Here I am again, filling in another in a long line of 'I Quit' forms, this time for Age of Conan. Always a difficult thing for me. I spend a lot of time in MMOs, and reaching this point of the Cycle of Interest is always uncomfortable, no matter how many I pass through. Is it me? I feel like I'm letting the game down a bit - something about my psychology can't stay away from these games, and yet never manages to quite play them properly, to see it through, to stick with it, to complete the single very basic task an MMO sets before me; to hit monsters until the level value reaches the most it can.
In this particular case, it's been a bit of a charged decision to make. So many people have been so vocal about how much Age of Conan has let them down, sometimes on quite a spiteful and personal level, that I've often felt a kind of nagging peer pressure throughout my own time there, that some how I shouldn't be playing the thing in the first place. Whispers, rhetoric, snark, and at times I have indeed felt a bit embarrassed to be seen to be writing about the thing. Then again, I play games, and then I write about what happened. It's all I know how to do.
I also have quite a reactionary streak, as regular readers may have noticed, in my gaming choices. For me, my own much vaunted (by me!) Three Month Rule is no real hardship at all; it makes sense to wait for all the rough patches to be smoothed out, (thanks to the tireless forumwork of the early adopters), certianly, but I'm often leery of mere popularity alone. I know at a rational level that the reason so many people say so many good things about a thing, is that it might actually be good, but still I stubbornly resist. It's my own particular kink, I guess.
So why now? Well, partly Technical Issues, which the game still has a fair few of, most notably in my own gaming experience, the CTD Out of Memory Errors and a general annoyingly low framerate. I thought I had a decent gaming PC, but at least now I know that I actually don't. I've only just upgraded the graphics card, and don't see a need to do so again right now thankyou! Bioshock seems to run well enough though, so I do wonder.
I know there are fan-researched 'fixes' for the memory problems, but frankly, I'm a bit tired of Us having to find ways around Their mistakes. I gain increasing sympathy for the growing number of folks who raise a defiant fist against the typically accepted level of MMO Quality Control. Does "It's an MMO, they're always broken at launch" do as an excuse anymore? Should I even need a Three Month Rule in the first place?
Like everyone else who plays these, I'm a bit more pragmatic (or just too addicted to care), and am actually capable of putting up with far more than I ought to. The CTDs are a bit of a gamebreaker though, I found.
Partly, I guess, I just had the same burnout I have in most Level Games these days. Kill, kill, kill, quest, quest, quest, and then I get these moments of clarity and look around and start asking awkward philosophical questions, like 'Why?'. 42 levels behind me, 38 to go, and a sudden bout of Career Ennui. Playing a Herald of Xotli was fun enough in itself, but the Bigger Picture seems much the same whatever I played; a somewhat abstract and unending drive for intense self-improvement, for no obviously discernable purpose at all. Something about Thoth-Amon? I lost track, frankly.
I made it to the Fields of the Dead, which seemed to be the only outdoor Adventure Region for the 40-50 range. I like travel; I'm an 80%+ Explorer Bartle type, and I have a tendency to want to adventure somewhere entirely different from session to session. Aside from the occasional trip to Tarantia Noble District, it looked like Fields of the Dead was it really, which was a shame.
I think perhaps my own tolerance for any kind of Level Game is wearing out a bit. I'm playing City of Villains at the moment, which is technically a Level Game, but it practically bends over backwards to make sure the Level doesn't get in the way. Even so, I wonder if I'll make it to the 'end' in that either. Time will tell. Try as I might, I invariably end up soloing a lot in these games, and the road to the end is always a much longer thing alone. Whatever else Age of Conan might, or might not be, it is still a Level Game of the old school. Perhaps I never belonged here at all, and increasingly I find myself attracted to Short or No Level types of game; I can't see myself ever quitting Guild Wars, for example.
While the timing may seem suspiciously coincidental, I can confirm that I am not quitting to sign right up for Warhammer. Age of Conan has reinforced the Three Month Rule for all MMOs quite comprehensively for me. I'm also not quitting out of solidarity for the recently resigned Game Director, Gaute Godager. All a bit of a shame, that; whatever the hell went on there, I'm not quite sure it warrants a founding member of the company of sixteen years standing being hounded out of his livelihood. Quite enjoyed my time in Anarchy Online, as I recall.
So mostly, I was getting a bit tired of it all anyway, but the ongoing technical issues didn't help. I might be back in a year or so, maybe when the 360 version turns up, to see how it has (hopefully) improved, and by then I'll probably have a renewed interest in pushing forward on that particular levelquest. I have so many other abandoned levelquests that need work first though.
No idea what to replace it with, but given that my own current "Most Anticipated MMO", is in fact Fallout 3, who can say?
Anyway, do tell me 'I told you so!', and how awesome Squig Herders are below!