GameSpot just did some research into what it takes to run Age of Conan and what it takes to run it well. Unfortunately, the page with the full article appears to be down so I can’t get in and read what the post says - but I can read between the lines. Having played AoC on a system that’s almost 3 years old I can tell you the game will run but it doesn’t run particularly well, even with graphics set to the minimum.
The numbers in sales and subscriptions of AoC will tell you that the game is widely accepted as being a good game, after all gamers vote with their dollars. But I think those numbers may dwindle as more and more gamers progress to points in the game that become unplayable on all but the hottest systems on the planet. The simple truth is that the more things that are going on in the game - the higher your frame rates are going to get. According to what I could read on GameSpot, in the big cities with lots of things going on slower computers would simply grind to a halt. Even the high end computers would take a noticeable hit in performance which leads me to beleive simply upgrading one component here or two components there won’t be enough for your average gamer.
Not every gamer out there can afford to go get a shiney new system every time a new game comes out that requires it. And not everyone playing AoC is going to want to stay behind the scenes when big guild vs. guild battles are going on because their system can’t handle the load. I can see many people getting increasingly frustrated when they lose their guilds stronghold because they were getting 10 frames per second. And I can see many gamers looking for greener pastures before they put out the green for better systems.
MMO’s in general thrive off of subscriptions, so you would think it to be common sense to tailor your game to run well on mid-level systems and the guys with the high end stuff can really crank up the graphics effects so their systems won’t necessarily go to waste. The very much anticipated WAR is coming out (hopefully in September from what I’m reading from Syp) and there is no system requirements released as of yet but there are plenty of predictions out there. My guess is the requirements will probably fall in line pretty close to what AoC has for theirs. Here’s to hoping the guys over at EA/Mythic make the game playable to us lowly folk with slower setups.
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