All Posts by zantax

Not sure what game you played but that doesn't sound like the Cabal I have being playing for the last month.  I played Open Beta into release and I think the game is great.  I have played a few free MMO's and haven't like any of them untill now.  First off the so called LAG that you were experiancing where the heck was that?  I mean the only lag I ever got was when I entered the trade channel and there were hundreds of player owned shops set up in one area.  Other then that, there is no real lag, maybe it is my computer, or maybe it is the server I was on on or the Channel, but since I have being on a high pop server this entire time going to the same channel each time I have never had a lag issue.

Why is Cabal good, its hard to say, the choice that you can grind if your into that, or you can do the quests.  Character development is well done as well, your skills have being very well thought out.  The Battle modes and auras are very well done as well.  The graphics are not as good as a game like Gears of War but they are good and easy for most machines to run.  This game is ment for many levels of gamers, not just hard core nerds.  The combat system is great, once you start doing combo's it becomes a good challenge, to keep your composure and time your hits just right.

Now since live they have opened the cash shop, and they offer quite a few things there, one is a premium account.  The premium account is nice because you can get on a lower pop channel so that you don't have to compete with so many people.  Not to mention you can buy tools to help you out in the game.

Overall I think Cabal is great, is it the best, I don't think so.  I am still a fan of the idea that your character defines how well you will survive, not your gear.  I will give an example, in WOW for example if you were to lose all of your high end weapons and armor could you survive with starter equipment in a place like Onyxia's cave?  The answer is no.  Well I like games where your skills and your stats make you powerful not your weapons, if you take away all the leet crap, you should be able to pick up a starter weapon and still be able to defend yourself at almost top form, the only game I know that does this still is, Asheron's Call.  To me AC is still the best but after it comes Anarchy Online, and now Cabal.

Does Cabal deserve a good rating, yes it does.

Try out Cabal, They are going live in north america today.   I have being playing for the last month and I have had alot of fun.

Originally posted by Gishgeron

 

Originally posted by blodig

let's face the fact's, Blizzard has screwd up wow more then ever, most ppl loved the normal wow, get to 60 start raiding, start making good friends and guild bonds *that was excellent*

then TBC came and screwd up alot, start lvling again up to 70, Guilds get cut down, alot of people/friends quit.

and WOHO, another expension pack, so start lvling again, and again they will mess up the best instance ever and make it 25 man *im talking about naxx*

so Blizzard will never make anything as good as normal World of Warcraft.

They got Starcraft 2 comming *Great game cant wait*

but tbh they have reached their limits.

You think the expansion was a mistake?  Good god, you've never played an MMO before have you?  Or perhaps you are just deluded as to what expanding means.

 

 

Adding levels:  Check, pretty standard MMO x-pak material

Adding zones:  Check, every last MMO ever made adds zones

Adding group content: Check, ditto

Adding solo content: Check, which...to be honest, is actually something unique almost to WoW.  Most MMO's actually skip out on the solo player.

Adding more powerful gear:  Triple check...and hell I can't think of one MMO that hasn't done this.

 

Nothing eats my goat more than MMO noobs crying about TBC adding levels..."ruining" their precious investments.  Truth here is...Blizzard added more content in ONE expansion pack than most MMO's have over their lifetime.  Most of their regular patches are x-pak material.  I figure Blizzard is doing good by me.

 

Now if only someone else would do good as well...perhaps I could have something new to play that was actually half decent.  I'd kill for something new...I'm dead tired of the rollercoaster-gear games.

Well I can say one game has added more over time the WOW has in all of its expansions.  Asherons Call, has monthly updates with new content, gear, dungons, bug fixes, and even lands.  Yes Blizzard has done a great thing with WOW but lets face it here they were not the first ones to do it, and they aren't the best ones at it either.

Well if the HDD checks out fine and the goofy processor speeds are not fixed by cleanin ghte heat sink, my next suggestion is to look at the caps near the processor.  I know the older Pentium 4's had this issue but it would cause straight power offs for no reason.  Basicly look for bulging on the caps near the processor if any of them are bulged a bit or have something leaking down the sides of them, it is definatly your main board.  I have doubts that it would be the processor itself, I mean Intel processors don't go bad very much, I think the rate is less then 1%, not sure about that though.

Either way let us know what the fix was for your problem

Originally posted by Mattg14

I rebuilt my OS and it basically has anything on it anyway. Just service pack 2,drivers, 3dmark05 and oblivion. Thats it

Did you watch your hard drive and see if it is constantly reading?  Do a full scan disk with out fixing errors and see if it shows you bad sectors, I bet that is the problem.

The north american version is free for a standard account.  After open beta is over in 2 weeks they will offer a premium account that will cost you a minor fee monthly and you will be able to access the target dummies and get other things like more storage space.  Hope that answers your question.

Two things to check in your case, watch your HDD light and see if it is on continuously?  If it is check your Hard drive and make sure it isn't over 50% full, also run a manufacture scan on your HDD if the HDD is being read all the time you could have bad sectors cropping up causing you issues, that can kill your frames, if that is the case buy a new HDD.

Second thing to check, what OS are you useing, with that processor and that setup, make sure you stick with xp, don't try vista.  To me your machine is the bare minimum to use vista as an os for word, excel...etc, e-mails and such, but not gaming in vista.  On xp though you shoudl be doing good.

Those are the 2 things I would suggest checking and I am leaning towards your HDD having bad sectors to tell you the truth because wow should work on that thing fine.

Originally posted by safwd

OK, i see that i have confused you, which is very possible since i dont really know what im talking about.

I will try to clarify. I was going to buy a whole new system but after talking to others i think i am going to basically build one. By basically i mean that i plan on keeping my existing case, HD, CD/DVD Rom. What i am planning on replacing is the MB, Video Card, and Processor. My current setup is a bit outdated. The MB does not support PCI, can only support a AMD 2.8G Sempron, can only support 1GB of 667 RAM, so it is junk.

You are right, i am pretty much building a whole new one because i am only upgrading the things that are expensive. My main question about it components is im not sure who makes good ones. I will break down.

Motherboard- As i said, i want a AMD MB that can support a 64 X2 Dual Core Processor. It would be great if it could support  Phenom but im not getting a Phenom processor so it isnt that important. I want it to support at least 8GB 800MHZ Ram. Dont care that much if it has more then one PCI X16 slot. So i know what i want on the MB i just dont know what brands are good, except ASUS. I guess i just dont want to buy a cheap MB thinking im getting a deal when really it is junk. So what i was hoping is someone who has the knowledge could say " The MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital AM2 AMD 690G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard is a great board for a great price". (i just pulled that one off Newegg)

For Ram my question is, "Who makes good Ram, who makes Junk"? I see Patriot, Corsiar, OCZ, Crucial, etc etc. So who is good and who should i stay away from.

For video cards. If i decide im not willing to spend 250 on a 8800GT what are the best cards below that? I hear 7900 is good but i dont know. Also, what company makes the good ones, who should i stay away from?

And for Processors, is there a huge difference (noticable difference, not just spec difference) between a AMD 64 X2 6400+, 6000+, 5400+ and 5200+. Will i the casual gamer be able to tell the difference when playing a game?

Dont know if this clears up anything but i gave it a shot. As you can see i am not that computer hardware savy.

My current system is the following...

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300, 2GB 533 ddr2 memory, 2x 120GB WD 7200RPM SATA drives, Intel DG965WH(I think) board, and a Nvidia 7950GT OC, also I use onboard sound, with a 600W p/s. 

I bought this last year in about January, and the system is now showing its age a bit, so I just purchased a new Mother board and processor, going with the Intel Q6600, with all of my old hardware but the Main board is changeing and this upgrade I got for a smoking deal.  My next upgrade will be memory then Video Card to the 8800GT since they have come down so dramatically.

So my advice is let others do your testing like toms hardware, then build a machine that you can afford that will give you the results you want, and don't pull out a ruler and start asking, "Mine p3ni$ is...whats yours again?"

Well I love people who tell the OP "Should just install xp".  You can't do that in some cases, some manufactures have stopped writing xp drivers now.   So there is not guarantee that you will get all of your hardware to work under XP anymore.  I found this with HP desktops, the nvidia Chipset driver didn't have an xp driver at all, only vista.  So that might have caused more issues then it fixed.

Honestly if your going to buy a state of the art gaming rig you have to expect these types of issues.  How ever I think everyone might be jumping the gun here.  The original poster stated that the guys at Alienware have said, some of these machines have this problem and some don't it is a wierd issue.  That could mean a couple of things including that there is a hardware defect in the system themselves?  Other issues have being droned about on here over and over, driver issues, vista...etc.  Personally I don't think it is vista per-say, I really think that the technology of DX10, SLI, and vista combination is the true problem here.  Everything is to new, sorry to say but that is probably the truth.  I have a buddy who has an alienware, no idea what model laptop, with vista x64 on it and he hasn't ever had an issue, and he has sli nvidia cards in it.

Now one poster on here did mention something about not having issues with Vista x64 ultimate, and honestly I think that might have fixed your problems.  I personally have installed almost every OS since 98 legitly on my computers within a week of release.  All windows versions had there issues from day one, I remember the out crys with xp was released to replace 98 second edition, and Millenium.  People hated it, and it took a year to start catching on, or for the serious bugs to be worked out.  Vista is no different but I think the more stable version of vista is the x64 versions.  I have run vista since the day it was released, Vista x64 ultimate and I will tell you that first 2 months sucked horribly.  Now I find it hard to go back to XP Pro x32 or x64, just doesn't feel as good anymore.  My machine isn't state of the art by any standards, intel e6300, nvidia 7950GT oc, 2GB of memory, so I haven't played with the SLI, but it doesn't surprise me there are issues.  I have tried the x32 ultimate and I find less bugs it seems with the x64 ultimate, so that is my suggestion to people get x64, I mean the software is going in that direction now anyways, it is only a matter of time.

Too bad for the OP though I wish that he could have tried a few of the other recommendations on this discussion, but oh well.  Don't be discouraged by it though, just get yourself a machine that is good, and save yourself a ton, then upgrade in 2 years...do it like that.  Anyways good luck.

Actually they have done this, not to the MMO status but they have made a "Starfleet Battles" style of game and it was VERY good.  Go pick up Starfleet command, and Starfleet command 2, probably the 2 best out there.  The first one stuck with the original rules more, and the secone one they did a bit of tweaking for balance which is what hurt them from that point on.  All are very good pace and the ability to join multiplayer battles is there.  Highly recommend this game, as for a MMO replicating Starfleet Battles, I dont' think it would fly.  The whole point of the game was to overcome your own ships tacticle dissadvantages, balance is not something you can do in that game.  As soon as balance starts to come into focus for the developers the game now loses its original appeal. 

You are right though the game was great and still is, I have a few friends that still play it, talk about a TRUE hard core Paper and pencil game...LOL.

Originally posted by ZsasZ

Seems like the two most popular WoW-related rants these days are 'WoW is dying' and the fact that every MMO ever created is a WoW clone. I've even seen that charge leveled against EVE Online, but I hope to god they were just joking. So, let's design an MMO that is in no way a WoW clone! We'll start off by listing the features we can't use;

• No fantasy settings. - Hard to get away from but original world Asherons Call
• No multiple races. - Lets See they are all humans but seperated like African from Chinese that would be Asheron's Call
• No multiple classes. - Hmmm No classes what so ever except your own creation again Asheron's Call
• No instanced areas. -  No instances just dungeons to enter that can get over crowded and instanced areas were not in the tech at the time, again Asheron's Call
• No non-instanced areas. - One HUGE map, no areas that were instance again wasn't in the tech at the time, Asherons Call
• No PVP. - Arguably some of the best PVP in all MMORPGs so I can't say it doesn't have it but Asherons call
• No PVE. - Well every game has this so I can't specify anything special here other then WOW didn't create it they copied it
• No in-game chat.  - Again Wow didn't create it, it has being around for AGES
• No Auction House. - The first time I saw Auction House's was in SWG I could be wrong but WOW copied this.
• No raiding. - To me this is original to WOW, almost ever MMO before WOW just called it grouping and questing.
• No loot drops. - WOW didn't invent Loot Drops every MMO has them
• No tiered gear. - Some MMO's don't have tiered gear just better and better gear, example Asheron's Call
• No monthly fee. - Well they didn't invent this so having one wouldn't constitute a WOW CLONE they copied it from others
• No spells or abilities. - Again they didn't invent spells and abilities they copied it from others
• No hotbar for above-mentioned spells and abilities. - Again being around for ages
• No talent, ability, or skill points.  - Almost a unique feature to WOW if it hadn't being done in Asheron's Call, AC2, SWG, DAOC, EQ wow I could go on
• No character progression. - this I don't even thing WOW has, your character never really evolves, take away all his gear and he is nothing really.  Now character progression is like EQ, or AC
• No grinding. - Again they didn't invent it so it wouldn't be a WOW clone if you had it
• No quest-givers. - Same as No Grinding
• No quests. - Gotta have quests or Grinding so this is a bad point.

Okay. Now that we have all that, we take what's left and make a game! Without further ado, I give you, The Non-WoW-Clone-Game!

Nope, that's not a screenshot, that's the full game. Enjoy.

The point to all this is that there's a difference between similar themes and outright copyright infringement. There's only one game I'd actually consider a WoW clone, and that's Talisman Online. I'm guessing the only reason the Blizz lawyers haven't brought down thier almighty wrath is that they don't know abbout it.

Sorry to dissagree with you but if you did all of those things you would not have a wow clone you won't have anything like you show.  However since Blizzard didn't invent almost ANY of the things you mentioned why would including them in your mmo make it a WOW clone?  If you want a game that isn't a WOW clone try out something like Asheron's Call, its dated but way different, and a completely fun experience.  I do believe that some games have tried to copy the success of WOW by implementing these features in a simmilar way as WOW.  An example of this would be LOTRO, I know there are differences, however they did attempt to copy the success in this game. 

A new game to me that would be different from WOW but still successful would be an upgraded Asheron's Call.  Not the AC2 style that was killed off but the original AC, upgraded graphics a few modifications to the game to bring it into the next gen and poof I think you would have an addictive MMO for everyone again.

However that is only my opinion.

Not sure if this counts because I balance my gameplay between MMO's that I can stand for a bit and other games like C&C3, Counter Strike Source, any new games I wanna try.  However I work full time Monday-Friday 8-16:30, then walk my dog and eat and usually sit infront of the computer at about 17:30, play till I have to walk my dog for the last time that night so between 22:00 and 23:00, during the week, then go see my Girlfriend and go to bed at about 1-2 and wake up again at 6:45 to go swimming before work.  Then on the weekends if my GF is busy I will play all day Saturday and Sunday, but lets go with an average of 8 hrs those days.  So each week 5hrs per day mon-friday so 25hrs there and another 16 average from saturday and sunday, so 41 hrs on average per week?  So I guess I qualify as Addict but not just to MMO's just to Videogames...LOL

Back when I played WOW Hardcore or at least what I thougth was hardcore, I didn't have a GF at the time, so i was playing from like 17:00 every night till 2 am, and all day Saturday and sunday, not to mention we would raid on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday so those nights I would play till we were done sometimes that was 4-5 am.  Then up at noon to play some more...Now those were my hard core days...LOL.

Originally posted by Novaseeker

 

Originally posted by Vincenz

 

Originally posted by krazymagic

As soon as the OP tried to compare WoW's Low Polygon 4 year old graphics to PotBS's I stopped reading there....Just another moron who knows very little about what he's talking about.

PotBS isnt the most graphically advanced MMO, thats evident, but it is not behind WoW by any means.....Do you even know what sort of poly count youre looking at in wow? or the texture resolution used? Its not even worth arguing.

 

The thing about WoW's graphics that can be misconstrued, or even defended, is that they have a fantastic art department.  I hate WoW, but there's no denying the actual art they've created, while not technically sophisticated graphically, is fairly amazing.

 

Indeed, this was a part of their tradeoff.  They made a business decision to go with lower polygon graphics to access a broader spectrum of machines, but compensated for this by pouring a lot of effort into art direction (which really is superb) and character animations (also very well done), so that the end-user experience, polygons aside, is quite nice.

You know it has being shown before that as long as the art is done well, and the game is fun to play or has a great story then the Poly count of the models means nothing in the end.  Lets look at a game where the art was nice, the game play was addictive and the story was basic, Super Mario.  The graphics over all are not as good as Sonic, but alot of people will say that it was a better game, I would agree.  Hell the graphics on Super Mario World are not as good as Super Mario Galaxy but I would rather play through Super Mario World over and over again then play Super Mario Galaxy through more then 1 time. 

My initial statement stands, I feel that the graphics, this includes the over all art of the game, look to be a step behind other mmo's.  I will not deny that the water look amazing, but so did AC2's water when it came out.  This Phisics engine that the game uses, I have being doing some reading and it doesn't get very good reviews in general.  It turns out that an SLI setup will do the same thing basicly so that really doesn't impress me much.  So to call me a moron for my opinion on the game is quite frankly a very closed minded attitude.  Do I know what I am talking about when it comes to 3d models nope but do I know what looks good, to me yes, so open your mind and understand that I was attempting to compare the over all graphics and art to other games and the only one that seems to be just as nice if not better is WOW, regardless of poly count.

I regret that I have not had the chance to put in more time to get into this game, but I will this weekend, and hopefully my opinion will change a bit.  Thanks for the constructive responses though everyone, if you have anything specifically in the game that I should check out then please let me know.

Thanks again.

I have loved AC since I first played it day one of release.  I left AC after awhile for AC2 then back to AC after 2 months of AC2, since then I have quit AC to try out new MMORPG's.  I have to say wow has the MMORPG relm of games not gotten any better or revolutionary.  What game out can boast an update EVERY MONTH, with not only fixes and adjustments to game mechanics but content updates EVERY MONTH?  For the first time in about 2 years I decided to see what the latest content update is for AC and here is what i found...
http://ac.turbine.com/?page_id=563

Can you believe how long AC has being around and they are still improving the game.  I applaude Turbine for keeping this game going so long, and I think I might come back to it since I haven't found any game that matches it to date.  What do you guys think of there monthly updates?  Is this just another thing to set them apart from every other MMO?

Originally posted by olddaddy

I bought the game yesterday, and played it for a bit. Though I'm still trying to figure my way around, and can see some areas that need work, I kinda like it.

For example, this morning I woke up at 5AM, the wife beat me into the bathroom to get ready for work, so, rather then lay in bed I decided to log in a get a Fedex type quest out of the way. That's right, same type of quests as every other MMORPG, run down to a port and meet someone for some lazy assed NPC that doesn't think it's important enough to do themselves.

So, I hit open water, looking around and wondering if I should start making coffee while the ship  drifts AFK. I see a couple of merchants (yawn)....then, wait, WTF is that? There's a Spanish privateer chasing a merchant running for the safety of a port. Okay, it's 5 AM, double check that I'm really seeing what I'm seeing....yup....I'm a naval officer, charged with protecting my country's shipping......I give the order to beat to quarters, clear for action, bring her about (while pointing to the Spaniard 'cause I don't know jack about the course/heading), and I'm off to the races.

And a race it is. The Spaniard has the inside angle on the merchant, and may just get him before port, I have the wind though (their kinda heading into it), and the angle on both, so I have a shot at intercepting the Spaniard before he intercepts the merchant, unless the Spaniard breaks off. The merchant is focused on the port and the Spaniard, and the Spaniard is focused on the merchant, and it appears neither sees me........

Can I get to gunnery range and trigger a combat instance on the Spaniard before he triggers one on the merchant and locks me out? I probably hit gunnery range seconds ahead of the Spaniard/merchant, and locked the Spaniard only into a combat instance. Once in the combat instance he is indecisive about 10 seconds, probably looking for the merchant. I'm in full sail, closing with the wind, when he finally sees me. he turns to intercept, then realizes he is full into the wind as his spead drops. He turns to give me a broadside with ball shot at extreme range as I close, shots sending up splashes in the water. Great, thinks I, waste your shot, and reload time, so I can close more. His second broadside takes me in the bow and starboard side, but no worry, I have a reinforced bow. I am steering to cross the "T" on his stern, loaded with bar shot to take out his sails. As I have the wind I successfully cross his stern and unload, further reducing his speed. I reload with more bar shot, and as I pass his port side he unloads with ball, I take out more sails. Now I use my speed advantage to swing across his bow, once again reloading with bar shot. Down his starboard side I go, taking out more sails, he unloads with ball, my armor on my starboard side has had it, so I circle around to engage him from my port side. He sits pretty dead in the water while I reload with canister to take out his crew. Now we're both traveling in the same direction, right next to each other, his broadside is ball again, I drop speed, and unload into his crew two more times. His combat efficiciency is down, I receive no more broadsides, so I turn into him and board.

Melee combat is pretty uninspiring, as many posters say, but I have been practicing and skilling up, his ship loses the boarding action. Exhilerated over a kill before breakfast, with the wife still in the bathroom, I make for port to log out and start the coffee.

All this in about 15 minutes of play, before going to work. Even the job couldn't destroy this high until lunch.

Which is why I kinda lke this game. Advice, pay attention to those combat tutorials before hitting the open sea...

 

Originally posted by wrongfeifong

Graphic wise is better then WoW, My laptop can run