Worried about the Conan Kiddies

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I’m trying to find an good Age of Conan community, I really am.  But lately I have all but given up on any attempt at social interaction with the soon-to-be-Conanites.  Age of Conan is attracting a lot of the diehard, hardcore guild elitist, computer muscle, highly competitive trash talking thug types.  Need a few examples?  Just check out these forums where every other topic is full of “We are better than you!”, “Die in a fire!”, and epeen contests.  I can understand the passion.  I’m a big supporter of realm pride and all that, but this is a bit extreme.  It’s that Asheron’s Call Dark Tide or DAoC Mordred mindset.  That same type of gamer that rolls on up to a LAN center to have a guild fight in RL with a rival guild… I guess it’s an E-Gang mentality?   I don’t blend well with that type of gamer style.

Is the game to blame?  The entire game is a guild competition at heart (it’s Conan for crying out loud!)  Who has the biggest city, who actually owns a city, we can defend it, who can beat who, whose guild it bigger, who has the better website… Makes me feel dirty just thinking about it.  Can I play the game and be in that world without partaking in all the bs?  If I can just ignore it and not let it affect me then I’m fine, but I’m worried that the game is purposely creating an atmosphere specifically for this style of gamer.  It really is a perfect niche for Conan to fill since this type of gamer is not into the Warhammer Online or even World of Warcraft style.

That’s my thought for the day.  Hopefully there are more people out there wanting to avoid the stereotypical FFA PvP mentality.

  • Seems like when games try to appeal to the competitve masses, thats what follows. Everyones favorite example of badness, WoW, is a great example. Also, Magic the Gathering, Warhammer (the tabletop, figure game) and even something as mindless as Halo, attracts loads of virtual and RL D-Bags.

    I am hoping I can get by in Conan by flying solo or with you can Graev, and get along just fine. *crosses fingers*

  • We should start a “community” (I’m never running a guild again) for like-minded Conan players. Or find one. That works too.

  • Well I would say don’t judge just from the forums.. they are a bad cover to any book, but if this really is the case in game and the population is a majority of that, count me out 😛

  • I agree with you on that Thallian. Unfortunately the games that a lot of these guilds and player previously come from are exactly how these forums are portraying them. It was ultimately too much for me to stomach on Mordred, and if it’s too much for me to stomach it might kill Conan for me altogether.

  • I think we should start a community that carries over from Conan to WAR. For convince sake, we could disguise it as a guild. Not in the normal, official sense, but just a place where we can get together and keep track of each other.

    I dunno. I’d be up for getting it together.

  • Isn’t this how full PvP games always are?

    All the way back to EQ1 and Rallos Zek, the game changes but the people remain the same.

  • Yep, it’s how people always are in the FFA PvP games. I’m afraid that Conan is catering specifically to that crowd in order to grab a really ideal niche market. The question at hand is whether or not it will be avoidable and whether or not avoiding it can still leave you with an enjoyable game.

    And actually I remember it all the way back to the first graphical muds like Realm’s BLOOD and MECH guilds. Nasty folk hellbent on the misery of others.

  • The game has naked boobies so of course it’s going to attract the kiddies. Every MMO community has annoying people so it’s not really anything new.

  • These also attract the people who are self proclaimed “PKs”. People whos only joy comes from killing low levels because of the ease, lack of challenge, and hatred it builds. I don’t mind getting griefed a little bit, but this is on a whole other level.

  • You probably will be able to get by without dealing with those sorts too much. Yes, Conan is going to be rife with them, but by the same token they should be pretty pre-occupied with the whole ‘zomg, my guild is better than yours, I just ganked 173 of your members by myself!’, so if you’re not in a guild you’ll probably only get ganked now and then.

    The other difference from, say, AC1 Darktide, is that the entire game will be like this. I don’t think there are enough douches in the world to fill up ALL the servers (compared to just filling up 1 or 2 servers). If the community sucks too badly on one, just try another server.

  • Well, it doesn’t help that you’re looking at the IGN boards. I’m sure it’s not too much better over on the official forums, but I imagine like-minded players will search each other out.

    What should be agreed upon is a ‘don’t be a dick’ server at launch, much like unofficial rp servers. That’d be good.

  • I still can’t get past the whole “No censorship of nipples!” controversyback a few months ago.
    Reading some of the posts people were making just gave me the impression that AoC was going to be a game I’d probably be better off skipping. I swear I saw “If they don’t allow nipples I’m not going to play!” posts. Well, the spelling wasn’t correct nor were most of the words in proper English, but you get my drift.
    What kind of gamer are they trying to appeal to by even pushing and promoting that kind of crap? The kind I don’t want to have anything to do with.
    Strangely enough AoC reminds me of Shadowbane. Yes, I actually played it for a short while and it seems I remember the same type of player that Keen is talking about running around in it too.

  • Oddly enough I never minded the general player base of DarkTide. Yes the whole Blood infestation was a minor annoyence, but other than that DT was a good time.

    Forums always bring out the more hardcore elite of any community, and it should not be a surprise that the hardcore of a PvP community is a bit aggressive.

    Also, if you enter a guild-based game (AoC) and don’t join a guild, you should expect to have a tougher road then most. It would be like buying AoC with no intention of PvP, when that is what the game is all about…

  • This is not really new to Conan though. I’ve been in a ‘family’ oriented guild for a long time, because every game has this kind of stuff.

    Nearly all of us have wives/husbands and kids and real lives that are important. But we are still avid gamers who love end-game content (usually reserved for those 1337 speaking hardcore types), and yes even PvP.

    The challenge I suppose is finding such a guild. And if you walk cold into a gaming community that could be hard. Our guild tends to move from game to game as a group, personally I find the social interaction amongst long term friends appealling enough to leave even a game I am still enjoying if the consensus is that it is time to move on.

    And if the atmosphere and general chat in the game is bad I’ve become accustomed to ignoring it whilst we chat on TS/Vent.

  • Unfortunately, I find myself in the category of gamer described in this article. Yes, I’m definitely a competitive person, evident by my roots in first-person shooter leagues. On the other hand, I’m the type of person who doesn’t enjoy “griefing” lower level players or talking trash on forums. Nevertheless, I noticed you guys were looking for more of a community feel rather than a competitive guild enviornment. Such a place may already exist.

    Check out The Free City of Lochlainn

    http://www.conan.ch/lochlainn/

  • Warhammer Online and WoW only attract best that humanity has to offer.

    I’m sure we won’t find any guilds trying to get their epeens stroked in those games.

  • Am I detecting a hint of sarcasm? 😉

    Of course we will see similar behavior in WAR and we have already seen it in WoW. Conan is my next game though so that’s what this topic is about.

  • i actually hope there will be ‘gangs’ in AoC. It will make the game more realistic and true to the lore. The Conan universe is dark and dangerous and so are the people that dwell in it. If you choose to be a good guy amidst all of this then its your choose but the road you travel will be treacherous and may end abrupt. Hooray for the true braves of Hybroria!