I don't mean this to be a flame against AoC (hell, look up my threads and you will see I have never started a thread against AoC) but I've been thinking about this issue during the preview weekend of Warhammer.

I had actually beta both games and now that the NDA is lifted in WAR I can honestly say (without fear of breaking any RoC) that WAR was developed much more solidly (is that a word?) than AoC.

While playing the beta for AoC the three main issues that bothered me was

1. Way too many damn instances in a zone. Just way too much. Horrible actually.  Instances is a developers tool to tell us they either got lazy or they didn't know how to mechinally fight a lot of people in one Zone.  Ive been playing in WAR, got up to rank 20 and only hit one Zones.  By the time I hit lvl 20 with AoC, I was well over the dozen zone mark with countless of dozens of instances under each zone.
2. In AoC, they had a horrible memory leak problem that we were trying to address to the developers during the entire beta period. They did absolutely nothing to fix this and decided they should look into it the second month AFTER release. WAR had a similiar issue and they had people working on it right away and now the Memory leak in WAR (while still there) is few and far between now.
3. The community. Now, I know many people would think how unfair it would be for me to judge funcom's game based on their horrible community presence in AoC. But I need to state it. As we all know, the community of Age of Conan makes even the community in WoW (Barren's chat) seem like a very mature group of chessplayers.  I have no idea how funcom managed to get so many immature people in their game ( oh wait...I know....nm..thats another topic) but when compared to WAR, I havent had to mass ignore an entire zone.  Everyone has been rather helpful, mature, and considerate of other players. Now Im sure many of you are thinking "well...everyone is nice in beta" but in AoC, the community was like that from beta to present.

So, I wonder how funcom is taking this preview weekend with Warhammer. Surely, they have some developers playing WAR right now during this preview weekend to see what is going on (and hopefully, get some pointers from).

Funcom's stock has been the lowest its been for years (even when AO was their only MMO and was free, and their Single Player game had been released yet) and they lost almost 300,000 subscribers in the last three months and their forums (both the EU and NA) have been a warzone managed by inadequate moderators.

I always loved funcom; Anarchy Online had been my first MMO and I had fell in love with it. AO also gave me many fond memories. I am actually saddened that they had stooped themselves so low. I actually feel sorry for them. 

I hope they take notes from Warhammer and realize that it is INDEED POSSIBLE to release a game with very few bugs. I just hope it isn't too late for funcom.

Funcom has lost contact with reality. So who know?  maybe are designing his 4th expansion...

Sorry for this attempt at exploiting you, since I've been reading your stuff for years now and have some modicum of faith in what you post, but could you give me any hint on how WAR's combat is now that the NDA is lifted to some degree?

I've heard conflicting stories about how it's some kind of slowed down version of WoW's and how many people that are both playing AoC and WAR lament the lack of interaction. The videos I've seen have also hinted that the gameplay could be a bit slow, but I admit the possibility that the players were merely novice mouse-clicking-keyboard-turning abominations.

To contribute to the topic, I'm sure they're asking themselves what they were thinking when they released a game with almost no content even when compared to WoW at release. The endgame raids, although existent, are merely a couple of pulls and a boss; like most of AoC's world you could fit all of AoC's raid content into one single WoW raid. Exploration is so trivial when you can run through most zones on your horse in a matter of minutes. I realize that I'm being hypocritical at this point, since I've claimed in previous posts that AoC had more quest content (which it does relative to level progression) than VG, yet VG has so much more world to actually explore that it still imparts more of an MMO feeling than AoC does.

I honestly think that if AoC were a F2P game that it would be the next monument in the genre, but it's hard to rationalize paying premium dollars for great graphics, combat and nothing else.

Well, Avery just posted a bunch of news items about some review site re-reviewing AoC positively, and some screenshots with dx10 pics.

So I would imagine Funcom is thinking that its high time to jump start the ol' hype machine that they depended on pre-release for initial sales, and do as much as they can to lure people into focusing on their game again.

Will it work? I'm thinking no. But really, what other choice do they have? They are out of options.

nice and well written.

yes funcom need to learn some skill form WAR and fix up their game.

they could have done so mush to AOC but they seem unorganized and just all over the place...

well its better late than never.

Originally posted by Enigma

 

I hope they take notes from Warhammer and realize that it is INDEED POSSIBLE to release a game with very few bugs. I just hope it isn't too late for funcom.

Yea, take notes. But take notes of the good things, not of the bad things. WAR will have his share of problems....

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/08/23/goa-at-war-warhammer-publishing-worries/

.. like   DaOC is several versions older in the euro side, than the usa side. And a ugly website in the euro side.

WAR is a best game than AoC, but will have our share of /facepalms  and with GOA.

Originally posted by //\\//\\oo

Sorry for this attempt at exploiting you, since I've been reading your stuff for years now and have some modicum of faith in what you post, but could you give me any hint on how WAR's combat is now that the NDA is lifted to some degree?

I've heard conflicting stories about how it's some kind of slowed down version of WoW's and how many people that are both playing AoC and WAR lament the lack of interaction. The videos I've seen have also hinted that the gameplay could be a bit slow, but I admit the possibility that the players were merely novice mouse-clicking-keyboard-turning abominations.

 

Trust me, you wont be exploiting me. Anyone can feel free to read anything I say about a game. I even did some reviews on games when I was staff here. Also, anyone can feel free to check out my post history here in the AoC forum section.  You'll see that I am mainly neutral (Ive said a lot of pros and a lot of cons concerning AoC).  So, anyone can see my posts as how they see em. This is how I see it.

Now to your first question.  Ive played AoC and WAR with their combat system. So far, I have been having about 4 times more fun in WAR. AoC is faster. I will agree with that. But to me, it was poound on the keyboard keys for combo fast and I never got to releash in my combat in game. In WAR, I am having an awesome time. Even in Realm vs Realm, I am loving it.

Concerning interaction: theres a lot more interaction with WAR (IMO) than with AoC.

Originally posted by Enigma

 

 

Trust me, you wont be exploiting me. Anyone can feel free to read anything I say about a game. I even did some reviews on games when I was staff here. Also, anyone can feel free to check out my post history here in the AoC forum section.  You'll see that I am mainly neutral (Ive said a lot of pros and a lot of cons concerning AoC).  So, anyone can see my posts as how they see em. This is how I see it.

Now to your first question.  Ive played AoC and WAR with their combat system. So far, I have been having about 4 times more fun in WAR. AoC is faster. I will agree with that. But to me, it was poound on the keyboard keys for combo fast and I never got to releash in my combat in game. In WAR, I am having an awesome time. Even in Realm vs Realm, I am loving it.

Concerning interaction: theres a lot more interaction with WAR (IMO) than with AoC.

Yeah, I remember when you were staff on this site.  Thanks for the info though: Makes me a happy panda that I canned my AoC subscription.

aye but in reality AOC was much more fun the first 20 lvls then Warhammer

Originally posted by Major69er1

aye but in reality AOC was much more fun the first 20 lvls then Warhammer

thats cause more than half of their development time went into it :P

Thats why its fully voiced, and all that jazz

If the majority of AOC was like Tortage, it would be a truly revolutionary game. Sadly the rest of the game is just plain unfinished. Probably most of us agree on the fact that AOC looks bsolutely beautiful however its just superficial beauty that quickly wears off ... it is a highly non-interactive world - "you can look but you can not touch" kind of surroundings. I believe that this detaches people from the game much more than the instancing itself only you don't really identify it.

Like I said before, AOC was a lesson. AO was my first MMO and I have such a fond memories. I really hoped it succeds but it failed terribly at least as faras I go. You can blame the rushed release on investors although I doubt it, but I blame how the work was done on Gaute, he was always full of it from AO onwards. You wouldnt believe how the climate of the game and the relations improved after another director took over AO and Gaute went to work on AOC. Elingsen selling air didn't help, but it is quite possible he had to do it that way.

AOCs beta was not beta ... it had no focus, they just dumped a bunch of testers into the game and let them play. There was no approach Mythic has where you focus test things and boost players to certain levels with template gear to test specific content. Frankly it was the most un-dirrected beta I've ever seen and it shows on the game that went out on the market and FC is paying for it.

I'm sure they're worried , They were obviously worried to begin with .Why else would they have released when they did? It' dosen't take a developer to realize they weren't ready for primetime.There would be no reason to release in that state unless you wanted a head start on the competition.

There are a couple things I hope comes from this . Number one being people get a decent game to play. You can always spot a great artist with passion by the level of polish in their work..  All accounts plus past experience(DAOC) says Mythic are great artists with a passion for what they do , Passion leads to polish. Just as a great musician or painter struggles with any inconsistency in their work in order to better themselves. Mythic has shown such determination many times over.So I have faith Mythic can deliver that game.

Second I hope to see funcom learn from this and better themselves. They have a decent vision IMO AO shows this , AOC shows this, I'd go as far to say The Secret world does as well . They just don't seem to have the passion needed to become great at what they do. This is a sign they lack the confidence needed or the ability to judge their own work as anything but great.Both lead to failure , If you don't step back evaluate your work and learn from your mistakes you will never improve, ever that's the bottom line.

I played AoC during the open beta.  I'm also playing WAR during the preview weekend.  The difference between the two is like night and day.

• In AoC I experienced repeated crashes, out of memory errors, and not a few server shutdowns.  In WAR I have played for 8-10 hours straight without a single problem.  Considering that this preview weekend is meant to be a stress test for the WAR servers -- a case where they're deliberately overtaxing them to determine ideal load balances -- I would predict that launch is going to be one of the smoothest in MMO history.  From that perspective, it scores a fatality on AoC.
• WAR's graphics are not as realistic and gorgeous as AoC's.  That being said, the only instancing I've encountered was for a scenario (battleground).  Armor and weapons are more artistically appealing than AoC's post-Tortage fare.  And contrary to popular opinion, WAR's graphics do NOT look like WoW.  Both games have stylization, but that's where the similarity ends.  If anything, WAR looks closer to LotRO than it does to WoW.   I have encountered a few graphics bugs, such as particle effects lingering on the playfield.  But those have also mostly dissappeared as they've applied patches during the weekend.
• The leveling pace is slower in WAR.  It takes about as long to get to level 10 in WAR as level 20 in AoC.  This is a big plus, given how AoC feels so rushed. 
• Quests are for the large part more inspired than AoC's.  There's a greater variety of things to do.  Or to put it another way, WAR uses more of the fundamental quest archetypes than AoC does.  The writing is much better as well.  Lore lovers will have a blast reading the quest text.  Not to mention the Book of Knowledge, which is just plain cool.  Public Quests are also extremely interesting, and end up feeling really epic.  Being level 6 and seeing a giant come smashing through (and toppling) the trees to attack our impromptu band was just plain bad-assed.
• I've already had far more meaningful PvP in WAR than I got in two months of AoC.  At level 2 I queued up for a scenario and got in within a minute.  The mechanics of the battlefield were interesting, with a few WTF moments until I figured out what was going on.  Players could trigger massive explosions that wiped out everyone on both sides unlucky (or unclever) enough to get caught in them.  The result was that you had to be on your toes against other players AND the environment, and it was just a blast.  That was some very fast-paced action.
• RvR PvP is also interesting.  A chunk of every map is devoted to this mechanic, and anyone entering the area gets flagged for PvP.  This is open world action, with a lot of different mechanics involved.  There are also a bunch of player quests that take you into these places, but it's downright stupid to go alone.  (The PvE crowd can bypass that stuff.  There's enough content that you don't have to do it if you don't want to.)
• As for combat:  AoC does feel more fast-paced as a rule.  The sole reason for this is AoC's password-protected abilities (aka combos).  Frankly, the need to be constantly button mashing and playing Simon Sez with the computer made it hard to really be strategic in combat.  After all, how much can you plan the use of an ability when it takes 5 seconds of button mashing just to get it to activate?  By that point, your opponent may not even be in range anymore.  One big weakness of WAR is that the combat starts really slow to begin with.  Especially if you're a melee class.  But every level brings at least one more ability, and each ability brings more complexity to the table.  By the time you reach level 10 you have a good amount of action going on.  AND you've really learned the ins and outs of the abilities.  How they work together and all that.
• Class design in WAR feels more inspired than AoC.  There are some similarities -- for example, the Disciple of Khain feels a lot like a Bear Shaman.  The more you melee, the better you heal.  But then you also have things like the high elf Wizard that has a yin-yang effect going on with healing and damaging spells.  Playing in a group as a healer?  Every heal you do boosts your offensive power.  That means that if you're healing your friends like crazy, you'll also be able to throw some wicked nukes into the fight.  Soloing?  Your offensive spells will be building up your healing power.  So when you DO need a heal, it's going to be more effective.  That's a great mechanic.  Bright Wizards and Sorcerors are also a really fun take on the nuker/caster classes thanks to how they build up energy with every spell.  The higher it builds, the more likely you'll crit your enemy and the more damage that crit will do.  But look out, because it also starts damaging YOU with a backlash effect.  I've had a couple fast-paced fights where I got so into being a pyromaniac that I forgot to watch the meter and bleed off that extra energy safely.  Next I knew, I'd killed myself (and earned a title of "The Singed".)  It really is a hoot.  And as you get to level 10 you really start to feel amazingly destructive.  So yeah, I feel that WAR's class design tops AoC's. 
• Last, but by no means least:  At regular milestones (like reaching level 10), the completion of public quests, the completion of scenarios, before you log off the game, and randomly during game play, WAR gives you a quick questionnaire to fill out.  During the beta, they are actively asking what you think of the game at every stage of your play.  In short, Mythic CLEARLY wants to deliver the best game that they can, and are CLEARLY listening to the players.

In the final analysis, it looks like WAR is going to thoroughly trounce AoC.  It performs better, really does look good without being such a burden on your system, and has a greater variety of fun things to do right out the gate.  Sure, there are going to be some drama children who call it "WoWhammer" without actually playing it, or claiming that "every time I see a screen shot I die a little inside".  But I think that come September 18, AoC is in for even more server population attrition than it has seen so far.  There's just no getting around the fact that WAR actually feels polished a month before launch while AoC is nowhere near that level of completion even three months after launch.

its probably akin to one of those dreams where you are falling but can't wake up.

Originally posted by aurick

I played AoC during the open beta.  I'm also playing WAR during the preview weekend.  The difference between the two is like night and day.

• In AoC I experienced repeated crashes, out of memory errors, and not a few server shutdowns.  In WAR I have played for 8-10 hours straight without a single problem.  Considering that this preview weekend is meant to be a stress test for the WAR servers -- a case where they're deliberately overtaxing them to determine ideal load balances -- I would predict that launch is going to be one of the smoothest in MMO history.  From that perspective, it scores a fatality on AoC.
• WAR's graphics are not as realistic and gorgeous as AoC's.  That being said, the only instancing I've encountered was for a scenario (battleground).  Armor and weapons are more artistically appealing than AoC's post-Tortage fare.  And contrary to popular opinion, WAR's graphics do NOT look like WoW.  Both games have stylization, but that's where the similarity ends.  If anything, WAR looks closer to LotRO than it does to WoW.   I have encountered a few graphics bugs, such as particle effects lingering on the playfield.  But those have also mostly dissappeared as they've applied patches during the weekend.
• The leveling pace is slower in WAR.  It takes about as long to get to level 10 in WAR as level 20 in AoC.  This is a big plus, given how AoC feels so rushed. 
• Quests are for the large part more inspired than AoC's.  There's a greater variety of things to do.  Or to put it another way, WAR uses more of the fundamental quest archetypes than AoC does.  The writing is much better as well.  Lore lovers will have a blast reading the quest text.  Not to mention the Book of Knowledge, which is just plain cool.  Public Quests are also extremely interesting, and end up feeling really epic.  Being level 6 and seeing a giant come smashing through (and toppling) the trees to attack our impromptu band was just plain bad-assed.
• I've already had far more meaningful PvP in WAR than I got in two months of AoC.  At level 2 I queued up for a scenario and got in within a minute.  The mechanics of the battlefield were interesting, with a few WTF moments until I figured out what was going on.  Players could trigger massive explosions that wiped out everyone on both sides unlucky (or unclever) enough to get caught in them.  The result was that you had to be on your toes against other players AND the environment, and it was just a blast.  That was some very fast-paced action.
• RvR PvP is also interesting.  A chunk of every map is devoted to this mechanic, and anyone entering the area gets flagged for PvP.  This is open world action, with a lot of different mechanics involved.  There are also a bunch of player quests that take you into these places, but it's downright stupid to go alone.  (The PvE crowd can bypass that stuff.  There's enough content that you don't have to do it if you don't want to.)
• As for combat:  AoC does feel more fast-paced as a rule.  The sole reason for this is AoC's password-protected abilities (aka combos).  Frankly, the need to be constantly button mashing and playing Simon Sez with the computer made it hard to really be strategic in combat.  After all, how much can you plan the use of an ability when it takes 5 seconds of button mashing just to get it to activate?  By that point, your opponent may not even be in range anymore.  One big weakness of WAR is that the combat starts really slow to begin with.  Especially if you're a melee class.  But every level brings at least one more ability, and each ability brings more complexity to the table.  By the time you reach level 10 you have a good amount of action going on.  AND you've really learned the ins and outs of the abilities.  How they work together and all that.
• Class design in WAR feels more inspired than AoC.  There are some similarities -- for example, the Disciple of Khain feels a lot like a Bear Shaman.  The more you melee, the better you heal.  But then you also have things like the high elf Wizard that has a yin-yang effect going on with healing and damaging spells.  Playing in a group as a healer?  Every heal you do boosts your offensive power.  That means that if you're healing your friends like crazy, you'll also be able to throw some wicked nukes into the fight.  Soloing?  Your offensive spells will be building up your healing power.  So when you DO need a heal, it's going to be more effective.  That's a great mechanic.  Bright Wizards and Sorcerors are also a really fun take on the nuker/caster classes thanks to how they build up energy with every spell.  The higher it builds, the more likely you'll crit your enemy and the more damage that crit will do.  But look out, because it also starts damaging YOU with a backlash effect.  I've had a couple fast-paced fights where I got so into being a pyromaniac that I forgot to watch the meter and bleed off that extra energy safely.  Next I knew, I'd killed myself (and earned a title of "The Singed".)  It really is a hoot.  And as you get to level 10 you really start to feel amazingly destructive.  So yeah, I feel that WAR's class design tops AoC's. 
• Last, but by no means least:  At regular milestones (like reaching level 10), the completion of public quests, the completion of scenarios, before you log off the game, and randomly during game play, WAR gives you a quick questionnaire to fill out.  During the beta, they are actively asking what you think of the game at every stage of your play.  In short, Mythic CLEARLY wants to deliver the best game that they can, and are CLEARLY listening to the players.

In the final analysis, it looks like WAR is going to thoroughly trounce AoC.  It performs better, really does look good without being such a burden on your system, and has a greater variety of fun things to do right out the gate.  Sure, there are going to be some drama children who call it "WoWhammer" without actually playing it, or claiming that "every time I see a screen shot I die a little inside".  But I think that come September 18, AoC is in for even more server population attrition than it has seen so far.  There's just no getting around the fact that WAR actually feels polished a month before launch while AoC is nowhere near that level of completion even three months after launch.

I have never played WOW and probably never will but I am always taken back by the people who knock it. "Played WOW for two years. It sucks. Its for kids. blah blah...."  But they forget that they played it for along period of time. Its like that girl they dated when they were younger. They break up and years down the road find something new and look back say "Pfft why was I with her. " Point is she was good enough for you for along period so why all of the hate?

This wasnt  a knock on anything you said, just a general statement when you were talking about the WoWhammer thing and how its happening already.

If not for my  last MMO experience I would be there to give it a try the first day.

I'm sure working on AoC is a nightmare at this point.  It appears from all the conventions and media that Funcom is going to fight for AoC pretty hard and burn a bunch of money to try and retain subscribers.  I thought they might take the other route.

However I have not seen Funcom do what it actually needs to do to right the ship.  They need to merge the servers.  They need to outline in detail (and i mean DETAIL) the progress on PvP, new content, sieging, etc.  And they need to take a chance and offer free subscription time to old players. 

This is on top of the other stuff: memory leaks, class balance, etc.

Instead they are just making more promises.  It won't work and Funcom is going to fail spectacularly the next two quarters (especially Q4...good God i can't wait for it...Q4 will introduce failing at a whole new level).

Lit

Originally posted by Malickiebloo

I'm sure they're worried , They were obviously worried to begin with .Why else would they have released when they did? It' dosen't take a developer to realize they weren't ready for primetime.There would be no reason to release in that state unless you wanted a head start on the competition.

There are a couple things I hope comes from this . Number one being people get a decent game to play. You can always spot a great artist with passion by the level of polish in their work..  All accounts plus past experience(DAOC) says Mythic are great artists with a passion for what they do , Passion leads to polish. Just as a great musician or painter struggles with any inconsistency in their work in order to better themselves. Mythic has shown such determination many times over.So I have faith Mythic can deliver that game.

Second I hope to see funcom learn from this and better themselves. They have a decent vision IMO AO shows this , AOC shows this, I'd go as far to say The Secret world does as well . They just don't seem to have the passion needed to become great at what they do. This is a sign they lack the confidence needed or the ability to judge their own work as anything but great.Both lead to failure , If you don't step back evaluate your work and learn from your mistakes you will never improve, ever that's the bottom line.

 

I don't think passion is what they lack that in fact seems to be the one thing they have in abundance, otherwise I couldn't see them repeating virtually the same mistakes over again.

Just based off of what has been written here the best we can say is that the first 20 levels of this game are beautiful but no game really after that and taking four years to do that shows me that horrible management is the much bigger problem with this game.

well, hopefully, for funcom's sake they are viewing this weekend and taking notes. I dont like AoC but I dont think funcom should go out of business for it. They just need to shape up.

Originally posted by jaxsundane

Originally posted by Malickiebloo

I'm sure they're worried , They were obviously worried to begin with .Why else would they have released when they did? It' dosen't take a developer to realize they weren't ready for primetime.There would be no reason to release in that state unless you wanted a head start on the competition.

There are a couple things I hope comes from this . Number one being people get a decent game to play. You can always spot a great artist with passion by the level of polish in their work..  All accounts plus past experience(DAOC) says Mythic are great artists with a passion for what they do , Passion leads to polish. Just as a great musician or painter struggles with any inconsistency in their work in order to better themselves. Mythic has shown such determination many times over.So I have faith Mythic can deliver that game.

Second I hope to see funcom learn from this and better themselves. They have a decent vision IMO AO shows this , AOC shows this, I'd go as far to say The Secret world does as well . They just don't seem to have the passion needed to become great at what they do. This is a sign they lack the confidence needed or the ability to judge their own work as anything but great.Both lead to failure , If you don't step back evaluate your work and learn from your mistakes you will never improve, ever that's the bottom line.

 

 

I don't think passion is what they lack that in fact seems to be the one thing they have in abundance, otherwise I couldn't see them repeating virtually the same mistakes over again.

Just based off of what has been written here the best we can say is that the first 20 levels of this game are beautiful but no game really after that and taking four years to do that shows me that horrible management is the much bigger problem with this game.

You may be right , I agree the first 20 levels were pretty top notch outside of geometry issues and crashes(leaks).

Management is always at fault when a product fails this badly. However , If they attempted to look closely at what they had done wrong ,Most of this outrage wouldn't exist. They seemed completely unwilling to point fingers at themselves, Which says to me , They lack the needed  judgment to succeed.

... trough funcom's mind this weekend:

WAR will have some issues too at release so if we manage to get out shit together and :

- fix majority of critical bugs ( memory leaks etc... )
- Get all or majority of content above lvl 20 to feel like tortage ( voice overs, improve existing quests, add new quests add new zones etc.. )
- Get PvP system in order
- Fix sieging
- Add DX10

Before 18. November ( 1 month after war release ) we will get some WAR refugees and as well some of the old subscribers and just to be sure we can always give all ex subscriber 14 days free trial to check what we changed.

Dont get me wrong I think WAR will be great and I dont think it will have as many issues as AoC but it may have more issues then AoC will in November and even if WAR is released in perfect state there will be a lot of disaponted players who wont like the core game mehanics etc...

aye, there will probably be some bad things about WAR after release so its pretty much a waiting game right now.

Originally posted by Mark Jacobs

Folks,

Okay, it was a wild and crazy weekend in WAR and while some of you might be tempted to go all Samurai on us for a couple of the bugs, overall things went very, very well. As long-time readers of my notes now, I won’t do a Nick Winters and we are anything but pathological liars so we’ll always own up when we make a mistake and we made a couple here. So, let’s talk amongst ourselves and have a little chat about the top nine list of the biggest issues and where we stand in regards to them.

(1) Client Crashes – I’ve talked about this as one of the reasons why we didn’t release the NDA until recently. Here’s the current status.
- Just a little too many currently. While we are better off than we were in beta, we must do better still before release.
- A number of players will lower spec machines had more CTDs than higher spec machines.
- Number of fixes already in pipeline. They are working their way through our testing servers and will be pushed to the players once they have been vetted internally.
- Engineering time for CTD issue has remained heavily committed; our top engineers are working on the various issues.

(2) Monster Pathing and AI – Well, what can I say other than not even all of King Tut’s wealth could have made us feel better for messing up on this one. Well, maybe all his wealth. ?
- “Yes, that monster seems to be behaving a little oddly”. Monster responsiveness was very sketchy, odd pauses and tethering issues.
- “Oh, was I supposed to go in that direction?” Pathing sometimes wonky - mobs get stuck or go in wrong direction.
- Utter confusion at times as both monsters and pets will engage and disengage seemingly at random
- Internal server optimizations last week broke the pathing/AI. And I mean really, really broke it. This truly was a “Opps, we broke this code” moment for us and we don’t have many of them.
- Going to ensure that this problem is fixed this week. As I said in my first Preview Weekend, this is a major concern for us. Fortunately we have no underwater combat in this game or some of the NPCs may have been appropriately dubbed land sharks.

(3) Pet Responsiveness – With similar issues to Monster Pathing and AI, this was not our finest hour.
- Need to transfer "combat responsiveness" fixes to pets - have pet move immediately on button press.
- “Oh no, Mr. Bill!” Pets suffer from same pathing and lack of response as general monsters. Pets hopping around like they were headed to Del Staters.


(4) Global Cooldown Timers –This seems to be a hot topic for players to talk about. However, things aren’t always as they seem.
- Reality and perception are two different things, Warhammer has a GCD of 1.4s, WoW has 1.5s
- “Ability not ready” messaging needs to be improve, a sound effect if Global Cooldown in effect, maybe more cowbell?
- Need to improve on the feeling of sluggishness of the GCD and UI. Bug with display where our timer shows 2s when it is really 1.4
- The next best thing to a queue is? We will add in better "slop timer" to allow players 0.3s extra to pre-queue a second ability followup.

(5) Better animations
- So much more coming in the next two versions of the client. We are currently incorporating serious amounts of new animations into the game. Hopefully nobody will sneak a coneheads model into the game.
- Look at what my XXXX does now? Over the next month we will address many class-attack specific issues across all 20 careers.
- “U think you can dance?” Nope, but we have added new racial animations for movement, fidgets and redid some emotes.

(6) Texture Blurring
- Textures are currently cached in a manner that results in blurriness on entering a region.
- We will look at adding a client scalar.

(7) Client Performance – This is one of those issues
- Need better scalers on effects, sounds, graphics, etc to help lower end machines (already lots of additions to coders)
- This thing loves memory like Dan Aykroyd loves bass. We have already improved the memory consumption of the client and taken 100M out of current test best.

( Targeting, Camera, etc
- Currently our targeting system differs from many MMOs in terms of our features and how we go about things. We will identify and make a more standard initial setup but allow flexibility.
- Will add additional keybinding selections to allow flexibility

(9) Renown rank gear
- Unfortunately, a new bug (well an old bug we fixed and then managed to break again) which allowed Rank 10 RR 6 players can go to Tier 2 to get better gear and then come back to Tier 1 and own scenarios. We are currently working on a fix.

I hope you enjoyed the Preview Weekend and we thank you for your interest and we hope, patronage of our game.

Guess what folks, that’s the news and I am outta here!

Mark

P.S. The reason for all the Saturday Night Live references was that a poster or two dared me to work a certain phrase into the update. I kinda took that and ran with it.

From: www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php

Seriously, can we say night and day on Developers communicating with players?

Mythic is telling us where they are screwing up.

Funcom is hyping stuff that not in the game.

From: www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php

Seriously, can we say night and day on Developers communicating with players?

Mythic is telling us where they are screwing up.

Funcom is hyping stuff that not in the game.

It is pathetic that Funcom has not directly came out and apologized to players for some of the major disasters in the game.  They only talk and address things they think they have a handle on (like new content).   The disaster they call PvP/sieging/gems is simply ignored.

Lit

Originally posted by Gweyr

Originally posted by Mark Jacobs

Folks,

Okay, it was a wild and crazy weekend in WAR and while some of you might be tempted to go all Samurai on us for a couple of the bugs, overall things went very, very well. As long-time readers of my notes now, I won’t do a Nick Winters and we are anything but pathological liars so we’ll always own up when we make a mistake and we made a couple here. So, let’s talk amongst ourselves and have a little chat about the top nine list of the biggest issues and where we stand in regards to them.

(1) Client Crashes – I’ve talked about this as one of the reasons why we didn’t release the NDA until recently. Here’s the current status.
- Just a little too many currently. While we are better off than we were in beta, we must do better still before release.
- A number of players will lower spec machines had more CTDs than higher spec machines.
- Number of fixes already in pipeline. They are working their way through our testing servers and will be pushed to the players once they have been vetted internally.
- Engineering time for CTD issue has remained heavily committed; our top engineers are working on the various issues.

(2) Monster Pathing and AI – Well, what can I say other than not even all of King Tut’s wealth could have made us feel better for messing up on this one. Well, maybe all his wealth. ?
- “Yes, that monster seems to be behaving a little oddly”. Monster responsiveness was very sketchy, odd pauses and tethering issues.
- “Oh, was I supposed to go in that direction?” Pathing sometimes wonky - mobs get stuck or go in wrong direction.
- Utter confusion at times as both monsters and pets will engage and disengage seemingly at random
- Internal server optimizations last week broke the pathing/AI. And I mean really, really broke it. This truly was a “Opps, we broke this code” moment for us and we don’t have many of them.
- Going to ensure that this problem is fixed this week. As I said in my first Preview Weekend, this is a major concern for us. Fortunately we have no underwater combat in this game or some of the NPCs may have been appropriately dubbed land sharks.

(3) Pet Responsiveness – With similar issues to Monster Pathing and AI, this was not our finest hour.
- Need to transfer "combat responsiveness" fixes to pets - have pet move immediately on button press.
- “Oh no, Mr. Bill!” Pets suffer from same pathing and lack of response as general monsters. Pets hopping around like they were headed to Del Staters.


(4) Global Cooldown Timers –This seems to be a hot topic for players to talk about. However, things aren’t always as they seem.
- Reality and perception are two different things, Warhammer has a GCD of 1.4s, WoW has 1.5s
- “Ability not ready” messaging needs to be improve, a sound effect if Global Cooldown in effect, maybe more cowbell?
- Need to improve on the feeling of sluggishness of the GCD and UI. Bug with display where our timer shows 2s when it is really 1.4
- The next best thing to a queue is? We will add in better "slop timer" to allow players 0.3s extra to pre-queue a second ability followup.

(5) Better animations
- So much more coming in the next two versions of the client. We are currently incorporating serious amounts of new animations into the game. Hopefully nobody will sneak a coneheads model into the game.
- Look at what my XXXX does now? Over the next month we will address many class-attack specific issues across all 20 careers.
- “U think you can dance?” Nope, but we have added new racial animations for movement, fidgets and redid some emotes.

(6) Texture Blurring
- Textures are currently cached in a manner that results in blurriness on entering a region.
- We will look at adding a client scalar.

(7) Client Performance – This is one of those issues
- Need better scalers on effects, sounds, graphics, etc to help lower end machines (already lots of additions to coders)
- This thing loves memory like Dan Aykroyd loves bass. We have already improved the memory consumption of the client and taken 100M out of current test best.

( Targeting, Camera, etc
- Currently our targeting system differs from many MMOs in terms of our features and how we go about things. We will identify and make a more standard initial setup but allow flexibility.
- Will add additional keybinding selections to allow flexibility

(9) Renown rank gear
- Unfortunately, a new bug (well an old bug we fixed and then managed to break again) which allowed Rank 10 RR 6 players can go to Tier 2 to get better gear and then come back to Tier 1 and own scenarios. We are currently working on a fix.

I hope you enjoyed the Preview Weekend and we thank you for your interest and we hope, patronage of our game.

Guess what folks, that’s the news and I am outta here!

Mark

P.S. The reason for all the Saturday Night Live references was that a poster or two dared me to work a certain phrase into the update. I kinda took that and ran with it.

 

From: www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php

Seriously, can we say night and day on Developers communicating with players?

Mythic is telling us where they are screwing up.

Funcom is hyping stuff that not in the game.

Exactly, like apples and oranges they are so different, Mythic is quite refreshing after the debacle that was, and is, AoC.

Originally posted by Litigator_AB

 

 

It is pathetic that Funcom has not directly came out and apologized to players for some of the major disasters in the game.  They only talk and address things they think they have a handle on (like new content).   The disaster they call PvP/sieging/gems is simply ignored.

Lit

The sad truth is Funcom is a lot like SOE. They will never own up to the fact they have screwed up. The only bad thing is Funcom doesn't have the financial resources to ignore a lot of crap like SOE does; funcom is at least moving in the right direction with their new "report a mod" tool because they realized their mods were doing a horrible job at moderating (not all....but the loudest Mods were screwing it up for everyone).

Well just wait and see what happens I suppose.