Age of Conan Beta

[Krandor]

Every new MMO that comes out these days is declared a WoW killer. Personally all the people I know who've tried the beta say the game is horrendous, same deal with when Warhammer had the beta a few months back.

[Venture]

AoC'll prolly end up tearing up guilds by people leaving for a few months to try out the new game. Whether or not they stay over there, or grow dissatisfied and come back will prove rather irrelevant, as the damage will already be done. Already know some of the more influential people in my current guild are going to try out AoC, and without them talking on Vent and pushing people through quests and instances, the guild will grow stagnant.

Same goes for raiding guilds, PVP guilds, and other tight-knight social guilds who have people interested in the new game. You lose the center of your guild, then the rest starts to crumble- especially if you lose your enforcers to keep the ethics and population in check, even for a month. So yeah, mission accomplished there for being a 'WoW killer', even if WoW doesn't feel the losses in it's subscribers.

[Krandor]

People I know who had previously quit WoW and were waiting for the Age of Conan beta have since reactivated their WoW accounts because they find AoC so horrendous

[Plow]

fileplanet beta is closed already

[Katlan]

the WAR beta is done differently than other games. Each beta stage is done w/preset characters and its only a specific zone/in-game function w/is being tested each time. Its not a free roam beta.

For AoC 1-80 is gonna be horrendous unless you can level fast. Not comparing it to FF since FF has a unique lv system, but if you had to do 1-70 at the beginning of WoW... it would have not been fun at all

[Boyiee]

As was said, by calling it a wowkiller, I meant that there will be alot of people in guilds that at least want to try it for a few months. I like wow, I wont quit for it, but I might sell some 70's and slow down a bit since probably 10 core people from my sunwell guild will be dropping for it.

I honestly have heard that both the game sucks, and that the game is amazing. The one person that seems most adamant about it is my friend that is in the beta who seems to have the same tastes as me, well, at least as far as wow goes. I hate leveling, and while the system seems fun, it also seems even more annoying in the long run. I hear that pvp may be more fun there at least, not that I mind it now, but it might be a nice thing to do at least until lich king arrives. You maybe can call that the AoC killer then lol.

[sb]

The release date still May 20th? I read internet rumors that WoW is going to release S4 on or around release date to try and keep some of the MMO drifters. Unfortunately WoW has had a pretty serious lack of content so I can see them loosing quite a few, at least till WoLK.

[Ishido]

Every MMO will draw some people away from others. We won't be seeing a WoWkiller for some time for the simple reasons that WoW has successful gameplay and content and draws on a pre-existing fanbase.

That being said I doubt S4 will keep people playing if they would otherwise leave. It's somewhat catered to more serious PvPers, people who would likely not leave unless something drastic was done. If anything it will push away ultra-casual players who will only be able to get 3~4 new pieces of gear from the new season.

Some former members of my guild who have been together since EQ are trying it out, curious to hear how it turns out.

[Katlan]

No new mmo will be a "WoWkiller" in its first year or two, its impossible. No company can make a new mmo, regardless of it getting the GTA4 score of 10/10 across the board, that will steal enough from the WoW population during its first year that it can officially be called a "WoWkiller." If for nothing else aside the same reason people still play FF. A lot of the old-school FF players still play FF because of social-networking they created w/in the game and cause of the gear they have worked so hard for (granted gear is a moot point in WoW since every new addition is a pure verticle change. You can be a lv 70 noob at the time of the new xpac release, and by the time your 80 you will be on the same lv of gear as the general population).

Any new mmo will take time to gain popularity and it may (or may not) gradually take ppl away from another mmo's community. If anything... It's vs WAR and AoC atm in terms of the new crowd. If ppl like AoC and it does very well then it will hurt the WAR community, and vice-versa.

No mmo lasts forever, and WoW, like any mmo, can't change its game play elements to make each new xpac an entirely new game (I guess this is why Blizz is working on a new mmo lol). They can only add to the already existing engine and add new things to make gameplay longer. But no xpac is gonna differ from each other aside the addition of new content that is just a newer version of the old gameplay elements. Well... I take it back... ToA made a rare gameplay elements of FF more prominent, w/in essence changed the way people played the game. Granted TP burns existed before ToA, but most of the gameplay elements changed in the game w/that xpac.

[Khamsin]

No new mmo will be a "WoWkiller" in its first year or two, its impossible. No company can make a new mmo, regardless of it getting the GTA4 score of 10/10 across the board, that will steal enough from the WoW population during its first year that it can officially be called a "WoWkiller." If for nothing else aside the same reason people still play FF. A lot of the old-school FF players still play FF because of social-networking they created w/in the game and cause of the gear they have worked so hard for (granted gear is a moot point in WoW since every new addition is a pure verticle change. You can be a lv 70 noob at the time of the new xpac release, and by the time your 80 you will be on the same lv of gear as the general population).

Any new mmo will take time to gain popularity and it may (or may not) gradually take ppl away from another mmo's community. If anything... It's vs WAR and AoC atm in terms of the new crowd. If ppl like AoC and it does very well then it will hurt the WAR community, and vice-versa.

Would you consider WoW an (insert some other mmo here)-killer during its debut?

[Katlan]

Would you consider WoW an (insert some other mmo here)-killer during its debut?

Can't really comment on that since I wasn't up-to-date on MMO's at the time. I played FF for about 3 years and still occassionally play, but I didn't get into WoW until tBC release and only played WoW for a little over a year before getting too busy irl to keep up w/anything aside random pvp [so lost interest & haven't gone back].

But I believe that no mmo, before WoW, had such a large player base as to of dominated the online market. People played FF, insert # of all other mmo's here, ect... but the online community was not nearly as congregated on a single mmo as they became w/WoW. WoW has definantly set a certain standard for any new mmo to hit the market. But saying WoW was a Lineage, FF, ect... killer (while it may be true) doesn't sound fair since we are talking about a population of 1-3million, not 8mill+

[Venture]

WoW didn't out-and-out kill FFXI, Lineage, or Everquest, but it certainly squeezed them out of any spotlight.

[Man0warr]

People knew WoW was a [insert MMO] killer even during beta. As there was no NDA, and praise was being spread on every major gaming forum, plus people were buying closed beta accounts on eBay for hundreds of dollars.

Then during open beta they got over a million signups from the U.S. alone, which was double what any current North American MMO had at the time - FFXI was around 550k at this time but not majority americans. Everquest was the big MMO dog at this point, but all the hardcore guilds (Fires of Heaven, Afterlife, etc.) got into WoW alpha/beta and pretty much disappeared from EQ at this time, while praising WoW.

AoC won't kill WoW, because WoW is so successful not only from being polished, but also because Blizzard is the only MMO company that can do multiple region rollouts simultaneously, and are really the only company that has access to customers in China, Korea, etc.

AoC, and pretty much every gaming company, might as well not even exist in China and Korea, and if you don't include them, between North America/Europe/Japan, theres no way you will reach anywhere close to the numbers WoW has. Best case you could get 5 million players, but thats assuming every NA/European/JP playing WoW switched to AoC.

More likely AoC and WAR, both being PvP focused games, will have to be happy with 500k or so subs.

[Creeps]

The release date still May 20th? I read internet rumors that WoW is going to release S4 on or around release date to try and keep some of the MMO drifters. Unfortunately WoW has had a pretty serious lack of content so I can see them loosing quite a few, at least till WoLK.

What? Do we play the same game? As far as I know, WoW has never had a lack of content, even for the most hardcore of players.

[Katlan]

More likely AoC and WAR, both being PvP focused games, will have to be happy with 500k or so subs.

Dunno about AoC, but WAR closed beta is already around 800k active people and its an EU based company so it's reach is already outside of the US.

[Ishido]

The release date still May 20th? I read internet rumors that WoW is going to release S4 on or around release date to try and keep some of the MMO drifters. Unfortunately WoW has had a pretty serious lack of content so I can see them loosing quite a few, at least till WoLK.

What? Do we play the same game? As far as I know, WoW has never had a lack of content, even for the most hardcore of players.

Personally I agree, but tell that to the guilds who were farming Illidan for 6 months.

[Man0warr]

Dunno about AoC, but WAR closed beta is already around 800k active people and its an EU based company so it's reach is already outside of the US.

WAR beta is a ghost town.

[Plow]

The release date still May 20th? I read internet rumors that WoW is going to release S4 on or around release date to try and keep some of the MMO drifters. Unfortunately WoW has had a pretty serious lack of content so I can see them loosing quite a few, at least till WoLK.

What? Do we play the same game? As far as I know, WoW has never had a lack of content, even for the most hardcore of players.

Apparently the most hardcore of players you know aren't very hardcore, cuz the most hardcore players cleared ilidan 8+ months ago, cleared za in 2 hours the first night it came out, and had absolutely nothing else between then and 2.4.


And that's not even getting into the pvp system where we've now been expected to grind somewhere in the neighborhood of 400k honor in the same 4 bg's for the last year, of which many of us had literally run 3 of them thousands of times before that even as well.


Every major mmorpg has content issues, you just can't design as fast as the best can beat.

[Reality]

Crafting explained, Build your own Guild City
http://ve3dmovies.ign.com/videos/02/77/ ... sider3.wmv

getting more interested in this game

[Plow]

Dunno about AoC, but WAR closed beta is already around 800k active people and its an EU based company so it's reach is already outside of the US.

WAR beta is a ghost town.

Oh yeah, um, if WAR beta is a ghost town, how come neither I, nor anybody else I know that signed up over a year ago have gotten in yet?