Age of Conan… the little MMO that should.

AoC is probably one of the coolest games that I quit. I’m just going to come out and say it; I LOVED AoC for the first 40 levels. It was fun, different, and the graphics were clean. I love everything that Funcom created in that game. The Free for all PvP was interesting, if not frustrating. The classes were straight forward and fun and the combat system was different and engaging.

It’s odd that I would give it a beaming review and in the same paragraph say that I quit the game. The problem with AoC is easily summed up. Age of Conan was premature. The only issue with it being premature is the misconception that if we had left the game in the developer’s hands that it would have eventually matured, I think this is probably a fallacy… though we will never know.

I believe the developers at Funcom envisioned and laid out one of the most interesting games created. AoC is a sociologists dream with the ability for players to create their own factions through guild alliances and declare war on anyone. If someone in your group is a moron, you can kick them in the middle of the dungeon and kill them. The down fall of AoC always was the same people who made it great though. I am not pointing fingers at a single designer, programmer, or tester. I’m pointing all of my fingers at Funcom in general.

The game had serious issues. From memory leaks to female characters melee speed being slower than males… which I always found ironically funny. Now these issues could have been overcome if not for the customer support Funcom had. AoC was in unique position, the customers were there. They didn’t even need to go get them; they just had to hold onto them.

For the 2 ½ months of AoC I played every patch I experienced seemed to cause more issues than it fixed. Mind you I never even made it to the end game, which I heard nothing good about. Every time I petitioned a GM about an in game issue that prevented me from playing, I was told to relog. When I posted on the forums asking a question I sometimes had them deleted and received a warning. Funcom was covering up their mistakes rather than fixing them.

This is why I believe that there is not enough time in the rest of existence for the original staff of Funcom to have finished AoC to a standard that could be even mistaken for quality service. It’s sad really, because unless Funcom is willing to give me 3 months free I’m not willing to even try it again. This isn’t really a compliant, it’s more of a sympathetic cry to what could have been.