A happy thought
1st Person “What are you doing?”
2nd Person “Haven’t decided. Looking at the canaries.”
1st Person “There are canaries?”
2nd Person “Yeah, there’s an animal handler here who has canaries. And a monkey.”
A few moments pass and 1st person arrives.
1st Person “Wow, there ARE canaries.”
Or it went something like that in any case. I was standing in the Souk in Khemi, trying to decide what to do and where to go, when I noticed the animal handler had cages behind him containing canaries. I’d never noticed them before and yet I recall getting a quest from this NPC when I first arrived from Tortage. I guess that just shows how distracted I am by a bright yellow exclamation mark hovering over someone’s head. Or perhaps subconsciously I had noticed the canaries and merely dismissed them.
I was travelling through Old Tarantia heading to Thunder River. Old Tarantia is quite a hub for travel to many other zones. As I rode along the path towards the Wagoner a cat ran out in front of me, followed shortly after by a dog in hot pursuit. I actually stopped and turned back to have another look.
I read a lot of bad things about Age of Conan, almost all of which I get from the blogosphere. By now everyone knows about the lag spikes, lockups, crashes, combat issues. PvP, content, subscription numbers, have all been discussed. Despite all that’s wrong with AoC, there’s still a lot that’s right with it, and the level of detail, while often overlooked or dismissed, is of a standard that sometimes surprises me.
Age of Conan may not be quite right yet, but it can be.
« Still here, despite some hiccups
Level 60 and a meeting with Conan »
Comments
Comment from 
caliga
Time: August 7, 2008, 9:20 am
It’s become surprisingly easy of late. I can’t applaud my guild mates enough, or the community that’s currently playing AoC. I’m getting quite a few groups nowadays also. While the game itself is not particularly outstanding, the people I’m playing with are. Not just those in my guild, who are awesome, but the PuGs i’m getting a full of really cool people.
And that’s the thing that’s making this game stand out for me, amongst all the releases of tried in the last 10 mths. So while you applaud my perseverance, I can’t wait to log in and say hi to my guild mates and check my friend’s list to see who’s on.
And THAT is what an MMOG is about.
Comment from Openedge1
Time: August 7, 2008, 8:24 am
Agreed…
It can be a good game.
Funcom just decides to not make it that way.
The potential is incredible. Right now I refuse to play a “standard” MMO, thanks to AoC ruining all other MMO’s.
When I tried to go back to EQ2, BORING.
Looked at WoW, BORING.
Tabula Rasa? SNOOZE
Then I went back to Guild Wars…not a true MMO in that sense, and felt good about that move. It is the closest to AoC combat due to the speed of various battles, does not have the level grind, etc.
AoC is slowly becoming WoW by all measures, but the PvP is STILL not in…after 3 months.
No itemization, stats are still voodoo. The fact you can take off all your armor and still fight and win seems ridiculous, I don’t care who you are…
Lets hope they can retain their subscribers until they finally figure out how to make the game AoC again. Like the one I saw in the Fileplanet beta, or the first 20 levels of the game.
Again, I applaud that perseverance.