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Lag and graphics are directly related. The old engine makes your cpu and hard drive do most of the work. New engine will shift most of that to the video card and should just about eliminate the lag.
The game now has a mail system you can use to send credits and items to alts (froobs can receive mail but not send it). They made a conscious decision, though, to not tie it to the GMS system for finding items. |
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They have already posted several updated heads, to check with the playerbase to see if their new 'artwork' is in the right direction. Bodies are also getting smoothed over for the new engine. Animations won't be touched - that is an order of magnitude more costly. |
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Friday with Means - November 27th, 2009 - Uphill in 6 feet of snow
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 11/29/09 3:49:58 PM
Friday with Means - November 27th, 2009 - Uphill in 6 feet of snow The rest of the team has been hard at work on the Daily Missions, working through the profession nanos (there are a LOT of them), Breed Change and associated difficulties, this year's Christmas goodies and of course...the new engine. It sounds like a lot...I guess because it is. We are hoping to bring the new Christmas content to the Test Dimension on Tuesday to get it to Live as soon as possible...after which the Daily Mission system will quickly be deployed to TestLive to be tested until we are all happy that it will launch as smoothly as the new mail system has. Today's brief downtime for Atlantean (RK1): There has been a persistant (though rare) server crash issue related to database connectivity. A possible fix to the issue has been deployed to RK1 only that we will be watching closely over the next week. Excellent reason for a quick downtime...if it performs as hoped it will be deployed to all dimensions and bring us very close to the 100% solid server performance we have all been wanting. We are very close now it will be great to finally exorcise the very last of the AO server demons The Professionals Program: Kintaii would like me to remind you that voting will begin Monday next week for the Professionals to represent each profession in the community. The nominations are closed...again voting begins next week. The German Server: It is safe to say that the time I asked for to implement programs to help boost the population on the German server has finished. While I still have hopes for the sponsor system that will be coming to the live servers soon, it is unfair to ask for more time at this point as the German community has been more than patient and unfortunately seen very little action on this issue. Discussion began this week on the practical/technical issues of offering server transfer to players on the German dimension. As the process becomes clear information will be made available to the German community as soon as possible. Population has been a concern on the German dimension for years now and is far from being a recent discussion...as much as I wanted to maintain a German only population the game experience for our German customers should not be held hostage while we wait for new programs to be implemented in hopes of future success. I appreciate the patience and cooperation shown by the German community in the last few months and look forward to a smooth transition for those players to a more populated server where you will no doubt be welcomed with open arms. Have a great weekend everyone, we will see you next week. Filmed in 70's "tall-vision" |
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Most Omnis hang out in Borealis, not Rome, due to the fact that Rome is rather spread out and Borealis is the most compact/efficient city in the game (and if Rome looks big, try Omni Entertainment...) As for the soloing aspect, while a skilled player can technically fight their way from 1 to 200, it is exceedingly difficult/tedious and they will need to acquire implants, weapons and armor along the way and that requires interacting with other players, especially tradeskillers. Best thing to do is find a decent org, one that actually interviews you some and has some code of conduct posted on a website or forums. They can supply teammates, advice, hand-me-down gear, etc...
Missions, the Abandoned Subway, then The Temple of Three WInds (ToTW) are active areas for low level chars. Of course those with expansions often just dive into the Shadowlands and try to power level...
You also ought to roll a neutral char to better be able to explore all the faction cities and get an idea of the political scene.
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Friday with Means - November 20th, 2009 - Nanomage says "Wut?"
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 11/22/09 8:18:25 AM
Friday with Means - November 20th, 2009 - Nanomage says "Wut?"
That being said a "key" piece of information has been missing with respect the breed perks. Breed perks are currently not "trivial" buffs of little value...it really matters what breed you choose in terms of building your character. The team and I believe that this is part of what makes AO fun...the choice and determination to try out alternate setups to try and push the boundaries of what is possible. Reducing the breed specific perks to irrelevancy would be removing fun from pretty much everyone in the game...nobody wants that. So, the ONLY fair option if we are going to make even SMALL adjustments to breed related actions is to allow everyone to make that important decision again should they so desire. When these changes are eventually ironed out and they go live EVERYONE will have the opportunity to change breed once (and the sex of your character if you like) for free. This is the only fair way to handle this issue. It is also important to note that when this area is done it should be a very tough decision as we hope to make all breeds a viable choice...and removing abilities from breeds is not the route we intend to take on the way to evening the playfield. In a sci-fi world why shouldn't breed change be an option?...this is also likely to be an option heading into the future for AO. Filmed in 70's "tall-vision" |
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Originally posted by Tarka
Crafting system is as good or better than any I have seen elsewhere. SAs for the rest, that is wholly a matter of personal preferences. Quest system better not change - AO never had a lot of quests and if it did, it would not be AO. Animations and casting effects are fine to me, much better than WoW , for example. |
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Anarchy Online: New Engine Screenshots
News Discussion « General Discussion 11/20/09 10:31:21 PM
The music plays fine all the time now, though most ppl seem to turn it off and listen to something on their headsets. Last patch they even snuck in some new audio material and are going to revamp the music in the clubs to be instrumentals of some (as yet to be announced) well-known artist.
Engine looked like that 8 months ago, they just at that point decided to dump the Open Source Orge engine they had been adapting to AO, and switched to their Dreamworld engine that runs AoC as it had more flexibility and capability.
Main improvements are that the engine will use DirectX 9 calls, not DirectX 7 calls, which the video card drivers are starting to drop. New water, grass and trees (not yet in place), shadows, bump mapping, anti-aliasing, smoothed out avatar bodies and redone heads. |
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Mainly they are getting all graphics to run thru DX9 (currently uses DX7). They aren't updating textures but character bodies and heads are getting redone, and all the trees/grass is getting redone (and -not- with Fasttree, like AoC uses). Nanomage blue eyes will pulse glow, for example. What they are showing so far is just shadows, Bump-mapping, and water effects. |
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No ETA but we are starting to see some related content in the client files getting 'prepped'. They will have, for example, new audio tracks for the various clubs when they launch the new engine and some placeholder files for that seem to have been put into place in the last patch or two. |
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Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures: Morrison On Melee vs. Ranged Balance
News Discussion « General Discussion 11/09/09 12:44:50 PM
Good article but I suspect it won't have the slightest impact on the amount of 'balance' whining in any MMO forums. I assume Colin has already been well schooled in these areas, seeing as how his team is deep in the middle of a 'balance' overhaul? |
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Friday with Means - November 6th, 2009 - Back in the saddle!
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 11/06/09 3:06:45 PM
Friday with Means - November 6th, 2009 - Back in the saddle! The Mail System Thanks to all who have been a big help in testing and shaping the new mail system with great suggestions. So far everything seems very stable and I think we can all look forward to this long awaited addition hitting the live servers soon. This has been a "big" change to all item and inventory systems in AO and as a result has been holding back some of the other content we have been working on...having this out will allow us to push out some of the new larger experiences/changes we have been waiting on for some time. The Engine Work is progressing very well. I was thrilled this week to come back and see proper water technology implemented and LOOKING GREAT in game. Next Friday we will be posting screenshots (at a bare minimum...I am hoping for more) to show the current state of the ongoing work. I am very pleased with the performance level of the current client given that the integration is still ongoing and the optimization efforts have not really begun...I think we can all look forward to reasonably significant performance increases despite the addition of a great new level of visual detail and effects. It is going to be great to finally leave AO's CPU crunching of DX7 behind and take full advantage of todays GFX hardware with proper optimization. The Daily Mission System I haven't spoke a lot concerning this over the past few months...not really fair concerning the size and work that have gone into this addition. Lindelu has racked her brain and worked through illness to offer up about 200 new things to do as alternative methods of obtaining XP and I won't spoil any of her creative surprises her except to say that in some cases I couldn't believe she managed to get these experiences to work...they look great and I know we will all enjoy having some new solo alternatives to enjoy to make the most of our playtime...even those times when we don't have the time to commit to team activities. Mass Rollerrat extermination! Dammit...Spoiler! Balancing Work With me and others out of the office due to illness the "whole team" meetings involved in doing this right was mostly derailed this week. Monday will see the team back at full strength and our first priority is to get this done, communicated, adjusted and implemented as soon as possible. We need this done...we are working on it as fast as we can. More Documents and adjustments will be made public next week. Prof Program The Professionals of Anarchy Online Thanks to all who have taken the time to nominate appropriate individuals for this program. We recognise that there has never been a more important time for this program to be functioning as it should and Kintaii is dedicated to make sure it gets up and running. Nominations close the 23rd of November and the voting process thereafter will be fast and efficient to get this program running to ensure proper player feedback before implementation of the balancing changes. Remember: You must submit your nominations by EMAIL...not through any other methods. It is great to be back! Have a good weekend everyone! |
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Friday with(out) Means - Oct. 30th, 2009: Ramble v2.0
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 10/30/09 1:18:37 PM
Friday with(out) Means - Oct. 30th, 2009: Ramble v2.0 ... wait, it doesn't quite work like that, does it? >< Aaanyhoo - Hey guys! Means has been a bit absent this week due to what appears to be signs of The Aporkalypse (good old swine flu) running through his household, so once again I've been asked to step up to the plate and chat with you all about the latest goings-on up here in Oslo. On a personal front it's been a busy past few weeks with attempting to get our Halloween content out and about, but everything seems to have gone really well and we all hope you're enjoying the new holiday loot. Last weekend was an especially exciting time as we got to have our annual Halloween party in-game AND launch the new nightclub, The Grind. I wanna thank everyone from all three dims who showed up, hung out, and partied with us - It was a real blast for us up at the office to get the chance to hang out with you guys and I'm hoping we'll have the opportunity to do so again in the near future. I wanna give some special thanks to our ARK-CR department, the Customer Service team down in North Carolina, and the wonderful folks from both Gridstream Productions and Radio SdF - A party like this can only happen when you've got a good group of people working together to pull it off, and everyone involved did a great job. Hopefully you guys had fun too - With any luck it won't be the last time we get the chance to do something like this. =) Halloween isn't quite over yet, though, and there are a few surprises left in store for everyone out there. Looks like Uncle Pumpkinhead and his mysterious master The Harvester are still up to their old tricks, and maybe even with some new minions to terrorize Rubi-Ka... keep your eyes peeled for stories, news articles, and special in-game appearances for your chance to bring a little payback to the Halloween horrors - You might even find a nice little reward for helping out, so join the hunt and head out for the fight. The Harvester is waiting, after all... In other news, we've been talking about this behind-the-scenes for quite a while, but it's now time to take the lid off on the all-new, all-improved Professionals Program. I won't go into too much detail in this post, as you can find all the relevant information in forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php, but I encourage everyone to take a look, read what's going on, and get involved. Notices of the new Professionals Program will also be hitting the launcher and hopefully even in-game, so make sure to tell your friends to keep their eyes peeled and check out the posts - This is something we wanna get everyone in on, so spread the word, pitch in, nominate and get ready to vote. Should be exciting stuff. =) I'm not gonna go for a huge, long wall-of-text this week (I know, I know, I'm breaking tradition here), but that's because we've got more important things to focus on. We've been pouring over the feedback from the initial perk change documents and making adjustments all over the place - As time goes on, we're starting to get more and more willing to make larger, sweeping changes to the perks, and we hope you guys will be happy with the places we're going. There are a few things to note, though, which we hope might make some of the changes a little less confusing to everyone: * Many perk lines currently have 10 levels available to them, but lack a perk special at level 9/10. For several of these lines, we will be adding in an additional perk special if the line is trained to level 10. I think it's really important to let you guys know that nothing here is finalized or written in stone. We're trying to keep ourselves from being locked into only making minor changes, or just slightly tweaking what's already there - Where there are major changes that need to be made, we're trying to keep ourselves open to the idea of actually making said changes. In addition, we will devotedly change and alter these perklines based on feedback - This includes alterations after the perk changes have hit live. None of us here want to lock ourselves into a situation where we feel that we can't/shouldn't be open to the idea of making additional changes down the road (which is, to an extent, what placed us in this situation in the first place). So nothing here is final, everything is malleable, and nothing - nothing - is considered untouchable. We wanna do this and do it right - Hopefully, with the help of everyone else out there, we can make some great improvements to our gameplay and systems while maintaining the exact same feeling for all the Professions. So what's next? Well, today you're getting your hands on the altered Profession-specific perk documents *and* your first look at the Group Perk documents. The AI Breed Perk documentation will be coming along Soon™ and there's plenty more information to come after that - We've still got Research, Nanos, Weaponry, Items... no rest for the weary or the wicked. Anyhoo, I figure the documentation will keep you guys busy for the next little bit, so I won't keep you here any longer. Genele and I will be popping into the thread through-out the weekend to check in and maybe even answer a few questions/concerns here or there (and I get the feeling Means will show up sooner or later too ), so you guys have fun pouring over the docs and we'll chat with you later. Peace! =D NEW INFO! Forgot to mention: We've got the first iteration of our brand new mail system heading out to Testlive today, and we would love to see you guys break it in two. No, seriously - Head out, use it, abuse it, do what you guys do best; the more we can get the new system tested before shipping it off to live, the better. Enjoy! |
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Friday with Means - October 23rd, 2009 - Perpective and Party
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 10/25/09 11:31:17 AM
Friday with Means - October 23rd, 2009 - Perpective and Party Happy Halloween! __________________ Cratters: Devs aren't people. They have no rights. Every paying subscriber gets to stomp on them. We pay 15 euros a month. That means we are not just their employers, but their rightful owners. |
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Friday with Means - October 16th, 2009 - Mighty perk documentation
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 10/16/09 7:42:51 PM
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=562457
Friday with Means - October 16th, 2009 - Mighty perk documentation So put simply: "Here it is" We have also included a brief document (Perk Changes Overview.pdf) trying to explain the consistent changes through all the perks and a small amount of the reasoning behind the changes. For a general focusing of effort in terms of centralizing feedback concerning the ongoing balancing efforts we have created a "Balance Discussion" forum. I would encourage the use of this area to make it easier for us to not "miss" ideas that right now are spread thinly over the entire forums. We will make all possible effort to deliver the information concerning additional changes to profession tool-sets as soon as possible. On a personal note I can't wait for the Halloween party next week (Friday the 23rd) at the grand opening of "The Grind". See you there! __________________ Cratters: Devs aren't people. They have no rights. Every paying subscriber gets to stomp on them. We pay 15 euros a month. That means we are not just their employers, but their rightful owners. |
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AO to use AoC engine, Will it require PC specs like AoC to run?
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 10/16/09 2:42:46 PM
Any lag you have is an issue between your pc and the game. Once the game moved to the new servers and game was recompiled under the new compiler, the old lag is virtually gone. The vast majority of the posters in the AO forums said they had far less lag than before. Basically, if you can't punch thru Borealis or a good 50-person tower fight and sustain 20-60 fps and smooth frames, you got some incompatible hardware (probably the hard drive since current AO relies enormously on streaming data from it). Note I didn't say your hardware is bad, just incompatible. Of the few who still have major lag issues, a significant % are on very high end PC's, whose drivers just don't like working with DirectX7. The new engine will solve that remaining issue, with its' full DX9 functionality. |
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Friday with Means - October 9th, 2009 - Parry and Riposte - Back from the dead!
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 10/09/09 11:28:43 AM
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=562051 I had hopes this week for us being able to share the plans for ALL perks and actions accross all professions this week. Unfortunately it isn't going to happen as we really feel we need to make the ENTIRE plan concerning research, perks, nanos and other changes available at the same time or the changes to perks will only be taken out of context...and a source of MORE questions and argument as opposed to LESS. There are still some details we are fighting about...if we can't agree yet it isn't ready. A good example of additional changes not contained with in perks would be PARRY and RIPOSTE. One of the downsides of working on a project for as long as I have is that sometimes you can get "stuck" in the old way of thinking. The previous attempts at implementing parry and riposte actions in the past had been unsuccessful for many reasons...so the idea of resurrecting this old code had always been a firm "no" in my book for good reason. This brings us to the value of having such a good team working on AO. Kintaii (unlike myself) did not see this as a lost cause and continued to work on acceptable solutions to these unused skills and has put together with the rest of the team a good alternative to the old systems for Parry and Riposte that will allow us to bypass all the "old" reasons for not activating these actions. So here is the basics of what we can expect from Parry and Riposte in the larger effort of balancing/renewing that we are currently working on: Parry and Riposte A free full IP Reset will of course come with these changes. The addition of Parry and Riposte actions will come along at the same time as the changes to perks and nanos. Parry General duration will be 10 seconds. Riposte Riposte is an active melee/martial arts action that will do damage based on your Riposte skill. A Riposte is a quick counter-attack based on a temporary opening offered by an off-balance attack by your opponent. An attack by your opponent will “activate” your Riposte ability giving you a short window of time to use it to inflict additional damage on an in-range target. This will not be a “huge” damage special but more of an active combat action that is available often during the course of regular combat. Individual player skill in taking advantage of this action will be a significant factor in how effective it can be. In-Game Mail: This week was a milestone for AO. We got to see the huge moment where the first mail (with an ITEM!) was sent and received by another player. The first item sent was the iconic foam-finger that Macrosun uses as his head on TestLive. Go Macrosun! ...and yes...I am a horrible boss...please come back to work on Monday. Screenshot complete with coder-graphics is below! New Engine Thank you all for the feedback concerning the appearance of the first screenshots with the new engine. We will be sure to turn on a lot of the expected features (filtering etc) in the next set. You all drew attention to some areas we may not have thought of...so thanks again. Have a great weekend everyone! Cratters: Devs aren't people. They have no rights. Every paying subscriber gets to stomp on them. We pay 15 euros a month. That means we are not just their employers, but their rightful owners. |
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AO to use AoC engine, Will it require PC specs like AoC to run?
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 10/06/09 10:33:10 PM
I think FC does a good job of listening to the playerbase. |
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Friday with Means - October 2nd, 2009
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 10/06/09 6:08:42 AM
The old shots have atmosphere and all other effects engaged. The new shots are solely of the ground and shadows. The rest, such as new grass and atmosphere, are not in place yet, so it naturally looks stark. |
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Friday with Means - October 2nd, 2009
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 10/05/09 8:01:32 AM
As has been noted by Means and others in the past, redoing animations is completely out of budget for the game, and an order of magnitude more costly than making a new graphics engine. I think far more ppl are bothered by the low res graphics than the animations. Personally, I like most AO animations better than, say, WoW animations, especially that 'wobble-foot' turn chars have in WoW. |
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Friday with Means - October 2nd, 2009
Rubi-Ka Lounge (General) « Anarchy Online 10/02/09 12:08:50 PM
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?p=5627352&posted=1#post5627352 Friday with Means - October 2nd, 2009 - A week of daring escapes Engine At the bottom of this thread I have attached some of the first "new engine vs. old engine" screenshots. The engine guys are working very hard on getting this together and it is fantastic to see it really starting to get that AO "feel"...but now with proper shadows, bump mapping on the ground, and general improvement on all texture rendering in general. I can't wait for them to tell me the new grass and water is "ready" for me to be able to show it...I don't like waiting either...but you know how people are with "works in progress". These screens show the "nuts and bolts" of the new engine working (ground, mesh and shadows)...I can't wait until we get to show the new shinies that this conversion is going to give us. I know it doesn't feel like it...but this is going way faster than I ever would have imagined. Balancing This week we have had Metaing in the office for lengthy balance discussions with the entire team. After purchasing new helmets these discussions will continue all next week. Next Friday we will be posting a document containing all the proposed changes to existing perks and descriptions of new ones. This will give us all a chance to examine these changes in detail before implementation in the coming weeks. Nightclub Opening The grand opening of "The Grind" will be on Friday October 23rd. Watch the launcher for the time closer to the event. Halloween is traditionally the largest AO party of the year...what other time would be better to open the new club? Anything else would be wrong. Pants. Definitely Pants. I am really tired. This FWM was brought to you by Tylenol - Extra Strength. Attached Images forums.anarchy-online.com/attachment.php forums.anarchy-online.com/attachment.php forums.anarchy-online.com/attachment.php forums.anarchy-online.com/attachment.php |
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