However, the quests were not intuitive or easy to find, leading most players (people not read up on strategy guides) to decide that grinding was the only way. People who were early access purchasers got promised a mount, but it was only mountable at lvl 40 -- so once they got dropped off after the fun early-game quests, it was like, "What do I do now? I want to ride my mount and potentially build a keep with my guild, I guess I will grind." The abrupt lack of content led ppl to decide that grinding was the only way forward.

[@matthiasbayer6694]

Aaah Age of Conan...truly one of the biggest missed opportunities for greatness in gaming history. Despite all of its horrendous flaws, glaring issues, and lack of content, I still found myself playing it for years on end. The Khitai expansion was actually tremendous, albeit with an incredibly high barrier of required gear and leveling to actually access the Khitai endgame content - which pretty much meant that that content was woefully underpopulated. Funcom repeated the same rough scheme in The Secret World - a GREAT concept with some truly amazing ideas and very unique content compared to the competition, but a woeful lack of quality control and a host of management issues. Age of Conan had some of the best "oldschool" MMO gameplay ever, while The Secret World has some of the best questing in the history of MMOs, as well as truly unique atmosphere. I've often said that if Funcom's ambition and vision could have been combined with Blizzard levels of quality control, the MMO landscape would look quite drastically different today. Alas, what could have been.

[@tynao2029]

what was that one fucking valley and mountain in the beginning? Those viking dudes in their bases at the top were hard

[@testname4464]

"Blizzard levels of quality" means something very different today...

[@Wulfay]

Totaly agree...Lots of lack of content and bugs in the first months of 2008. Than i guess from 2009-2010 the game was really awesome for me. I had over 1500 hours of fun and 3 lvl 80s characters from January 2009 till mid 2010. There was not much endgame (Tier 1 and Tier 2 raids were challenging for maybe 3 months), so i just took another character levling up. In the last two month before Khitai i played a lot of PvP (One PvP-Level 4 and two PvP-Level 3). And i was quite good with a positive K/D, many flag steals and you could make good teamplay too. We even had a PvP-guild-keep with a 15 men guild (on a PvE-Server). Khitai brought a lot of content, but they changed PvP-Max-Level from 5 to 10. End of 2010 there were lots of PvP-Level 10 guys in PvP and it was absolutely no fun to compete in PvP anymore. Khitai was fun to explore for maybe 3-4 months. But there were a lot of reapetive quests. Grinding...and grinding...so i was bored and left the game in the end of 2010 after 2 years. I returned end of 2013 after playin THE SECRET WORLD for maybe 1 year in 2012. Still the graphics and the soundtrack were amazing for this time and i had fun to play with a friend a new character from 0 to 80. But the end game still was not satisfying. Even the Tier 1 and Tier 2 - Dungeons were not challenging anymore. Cause bored Tier 4 guys joined these raids - and it was just a running through without tactics now. Vistrix - the great dragon - it needed a lot of raid discipline (2009-2010) to kill him - was goin down fast now without problems. I am happy to play it. With 2013 maybe 2000-2500 hours of game time. Missed opportunity for catching me long term. But still one of the best games i played.

[@Caparrini81]

I played that game for less than six months. The soundtrack, I still listen to it today. Absolute master piece

[@romandoo]

I'm still playing Age of Conan to this day... I even have the retail version. I loved it and i still enjoy it. It has a very distinct vibe that I adore.

[@MilosAndric123]

I am glad to hear this, may Mitra guide your path :)

[@mattfahringer148]

@Appalachian Packmule i can attest to that. when i played i need help on a quest that was clearly designed for a group. well not only did i not get help i got called every racial slur under the sun

[@scarlitch6294]

my dad played for the past 10 years hes playing the game rn as im typing this. Walking Dead Guild

[@FacesintheStone]

Still love this game.

[@Themarpe]

the story of this game was amazing. would be awesome if they put this story line in the new one. :D

[@oliverurbanik9647]

Age of Conan.. despite all the bugs and disbalance, the low performance and stuff... i had some good times in the game. The RP Community was really strong, and had some nice times there.

[@BromanP47]

AoC is the game that introduced me to PC gaming. I bought my first gaming computer solely to play it. Perhaps it was just my lack of experience with other games, but I fell in love with AoC from the moment I first set foot on Tortage, and ended up sinking nearly 5 years of my life into it. Since AoC, I've not found another game that could come even close to the level of enjoyment I gained through playing AoC. The combat and open world PvP was just too addicting. It really has ruined every other game I've tried. I spent nearly 2 years just progressing up through the level brackets. I joined a guild and we developed rivalries with other guilds. At level 39 we'd track them down and get into awesome open world pvp battles. We would queue up for PvP mini games and pit our best against theirs. The time finally came we decided to progress to the next tier, so we all leveled up to 59, where we could participate in higher level PvP. I spent about a year just finding people to duel in the Eiglophian Mountains, and doing other pvp things with my guild. Finally after a year or two of playing the game, I finally decided to progress up to 80. The duel pit in Khesh, guild rivalries, more open-world pvp and mini games, exploring Khitai and it's many dungeons. It's just so hard to think back on the memories I have of this game without feeling upset with how it turned out. Unfortunately, Funcom took the game in a direction I, and many others didn't agree with. They implemented changes that completely broke the game and its balance. People left the game, and as it grew empty I found myself alone in a desert that was once a beautiful forest. The day I finally uninstalled it for good left me with a void I've yet to be able to fill. Here I am, nearly 4 years later since I last played Age of Conan, and I still can't play anything else without comparing it to AoC. I don't think I'll ever find a game that can come close to matching it, and it will forever hold a place in my heart.

[@hadrieliwinters969]

I got in just after the gem fiasco. The PvP was a once in a lifetime thing. It was every guild for itself politics and battle keeps were amazing. But, funcom added guards, NPC police cops to prevent griefing. Then mismanaged balance of classes introduced crowd control control mechanics. But right before those singularity police cops showed up, game was fuuucking brutal, even afterward.. I swear you will never see this level of PvP again there was more meaning to it. And it was just so gruesome.

[@GardenTronics]

AOC will forever be in my heart. For now it has a spot on my KZbin.

[@Baleur]

Star Citizen

[@nightgod473]

So, what games are on your 'less-than-a-handful' list that managed a comeback? I want to know if I'm missing something I should give another chance to!

[@AmorphisBob]

I'm guessing ESO is one of them

[@trumpplayswarspear]

@@AmorphisBob why would u respond to a 6 year old comment? That guy is probably dead by now

[@ЕмилЕфендулов]

I played the game in 2008 after the initial bug fixes. It had some amazing graphics and great innovative ideas. Many of the problems are mentioned in the video itself, but i'd like to clarify a couple of things. 1. The grinding wasn't too bad. Don't forget that this was 2008 and MMOs were just starting to get rid of grinding, which until then was viewed more as a feature, rather than a flaw. 2. The biggest problem by far weren't the bugs or the unbalanced class system, me and most of my ingame friends quit because of how boring character progression was. When you make a mage you expect to go from a fireball to a fiery meteor, when you make a warlock you expect to go from summoning an imp to summoning a big ass demon. In AoC you start with a fireball and finish with a purple fireball, you start with an imp and you finish with a chihuahua. It was even worse when it came to how your character looked. It was OK for worriers, since they went from ripped garments all the way up to chain shirts with some plating (yes, that was considered lucky). The casters had it worse - they went from a slightly ruffled up brown robe to an almost new reddish robe. Yes, you grind for months and end up looking and feeling exactly the same as you did in the starting area. The graphics really were amazing, but with sh*tty, unimaginative models and textures, the game looked extremely stale. That's the reason I quit and I can assure you that that's the reason most people quit during the initial exodus.

[@krs4395]

The first twenty levels of Age of Conan was the best mmo I've ever played, everything after level twenty was the most boring mmo I've ever played. You can only complete Tortage so many times though... So I moved on.

[@ChickenMcThiccken]

because it was all, single player campaign. the voice acting, etc... that was all missing from the rest of the game lol. and getting even 1 gold coin was damn near impossible

[@okamifox16]

The only thing I did in Age of Conan was knock people off bridges with my horse lol.

[@turtleanton6539]

😂😂

[@do00p]

THe only thing I Iremember from the beta was that my cuz started off blind and had to train eyesight.

[@KrillWhisperer]

Wait, you can do that? D: I always tried to kick em off but suddenly invincible wall!

[@557deadpool]

SO YOU WERE THE ONE

[@557deadpool]

@Snickeres 557 stfu simp

[@Williamwerenberg]

Age of Conan is the game I’ve spend most time on in my life. I found this video because I missed it after two years without playing. Huexin - full t4 assassin

[@tjokkerstar1462]

Easy they made the tutorial amazing and the when you got out of it, the game was empty.

[@IRMentat]

Tjokker Star a common practice. Rift was the biggest bait n switch for me, a fantastic opening area, through a portal into "deliver this urgent message!" To an NPC standing right next to the quest giver.

[@tjokkerstar1462]

i just remember this game for this reason only. It was such an epic game but after that first area everything that made the game feel so good was gone. I have played Rift in a period and i think i was a great game but sure the quests was no the best. i have played almost every mmorpg out there and to find one that you like is sooo hard. I found my game in ESO played it at release and took a 1 year break from mmo's and i have played it ever since i came back. But its a jugle out there.

[@Shapookya]

+Tjokker Star yep, AoC was an amazing experience, until you left that tutorial island. I remember replaying that tutorial with multiple classes and then just quit the game.

[@therealbroga]

I was in the the Alpha (then beta of course) and was so disappointed in the game that I never played it on release. It saddened me greatly because I have been a Conan fan since reading all the books in my youth, but the game never got better. The same bugs on release had been around for 2 years, and there was zero content after L20.

[@tjokkerstar1462]

i didnt mind the changes to ESO that much, but i do get you'r point. For me it was not a problem since i have done all the quests in every zone besides craglorn and cyrodiil but im working on that. But the level scaling gave me the chance to play with friends that just recently started playing the game. FFXIV is a good game i played that for some time both on pc and playstation 3 back when that first came out :) i dont know why i stopped i liked the story and the idea of crafting being their own class. I might have to install that again some time to take another look :)

[@ReMeDy_TV]

@ 6:50 Ahh yes, players entering conversations... I remember I was playing a female character and a male player took off his pants, walked up to my camera, and showcased his junk front and center. He knew which direction my camera was facing during the conversation. It's that kind of unique experience you'll never get in a single-player game.

[@MilosAndric123]

you made me so sad man, I use to be a guild master for 3 years. one of the best years of friendship and gaming I ever had, people even cried on teamspeak when I left my guild..... :(

[@raycocker639]

Why'd you leave man?

[@MilosAndric123]

Got married and got a kid, was hard working in the military getting home dead and opening my email and have 70 unread email, at the end I left, its unbelievable to say but conan got me some real good friends, and we were a good guild man by the name of Legion of blood.

[@Schemes_the_rat]

I was a member of the guild "Warband" back in the day, alot of us had tons of respect for you guys.

[@MilosAndric123]

Thank you kindly, you just made my day Svend Jansen. 🙂 We rember your guild as well 🙂

[@Tanchicomarkas]

Cried when you left? Jesus, that person has some serious mental health problems ;(

[@Rundberget]

I had the pleasure of talking with a game-designer working on AOC, i did actually find out by accident after i had ranted on about AOC for about two hours - when he revealed: i know, i worked on AOC. According to him, the day before realease the game-director Gaute Godager ordered the designers to cut 90% of the games content. The day before release! No questions asked, just do it. It was, according to him: hell on earth working under Godager - long work days, no food, crazy deadlines etc etc. Gaute was then fired from Funcom due to his poor leadership, and a few years later Funcom was raided by Økokrim ( economical crime unit ) for inside-trade and hyping up the stock market. Their manager was under suspicion but never charged, tho proof was there ( he had good lawyers)

[@Crusader2010]

Ahh, I remember Age of Conan. the complete drop after level 20 was indeed the reason I didn't continue. Also, the story at that point ended with "YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE!!!!" Well. Yea. So are all the other players. That grated with me from a lore perspective. They could have just said 'You survived your first challenge, good luck out there' and it would have felt a lot better.

[@mikoto7693]

I think FF14 is going for a "you are the chosen one" vibe. I don't like being a chosen one born with a special power but I can live with it. As I did with being Dragonborn in Skyrim. Being normal and taking on something that makes you special like the taint or the Anchor magic in Dragon Age Origins and Inquisition is okay. But without a doubt I prefer the story of the self made hero. Nothing special about you. It's just you freely choose to train, quest, get stronger and save the world/region.

[@schwann145]

What game were you playing? One of the best parts about AoC was that you *weren't* "the chosen one." You were some poor schlub who got swept up into a possessed army and were just lucky enough to escape that fate.

[@negatron313]

I grew up watching my parents play this as officers of Knights of Ironspine. I watched them be some of the first clear raids, as a child even taking over for them at times during these. I saw my father commit some of the greatest trolls in history, such as going into hide on his Demonologist anf blowing up a wagon in Atzel's approach, that would lure in a huge mob of enemies, then quickly go into hide. He would create entire graveyards while bored. I while playing pvp on this very demonologist would go to a ice and lava pvp map, kill my pet, hide, and knock back people into lava, which hilariously wouldn't even give me pvp points. I had once even watched my father on this demonologist fight the Khitan Golem 1v1 after it attacked him. A GM got involved in that one. My family enjoyed the game well into the late game.

[@nickr689]

I really enjoyed this game. My WOW guild and I left WoW for this game. We spent then entire summer getting max level and built a level 4 siege castle. We camped max level zones on our server so people couldn't level up in peace. It was fun and brutal. but the raids were broken and bugged and they never fixed them. Our first Guild Vs Guild siege was assisted by a GM and not even he could get the catapults to work and our castle walls had no internal structure, so the enemy could just walk through them. So we had to cancel the sieges.

[@sweetfry]

I did something similar, we all went from WoW to Warhammer to AOC and then we just went and played TBC because both those games failed

[@seamusperkins2526]

@@sweetfry same My guild left WoW for Warhammer. I still remember the chat being filled with "Yeah man, Warhammer is gonna KILL WoW"

[@TheRealCommonSenseGuy]

From someone who played wow since the beginning, camping low level areas makes you and your guild a bunch of garbages losers.

[@GreatSmithanon]

I love how you call this pseudo journalism and yet its significantly more in depth and well thought out, as well as a hell of a lot more truthful than pretty much any "legit" games journalism.

[@mormegil231]

Ere the World Crumbles.. It has been so long and still this tune is embedded in my head...

[@storm7586]

It had no end game content at the start and a lot of us just gave up

[@MooseHunter330]

The 3 horsemen of the gaming apocalypse: - Survival - Open World - Crafting

[@Mikebrowski]

Kickstarer... DLC microtransactions.. yeah way more

[@-force-2339]

I think Age of Conan is still worth a try for people who played a long time ago or never played it at all. The game got a lot of updates, a lot of quality of life changes, content updates and bugfixes. I just started the game again after a 1 and a half year break and I am still enjoying it (even though I did almost everything in the years before, played for almost 7 years non stop, best gear for several classes, ran dungeons for the 100th time, all classes on level 80 and so on). The 2011 F2P was not good, F2P players had many restrictions but the F2P revamp in 2016 really was a good change, you can play everything without having premium you just can't have more than 10 Gold (which is kinda stupid in my opinion) and have to buy the expansions (like you have to do it for every other game) and they are very cheap (like 9€ - 15€ here in germany) but you can enter every raid dungeon / 6 man dungeon / playfield area and so on. The F2P revamp could be described as the old Premium / Membership, you have no decrease in EXP gain or anything else you just have the basic amount players had in the years 2008 - early 2016 before the revamp, players with premium just gain a little bit more in terms of relics, EXP and faction renown. If you haven't tried the game yet, do it before it completely dies off, play on the server "Crom - PvE", there are still a lot of people and guilds there, ranging from casual / beginner guilds to "professional" end game guilds. There is a lot of stuff to do, mob grinding is almost not needed (only in very few cases but you can basically ignore them) and the games story lines are still incredible.

[@Evangel666]

i always wondered how much funcom paid the big bang theory folks to feature their game in an episode.

[@Kokorisu]

Ugh. Despite this game's flaws, I had such a blast playing it. I miss it terribly, and think of giving it another shot, but I know it's in vain. I made some amazing friendships that lasted years, and even through it met the person who is now my best online friend, and we've been gaming together for a decade. The music was wonderful, and the feel of the universe was so magical. We were all roleplaying Cimmerian warriors, and we ended up being respected and feared by the community. We had sieges, we had great drama, and tons of fun. I feel like Khitai was such a terrible way to handle an ultimately MASSIVE expansion. It was so daunting and the bar of entry seemed so high that a majority of people never got to explore beyond the first map. In a way, that's lovely in theory, because it gives the impression of a dangerous, unforgiving world, but it was just hard to play the content since many people didn't even try. I have such a love-hate relationship with Funcom. They have terrific ideas, and have this true talent of building amazing worlds. But they're just not great at managing or creating games. The Secret World is also another example of a game I wanted to see succeed so badly despite how fundamentally flawed it was. God damnit, Funcom.

[@NinaFelwitch]

I LOVED AGE OF CONAN! Still listen to the soundtrack sometimes. I want my Age of Conan back 😭😭

[@synthetic240]

I absolutely use the AoC soundtrack in my D&D game. Now that I've started LotRO, I'm going to be using that one's equally amazing soundtrack as well!

[@Wulfay]

"Age of Conan" brought me about 1000 satisfied hours of game with 3 Characters. Absolutely was worth it. Ambience (Soundtrack, Graphic), Battle System, World were beautiful. Lack of Endgame (Focus on Singleplayer and repeatable Quests) and Farming content ruined the game. It had potential to be a second "World of Warcraft". So its really sad to review.

[@MrBixy1234]

This game was the BEST game I have ever played, UNTIL level 20 when you left the island. 10 years later I am still frustrated how the game turned out after the starter island. The game had a specific feel that no other would match, it had cool versatility with classes, great versatility of the environment from deserts, swamps tundras and more and more and I still just can' get over it lol.

[@AnonRanGER01]

"Barbarian" was called "Barbarian", not "Conan". You can see it right there in the screenshot. I liked that game, although there was too much rolling. :P It wasn't licensed, although heavily inspired by it (and even used the Conan main theme drums).

[@raukoring]

Are you talking about age of Conan game or something else?

[@terrylandess6072]

When I was 'told' there were no variations in the tutorial, he lost me. There are 3 distinct paths in the tutorial, all telling about the same situation from different perspectives and quest objectives. Bad info is bad info, regardless of the over-all truth.

[@SniffPum]

I still have the hard-copy of this game. I had to go out and by a DVD-CD Rom just to install it. This game was amazing at release. The tutorial was the best part. Miss my Bear Shaman

[@or10nsharkfin]

I remember sitting in the Ventrilo channel of my WoW guild and one of my guildmates was raving about the game for the week leading up to its launch. Then we didn't see him for another week. He comes back after that just absolutely destroying the game. I don't think I've ever experienced something that had so much hype and lost so much potential that quickly.

[@ScepticLlama]

As a norwegian i can tell you that Funcom is a lauging stock here. Whenever we talk about GOOD games, we talk about amongst the sleep and owlboy. then someone usually mentions "but what about conan" and most people laugh.

[@-force-2339]

Regarding the Steam player count: It's not representive at all, 90% of all people don't play with Steam, most of them use the client you can directly download from the site. Sure, it does not have a really high player count but it's probably 5 or 6 times higher than what Steam shows. If you never tried it, give it a try. There is a lot of content to do for newcomers, play on the PvE server Crom for the best population (big end game guilds, starter guilds, random groups / raids and much more all day long).

[@robertharris6092]

Lol what? A majority of people using pc play on steam.

[@rottencorpse2162]

You would be surprised...

[@duncanrobertson6472]

Robert Harris MMO players generally don’t. It doesn’t make as much sense.

[@kloakenskansen]

Not AOC tho, since it was released on steam several years later..@@robertharris6092

[@jkodas]

The 2004 Conan game was not only Europe. It was also released in North America.

[@Wylf]

Really appreciating the new audio quality. Well done Nerdslayer :)

[@Valarius_J]

Pirates of The Burning Sea should get one of these. As a closed beta player for that one, I have never seen another MMO crash and burn so hard as a result of mismanagement after all the hype since SWG. Thankfully a similar game came and is being worked on: Naval Action and is close to the original vision for PoTBS.

[@seaglass3034]

Valarius J. I enjoyed POTBS, but Naval Action seems to have a bit of controversy surrounding it at the moment. Things present and former players have been saying in reviews has left me skeptical of the title for now.

[@Valarius_J]

Oh? What happened? Truth be told I haven't played Naval Action in several months so I haven't kept up with it. Last I played it though it was pretty fun even if a bit lacking in content, even for an early access game.

[@drewfraley149]

the ship battle was amazing but when you got on land it was horrible.

[@NefariousKoel]

PotBS would be a good one to do. The developer running that show did their best to run it aground.

[@Valarius_J]

Never mind, the devs of Naval Actions are running it into the ground as we speak.

[@Dalboni]

I love age of conan till this day but i understand the frustration of players. The tutorial is so good makes the rest of the game feel blend. The system is great, the ost is awesome, the story is great... but funcon stopped reading foruns and listening to us. So sad.

[@tynao2029]

those funcom forums were such a riot from the beginning. I learned much of what I know about vitriol, bad service and name calling from those forums

[@TheCountOfMommysCrisco]

Man, I'm so glad you gave a proper amount of time to talk about this game's music and sound design. For everything it got wrong, the atmosphere and the way to audio complimented it was nothing short of fucking mastery in game design.

[@delunk5906]

I really miss the excitement of starting a new mmo like this one back in the day. I walked around with the hud off soaking in the ambience of this game many times.

[@Krokodilius]

i played this when it was new, 10 years ago. almost everyone rolled female, went topless around town and never really played the game. starting zone was amazing and then it feels like empty zone after empty zone cuz i have no other memories of that game except the guild housing they advertised wasn't in the game for years to come.

[@hjmash]

YES! TABULA RASA! so excited for this! Great videos man!

[@NecoTheSergalGAME]

Man, I was so fucking into this game back in the day, I had, for a first time in my life, created and moderated my own guild that had 200+ people in it. Was a different sensation than what I was used to. I was proud of the accomplishments we were able to do even though I never bought the expansions or 'Paid Membership' to get the end-game-everything content. The whole 'Building your own castle and village' behind walls that your guild had to pain-stakingly devote resources into was fucking awesome. We had an awesome castle, gate, and an impressive amount of devoted loyalists who helped get a lot done. They were great times, but many were frustrating too, the pay-walls and the lag/unoptimization of some levels? How they butchered and simplified the combat system? ehhhn... I remember many of my hours were devoted to recruiting people in the start-game hub/island. Black Annihilus, good times.

[@vincencures]

what a nostalgia your video brought!... and I agree -> there is a justified reason why a word "Failcom" exists (to be written, said or most probably screamed by every AoC player from time to time) :) but in the end AoC was by far the best time I had in gaming. especially as a raid leader back in times when t2&t3 was in a progression category, not under-level farm. guild members were regular friends, community was mature, friendly and helpful ... really good times no matter the grind, bugs and seeming lack of content - this game played well, looked well and music was simply excellent, it had a spell ... ohh and plenty of gore and nudity - that also helped :D ;)

[@mrpjfresh1810]

I think you really nailed it about Funcom just being incompetent. One huge issue was that items were pretty generic and bland until endgame which led to the joke of wearing a potato sack until level 80. You need to feed players little reward nuggets and cool cosmetics to make them feel like they are progressing and it's worth their time and money. Oh, there WERE great looking sets but taking the time to grind them and the fact they were "bind on pickup"/untradable made it out of reach for all but the most hardcore grinder. Plus, by the time you had grinded a full gear set, you had outleveled it already! The class balance see-saw was terrible, at least early on, and griefing was so rampant, many PvP servers withered because really, what casual wants to pay a monthly sub for that? I don't blame the bad actors as much as Funcom for allowing and not expecting (?) the worst from people. The turning invisible sneak mechanic was laughable in this regard and of course that is going to get abused. The bugs were rampant and you covered the most common though one of my favorites was the Tyrannus Alias quest chain in the Wild Lands. At the end, you had to go to the graveyard to spawn Tyrannus and he took like 10 appropriate level players to even kill so regular players would just give up. Only he wouldn't despawn and anyone/group who managed the incredible feat of killing him after wouldn't get the credit because he wasn't "their" Tyrannus and have to do it all over again! And heaven forbid someone clicked on his grave, ANOTHER Tyrannus would spawn and there would be multiplies of him guarding the graveyard. Only a few level 80s or a mod could help at this point. It was very interesting and enlightening to learn about their financials and the eventual government bailout from this video! There is no way the company could have survived another delay to polish everything and put in the work that was needed. All that said, when AoC was good, it was GREAT. It is very much like a toxic relationship in this way. The potential of what could be draws people in and keeps them longer than it has any right doing. I'm more of a Conan lore fan than an MMO person, but I enjoyed my time and cherish the fond memories. Personally, I would love a Shadow of Mordor style game in the Conan universe... just not from Funcom!

[@cody385]

Age of Conan was awesome

[@Slow9402]

was? is! Crom pve :)

[@Largentina.]

@@Slow9402 No, was.

[@TheDrapetomanic]

The Secret World isn't dead yet, and it's actually a pretty good game, I'd say the best questing in an MMO ever. You never discussed just HOW bad the bugs were. The game was obviously not ready to leave beta for another year or two; icons/art assets were missing, there was some fucked up stuff when you drove a horse into water... it was just bug after bug. Tavern Brawls weren't implemented, and neither was DX... 9, was it, which the box even stated was on it. Furthermore, the game had volunteer GMs that were MORONS. They'd punish griefing on PVP servers even after the developers said that that wasn't against the game rules.

[@xynathegamer]

Combat, atmosphere and immersion and the soundtrack oh my god the soundtrack,all were the best to this day in MMO genre

[@Kalarandir]

A great game that I subbed to for the first 2 years through all the endless Noble District grind. I continued to revisit and re-sub to many times until a few years back when I finally just gave up on it. I still like to visit now it is FtP.

[@HitmannDDD]

The sound was so good, they reused it in Conan exiles

[@alexwood6282]

Love your videos man, I appreciate the amount of research and detail you put in them.

[@MAG3_Hiromachi]

Ahh, Age of Conan. Game that I have returned so many times and left about as many times, most recently last years summer. The sheer amount of money consumed by it (purchased collectors edition of a game, than expansions, subscriptions and various other services) would be enough to fund a few mid performance PCs. From one perspective I never regretted spending money on that game but from the other I regretted very much spending it on Funcom, they deserved nothing and should have gone bankrupt long before. Too many times have they failed to deliver, too many times have they deceived community and all too often they tried to milk whatever they could milk - look at last 3 years of AoC, they added before that gorgeous Dragon Spine only to left it unfinished and than baited players with various options, summer/spring/anniversary/winter bundles just to milk more and more. Whole T5 was the cheapest move ever, I enjoyed tactics a lot but that's about it, rest was just same old content. Or T6 that was "almost" good except being another token farm. Plug should have been pulled long ago but instead its left floating on ice, though at least now community is not getting deceived anymore with new runes, ugly as f**k mounts (oh wait !) and some social useless items. Now people know that its over. The biggest problem of this game was poor execution combined with financing model. Subscription was never cheap but it was somewhat acceptable until fake f2p when subscription remained mandatory but spending money in item shop became a standard as well. They just always seemed to have wanted to steal more money from me, I dunno if that was only me, but I just always had the feeling with whatever they were doing or planning to do, that yet again they want to grab more cash before they shut it down. Few games gave me that awkward feeling of developer only wanting to stick his dirty hand into my pocket and take every last penny there. Since Dragon Spine there was almost no content development (last years arena was fun but ... after so many years it was like a joke, fighting players or pets in arena for all the same subscription ?) and it seems that those few years playerbase was funding development of Secret World and Conan Exiles. Not quite what one would expect when he was spending on specific product. I have to disagree with some points though, Turan for example was a great and so unique expansion that added more variety during leveling and gave some end game content as well (well, at least until they nerfed T 3.5 and made it casual friendly) - location was just nice looking, music was awesome, those separate islands added more flavor and instances like Fort Ardashir were challenging while also gave a lot of benefits. I really enjoyed it and consider it a big shame that there wasn't more of it. Turan had a lot of potential. One thing that they made wrong was T 3.5 raid, while harder than T4 for the most part, it was shorter and rewards were just not worth the challenge. Some items or weapons were great and most got them soon after they nerfed it. Also, after all this years it wasnt even lack of content, but ultimately even death of old content. With more and more gear grind that at some point turned into token grind (starting with Khitai years before and ending with T5/T6 most recently) - a never ending token grind. At the same time all those additions to the game, higher and higher tiers and eventually crapastic World Bosses left no reason to explore old content. T1/T2 and even T3 became pointless when one could get most of loot from world boss farm, or recently with farming raid finder. Ultimately they have reduced depth of game and flattened the experience with poor excuses for doing so. I'm not even going to touch topics that brought me to the game in first place like PvP, Sieges (anyone who participated those in the early stages must have experienced 2-3 FPS fights, almost like it would be turn strategy or chess game), Crafting and so many things. Promises that never happened and failures that only made things worse. I'm sorry for this rather lengthy comment but to squeeze ten years of hype, fun, experience, disappointment and disgust is not an easy thing. Frankly, it would deserve a proper article or even series of articles to show others - dont screw like Funcom did. And dont buy Funcom ever again, they never learn.

[@generoush3823]

At least EA wasn't running it

[@Andrew-ot9jw]

You're right, I have exactly the same feelings. One of the best MMOs in game history. One of the best music tracks ever. A brilliant combat system, a wonderful world. Funcom has been killing this game for years and holds out his hands for players' money

[@YavinPrime]

Of all the MMORPGs I played in my younger years Age of Conan was probably the first that I took super seriously (and the last, but for gaming lifestyle changes). I was one of those players who got past the level 20 content and then ground my way up to a max level Necromancer. On my server I was the first person (that I knew of) to have the full entourage of zombies. I even grabbed the lich form hoping that it would be something I could toggle on and off for RP reasons (but it was a timed buff). Once the guild I had built started breaking apart I began to give up on the game. I did return for the Chinese inspired expansion but by then I had become a parent and didn't have the time I once did to commit to such games. Now I'm mostly a console player and I play a lot of family friendly stuff with my daughter. AoC's story is a sad one but also points out a greater problem in PC MMORPGs. The constant bugs and performance issues. The same thing happened to me on many games, most notably Vanguard. Now that MMORPGs have begun migrating over to console I find myself playing my games on those platforms instead. It's a shame that so many games from the 1999-2010 era came out buggy and unfixed. It's one of the reasons I always returned to World of Warcraft so frequently, I could trust it would run.

[@morbiustimelord9423]

The musical score to this game composed by Knut Avenstroup Haugen is so good. Kreygasm

[@moebius435]

The C64 game you pictured is not a Conan game. You showed a game called "Barbarian". The game I think you wanted is Datasoft's Conan:Hall of Volta (1984).

[@brydon10]

New news for Age of Conan: In early 2018, we will be introducing a saga server to Age of Conan. A saga server is a unique server that is live for a limited period of time and comes with unique rewards for completing objectives. All players will start with a fresh, new character that will be transferred to Crom after the saga server’s live period ends, along with any earned rewards. Players will be able to claim rewards on a single character of their choosing.

[@GrappleVision]

definitely top ten most under rated channels on gaming in all of youtube. You are doing god's work by documenting these things sir. Never stop.

[@mrhed0nist]

Age of Conan is and will always be my all time favourite mmorpg. There is something about the game engine that makes the world feel solid and real. Hyboria, along with Middle Earth, is surely the most complete and immersive worlds. Maybe Funcom shoulda taken the Lord of the Rings Online route and just done a World of Warcraft clone set to interesting lore. But sadly, pretty much everything said in this video is true. I still play AoC on occasion, but I'm often left feeling a bit sad thinking about what might have been :(

[@NetPathfinder]

You put it so right about 'solid and real'. It's very impressive game even for an experienced and bored gamer. This game is the best tribute R. Howard and Hyborea had, ever, IMO

[@Babidi111]

the first area was so well made compared to the rest that i couldn't stand playing it after knowing how it could of been.

[@mikepeterson4061]

I think you forgot to mention that there is no cheat detection in Age of Conan. So people can download a free speed hack, or use comber, without repercussions. This virtually ruined pvp in the game. Guys getting 30 some kills because they do more dmg then everyone else. Combos taking less time to complete...this to me is a huge reason people quit. All my friends quit over this and we played the game for years 09-14. Only I come back once in a while to see how it's doing. You have the same people joining mini games soaking up kills using cheat engine. There is no more open world pvp, especially in NA times.

[@pbarb726]

Not sure what servers you were playing on, but I never ran into any cheaters on NA from the years of 09-14 and I was an avid pvp'er. Although I did get a good amount of false accusations. I assume this was due to the huge skill gap in AOC which is one of the reasons for it's pvp popularity.

[@mikepeterson4061]

@@pbarb726 That is surprising because Cheat engine and aoc buddy was popular then. Cheat engine is the cheat everyone still uses to this day...well the remaining 12 people that pvp there. They also have a paid hack called "comber" which melded combos together to cause extra dmg. A lot of people pretend it isn't a problem, calling people newbs etc if they see hacking/cheating. I have 4 pvp 10's. But I will say, NA had way less cheaters then EU/Russia. When they merged the servers TONS of people up and quit because it was so bad

[@mikepeterson4061]

@@pbarb726 Oh and I played on Tyranny server, which became Fury after the merges took place. I played pre Cimmeria/Tyranny merge.

[@jeffwerstuik7330]

Age of Conan wasn't the first game to even have voice overs. I actually corrected Craig Morrison in the forums when he touted it. It was actually Everquest 2. The starter zones and the secondary starter zones were all voice acted as well as class promotion quests. There was even a video covering it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p3qsia2bZbt4o5o There was another video where they showed Christopher Lee doing the voice for Lucan D'Lere kzbin.info/www/bejne/apnMpayko7Bge5o These videos were all on the 10th disc of the original boxed release of the game. About a year or two before AoC released, SoE changed the starting zones and changed character progression for the first 20 levels and thus the beginning voice overs had to be removed from the game as they were at launch.

[@white-noisemaker9554]

I loved Age of Conan. It pains my heart to see and hear the beautiful game music and scenic vistas i remember with such fondness. I am an avid fan of the classic fantasy of Robert. E. Howard and the lore of this game was so true to the books, it was like a dream come true. Unfortunately Funcom has a terrible managerial/corporate culture, and their business models for subscriptions, marketplace, and even vanity/cosmetics was just exploitatively bad. There was never an acknowledgement of shrinking playerbase, no recognition of player loyalty and long-term subs, while the party-line of Funcom was that everything is just fine. I still think the game is gorgeous on max settings, the world design is breathtaking, and the music is ethereally haunting. If any other company other than Funcom was handling the game and could rebuild their in-game and behind-the-scenes infrastructure, I'd start playing it again in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, it's a good game that is saddled with very obvious horrible cash-squeezing attempts to milk the playerbase without investing back into the game's upkeep and development.

[@kuroihagane]

I couldn't agree more! I hope for another mmorpg related to the Hyborian world. Sword and Sorcery forever

[@GardenTronics]

☝️ I agree. It was a fantasy world for me and I enjoyed being there. The setting was incredible and the melancholy music, well, it made me feel at home.

[@GardenTronics]

☝️ I agree. It was a fantasy world for me and I enjoyed being there. The setting was incredible and the melancholy music, well, it made me feel at home.

[@KirasNote22]

7:40 "with no difference in story" Except the different class categories had interweaving separate story lines that were fully voice acted and unique from each other. So almost entirely different stories.... Which I found revolutionary and still do. The first 20 levels of AOC is to this day one of the best early game MMO experiences I've ever had. I also never experienced game breaking bugs personally, and this was a time I was more casual and playing on a higher mid-grade laptop. Still put in a ton of hours and played every class up to a minimum of lvl 25. I do agree things after lvl 20 were vastly less fun/more complicated in not great ways.

[@MrClark-df9qn]

These guys were the worst. They basically released a 1-20 game. After that the game was unfinished.

[@kslater8565]

To be honest what killed the game for me was the so called stat budget they had for gear with the release of T4 gear. for instance T3 gear for a guardian had the best magic mitigation and physical mitigation possible for a tank. T4 required 2 sets both of which were only marginally better then T3 gear in specific types of mitigation while having none of the other. Basically in an attempt to not have players outgear content they made the new content hardly worth the time. Also it did not help that they decided to nerf the reigning dps gear at the time (to the tune of 50 magic damage) when T4 gear was released to make it seem like T4 gear was better. Farming a half released dungeon for gear that is 0.5% better situationally then what I am currently wearing is not content. Especially when previous T1/2/3 upgrades were rather drastic. The T4 launch caused the largest exodus of players (who had not already left due to lack of merging servers). I did try TSW but when it had the same crash on exit AoC had I figured I'd not bother playing a second game with all the bugs that already annoyed me.

[@duffysullivan2794]

I never tried AoC at launch. I hopped on right after the first expansion, Rise of the Godslayer launched. I thought the game was great! It seemed to have a ton of quality content after the starter area of Tortage. Didn't have much trouble with bugs. The population was pretty sparse. But over all I had a very fun time playing out so much Conan lore. The devs were pretty good about staying close to Robert E. Howard's vision of Hyboria. I loved the Conan setting, combat, fatalities, graphics. There is an excellent blend of brutality and beauty to the presentation and art style. The music was fantastic. I think it is among the best video game music to be had, bar none. So I for one loved my time with Age of Conan. Mostly played single player, grouping up for tough quests. Dabbled some in PvP. Have not tried Exiles. I do not know if it has the depth and attention to detail of the MMO. I have played some other MMOs. Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft,. Lord of the Rings, Dark Age of Camelot, among others, but AoC remains by far my favorite.

[@duffysullivan2794]

Until playing AoC my only exposure to Conan were the Arnie movies from the 1980s. But after playing the game for a bit, I became curious about the source material. I picked up a book of Howard's original Conan stories and kind of read along as I played. It was then I came to understand how much the devs were inspired by Howard's stories. The locations were all there and rendered just the way I had imagined. Quests were taken from plots in the stories, and actual characters names were used. Frank Frazetta's art was also a source of inspiration. I liked to play as a Barbarian made to look as much like Conan as I could. I was up to my knees in snow, swinging my two handed sword, fighting Frost Giants when I realized, this is Frank's painting! The scene was identical. I am telling you, the devs were inspired by and faithful to the source material, big time.

[@DHTHORNE]

Funcom really does do a good job with the LORE aspect of their games. The Secret world is literally frothing over with lore and backstory and immersive content. When you realize they created REAL LIFE websites for FAKE locations in the game world just so you can look them up to find clues to solving puzzles in the game itself... For example the first area is a fictional place in maine, and if you look it up, you will find a website in the form of a fake town hall style community website about the town and it's history and all kinds of crap. Many quests in the first zone require going to this website, or ones like it for other factions in the game to find clues or maps, or things to help you do things like find the password of a corporate employee, or find the history of the town to figure out where to go. It's intense, especially if played with a friend who likes that kind of stuff too. It dawns on you how much they were trying to make an early predecessor to an Augmented Reality game where the game bleeds into the real world to some degree. When TSW eventually gets unplugged, I will be devastated, even if I am not playing it any more, because I don't think anyone will ever come close to what TSW did right.

[@catclaws1847]

you have very low standards never played a game with so much bugs.

[@GabrielOnuris]

FateBinder Today people keep saying that the MMO genre is dying, mostly because they limit themselves having the same old "kill X of Y" quests, instead of having a player driven economy like EVE. Well, to me the apex of MMO gaming was the augmented reality from TSW, like you said. Damn, that isn't an idea any developer could have had, that's beyond original. I still remember most of TSW quests, and I played it at launch. For me, it was "The Witcher 3" of the MMOs. I really can't understand why people still underestimate that game.

[@kyotheman69]

Funcom is clueless when it comes to running and implementing stuff i heard secret world did get better over time, but for me it was to late i tried the beta felt the game was very underwhelming and i didn't want get burned with this game then i did with AoC

[@KnightShade4]

29:30 to 30:00 could totally be interpreted as talking about Cyberpunk 2077

[@howardphillips7333]

Nice review. I played AoC since 2009 till recently. The best times playing it were in PvP servers before the PvE focused Rise of Godslayer expansion. It is the bloody epic battles wich i will remember not the imbalance or bugs anyway.

[@mihalyspenger7617]

This is so true! The begining of the game was on pair with a singleplayer game in story... yet later on the game turns into a quest grind similarly to world of warcraft...

[@seanlloyd8904]

Loved this game. Played it for like 4years. This game made me love mmorpgs. Low Lvl pvp was the bomb!!

[@AdamRingBSc]

Thumbs up. Accurate review of the death of "Age of Conan". I would avoid using the word "failure" as just about every MMO "dies" at some point. Share price is not necessarily a reliable metric but that's all you had.

[@SleepyMatt-zzz]

You called your content "Pseudo Journalism". Naw dude, Journalism relies on a degree of research, and you go far and beyond when it comes to demonstrating how companies fail.

[@GalatherGermania]

Despite all of its obvious flaws, this game still remains as my most treasured experience within the mmorpg genre. Conan Exiles is a great game, but I long to be back in Hyboria and enjoy its rich history.

[@PolarI3ear]

tortage was such a great start to the game so sad that the rest was such a flop :( the music made me so nostalgic.... oh the feels

[@davidkeiskander1528]

2008 was the large morgage/credit/bank crisis. Everything went south on the stock market. So in this case we cant use that either as a measurement. Besides that i agree in the other issues.

[@lions4528]

Love this Death of the Game series, keep em coming :D

[@MrDoggson]

Never played the game but i was waiting for the 360 release, really like the video. Great style and very informative

[@sweetfry]

I built a new computer for this game, played it then went to The burning crusade when that launched, then played warhammer online when that launched but then I went back to TBC when that was a fail

[@MrPuschel]

I remember building a keep - some endgame content we rushed for. And the keep building descriptions literally had Lorem Ipsum text as description.

[@goksir5845]

God I love the first 20 levels. The music and atmosphere and everything is just... ahhh.

[@SleepySloth2705]

Ah, distinctly I remember when this game was in development. As a norwegian I was excited about a norwegian company making a Conan game

[@efa0tz]

Funcom are shit programmers, but have cool ideas. They should outsource their development.

[@darkskies45]

I played AOC religiously from 2007-2010. I just loved every moment of the game.

[@abmanci1]

All stocks dropped in 2008 due to the recession. Not a good view of the game.

[@Bluewhale1080]

Vanguard: SOH would be great for a 'Death of a Game' episode in the future. That game had so much potential. Some of my greatest MMO memories are from that game.

[@twogungunnar9456]

The original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard are one of my favorite things - not just some of my favorite stories, but favorite things. I've been enjoying them for over 30 years, and am still amazed at how anything could could be so perfectly cool. There's a hundred different ways in which those stories are great. And yet... The Awesomeness of those stories has yet to be captured in any other medium. The Arnie movie was well made, but it had nothing to do with the original stories. Arnie's character was COMPLETELY different than Conan...different backstory, different personality, different motivation, different appearance, different themes...literally everything about that movie was wrong. It shouldn't have even been called "Conan". There was an animated series, which was insane because Conan has never been for kids (ever). There was a TV show clearly inspired by Xena and awful beyond words. The newest movie was ridiculous garbage. The games have all been crap. Now we have a new game that's guaranteed to be crap. And it's a damn shame because they are truly great stories and have astounding potential. Unfortunately I don't think we'll ever get anything of quality that comes close to recreating Howard's originals. For one, Howard's world, characters, and themes are 100% politically incorrect. For me, the political incorrectness just adds to the appeal, but if anyone did create a game or movie or series or whatever that accurately translated Howard's work, there would be a furious shitstorm of SJW wrath and indignation, so that's one reason we'll never see a good Conan adaptation. Second is the people who own the rights...they are horrible when it comes to selecting other people to create adaptations. They've never picked anyone who does quality work AND knows AND respects the original stories. The moral is: Unless it's the original stories by Robert E. Howard, stay away from anything with the label "Conan".

[@NetPathfinder]

I think Age of Conan is the best thing that happened to Conan ever, believe me or not. The music, the art design, the texts and dialogues, the work on canonic location, peoples, tribes and countries is absolutely fantastic. Once you enter Stygia for the first time, you will never forget. And Cimmerian valley as well.

[@twogungunnar9456]

+ One-Eye The Solomon Kane movie infuriated me. It did the same thing to SK that the Arnie movie did to Conan... Change the character on such a fundamental level that it doesn't make sense to use the name. In the stories, SK was motivated by a fanatic drive to destroy evil. It's not much of a motivation, sure, but that's the character. In the movie, he was a former bad guy who was motivated by regret, shame, and/or fear of going to hell. That's such a huge and fundamental difference in the essence of the character that they shouldn't have even used the name. Imagine if Hollywood did to Batman what they've done to REH's characters: Bruce Wayne is the child of impoverished rural farmers. Bruce is "dumb as a sack of hammers" and lives with his loving parents because he isn't smart enough to take care of himself. Even though he isn't any good at anything, everyone loves him because of his outgoing and gregarious personality. One day, Bruce Wanders into a cave and is imbued with magic powers by the Bat-Fairy. He becomes Batman and flies around the countryside helping woodland critters and getting in wacky adventures, and always comes out on-top because of his own dumb luck (like Mr. Magoo). He's zany, goofy, silly, and wacky....he's batty! That's what Hollywood has done with Conan and SK and there's no reason to think they'll ever stop.

[@twogungunnar9456]

+ NetPathfinder I liked AoC at first too for all the reasons you described. But it was buggy, low on content, and didn't deliver many of the features they promised. Then they started to deviate from REH with the Khitai expansion....I know Khitai is from REH, but he never wrote any stories there or featured Khitain characters. In his original map, he didn't even draw it in. Khitai and the whole "Asian Samurai Kung Fu Ninja Exotic East"-thing was not part of the Conan stories. In Conan, the "Exotic East" was what we'd think of as the Middle East...think Arabian Nights or "Prince of Persia". But Funcom decided that Conan's world just wouldn't be cool without !@#$%^& katanas and ninjas. I liked the first 20 levels though...that was cool.

[@georgalex62]

Hey man, I'm really interested in reading some of the stories you describe about Conan. Where should I start out? Should I just pick up anything written by this Robert E. Howard fellow?

[@twogungunnar9456]

+ Gaxelman Get the books. The original stories are still in print. You'd probably have to order them (they're hard to find on bookstore shelves). "The Complete Chronicles of Conan" has ALL of Howard's Conan stories in one volume. The collection is also available in smaller, separate volumes. Those are: "The Coming of Conan The Cimmerian" "The Bloody Crown of Conan" "The Conquering Sword of Conan" Just search Amazon for Robert E. Howard. While you're at it, get some H.P. Lovecraft too. Howard and Lovecraft were friends and borrowed heavily from each other, to the extent that it makes sense to say that their stories are part of the same "shared universe".

[@Rednecksith5]

AoC should've focused on quality quest and lore content. Basically, Tortage throughout the whole game.

[@TheZamphire]

Really hope for a wildstar video at somepoint!

[@exilewing9368]

TheZamphire he already did one.

[@TheZamphire]

Where its not in his uploads o,o

[@exilewing9368]

Huh, I just looked at his list. I swear I've seen on if from Nerdslayer before. Weird.

[@TheTankbus]

Theres a series called MMO graveyard. Maybe you're thinking of that?

[@exilewing9368]

That's it. I figured he changed the name because be were bitching " but that game isn't dead" I guess he took them down.

[@samrhino9224]

Never played an MMO past the trial, but these long in depth overviews/ accounts of these games is extremely interesting. Keep up the good work.

[@necrossx14]

You should do a video on Firefall! That game had such a convoluted development story

[@deadvex]

i backed that game back when it was announced.. ugh what a load of shit

[@necrossx14]

Can't blame you, it looked promising as hell. It had some really experienced people behind it and it looked and felt really good

[@jessicalindo7977]

Feels like Bungie with Destiny. They're always off the mark somehow, the gameplay is essentially what keeps the people interested, but it's always lacking either content, or in storytelling, for the longest time it was a hackerfest even in compettive modes. Always something to harp about, and with good reason

[@vergil8833]

Sounds alot better than world of warcraft tbh.

[@UnblockedOne2]

Parts of this game were simply amazing. Then, there was a long list of things that were obviously unfinished. & they just left things unfinished, but would create new content instead. Even within the Character Development, they all had an unfinished feel to them. You'd level up, but without any substantial additional benefits. So many great ideas they had going, but they couldn't pull it off.

[@Interessâncio]

the game is dead cause they dont fix pvp glitchs and bugs. there are bugs since 2008 like combo jump.

[@MAG3_Hiromachi]

If thing almost ten years later is not fixed that means its not a bug, but a feature :)

[@Interessâncio]

lol

[@thebloodminister988]

more bugs since 2008. go through walls, frame rate issues in zones, 1 shot bug on charging the enemy or range shot. t3 craft crit bug, an ability that gives you almost infinite CC immunities on the ranger class.

[@CastelDawn]

no one cares about pvp

[@nerradyesloow]

combo jump became an outstanding tactical feature that no other game has

[@noLuckyStrike09]

The starting area in Cimmeria was amazing. I was in The Round Table guild on Crom. The game was always well populated. The guilds were thriving the first years. Had a lot of fun raiding as a priest of mitra. Also pvp was quite a lot of fun.

[@MorialaCrom]

All in all very interesting and i liked the video. I think you should have made it more clear that its optional if u want to play the game trough steam, which makes your numbers from steam innacurate since most of the veterans play it outside steam.

[@TZamBAL]

I had some really good times with AoC, made some good friends including a gf, had awesome adventures while questing and raiding late at night and I remember my jaw dropping when I saw the graphics, back then it was considered one of if not the prettiest mmo ever made.

[@Huxshot]

Interesting video. The game really did look like it had a lot of potential.

[@adriansmith5559]

I remember gamespy having this a launch review of AO talking about how awesome it was. I also remember Funcom talking about how the lag wasn't on their end it was on the player's IPO. Funcom has a history of BS. Also anyone else remembering how people had to keep returning their purchased copies because the cd keys had already been used? Keep up the videos. Good stuff.

[@FrostyThundertrod]

I agree with the overwhelming majority of this video, with one small thing about AMD video cards, I was able to use utility program from amd to correct the FPS. And I would like a video on Shadowbane

Honestly... all it needs is more people then a bit of balancing. After that a bit of fixes and maaaaybe content afterwards. But people is really the only thing that it needs.