It's not an unsubstantiated rumour that Vista runs games slower than XP. It's been tested to death and the results are evident. I'm hoping there will come a patch that will fix this soon as I bought Vista for my last rig, but frankly I'm not so sure it'll come anytime soon.

Ah well. I can always run games in dx9 for now.

After the game is gold and sent to the press it's not like they'll stop working either. My bet is that we got ourselves a nice download after installation on retail-day. All the journalists are saying the game is looking very good, but with many small annoying bugs, although nothing of a gamebreaking nature.

I must admit all the fearmongering actually got to me a few days ago. There was supposed leaks, rumours and hearsay that the game was being delayed, game only had 10 fps and so on. It's been so much in a short period of time that I'm tempted to think it's a campaign against Funcom. Now I'm convinced it's all a hoax and just general bullshit. I've read from neutral sources like mmorpg, tentonhammer, civillian people at CES and several other sites that the game is looking very good indeed. The Cheetah 2 engine has raised the fps considerably and the overal polishness is great. Only thing I've heard is that it's a LOT of small bugs that needs to ironed out before release.

I'm not worried at all anymore. If my toon will run through the occasional stone or other static objects it won't ruin the game for me. If a quest is broken I'll live that as well. Hell I've played many MMO's over the years and I've seen many broken quests. I can wait for these things to be fixed in the next patch.

You guys keep forgetting that Funcom has 7 years experience with MMO's. They've said several times that AoC is heavily based upon the net-code from AO. Nothing beats real-world experience. It's not like they're rookies. They have 7 years experience in running MMO-servers. This is the kind of experience other developers wish they could buy, but sadly can't be bought. The same goes for WAR. I don't expect many server related problems in that game either. They might be overwhelmed by the sheer force of subscribers compared to AO or DAoC, but neither of the devs for both games should as they both aim intensionally high.

You could also argue that the tech is too old today, but keep in mind that the engine behind the beautiful AoC is the same that's running AO. It's the Dreamfall engine. The net-code is tried and tested over several years and improved upon even further for AoC.

And now the howling chorus will start with "Yeah and we all know how the AO launch was". Yeah we do. It had it's share of problems for two months and it's been good ever since. Point two: Funcom has lost a lot of money because of the initial problems with AO. They're not about to re-do their errors and loose a lot of money on AoC as well. I've said it earlier and I'll say it again; a former error/failure is a stronger incentive for a future success than a former triumph. They won't do the same errors twice.

You only have to do the first 20 levels with one character. When you've hit 20 with a character for the first time you don't have to re-do it with another if you don't want to.  You can in other words hit a button and start at level 20 for your second character.

Originally posted by FE|Tachyon

Microsoft WILL NOT make a DX10 for XP,  They've said it at dozens of press releases, and its on their forum everywhere.

M$ ain't getting any money from XP anymore. If people upgrade to Vista they are. Simple as that.

I got Vista and personally I'm not very impressed by it's performance. If it's a resource-hog of a game I usually play it in DX9. M$ got some serious optimizing ahead of them if they want games to run good on the system.

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by Maverick123w

 

Originally posted by gestalt11

Haha your question just shows how much BS the term "Open Beta" has become.

 

The fact that people are considering not buying a game because they don't get a chance to TEST it shows that these things are not tests.

 

What you want is a FREE TRIAL.  Not an open beta.  They may have become the same thing but they are not the same thing.

 

No MMORPG should ever have an Open Beta prior to release, because no one comes to actually test.  The most they should do is preview events like Guild Wars has done in the past.

 

It's a TEST drive for people.  Obviously the game is done by the time open beta rolls around.  I don't know about you, but I wouldn't buy a car without a TEST drive.

  I wouldn't buy a car that was still in the testng stages.

Me neither, but I wouldn't have bought a plane or a space shuttle that was in testing stages either. Software made for the sole purpose of entertainment on the other hand...

Originally posted by Czzarre

I can only imagine the activity once the game is released and people have things to talk about.

Its not surprising tho, WAR is one of the most highly anticipated games soon to be released. IM surprised that AOC isnt as active...I wager they have another main board system on another site.

Torrential

It's a simple answer to your question. AoC has an official forum on it's site while WAR doesn't.

Originally posted by D|CE

Originally posted by Wicoa

Funcom is one of the few companies I trust in...

mmk. You know that they have history of bad releases and documented lies, don't you?

They have a history of one bad initial release, namely AO. The other games "The Longest Journey" to name one is lauded as one of the best adventure games ever created on several gaming sites.

Yes you're right SonofSeth. If Battlekruse had read this thread he would've known instead of jumping to self-made convenient conclusions. He even underlined, emphasized in red, used caps and bold in his self-made - and wrong - conclusion. PvP server = free for all, apart from a few major cities. Normal server = only PVP in the border kingdoms.

Fion and Avery; why do you bother engaging in this neverending exercise in polemics with Xris375? No matter how much evidence or circumstantial evidence you'll bring into the discussion he won't budge one inch. AoC isn't for him even if it is.

For a discussion on a game in beta - with a NDA in effect - is to work, you can't have a hostile starting-point. It's just too easy to say "I don't believe that", "we'll see when it's released", "well that's subject to change" and so on and so on. The anti-AoC crowd is using this rethoric all the time here. If they think the game will fail so much why bother wasting time on it? Personally I believe they want the game to fail because they have another champion in their hearts set for a june release. It's just bad sportsmanship coming to a AoC forum and spread false rumours and plain lies IMO.

Personally I think many of the posters here isn't interested in the game at all. They got their minds set for a game that release later this year - if it isn't postponed that is. An open beta would do nothing to change their minds. This is my personal feeling anyway after reading some of the arguments on this and other boards around.

There's a lot of "I feel this" and "I think that" in this thread. The funniest thing is however that the arguments many use for why AoC will fail does not apply - in their opinion  - for "the other game". This is funny because it's nothing solid. It's based upon rumours, hearsay and personal feelings. There's nothing really concrete. The same applies for the "other game", but somehow the same arguments doesn't. There's actually much more media and information released from AoC than it is for the "other game". Whereas someone might say "OMFG look how crap, he ran through a stone on that vid" on the "other game" the same person is saying "STFU n00b it's still work-in-progress". It's not like it's taking half a year to fix trivial bugs like that. This is confusing for me.

"But" some are saying. "But I trust the 'other game's' developers and after Anarchy Online I don't trust Funcom anymore". Yes I agree that a 100% track record for making good game(s) is impressive, but let us look at that argument for a moment. The devs of the 'other game' has made one game which was very good. Hell I even got it myself. Got a 9.1 score at Gamespot - if we ever can call that a benchmark after Kane & Lynch anymore. But let's for the sake of argument anyway as these scores are fairly consistant on several sites. One game that was very good. That's hardly an impressive track record if you ask me. It shows great potential though, but not an impressive track record. ID software has an impressive track record and so does Blizzard, Valve, Firaxis and so on. They've also made lots and lots of games which has been consistantly good over time. Funcom is known for making story-driven games of which "The longest journey" is their prime example. It has also been lauded as the best adventure game for years - when released - on several gaming sites. It got a 9.3 score at gamespot with it's sequel "Dreamfall" at 8.1 - which is nothing more than solid I agree.

Anarchy Online was riddled with problems at it's release there's no sane man who could deny that. Because of the problems it received a mere 7.6 score at Gamespot, which honestly doesn't cut-it. It's expansion a couple of years later went up almost a full point to 8.5 which is very respectable. If you take into consideration that expansion packs really has to offer something special - empirically speaking - to receive a good score it's very respectable indeed. It also shows that Anarchy Online's launch was terrible - once again - and that Funcom lost millions in revenues because of it. Who knows what their score would've been if they had a normal launch. If the expansion pack is an indication it would've been very good indeed and Funcom fixed the teething problems of AO quick after relase.

So what does all of this tell us? It tells me at least that Funcom has a track record as a solid software developer with ample experience in the MMO-market. It tells me that they know how to serve an MMO - eventually. But the most important argument is that they know how much money they lost on the AO launch. If someone think they will release an unfinished game again then they're more biased than what's good for them in their real-life. In fact I would think they've actually learned more from the failed launch of AO then they would from a flawless one. Another thing is that the mmo-market is considerably different today than it was back "then" and this goes for both developers. Both games will be gargantuan successes when they release compared to back then, so you could question how relevant the experience they've gained is set to this launch. I don't know, but I do know that Funcom is a company driven by profit - like every other game company - and I know that a failed or poor launch will hamper that profit. People learn from their mistakes if we didn't we would've been extinct as a species.

This is a game they've spent 5 years to make. It's the second most expensive MMO in the gaming history after WoW. Any fan of MMO's should be happy that they're starting to get alternatives to WoW. Instead you're trying to put down any competitors to what you're seeing as 'the truth'. If there's any hold to any of it I wouldn't care, but most of the arguments are biased and not universal compared to the "other game". If you're going to bring down a game at least be rational and fair.

PS. Yeah I know most of you won't read this text as it's probably waaaay too long. Sorry about, but I was bored :D

Originally posted by parrotpholk

After the giant titanic that was VG. I will never buy an MMO sight unseen again period. So I will wait till the trial happens or just play WAR when it hits. I trust Mythic, Funcom not so much

So you're basically saying because of Vanguard you will never buy an MMO unseen again period - apart from a game made by Mythic? It's good to have principles lol.

As far as I've been informed there will be several types of servers, including FFA-PVP. I also think I've read that one Guild can't control more than one castle or keep. So there won't be a situation where one Guild owns everything. It's also quite easy to recruit help from other guilds or even randoms when attacking/defending guild property.

Aparently Vanguard didn't win 2006 Most anticipated game award as WAR did that. Interesting trend isn't it? Vanguard wasn't #1 so perhaps the people isn't as stupid as you assume?

And speaking about 1st graders you really spice your arguments like one. It's people like you that bring down the quality of posts on a forum like this. All the hostility and talking-tough is really not needed if you got something interesting to say.

I can neither agree with you that winning awards pre-release is worthless - or retarded as you call it. Those awards give a good indication on how a game is developing. That Vanguard flopped doesn't prove any point whatsoever. Those awards are however not the whole truth - so help me God - but a good indication.

Originally posted by Whiskeyjack1

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 

Originally posted by DrunkenPrey

The people that voted for AoC over WAR are the same people that bought Mass Effect and Farenheight (sp?) because they heard there were sex scenes in them.

I thought it was just because they anticipated AoC more in that category.  Or maybe it was because the public saw this poor video: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/setView/videos/gameID/239/videoId/1156

 

All is ok there, there

Poor lil guy , are you so insecure about AoC success that you need to go around knocking on WAR all the time? Won't make AoC any less of a failure.

Even if WAR won the award I wouldn't be going around talking smack . Didn't anyone learn the vanguard lesson already?. You can win all the awards you want before releasing a final retail product , doesn't mean much if you can't deliver at launch.

Hmmm... I was under the impression that AoC took the award away from WAR and not Vanguard? www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/1043/page/6/

I think you guys are overplaying the importance of the Warhammer IP. I don't think it's really that well-known outside a hardcore rpg crowd (both pen-paper&computer). In fact I'm quite convinced the majority of WoW players have no clue about Warhammer lore at all.

It's been many years since DAoC were released and the MMO-market was totally different then. Now thanks to WoW MMO's has opened to people outside the "geek-community" and that means the Warhammer IP ain't getting any free-rides. If you want to be considered a success today you have to pull the average-joe and not the hardcore rpg'ers because they're so few compared to the rest. The thing I see going for Warhammer Online in this respect is that it really looks like WoW and builds upon many of the same mechanics players are well-accustomed to. People looking for something else than WoW could see Warhammer Online as a natural follow-up, but that could also be a double edged sword.

I might be wrong, but that's how I see it anyway. And yes I'm well aware of the Warhammer IP as hardcore gamer for the last 20 or so years.

Let me also point out for the record that I'm an AoC fanboi. The only reason I would play WAR is if AoC fails, which is something I hardly doubt. I do however follow WAR with interest and have only best wishes for it.

Last summer I bought a new PC for the - supposed - autumn release of AoC. Now that it's postponed I'm going to overclock the shit out of my 8800GTS card. If it breaks then good riddance. Then I can buy a better one

Isn't nVidia releasing some new cards soon? I heard some rumours last summer. It's now jan'08 and still nothing?

I was certain I was going to roll a Conqueror. I'm not that sure anymore. Guess I'm down to conqueror, barbarian or Bear Shaman. I'll let a 1D9 decide

Distaste is of course entitled to his opinion just like I am to mine. I do however think he's in a professional minority considering all the pre-release accolades Funcom has received for Age of Conan so far. Take a look at www.ageofconan.com for an overview yourself.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be vary of hype or crown a game before we've actually had the chance to see it for ourself, but we shouldn't underrate it either based on the same argument. I hardly doubt you got anything but rumours and personal bias to base your opinion on, as I do with mine. I'm not a beta-tester or anything so I have to lean on other peoples opinions, that is testers, magazines, industry geeks and other pre-release candidates. As it stand at the moment there's actually more evidence that AoC will be a great game - based upon all the best of E3 awards and previews among many others - than vice versa.

I'm not just hoping this game will be great success. I solemly think the entire industry will be better off if it is based on all the innovatve designs. Lots of MMO's coming out these days, but most are tragically similar to each other.

On a personal note I'm also quite psyched about Huxley. Sounds highly innovative and appears to me to be a breath of fresh air into the MMO-industry.

Sadly this is what the internet is all about these days. Illinformed accusations which holds no truth whatsoever. I also wonder what the EQ2 mess-up is all about, please educate me.

Btw, if you're afraid there will be no replay value in AoC I can inform you that it's only 4 archetypes but 14 classes in AoC to date. This is much more than most other MMO out there so I have no clue to what you're concerned about. Again please check your facts before stating something as a truth. If you're too lazy to factcheck ask someone else in a friendly way if your info is correct before putting down a game in the future.

Concerning alts you can skip the newb island if and get right into the MMO if you want to.