Age of Conan

O.K., like the title reads, no drama or biased answers please. Just want to ask a couple questions about how the game is working for the majority of the public...

1. How exactly do the loading screens work...? Is it like in GWs whereas the loading screens for the first time take forever to load but acts like a one-time load (as in the next time you enter the area it's dramatically shorter according to it's size)?

2. Are the various cut scenes for quests from 1 through 80...? If possible I'd ask someone from the CB about this but they can't freakin' discuss anything  so I have to ask what it appears to be according to various rumors or if FC discussed this at all. If they aren't, is it supposed to just be like the WoW style of questing? you talk to some person and a questbook pops up with text?

3. How exactly do rangers function when shooting arrows...? Do they get directional attacks as well or an auto-attack?

4. I wanted to ask how the performance is for everyone, but that seems to vary. I see an equal amount of posts of people saying "OMG THIS GAME IS TOO DEMANDING" and "wtf r u guys talkin bout it's fine" when the two seem to have similar rigs. So if you would I'd just like to know your specs and performance from your own personal experiences with testing the OB.

5. I know that the game will include nudity, but how far will they go with this? Will female characters go completely nude or will they generally get underwear? I don't want to cross a corner in a city and see an orgy of naked players going "LOLOLOLOLOLZ" while pretending to have their pixels screw eachother.

That's basically it... I have about a gazillion other questions but they can't really be answered by OB testers but CB testers... and they're STILL under NDA. So yeah, any feedback on these things would be appreciated.

1: The load screen are always when you go into or out of an instance. For example. You get at a cave door, click the cave door and a loadscreen is there. Same with entering houses in the city or any instance. Also when you die in a PVP area and are set back to your spawn point there is a loadscreen (tho I dunno why, since its the same region). AoC has some single player content at the beginning, to tell your story, and thats an instance which you enter and leave with a loadscreen too.

2: Cutscenes are all in-game graphics, as I am only in OB, I cant say what comes beyond lv 13 but I guess there will be more in crucial quests.

3: I played Ranger to lv 13, there is no auto-attack, you select an enemy and either make a special attack or a directional one, same as melee and spellcasters.

4: MY specs: intel duo 2x 2.2 GHz with 2 MB RAM, NVidia 7950 with 512 MB and WIn XP. I had set to medium settings. In wide open areas and alone or with 1 other player performance is good. However in the citiy and especially in interiors the performance drops exteremely, reminding me a lot of Vanguard, alas. In PVP I died several times of mere lag. I have seen worse, but it certainly is FAR from being fluent.

5: I havent seen full nudity, but I havent cared so far, you should ask someone else about that. ^^

Originally posted by Douhk

O.K., like the title reads, no drama or biased answers please. Just want to ask a couple questions about how the game is working for the majority of the public...

1. How exactly do the loading screens work...? Is it like in GWs whereas the loading screens for the first time take forever to load but acts like a one-time load (as in the next time you enter the area it's dramatically shorter according to it's size)?

Yes a bit similar, once an area is in memory its quicker, most people have the OB client on their PC now, I wonder how many have defragged the client? Anyway as optimization is ongoing and memory leaks present (but not as bad as hellgate's) You have small loading screens for small area's, like Thirsty Dog Inn and then larger ones for whole area's.

2. Are the various cut scenes for quests from 1 through 80...? If possible I'd ask someone from the CB about this but they can't freakin' discuss anything  so I have to ask what it appears to be according to various rumors or if FC discussed this at all. If they aren't, is it supposed to just be like the WoW style of questing? you talk to some person and a questbook pops up with text?

Voice overs are currently destiny quests and a few others on tortage, there will be a little be more off tortage. Dialogue screen with choices appear right to the end - I saw plenty after tortage at the community event.

3. How exactly do rangers function when shooting arrows...? Do they get directional attacks as well or an auto-attack?

They get directional, their combos still start with directions, choose wisely based on opponents inital protection.

4. I wanted to ask how the performance is for everyone, but that seems to vary. I see an equal amount of posts of people saying "OMG THIS GAME IS TOO DEMANDING" and "wtf r u guys talkin bout it's fine" when the two seem to have similar rigs. So if you would I'd just like to know your specs and performance from your own personal experiences with testing the OB.

2 machines:

1 brand new one with pretty much everything good inside another P4 3ghz 2gb crap ram x1650 Ati card. There is a big difference between the two. On the crapper machine I get on average (everywhere) about 15-20fps, my load times are good and this is on the OB, on the CB for me it was great until a recent little patch that messed my graphics up but has since been fixed. For me Im serious in saying CB is the better right now, by quite some margin in certain places. I've been in CB sometime now and had it up and down as you would naturally think for beta, we had some massive patches over the last couple months that improved performance incredibly. Remember when the game was supposed to come in out in march? we had a massive one then that people said was a miracle patch. Many many people believe FC have the capacity to put a good game come launch, its been proven already in CB (im talking lvls 1-13 ;) )  I get on average 70fps plus on the new machine, in Tortage when package it dips to around 30 ish.

5. I know that the game will include nudity, but how far will they go with this? Will female characters go completely nude or will they generally get underwear? I don't want to cross a corner in a city and see an orgy of naked players going "LOLOLOLOLOLZ" while pretending to have their pixels screw eachother.

Just topless nudity, CB has nips. All females have thongs. I think you will see the second part of what you said to begin with, just play on an RP server, for the better community.

That's basically it... I have about a gazillion other questions but they can't really be answered by OB testers but CB testers... and they're STILL under NDA. So yeah, any feedback on these things would be appreciated.