Well if you left after a month from release, you may as well try the game alot of the stability issues have gone infact it generally runs well (though you do need a good PC to run it) DX10 although still offically in test runs ok, i play in dx10 all the time now, raiding, PVP the works. The sound is simply stunning even the music is beautiful. Leveling content is fantastic, most if not all quests work as intended.

The community is dependent upon which server you go on really, Crom (PVE with controlled PVP) is a nice play to be, not much smack talk and generaly a nice place to be, FURY (PVP) is a nightmare end of story.

Now for the bad points, since 1.5 patch sieges are broken, getting 94 players onto the battlefield is no mean task, then getting that 94 players organsised into a defending/ attacking force is no mean task, 5 mins into the siege bang, DC all round and the siege lock timer resets END OF SIEGE, defending team wins by default. You may think that is the game breaker, but i will save the best to last.

Once level 80 is reached the end game content has alot to be desired, quite simply there is not enough, but then i am told after 1 year even WOW struggles for places to raid. The new commons district is a welcome area however its short and i found the place lacking in depth.

The new itemisation of the entire database as you can imagine was no small task and while everything has been made a little more item dependent, its too early to tell yet whether its for the good or bad, but first impresions are it seems to have simplifed a certain aspects that was lacking first time around.

Now the game breaker if you are a huge PVP nut then the class balance is out of control, just roll a caster type and as it stands at the moment you would have to blind, have 1 arm in a cast to lose. It really is that bad. Funcom say the class balancing is a on going issue, and for me this is where the root of the problem lies, prior to this patch people gave there own time and money to play on the test servers. Plenty of feedback was given and 95% of it was ignored by the Developers and we have the mess what is now AOC 1.5 at end game.

Would i recomend some to play AOC, yes let them check it out with 2 weeks free time you could get a character to level 75 even 80 with a few solid days at it.

But be warned its not balanced and Funcom seem to operate on seperate dimension to the entire playerbase. Does it have a future ? Well for me the damage has been done like so many players i feel let down by FUNCOM over this patch. So as soon as something else comes along i am off. What scary is i like the idea of the secret world another up and comer from FUNCOM lets hope the dev team in charge of that one can provide something AOC has not got

DEPTH