General Discussion

Thanks for the preview preview, Jon.

Regarding the spellcheck guys here, which I find a bit humorous (though they do have a point), I recommend the following solution:

Use Firefox

Get the plugin "MySpell" or "ASpell" for Firefox. This handy plugin treats anything you write in your web browser the same way it would in MS Word: red underlines for misspelled words, etc.

I couldn't survive without this. All the rambling I do on my blog, you need stuff like this.

Anyway, just a tip to make your life easier. Discard if you don't care.

Thanks for the preview it gives some good info in there, But on the other hands were some serious grammar nazis in this thread.

Some of my best friends are intelligent but terrible spellers. I don't let that little failing bug me. And I may tease them occasionally, but never rudely. And I don't police them. They know their failings, as I know mine. We accept with grace. To paraphrase: Take the log out of your own eye before you worry about the splinter in someone else’s eye.

So melee combat in AoC is pretty much like other mmorpgs, except you have to press 2 keys instead of 1 to excecute a skill. There is no auto-attack though (is this a good thing?).

Magic spells are the same as other mmorpgs , you target  and press 1.

Bow users get a crosshair though, and have to aim at the target. Thats a plus.

Zoning in AoC takes a loong time. Hope they optimise this. Zoning into the first city takes like 2-3 minutes. What about bigger cities?

AoC got some interesting classes, and you get feats at level 10, like talents in wow. There is fansite who has a list of the feats.

Originally posted by Arcona

Zoning in AoC takes a loong time. Hope they optimise this. Zoning into the first city takes like 2-3 minutes. What about bigger cities?

 

2-3 minutes if that's true is way too long.   However Anarchy Online had long zoning too, but nothing that long.   I remember zoning between Omni-trade and Entertainement and it was taking between 4-5 sec to 20 sec depending of the time you play.

Originally posted by forty4plus2

 

Originally posted by noxdraconis

Sorry, but this was really bad.

-nox

 

Omg, who gives a sh*t!? so what if there are typos and f'ing sentence fragments! anyways good review i feel the same way from the weekend beta. Looking forward to hearing about some of the 'surprises' they have in store for you guys on the beta.

I don't know, maybe professionals and educated people give a damn. You've gotta admit, even a spell checker would have fixed most of those. Journalists typically submit their work to an editor before it is published. This shows that this website hires writers without college degrees or at the very least, writers who has taken college writing. Or, it shows that the journalist's work isn't submitted to an editor first, which only shows that this isn't a professional website, which to educated people, means that their opinion's hold less weight to websites that do employ professional writers.

You need to learn to think more critically and to start giving a damn about education. The future of mankind depends on education and people who give a damn.

EDIT: No, I'm not oblivious to the fact that most of you probably don't give a damn about education, pride in worksmanship, or the future of mankind after you are dead and barried. After all, this website does have a heavy population of people who don't mind mediocrity. However, some of us do care and it does irk me that people have an "I don't care" attitude about how they write. Sure, there are intelligent people that are bad spellers, and I am terrible about grammar, but they pick a different profession than journalism. For some people, bad spelling and grammar stick out like a soar thump and actually takes away the focus from the topic of the article. It's not really about if you can spell or have good grammar to me, it is more the attitude people have about this topic.

Thanks for the preview!

Hopefully they'll come out with a 14 day trial or something similar ... I always hate plunking down $50+ just to try it out.

It does sound very promising though.

Waiting for the preview of lvl 20+.  If its giving false impression compared to what the Closed beta is doing then I encourage those ppl to speak up. 

Originally posted by Cerion

 

Originally posted by maddbomber83

Everquest 2 originally started along the same lines.  I forget if you were a slave or not, but you were shipwrecked and had lost all memory.  Now that I think about it, there are several other RPGs where you started out as a slave, or in jail, or something like that. 

As long as there is a story, then I'm fine with however you start.  It is up to you to decide your future right?

 

Yes, several other single player RPGs, not MMORPGS, have these backgrounds decided for you.  I played EQ2, and starting shipwrecked is fine. I don't seem to recall starting with amnesia though.   I don't mind well-crafted tutorials that guide you through a story either.  It's the fact that FC is deciding that I'm a slave to start with that bothers me. Even the most linear of games give you the freedom of deciding your personal history.

Nah, you never had amnesia in EQ2, you was just a refugee.

Morrowind on the other hand... ;)

I guess they say nothing is born in a vacuum right? :P

The more I read about this game the better I feel.

My only issue with the review is the talk about the combat being more engaging because you had to do a bit of "keyboard dancing" to start the combo and then hit the appropriate direction.

I think the keyboard dancing thing isn't a good thing.  And most players will simply rebind their keys to be more direct.  So instead of going 1-2-3 1-2-3 you'll go 4 (combo bound there) 1 4-1 4-1. 

I just don't see how it's any different once you start executing combos.  Sure it's a small step up by attacking up, left, or right, but that doesn't sound any more complex than using positionals.  They both require the skill of hitting the appropriate action at the appropriate time.

It's obvious that the directional attack thing failed, and now it's only a shell of it's former idea.  There used to be 6 or 7 directions, then 5, and now 3.  While this is obviously due to feedback from beta testers, I think it shows that with the lag and such that can be in MMOs, active directional combat just doesn't work how you would like it to.  I give them kudos for trying, but it's just like any other MMO now.  You hit buttons in a sequence and you kill the mob.  This isn't a bad thing, and I think it will make the game more accessible to the common MMO players.  It will definitely be easier to get accustomed to the game now.

I definitely plan on trying the game out for it's story and it's PvE, but I don't plan on playing it for it's PvP.  I've heard too many bad things about it from the PvP weekend, and from my own perceptions of it.