Rating: 
Summary: Level Treadmill for sure.
Review: Ugh. Another Level Treadmill. Only two days old and I already see level 20 characters ingame. That's saying alot since there are not that many people in the game to find.Graphics = Great
Game Play = [very bad]
People = Unfriendly (I suspect most are experienced AC1 players)
Stuff to do = Nothing really. Kill something, move on to the next monster. Kill it, move on to the next. blah blah blah blah blah. Where is the interesting social interaction that online games like this are supposed to have? Worst game I have bought in over a year. Only game I ever wanted to take back.
Rating:
Summary: Wow! I expected much more!
Review: Microsoft. I expected way more from this game. After 2 days of online play, I am ready to quit. I met 3 people online! WOW. I got disconnected several times and could not get back on. I thought Microsoft was the big boy on the block! The game stinks.
Rating:
Summary: Ouch. Microsoft hits a new gaming low.
Review: Since everyone seems to be concerned about what experts they are on gaming, I will first list the online games I play/played. 1. Ultima Online (current account is 4 years old)
2. Asherons Call #1 (played from launch - for 2 years)
3. Dark Age of Camelot (played 6 months)
4. Anarchy Online (played 4 months)
5. Everquest (1 year) Ok now my opinion. Play any of the above games instead. AC2 is a big step forward in graphics. Think Morrowind type of graphics. However, the game play is about as fun as watching grass grow. I played it all this weekend and I probably wont go back in. I for sure wont play after the free month is up. How they went from Asherons Call to this New version is beyond me. They have "dumbed" the game down considerably. There are way less combat options and way less content. The arguments stated about content being added as time goes by is stupid. They would have to completely re-invent this game to make it any better. The content they speak of adding is not like a big Everquest pack. Asherons Call developers add small changes each month. New monster or a small storyline or like that. Not a big re-do. Don't let the fan boys misslead you. Buy the game at your own risk. One problem I haven't mentioned is that AC is generally known as Cheaters Paradise. If you plan to play an online game and don't want to be surrounded by cheaters/hackers and foul mouthed kids.. AC has a very bad rep for not doing anything about this situation. It's why I quit playing AC. I actually enjoyed that game the most of the ones I played. I just couldn't stand the rampant cheating and the stupid kids standing around making sexual remarks. I already took notice this weekend that many of the scum from AC have moved to AC2. Kill Stealing, griefing, taunting. It's all started there already. Not really a big mystery since there really isn't anything else to do in the game.
Rating:
Summary: Boring just isn't a stronge enough word.
Review: I like all the people that give you the lineage of their game playing experience. Like that means anything. The game is boring. It also is hard to get connected to. The servers are crashing all the time. Wait for a few months if you plan to buy this game. They put it out before it's finished or sturdy. The towns are boring, the landscape is boring, the gameplay is boring. You can't even find people playing in the game. I keep seeing the same 5 people. The graphics are great, but as a landscape, boring. The dungeons that I was able to play in had other people in who evidently think the game is to try and aggrivate you as much as possible. Every time I started to kill some monster or other, some higher level character would come over and kill it instead. Then proceed to follow me around so that I could not do anything. This game really is boring. I keep saying that don't I? I just don't know a stronger word.
Rating:
Summary: A warning to any potential buyers
Review: As almost every review has stated this game is pretty to look at, but this game has MAJOR design flaws. You can also ignore the "wait 6 months for content" posts because content addition will not fix these flaws. 1. The game is level based. A level 25 will beat a level 22 no matter what. Every level 25 lugian is running around with the exact same health. Level based = no variation. This they cannot change post release. 2. Quite a few skills are meaningless and undocumented. In other words many of their skills have no visible effect after putting experience into them. This means everyone will be selecting the skills that do work and running around with the same template. Again everyone will have similar skills. This will take years to get straightened out, by then everyone will be playing Starwars online anyway. 3. Combat is too simplistic. You click a button until the mob flashes yellow and then click your special attack (which is usually an instakill). The game has unbelievably, repetitive, boring combat. And this is the core of the game. This will not be changed post release. 4. This is minor, but the movement has a very sloppy feeling. You skate around like your on rollerskates. This is the one thing that can be changed post-release. To summarize, someone at Turbine made some very POOR design decisions. They wrote a great game engine, which is beautiful to look at, but then weighted it down with the worst aspects of most games. I realized as I was going through Beta that the basic design of the game was flawed and because of their time table for release, Turbine did not want to address these problems. I'm not talking content here, I'm not talking buggy problems during beta here, I'm talking about a game that is poor at its core. You can't change that with a patch. Do yourself a favor and wait for another upcoming MPOG.
Rating: 
Summary: Merely OK - Wait to buy.
Review: I have played this game in beta and have done some background to see what has changed since early Nov. (when they added beta). In my opinion, the game way not "complete" then. I don't mean it had bugs, but it could have been more. I konw they have added new events and stuff, but no real new systems have been added. The game this reminds me of is Dark Age of Camelot: you have fun the first week, stay amused the second week, get the feeling of repition the third, and fourth month, the game becomes an annoyance and you quit. Saying that here are the reasons why I dislike it:
1) Focuses primarily on combat.
2) Combat repetitive.
3) You do not feel meaning in PvP or Kvk
4) Crafting system too easy to advance in making your own equipment obsolete quickly. (I enjoy walking in a game and recognizing a person by appearence, ex. I walk into town and see someone clad in bronze and I know its JoeBob; I see Theif Sam in a black robe and know to stay back; ect...
5) Your decisions in combat do not have a large enough impact on your win/loss.
6) The kindoms are too "close" relationship wise to have actually enemies. It is natural for people to want to hate someone, and it makes the experience in a game more emotional. But, this also has a bad side; people's emotions can lead to a less fun gaming environment for others. It should be balanced so you feel tense while around other kingdoms, but not afraid.
7) (Maybe this is just players who have been around longer...) The game is too simple (This doesn't mean too easy!). There is not enough going on at once and there is not enough strategy involved in what you do. There is not enough factors to winning or losing a battle to make someone "good" at the game, being "good" depends on where you specialize. In my opinion this means people will be clones of each other's stats.
8) Leveling is tedious at higher levels and one of your only big goals. Experience is too slow and makes you feel obligated to level (maybe just a mental thing because I am used to losing xp in games). They should make levels less of an achievement by taking away the large amounts of skill points you get and then spread out the skill requirements on them. This way you can get to level 40 faster, but you will be challenged by a good level 35 player. Now that I have ranted, here is what I do like about the game.
1) Excellent graphics. (Though I do wish they would have grass be actual 3D figures instead of "grids" of flat grass when looked at from above)
2) Combat effects (scars, wounds, blood) are a graphical way of showing your condition.
3) Possibility to expand
4) Unique Gameplay: there are really not too many games like it. I always like originality. What would make me buy it:
1) Make combat have different settings: beginner, easy, advanced, and expert or something along those lines. By doing this you could put the current system in beginner restricting the player from doing advanced tactical moves. In easy you could put in things like quick attacks based on your movement (kinda like lightsaber use in JK2 but more RPG like). Advanced would give you Combos that you set up before battles. Expert would allow you to customize moves: adding speed to your attacks by sacrificing damage, ect... You could also make it so all these were availible at different levels or always availible.
2) Add housing or city building. This would give you an additional feeling of progress besides levels. Ok, you say you "can" build cities by using the forge. I say this is not an individual achievement to a player. He sees the forge upgrade before his eyes and say, "Oh good, now I can build better, but I don't really care that much because it isn't mine." Maybe its just me but I don't really care about the city I am stoping in for a few moments while not in combat.
3) Add other professions - there are no NPC farmers, so how the heck do people in Dereth get there food? Don't tell me they are independent and chop their own wood, farm there own food, ect... In AC1 there were farmers, skulpters and other NPC people. Since there are no NPC's you should have players growing food for a living, but still being able to defend his or her crops from the pesky drudge. All of this and more can be accomplished by an expansion pack. AC1 had an expansion back that added housing so it could be possible here. I will not buy this game until then, and unless you want to play for only a month or two, I would wait for some additional patches or an expansion. I do expect the game to get better, the AC series has been know so far for great add-ons, so maybe I will re-evaluate it a month or two later.
Rating: 
Summary: An enormous step for MMORPGs, from a long time RPGer
Review: Our entire household plays Asheron's Call, and we've been RPGing on the net since the days of MUSHes. We beta tested Ultima Online, the first real graphic MMORPG, and the other MMORPGs as they came along. We were all beta testers for Asheron's Call 2 as well. We were very interested to see how the game would be updated, what they would keep and what would change. We got the full copy as soon as it came out. The graphics are easily the first thing you notice, and they are a HUGE upgrade. Asheron's Call (AC) already had rather impressive graphics with a GEforce 3 - the weather changes, lighting, and outfits and monsters were done quite nicely. But the Asheron Call 2 engine is an amazing step forward. Run through the water and watch the water ripple around your legs. Even better, dive off a cliff and watch your arching descent into the water. The trees leaves wave in the wind, the fountains shimmer and glow. The monsters are all unique with very intricate movements. While in the previous version you chose from three types of human (generally 'European', 'Oriental', and 'Middle Eastern') you now choose from three types of sentient creatures. You can be the medium sized, athletic humans, the big, strong, solid Lugians, or the small, thin, wiery Tumeroks. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. When you customize your character, the detail is amazing, much as in Earth and Beyond. You choose the body height and thickness, the hair color and style, the tattoos and clothing colors, and much more. In each case there are a whole range to choose from, from hair colors to hair styles to facial types. Your character is very much a recognizeable individual. Add in clothing, and you'll be hard pressed to find two alike in the world. Each character has skills they choose to be good at, much like any other role playing game. If you wish to be good in combat and go out slaughtering the local creatures, you can do that. Learn magic, and either kill enemies directly or help 'buff' your friends so they are better, at least until your spells wear off. But the game also heavily rewards those who enjoy making items, something that was becoming popular on AC. Gather up items with the appropriate raw materials and craft yourself new clothing, a new bow, and much more. This brings up one change that many AC players dislike. In AC, you could make minor items - say fletch wood into arrows, or catch a rabbit and make rabbit pie. I was a personal fan of cooking :) You could then sell the items back to shopkeepers (non-player characters) and earn money that way. In AC2, there ARE no non player characters. So if you make things, you have to find someone else willing to buy them. If you want something, you either have to make it for yourself or track down someone to buy it from. Since most people aren't on 24 hours a day, this can become somewhat tricky and frustrating. Still, the way that most trades were made on AC were either in 'subway' (a dungeon with many entrances and exits) or for more important items, via auctions on web message boards. People would bid for items, bidding in the game currency, and whoever won the auction would arrange to meet the character to do an in-game swap. If anything, AC2 promotes even more of this in-game economy. I enjoyed the human-shopkeep mentality from Ultima Online and thought it gave an outlet to those who were creative but not of a monster-killing mentality. I think that it was great for AC2 to head in this direction, but still think having a few basic shopkeeps around would have been helpful. When playing AC2 sometimes, there were literally so many people in some areas that I couldn't find monsters to kill to get raw materials, and I trudged far and wide trying to find some 'available' monsters. There are all sorts of touches that show how great it is to have a game that's been played VERY heavily for many years. The characters can grab musical instruments and play different songs, and jam together. The commands are the same as in AC but have been tweaked to be even more useable. The changing of the day/night, and shadows, and weather, and seasons,all make you really feel part of an organic world. There are still quests, for those who enjoy questing. There are random monsters for those who enjoy hack-and-slash. There are things to make for those who enjoy creating. And there are the various monarchies and groups for those who enjoy community and want to forge friendships. Those who enjoy the 'richness' of AC's community might forget that it grew over many years, just as the communities in DuneMUSH and the early Ultima Online and at EverQuest have all grown. To expect AC2 to spring to life with that level is a bit unreasonable. Like every RPG, it will coalesce over time. Sure, AC2 has bugs to start with. Every on line game does. And over the weeks and months, those bugs get sorted out and gameplay is tweaked until it shines. I know that many AC players will have invested so many months (if not years) in their characters that it'll be hard for them to give them up. In the boards I've been on, there is certainly a die-hard contingent that swears they'll stay on AC with their friends and characters until the server is shut down. But on the other hand, copies of AC2 are flying off the shelves and people are having to scrounge to get their hands on copies. The new game is AMAZING in many ways. And as the months go on, AC will seem more and more dated with its old style graphics and falling number of players. I suppose I liken it to playing Doom when Unreal Tournament is out. Yes, I used to play Doom for hours and hours and loved the graphics and gameplay. But in 2002, given the ability to play Unreal Tournament with its gameplay and graphics, the Doom CD sits on the shelf. I have fond memories of Doom, and my time spent with it made me a better gamer, better to appreciate what gaming has to offer now.
Rating:
Summary: Been there done that
Review: This is the best way to describe AC2. They are furthering the genre with graphics. It's basically a pure level treadmill. They took out all the supposed tedious elements out of MMORPG but left the worst one of all, the level treadmill. No content, alot of imbalance, alot of bugs, your typical MMORPG release but a shame for a company on it's second try. If you don't mind killing things for years on end and nothing else this games is for you otherwise stay far far away.
Rating:
Summary: The only one for me
Review: It's obvious that no single game can please everyone. None of the others have grabbed me in the least. And I've tried them all. After playing AC1 for 2.5 years (accounting for nearly 3 months of my life!) I engaged the AC2 beta.
I'm going in. It's not about graphics (though they're awesome). It's about creativity, a legend with a 'hook', characters I can identify with, and community. Maybe more people like myself are attracted to AC for the same reasons I am, and that's why we find it so attractive. So go play E&B, EQ, AO, DAoC, or whatever, and have a great time. We won't miss you. We've got things to do....
Rating:
Summary: A breath of fresh air...
Review: I played Everquest for 6 months, and Anarchy Online for 1 year. during this time, holding a very high position in Omni-Tek society, but after much deliberation and repeated abuse by Funcom as well as my other story-org leaders, we decided to evacuate this rotting carcass of an mmorpg. However. I Beta tested AC2 and I have to say I AM impressed! First of all, mechanics. The Beta worked better than AO after it's ONE AND A HALF YEARS OF RUNNING.
Secondly, the grpahics are state of the art, providing suport for todays video chipsets and technologies, as well as the additional graphics capabilities of the videocards and processors of tomorrow.
Character creation is a large improvement I thought. Given there are only three races to choose from. However, being able to actually make a BELIEVABLE name for your character, I mean being able to use spaces, first and or last names, capitals and numbers, is sooooo nice. AO ran out of combinations 2 months into the running. Despite the fact that there are only three races, the customiaztions and personality you can instill in your character is enough to make up for it. I like the idea that fighting and things are "fast" instead of slow. Monsters dart across the screen and leap at you, you can jump and swing your weapon at once. The difference between being a magician and a warrior is whatever you make it. Personally my character was level 21 and both a paragon fighter and a master magician. It just depends how much time you want to invest on your guy, and how specific you wanna be.
You are whatever you want to be. Of course there are other nice features. There's already a "base-wars" type of thing going on between the differnt kingdoms. I remember sacking the "Order" base and guardian with my Shadow Beta buddies, spectral sword in hand. You get alignment specific skills and spells as well. I would recommend this game for anyone who fell asleep leveling to 150-200 in Anarchy-Online and is sick and tired of losing a weeks worth of XP by one death in Everquest. My name ingame is "Chamber". Look me up.
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