------
 |
| The new fort or someone who used Atzel's interior designer |
If you don't here's a summary: infuriated and underwhelmed. It's been a while since I've seen multiple threads get to 15+ pages. It's also weird to see almost everyone agree on anything.
The furious portion of this was due to the implied nature that this content, while permanent, was part of the Age of Conan anniversary celebration. Instead it was pat content. 3000 Funcom points for the collectors edition and 1800 (or so) for the regular. Subscribers save 10% in these values. Many of the subscribers, including myself, are wondering why am I paying for a sub when I have to buy new content?
Despite the warning from everyone's favorite Aquilonian assassin in his quality review, I bought this as well.
I generally play solo since I don't always have a lot of time and generally don't want to be called a noob because I don't have the time to learn (and remember) every boss in a video game.
A solo player, with this expansion, would have access to T4 powered accessories. And let's face it, everyone wants better gear. Between that and a bear mount (which sadly isn't good), this seems like an automatic purchase. I'm fortunate that I can drop $30 on a game from time to time without it being a hardship.
Was it worth it? I'm not sure yet. I'm leaning towards no. The quality of the mounts was marginal at best and I'll describe the adventure below.
The story can be summed up: Talk-kill-talk-travel, repeat. A lot.
There's also side quests to help avoid boredom. Most involve killing or collecting things. Not sure if it's random or not but I'm picturing it to be a pain to get the last few quests for the achievement if it is random.
The first areas are Connel's Valley. The second is blue Mountain (a new but very small zone). The third area is Fort Storisbjorn? Which is also a new zone but uses much of Atzel's Fortress' exterior. The interior of the Fort is Atzel's.
I understand that it's easier to recycle old areas and mobs. It's sad that the player base (myself included) is so happy to have anything new that we'll even make excuses for Funcom.
The areas are a grind. It feels like SWTOR where you advance a bit, kill some mobs, rinse and repeat. It's not quite as bad as last year's anniversary quest though Tortage but more reminiscent of that than some other solo instances.
In addition to the grind what stands out is the relatively poor production quality and glitches. Besides the mobs fighting while bowing and sitting one of the more annoying glitches is some Ymirsh and boss mobs use a knock back ability called Massive Sweep. Occasionally this resets the mob.
Another fun glitch was that I logged out between steps in the quest when a boss spawns. When I logged back in, I couldn't respawn the boss so I zoned out of the instance and back in. That reset the instance but not the boss. This was right before entering the fort. So I quit the quest and started over. Pro tip: kill the boss before you log out. Your spouse will hopefully understand.
 |
| Some holiday mistletoe? |
I haven't beaten the last boss fight using my Khitai/T1/T2 geared DT but get the mechanic. I think It's a boring fight with a lot of kiting around that punishes you for a single mistake (and low dps). Considering the rares you get for normal mode, and I can't imagine doing this with all level 85 mobs, I don't see this entering into my rotation for earning rares as it takes too long. I can earn 4 in 20 minutes on Isle of Iron statues. Why would I spend an hour and change for half the reward?
Pros (why I should spend my money):
1. "New" content
2. New faction and rewards to earn including vanity gear (most of which is similar to gear you can grind off low level mobs but I'm trying to be positive here)
3. Effigies that drop are worth either 2500 reputation or 20 silver. Side quests are a great way to earn coin! (I believe the reputation gain was bumped up after a lot of complaining but I haven't checked).
4. More mounts, achievements, treasure chests, and targets of interest for completionists
5. You hate gingers/Vanir
6. Another scaling area to level/quest (after level 20)
7. You get to enjoy the Cimmeria soundtrack again.
Cons (why I should save my money):
1. It's very Low quality content
2. It's a grind.
3. Principle for paying $30 bucks for a once every 20 hour slog through areas you can already slog through.
4. You RP as Vanir and won't have a great story explaining why you just mowed down your peeps.
5. Mounts look pretty bad and lack a fast dismount option
Things to improve: if Funcom wants to retain its player base, they should make some tweaks to this scenario and use it as learnings for future ones.
Some things I would suggest:
1. Fix the glitches and bad environments. You're selling content, it almost needs to exceed the quality that people already have.
2. Reduce the grind. There's been some suggestions for faction grind, including having the Vanir count as faction mobs.
3. Have a third difficulty level. Between 80 and 85. Maybe 83 level mobs (with a scaled reward) would be a nice middle ground for fun for the players who are likely to play this over and over again.
4. Add new music with these scenarios. Even a single track would be a nice addition. These songs could be sold in iTunes and the like generating more profit.
5. Reduce the price to $5-$10 with maybe another $5-7 for the collectors edition. People who've already paid should have FC points returned to them (you'd still get to keep their money!). $30 should get a decent expansion like Turan, not a single quest line that only takes an hour because of the 300 mobs between you and victory.
I'm an Age of Conan fan and apologist but the way this was handled has really damaged FC's credibility with me as a customer. But as I'm now the proud owner of this content, I'll give it a couple rounds and see how it goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment