I think you're being unfair on a lot of your points. You've obviously grown used to playing a certain way and expect the game to accomodate you, but that's just not possible when it also has to cater to its (at the moment) 700,000 other subscribers!
The whole grey-elite change has really put me off playing the game, not only because it's restricting to how I want to play, but because it really shows FunCom's recent attitude and behaviour.
OK, so you're saying you wanted to solo those dungeons and they stopped you from doing it. Fair enough, that's how you want to play, but surely you see that being able to get if everyone who hit 50 was able to solo Sanctum and get every single good drop for himself it would ruin the economy? FC saw it as a problem and stopped it, you're not MEANT to solo elite instances (and in fact it was a bug that allowed you to do so), so I don't see what's wrong with their "attitude".
Unbalanced classes (yes, I'm aware that this will change in time)
Yep, totally agree with that one, although I'm not sure that it will change in time - every MMO is a bit "rock, paper, scissors" when you're fighting 1v1. The balance might alter a bit, and they might smooth down the advantage one class has over another, but it'll still be slightly unbalanced 1v1, just like every other online game, because it's a problem inherent in the class system, and it facilitates interesting group play. The only online game that never had to worry about stuff like that was Guild Wars because it gave you henchies right from the start.
Extreme Instancing (clearly to accomodate 360 users)
I don't mind that. It has its good and bad points, but I think the good outweight the bad.
Poor performance on above spec machines
Yep, true that.
Totally! But they're getting quite quick at fixing them.
That one they're not so quick about, some of the Barbarian ones have been broken since release. Guess the Feats team are dealing with one class at a time.
They're not bugged, just crap.
Haven't encountered that many of those.
As above. What do you mean?
At the moment, but tbh not enough of the population has reached level 80 and built a t3 guild city for it to matter.
Infestation of utter morons
Maybe it's cause I'm in an RP-PvP server but I totally disagree, it's much friendlier than any other game I've played. No leetspeakers, no griefing, no trash-talk. I regularly team up to do quests with peeps from guilds that my guild has a bitter and merciless war against!
Can't comment on that, haven't tried it yet.
The descriptions on the items are insufficient, but I think the items themselves are very well balanced. AoC was never meant to be about who has the biggest sword, it's about player skill over item bonuses, and I don't understand why ANYONE would rather it were otherwise!
Level 56 and still a full quest journal here.
Constantly Broken Promises
Give them time.
Like?
Higher European Subscription Cost
Actually I worked it out when the costs were first announced and the USD cost was higher. Remember, we pay 17% VAT on everything. The dollar has dropped a bit more since then so in direct-equivalence it may be a bit more now, but you can hardly blame FC for currency fluctuations!
Rubbish Collector's Edition in-game rewards
Speak for yourself, I love my mammoth!
Yeah that was annoying, but they got back to me in 24hrs with a new key when I emailed them.
Foliage and trees spin with the camera
Looks fine on mine....
Lack of a decent travel system
Yeah, this game is particularly bad for long treks, I reckon it's deliberate to keep the population of low-level areas high while people level up. It's cool when you're fighting some folks from a rival guild and you're being overwhelmed by numbers, and then suddenly 3 level 70s from your guild charge in on their warhorses to the rescue!
In time I think they'll introduce more wagons or something, when it won't be as necessary to keep people spread out anymore.
Just not for me at the moment, perhaps not at all, I'll see tomorrow as to what changes with the patch and if they've actually listened to the community (not that they really pay attention to the European community, despite us paying more) as to whether I renew. Chances are I'll take a couple of months and poke my head back in and see if they've done even half of the things they said were going to be in at release.
That IMHO would be the WORST mistake they could possibly make! The community knows ****-all about making MMOs, and I'm sure people could make a thread 12 pages long with all the great online games that have been ruined because the devs listened to "the community".
