Some of my friends were wondering why the switch to this old game instead of World of Warcraft.  While I used to play WoW quite avidly, I just don’t have the desire to now.  It seems like they give away the end game content way to easy.  There’s no sense of reward anymore.  Granted I don’t really miss the second job like raiding that I used to do, however I do miss the sense of achievement after learning a hard encounter for the first time.

I’m sure some of you hard core mmorpg raiders know what I’m talking about.  The weekly raids with 20-40 people getting together to beat the other guilds on your server to a server first boss kill.  Especially when it meant something that your guild killed Onyxia, in Molten Core, fighting in Blackwing Lair, or fighting bosses in Naxxeramus.  Even prior to that there was people who got together to do planes raids in Everquest, which was an even harder thing to do back then.

What’s happened to the current MMORPGS nowadays?  There’s no real sense of accomplishment in getting to the end game.  We want that achievement, but games like World of Warcraft have really spoiled us in terms of how we should get there.  It seems like the standard is now to have an easy time getting to the end level, which is where the content starts.  Where as, before the fun was actually in leveling up or even the grind. Its something that I thought I would never miss after playing games like Lineage 1 and 2.  Or even Ragnarok Online.  However, I do admit once you got to your next level you did get that little bit of joy even though you’ve spend most of your day sitting at your computer neglecting your social life.

In a game like Warhammer Online, you play against other people in one of two factions.  Yet there was no stake in the game.  If you died you didn’t lose any items, exp or anything of value to you except time.  You had no stake in any of the keeps, or land that the opposing faction was trying to take over.  There became no real reason to defend said keeps/forts/even capitols.  Even Failcom’s Age of Conan got that part right, by forcing people to grind out their guild cities they emphasized a need for that guild to stay together, and make enemies/allies with caution.  You had a ’stake’ in what you put into the game, and to defend this you actually put in an honest effort since you didn’t want to lose your hard work.

Has it really come to this?  Have we as gamers who have always wanted to skip through content to see the end game now just complaining that we have it all too easy?  I kind of miss the grind, but I kind of don’t at the same time.  Is it just me that feels this way?

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Sound the Bells of War! I’m going into battle as a squishy Necromancer in Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Also since I’m playing from Maui I’ll be on the PVP server called Deathwhisper. So if your playing from Hawaii Standard Time(HST) or Pacific Standard Time(PST) come join me. My in name will be Xight. The live servers starts up on the 20th of May so if you haven’t picked up a copy of the game you should do so.

Also if you want to read all the info in book form about the game pick up the strategy guide. There’s a lot of info to go through when your choosing your classes, and the book makes it easier for me atleast
. Here’s a link to the guide book via Amazon.com: Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Official Strategy Guide (Official Strategy Guides).

By the way if you don’t like PVP or hate getting killed from other players while questing I’d strongly recommend joining a PVE server.  The game is not as forgiving as World of Warcraft is for PVP.  Everyone is a target, and especially glass cannon types who wander around by themselves alot *cough* me *cough*.  Anyways, I’m going to go stock up on supplies while the game is currently patching so that I can level up some more.  See you all in the game, and please try not to gank me much =P

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