Looking for the server that will be the most packed during eastern and central prime time... any help?

This will be my 3rd retrun to EQ2. Everytime I play I end up leaving again shortly after.

I like the game and it is alot less buggy than any of the other heavy hitters, but I've always felt that it was missing something.

Oh well, I'm gonna start over this time around and see what happens.

Did they ever alter the player skeletons so they could give more armor and clothing options, like they said they were going to do however many years ago?

Sanctum? Damn near killed em. 

I love that joke. I ran Sanctum at least 10 times to get all the HoX appropriate gear. I got everything that that dungeon had to offer that my class could use. The 2 handed sword took the longest to get cause I kept getting out rolled by people that weren't even using it.

Public Service Announcement: Heralds of Xotli can use daggers and 2 handed swords, but alot of our skills can only be used while wielding a 2 handed sword. This means Herlads can pretty much only use 2 hand swords... SO STOP ROLLING ON 2 HAND SWORDS JUST BECAUSE YOUR CLASS CAN EQUIP THEM.

Man that bothers me. You group up with Conqs and Barbs that are set up with dual wielding one handers so you know their feats are set up to compliment this style and not 2 handers. You go through a dungeon and a shiny 2 hander drops, so they roll need and don't even equip the damn thing.

Here's a shot of my Herald of Xotli at lvl 40:

(AoC looks great, but is very buggy)

Another one at lvl 35:

 (It's fun, but needs alot more work)

Against my better judgement, I'm thinking about trying Vanguard again. I played in beta and some at release. I've since gotten a new PC that blows my old rig to smithereens.

Anyway, I'm wondering if some of the things that bothered me about Vanguard are still the same:

-The hallways and stairwells in the houses were too claustrophobic and small. They just didn't seem like they were scaled for the characters' sizes right.

-The auto-cloths-changing when you harvest stuff or do diplomacy. I always wished that it would just give you the passive bonuses from the outfits without changing the look of your character. It really grated on me when I was out in the fields running around killing stuff for quests and got stuck in my harvesting gear as my outward appearance because I grabbbed some resources.

-Diplomacy was gimmicky and not very challeneging. I always wanted to be able to play the Diplomacy game vs other players... that would rock.

-Character diversity. Sure there are sliders and whatnot in the character creation process, but they just never seemed to do much of anything. The result was that you had alot of people running around looking the same.

So if any of you guys can help assuage my misgivings about giving Vanguard another try, it'd be great.

And please don't post baseless hype with vague musings about how great the game is. Seriously, there are way too many posts on these boards like this that don't back up any of the drivel contained in the posts with any concrete information.

Some of you people are way too touchy.

I never even implied that I didn't like Vanguard. The OPs post looks like something a Shill would post.

Maybe he's not one, but the fact that his 1st post on the boards was this is very suspect to me.

I was thinking about giving Vanguard another try, but if the servers are filled with people like the ones that posted in the boards here, I don't want any part of that community.

Pointing out someone who is paid to post on gaming sites isn't a slight on Vanguard.

In fact, it shows your myopicness and mentality in so far as the game is concerned. I'm not here to slag the game down. I liked Vanguard , but my PC wouldn't run it very well. I've since upgraded and was gonna give it another shot. I really hope that the afforementioned behavior from some of you previous posters is not indicative of community as a whole.

If it is, there will be nothing any developers can do to get people to come back and stay because you'll just chase them away. Get over yourselves and stop being so touchy.

I don't know if you realize it or not, but each class is only available to certain races. At least that's how it was when I played.

That being said, I loved the Monk class. It's alot of fun and will be great at soloing. Plus the animations are pretty cool. I always liked the Monk's staff animations.

Originally posted by atcshane

After playing WOW for 3 years, then bouncing around to some other MMOs, such as EQ2, I've finally settled in to this one.

 

Outstanding graphics, cool quests, immersive world.

 

So far, I've found few bugs, usually pertaining to quest dialog. No crashes, just all day fun.

 

What are you waiting for? Collector's Edition is $9 on Amazon!

 

Seriously... you make an account and your very first post is an advetisement.

You guys aren't even trying anymore.

I hate exploiters. I hope every single person that exploited gets banned.

I laughed when I saw the PvP server was named Tyranny because if you take out the first y, it's Tranny...

Which is what the majority of the asshats that play on a FFA PvP server are. Dudes that create female characters.

Seriously though, I like the PvE rules set in AoC. You get all the PvP mini-games and sieges you can handle with none of the ganking and/or griefing.

Set is the unofficial PvP-centric PvE server. There was a poll going and the majority of the people that voted in the poll are in Eastern and Central timezones.

So all you guys that are starting up tomorrow need to roll on Set, so we can make it one of the heaviest populated PvE servers.

Also, Wicanna is the unofficial RP PvE server because they never made an official RP PvE server.

I just wanted to drop a line to people that are interested in the PvP mini-games and Sieges that don't feel like dealing with mentally challenged griefers that will rush to the level cap so they can grief and camp people 30-50 levels lower than they are.

Set will be the PvE server that will be focused on PvP, if that's makes sense. At least I hope it works out that way.

Originally posted by tool089

Originally posted by Tnice

I have changed my mind on this game.  It does have high system specs but AoC is very innovative, new, and fresh.  It is a new MMO so there will be problems but the foundation here is amazing.  This is an amazing game.  The only thing I could compare this to is a MMO version of Oblivion.

Nice, nice.  I thought it looked similar to Oblivion.  I'm hoping they can use it as a selling point.  I know a lot of people that only play console games right now, and a lot have played or are playing oblivion.  This is like Oblivion minus the NPC characters living in the world plus real people playing characters that live in the world.  Even if it doesn't attract players to the computer, I bet this sells well on the 360 whenever it is released.

Oblivion is stale and boring.

AoC's combat is much more involved than Oblivions shallow mechanics. Oblivion's story and characters are both stale and shallow. AoC's story is actually pretty good and many of the NPCs have stories worth listening to.

The only thing the two games have in common is that they are both RPGs with a fantasy setting, but by that logic Dragon Quest is just like AoC.

I've been looking for a good, engrossing MMORPG since SWG got trashed by the NGE. I've roamed from one game to the next and sometimes back again.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think that I finally found a new online home.

I'm very enchanted with what I've seen from AoC. None of my guildmates have even looked at AoC and some have pre-ordered Warhammer all ready without knowing much of anything about it. I hope they'll give the game a shot, but even if they don't I'm sold.

When AoC is released, it'll be my game of choice for a good long while.

Tgainey seems to have some issues with narcisism and tunnel vision.

Just because you don't like something doesn't means others feel the same. AoC's PvE experience is pretty robust. I think it's really off base to tell people that the game is PvP-centric and dismiss it as that.

Sure there's PvP, but the PvE game is alot more fun than the majority of other MMOs out there.

I enjoy the KotoR style conversations with NPCs. Some of the decisions you make in regards to what you say to the NPCs can cut a quest short or block you from taking the quest.

I don't think AoC will be have a huge launch or be the most popular game, but I do think that will be a quiet steady beast that slowly gains more people over time.

It's sad that neophobes seem to make up such a large part of the people that play MMOs.

I for one am sick of the same old crap being rehashed and thrown at us, and AoC's combat is a breath of fresh air to me. I don't understand all of the chicken littles that go nuts because the combat isn't what they are used to, or requires more of them then they are used to. They bitch about how developers keeping pushing out rehashed over used crap, and then when a dev team comes out with something new, they bitch and moan because it's not the same rehashed crap that they are used to.

Some people will never be satisfied with anything.

Originally posted by tgainey

Originally posted by Arkane_A

Why not just watch the combat training video or the other youtube videos that show you the differences?

Because the combat video only shows what they want you to see. Its another piece of  game hype from funCON. It doesnt show you that while you can dbl tap to dodge the npc doenst care and still hits you. hahaha its laughable when you actually play the game and understand that as much as funcon love the conan lore they have designed an mmorpg around a combat system that focuses on pvp. I'll go out on a limb and state that this will turn into a focused pvp game very shortly after lauch thus loosing a majority of their potential market share. That's not a problem for those that want pvp but it will be boring fighting the same 20 assasins and necros over and over again

Even the priest (healing classes) can kick some major ass in this game. It's not at all a cookie cutter class or FotM build trumps all type of game.

Take WoW for instance:

Why are there so many Hunters, Warlocks, Wars, and Rogues? Because those classes have builds that make it very easy to PvP with. These classes are some what to greatly over-powered. It'll be even worse when Death Knights are released. DKs will have the ability to shorten the global cool down on their abilities and spells. Granted they can only have a certain amount of runes in their place (kind of like the crystals in a lightsaber in SWG), but by giving them the ability to use skills and spells faster than any other class in the game trivializes the paper, rock, scissor dynamic that WoW is supposed to designed around.

I don't understand why the devs set it up this way because DKs will be pretty much dominant to all spell casting classes. Why is this absurd? The spell casting classes are all ready playing second fiddle to the melee classes, so this just exacerbates the issues between melee and catser classes and does nothing to even the playing field.

How is AoC different? I'm not sure that it is. PvE-wise, I've had a much eaiser time playing a caster. It's not as much fun playing a caster because they can pretty much cast 2 direct damage spells and end a fight, where as a melee combatant gets to get in and do some combos and finesse they enemy to death.

I'm very curious to see how it pans out with the addition of spell weaving and itemization. I guess only time will tell though.

Originally posted by Centhan

Kyro describes it very well.

It is quite a different feel from WoW.  I'm still trying to get used to it and deciding whether or not I really like it at all.  At times I think it would be helpful if I had eight fingers on my left hand to cover all the keys you need to effectively fight.  It feels like I have to stop dead in my tracks in order to fight, because I find it hard to move and swing at the same time unless I move with my fingers and click the attacks with the mouse.  Maybe that was their goal, I don't know.

Maybe I'm just not coordinated enough, but I feel like I'm thinking more on the keystrokes and sequences than the enjoyment of the game.  Still in the learning phase of it though.

 

AoC's combat isn't conducive to flowering that kind of mentality.

Instead of moving around in circles to break LoS, it's geared to reading your opponent, analyzing the combos they use or attack pattern that they fall back on, and then countering that.

For instance, if someone tends to fall back on left, left, right, front, attack sequences when they aren't doing ability combos you can mitigate the damage you would take from them by adjusting your defenses (shields, is what they are refered to in game as) to the appropriate positions.

If you get into it a little more, you can read the tooltips from the abilities and they tell you where your hits will land once you triggger a combo.

For instance, you can do a combo that will trigger a sequence of attacks that go front, right, left, but if you aren't famliar with the class you have no idea where the meat of their damage is coming from.

I really think that the combat system is truely deep and will make for some challenging and engaging PvP and PvE.

The biggest downfall of the game is from the people that take a quick, shallow, myopic view of the combat system and then judge the game by that. Then you have all of the people that won't experience it for themselves and just jump on the bandwagon that it's not fun or isn't for them.

I enjoy the game alot, and will definitely be playing it at release. I hope it holds my attention as long as old school SWG did.

Originally posted by Miklos

I'm not commenting on wheter it runs smoothly or not, the storyline/lore neither on the combat system, so stop trolling.

I'm commenting on the poor code and choices of design in regards to having non-seamless zone traversal.

It's poor design - regardless if you like/dislike/love/hate the game, it's still poor design.

Oh that's right you're just some arm chair quaterback that has no idea what he's talking about.

You keep talking about this elusive "horrible code", but you don't use specifics. Your posts have been shallow drivel designed to try to make you look like you know what you're talking about when it's obvious that you don't.

There a few games that have "seamless zone traversal". If you're refering to WoW, they hide the loading really well, but it's still there. Vanguards "chunking" was and is a load of crap, instead of a loading screen your character just freezes there until the zone loads.

I timed my load screens the other day when I was reading people's post about how long the load times are. My longest time was 24 secs, but most of them were 10-14 secs.

Originally posted by Miklos

 

Originally posted by Mortemia

I'm glad we have such expert game designers and coders here that they can enlighten us with their knowledge, no doubt based purely on facts.

I'm glad to be of service.

 

Some of us do infact make a living coding you know!

Some are even former Funcom employees that decided to work a place where quality of design and code matters more than textures...

The game runs fine for me and the people that have judged the game by the open beta code, which has been patched twice all ready since some of you uninstalled, have made a premature decision about the game.

I like AoC and it kind of reminds me of old school SWG. I really enjoy the combat and the stories in the quest lines.

So for those of you that haven't played the game, don't jump on the cool guy bandwagon and hate on a game you've never played.

Originally posted by Stradden

 

Originally posted by Alan0n

I have a top end PC and the game runs with alot of hitching and huge spikes.

By top end Im talking about real top end - including 9800 gtx.  New install - nothing else on the Raptor and still its shit even in low settings.

Seriously - this Dev is simply lying.  Funcom can not guaranty a top end players with a game that runs.  So minority... Is that 49,9% ?   Or maybe players that are not even given the chance to test if the game runs at all on their machine will have to find out by buying something that doesn't work ?

Grats Funcom.   You will be so populare. 

This is a joke

DONT BUY THIS GAME UNLESS U ARE GUARANTIED IT WILL RUN ON YOUR PC.  IT has NOTHING to do with minimum or requmended.  Funcom have not done ANY testing on what the game is running on - and they simply dont give a dam.

The closed beta runs just fine on my machine:

 

Vista - 64bit

Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66Ghz

4 Mb RAM

Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT

I suspect that it'll be stable on more systems come launch. From all accounts they have indeed done testing on what the game is running on. Any MMO company would be moronic not to look into it and Funcom isn't out to NOT make money and they have a lot riding on AoC, given that they also have another MMO project that will follow behind it.

 

Just my 2 cents though.

Vista Home Premium 32bit

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ @ 2.4 GHz

2 Mb RAM

Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT

I get great performance. I was getting horrible performance, but I got my drivers up to date and turned off NPC names in the options menu and everything has been working great.

What's the MMO project that will be following AoC?

I think the OP is exaggerating alot. I've been logging alot of time with this game and the Fatalities don't get you killed. You get a buff increases your regen rates when you do one. Also, when you do a fatality it's the last hit on the opponent. If you die right after a fatality it's because you are lagging really bad, you had very low health and tons of DoT damage eating away at you.

The combat system rocks. It promotes mobility and on the fly decision making. When you have a weapon out you can double tap a direction and you dodge or charge in that direction, but you also get a temporary buff for doing so.

For instance, when you dodge backwards you get a dodge bonus buff, and when you charge forward you get a temp buff that gives all of your attacks a chance to stun.

The combat in AoC has me hooked like a wide-mouthed bass. I wasn't very impressed with it at first, but the light came on and everything clicked. I started understanding the tides of the battles and began to capitalize on them. You can't just button mash and wait for cooldowns to be effective in combat. The game rewards strategic play and it has some really cool animations.

In short, I disagree with the OP (original poster).

Originally posted by Brynn

I'm not looking forward to the carnage. I will stay on Tortage. I don't like FFA-PvP.

For the people who have good computers and having problems playing, there have been a lot of tips given. I know experienced players know these. The most important are the usual:

1. Make sure you have the latest drivers.
2. Defrag. There is a lot of data, and it gets fragmented. After a large download, always defrag.
3. Don't try to play with all options on high. Try moderate and increase gradually so you can see what is causing problems. Especially, turn off the bloom and shadows, initially.
4. While it's open beta, it's still beta, meaning the devs are still running data parsers. The game you are playing is not the game that is being released.
5. I have no doubt there will be a patch after release, there usually is.

Aside from the afformentioned things to do to increase performance, there's one huge one that cleared up all my frame rate issues and most of my hitching:

Go into the in-game options and disable NPC names. You won't be able to see the names on any NPC unless you mouse over them or target them, but your fps should jump up considerably.

I was getting frustrated as I'm running over 2 gigs RAM and a 512 MB Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT. I just couldn't figure out why my fps would be 1.6 when I looked out into an open field in the daytime setting, but when I faced a rock or wall my fps was around 52, and this was when I was running on Low.

Once I turned off NPC names I was able to crank the game up to high to play with around 26 fps, but opted to bump it down to medium and then adjust some other options until I was satisfied with around 36-40 fps.

All in all, I think that it's a great game and the combat system has really grown on me. t first I thought it was rather gimmicky and too complicated, but once I got used to it I love the animations and the depth it adds to fights. For you WoW lovers out there, I got talked into reactivating my WoW account to play with some friends and I just can't do it after playing AoC. The combat seems even more stale than it did when I got burned out on WoW the first time.

Nothing beats throwing your 2 handed sword and impaling your foe with it, and that's not even a finishing move.