I gave AC2 a try just to see what I could see, and I am pretty positive I won’t be spending that much time with the game outside of playing with friends who like the game.
First off, the game is just freaaaking demanding on my system. My computer isnt some Alienware super bastard XL 2700 but it can hold its own even with the new Dark Age of Camelot Expansion. Yet in Asheron’s Call 2, the framerate is all choppy if you wanna have nice visuals.
Then there’s the spell animations vs latency issues. My character is lagging like an FPS, which makes sense since its an actiony fps controller online rpg. You know, the rubberband lag compensation stuff. Spell animations complete funny or not at all, making it hard to gauge where to begin and end special attacks as a mage. Part of the reason I dont like the real-time-ish combat.
The numbers and words appearing above your head during battle is awghfg too. I mean wtf, “EVADE EVADE -12 EVADE”.
On the plus side Monster designs are cool and the world in general has a cool look to it. SO in terms of world design it beats out the somewhat generic DAoC (but the new DAoC expansion adds some GREAT new areas) but man it needs a machine.
SO yeah, I only played 40 minutes. When I was on I couldnt barely find anyone to talk to, and the people I did find didnt wanna seem to talk anyway.
Dark Age of Camelot however has more of the stuff I like. Combat that’s slow enough to make sense. Decent Latency, Cool Spell Effects (Cooler than AC2 in my opinion), HUGE areas to explore with lots of enemies, realm vs realm combat, and really fun dungeons. Then there’s the fact that the game enforces team play to beat some of the larger enemies or groups of, making it easy to find people who will at least chat with you if you feel like it.