Of course people will return. I tried AoC via a friend's account and although it has a few cool feats that no competitor has it still seems too "old". It just cann't compete with its mediocre (in my opinion) quality at this date.

Technically AoC shines, and knocks WoW far down into the boots, but there is something that WoW has, and AoC doesn't. In terms of content, WoW is waay ahead IMO. =)

Technically AoC shines, and knocks WoW far down into the boots, but there is something that WoW has, and AoC doesn't. In terms of content and lore, WoW is waay ahead IMO. =)

I think people should stop gettign so hyped up about games "beating WoW" its not really that important..

In terms of content, sure.. but in terms of lore? If I remember correctly "Conan" predates WoW. AoC probably has enough lore to write 4 expansions.

i agree with Fordie....wow isnt going to be beaten, and i think the key to making a good mmo, is not setting out to take down such a popular mmo in the first place. start small, work your way up.

I'm not surprised a good portion returned heh. AoC at its core just doesnt feel right. Beautiful game mind you, but its play mechanics feel awkward.

Thumbs up to those that like it though, since its all about playing whats fun to YOU.

Let's not forget all the bugs it was released with and all the constant zoning, even in non dungeons. Quite annoying. It's got some really great features like true PvP (versus realm vs realm ala WoW), arrows that don't curve to hit the target, and axe swinging that hits all the targets in front of the character. I would love to see a true PvP realm for WoW, like Asheron's Call and with bounty hunting like StarWars Galaxies.

Over all many of the bugs that were in alpha were still in the game on release. AoC followed the example of Vanguard and released with a ton of bugs. And now, Vanguard is a fringe game. It would be nice to see a MMO which releases a Gold version as Gold, not a beta/alpha version released as Gold.

Lets not forget the 4 day wait to talk to a GM either. It's as bad as their other game Anarchy Online. If you want GM support, and can't wait... play something else.

WoW is a great game, so is AoC but the thing that i choose WoW over Aoc even with its graphic violence is that in AoC, if u choose 2 mostly play say single player mode, theres a bit of loss when you HAVE to switch 2 multiplyer just to ascend from lvl 18-20. all in all WoW 10/10 AoC 8/10

True, but as broad a range of people haven't been playing Conan for over a decade.

WarCraft: Orcs and Humans was one of my first games growing up (Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and WC) and is, as a gamer, a solid part of my childhood. I won't lie, I had never heard of Conan outside of the Arnold Schwarzenegger flick/television show/whatever back in the day until AoC was near releasing. Hell, two months before it was going to release I still thought it was a game based off of Arnold's movie.

Conan's lore may be older and span a larger range of material, but Warcraft's appeals to a broader base and has its roots set deep in modern fantasy in a way that appeals to people who don't even like "traditional" fantasy (that last bit applying at least to myself, anyway, I freakin' hate dragons).

I was one of the people to leave WoW for AoC on it's release, and at first I was sure that I was done with WoW. Then I got up to about level 56 and realized that AoC just didn't feel right. Granted, it had a ton of annoying bugs, the multiple buff image bug being the most annoying in my opinion, but there was still something about it that caused me to lose interest.

I think it may have to do with lore. Even though I am not one to go and buy Warcraft books, I still know a lot of Warcraft lore and I find the whole story very interesting and well developed. In a way, it gave me somewhat of a role playing feeling even though I wasn't actually role playing like you would on a RP realm. With AoC, I had no idea what the lore was. I had no idea where I was, who anyone was, or what I was doing other than killing people and I really did not feel like reading anything about it. It just didn't seem that interesting to me.

The combat system in AoC at first looked really cool. Having to do combos and actually swing your sword in strategic ways seemed so innovative to me. Soon, though, it was becoming more of a hassle to keep pressing three buttons at the right time instead of one button to do the actual attack.

There is one thing, though, that really pissed me off. Guild cities were useless for the longest time. I poured all my gold into the guild funds to build the buildings, probably more than anyone in my entire guild except for the architect himself, and was rewarded with small, useless buildings that really meant nothing.

I realize things like bugs and useless guild cities have been addressed in recent patches, at least I assume so, but it still wasn't as enjoyable as WoW was. The game looks amazing and has a lot of potential, but I think I will stick with WotLK when it is released.

Can only agree with idiotversion in his comment...one of the things that made me stop AoC was the ton of bugs that doesn't really get any attention. Likewise I never have that same comfortable feeling when playing AoC, it's like I see no goal etc in it. You build a city....great you have now spend a ton of gold, time and ressources and what do you wanna do with it now?