All Posts by Greek_Matt

Also in Age of Conan it looks like there's a fourth option - Culture PVP. As I understand it's a little like Open PVP, except that you can't attack other players of your own race (either Aquilonian, Cimmerian or Stygian).

And as a qualifier to the above posts, you should also note:

(a) ALL servers, whether they're PVP or PVE, will have an area called the Border Kingdoms where guilds can capture and defend areas and build player forts and cities. These can in turn be challenged by other guilds and fought over in PVP combat (currently restricted to 48vs48 players per battle). That means that, if you want to, you can still participate in some PVP even if you make a character on the PVE servers.

(b) Even on the full PVP servers you're still not allowed to attack other characters in the main towns and cities.

Originally posted by Kairarr

They have a maximum of 6 months to release the game, i think they can easily do it because :

1-Their game is feature-complete, see the list of features in this thread.

2-The game has been in beta for a couple of years, being tested by professionnal paid testers and by their AI bots. they have 10 000 bots beta testing their game to make it perfect.

3-The darkfall devs are serious, theres at least 4 guys working on the game and they have an office.

 

 

 

Hehe priceless. And they're lappin' it up...

Don't know the scheduled time, but if the IGN Beta and the Early Access Launch are anything to go by, you can pretty much guarantee it will be at least a couple of hours later than planned.

Originally posted by etomai

[Lots of interesting and valid points, many of which I don't particularly disagree with and others which will only be resolved by time.]

 

Originally posted by Vortigon

Originally posted by Boneserino

Use your imagination a little bit and just enjoy the game.   After the first initial oohs and aahs of playing a new game with nice graphics you quickly forget about them and concentrate on the game itself.

Its the game I want to play not the graphics!  Without the game graphics are just pretty pictures.

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So true, especially about the graphics and the gimmicky combat.   Once you have played the game for a few days you ignore the graphics, their essentially irrelavent.  The gameplay and immersion is what really matters, and in those areas AoC is some of the worst I have seen in a long time.

Sure, let's take out the graphics and the gimmicky combat. Then we're left with a bunch of players, a bunch of monsters, a bunch of quests and a dice-roller. As luck would have it, your perfect game ALREADY EXISTS! It's called Tabletop Role-Playing... go enjoy it, and leave the computer gaming to those of us who sometimes prefer more visual and visceral forms of entertainment.

It's people like you who were decrying the film industry fifty years ago, complaining that making movies was a waste of time and talent diverting peoples' creative attentions away from an infinitely superior form of entertainment (where you really had to use your imagination) - books. Yet now, miraculously, the two coexist in harmony and people are free to choose whichever they prefer (or both, or neither).

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Greek_Matt

Originally posted by kujii

If you recall when Warcraft came out, it was pretty much impossible to move in the major cities because of the graphics issues.   Also, Wow had a patch at least every week for months/years. 

Heh, been so long I'd almost forgotten the painful lagfest that was Ironforge c.2006.

No, people with very weak computers had severe lag issues in Ironforge.  Mine was in the higher end back in the day and I rarely had problems.  Sure, it lagged a bit...but nothing that ever effected gameplay, or kept me from going there. (unlike the Jita system in EVE)

But yes, they did issue a patch a week, and there were many issues during those first 6 months...which has been true of any game I've played.... so no big deal.  AOC will probably be no different.

 

Originally posted by kujii

If you recall when Warcraft came out, it was pretty much impossible to move in the major cities because of the graphics issues.   Also, Wow had a patch at least every week for months/years. 

Originally posted by DeadDingo

Originally posted by Greek_Matt

Originally posted by grizzletooth

If I understand correctly crafting is in the game but can't craft till after level 20 and you can't get past 13 in ob so there you have it its stupid.

'cept that from May 10th they're opening up the full game in the open Beta, not just Tortage (and with no more level cap). So those with the inclination can find out for themselves.

yes, they can find out IN A PVP GANKFEST.

Who do you think will actually survive long enough to make it to higher levels and truly being to explore and craft?

Um.... nobody?!?

'nuff said.

I'm sure I've droned on far too much here already, just wanted to quickly add a reference to THIS THREAD, which seems to suggest that my faith in the abilities of the Funcom devs to fix the performance issues of Conan was not entirely misplaced.

/relief

Originally posted by grizzletooth

If I understand correctly crafting is in the game but can't craft till after level 20 and you can't get past 13 in ob so there you have it its stupid.

'cept that from May 10th they're opening up the full game in the open Beta, not just Tortage (and with no more level cap). So those with the inclination can find out for themselves.

Originally posted by etomai

 

 

Originally posted by Greek_Matt

Fact is most people would agree games today are a lot more varied and visually exciting than they were twenty years ago. Imagine the doldrums we'd be stuck in today if developers back then had listened to all the ranting Luddites and frozen computer games tech requirements at 1987 levels?

Who are these ranting Luddites and why are you so concerned about them?  It's certainly not the OP, nor excellent responses to your posts by elvenangel and mmonkeyboy (post #99) that you may have missed.

I admit that I have neither the time nor the inclination to reply to every post which has replied to one of mine... I'd hoped that my general position would become clear through the posts I had made, and would rather not reiterate or restate things if I can avoid it. Also haven't read every post on this thread in detail, so yes perhaps I've missed some valid points. You seem to have summarized them nicely here, so I'll save myself some time and just reply to yours. The particular ranting Luddite I referred to was Boneserino, who claimed to speak for the 'silent majority' of old PC owners. Also to a lesser extent Gishgeron, who argued that high graphic demands had ruined his genre (MMO gaming).

Also, for the most part my arguments have been concerned more with the concept that high tech demands have no business in the MMO genre in general rather than debating the particular merits of AoC specifically, since until release it's difficult to gauge for sure exactly how successfully they'll hit their target.

 

 

The sane point of this thread is questioning a business decision made by Funcom, and it's a very good point.  For whatever reason, they have ended up targeting the traditional FPS PC gaming market who are accustomed to regular hardware upgrades.  In every other PC gaming market I can think of, companies (often Blizzard, for better or worse) have succeeded by dialing down system specs. 

Not quite. I believe Funcom have correctly perceived that many (MMO)RPG players have grown tired of playing games where everything is completely determined for you by behind-the-scenes dice rolls, to the point where you don't really have to dedicate much of your attention towards playing the game (which seems to defeat the purpose of playing in the first place). They are certainly not the first to introduce a more action-oriented gameplay style to a RPG, but this certainly doesn't amount to a move towards FPS gaming. It's still firmly a RPG-style game in many senses, albeit one that requires your complete concentration and a little hand-eye coordination. And really, when was the last time you saw a significant part of the playerbase truly "roleplaying" in any of the MMORPGs currently on the market?

As for FPS players being the only ones who need/choose to upgrade their PCs at least every couple of years (which is the time frame we're talking about here, since AoC runs fine on a 2yr old computer), I don't believe this is the case at all. Take a look at the RTS, RPG, driving, adventure and even sim games that have released in the last year - think you'd find in most cases if your rig is more than 2 years old, you'll be dialing down the settings significantly to get playable performance. Unless Flash games are your bag, of course.

 

 

Funcom's apparent strategy raises at least 3 legitimate concerns.  First that a large number of potential customers won't buy the game because of real or imagined hardware barriers. Second that MMOs are already a technical nightmare without adding higher code complexity and content requirements.  Third that many FPS gamers find MMORPGs boring, unskilled and beneath them, further reducing their potential stake in a highly competitive market.

1. I'm not so sure that's true at all - I think you've seriously underestimated the interest in AoC (don't let the users on MMORPG.com be your only benchmark). I think a huge number of people will at least try the retail edition of Conan, either by buying a copy themselves or using one of the many tens of thousands of buddy keys that will be floating around out there (5 keys per preorder copy wasn't it?). Whether they choose to subscribe themselves is another story, but again that won't only be due to performance issues. The game was never going to have the low-maintenance mass appeal of WoW, Funcom have stated this from the outset (and indeed have deliberately attempted to limit their potential market to the 18+ age group). I'm inclined to think that more than a few people will be pleasantly surprised with their computer's ability to pay this game, if (and I know it's a BIG if) Funcom manage to iron out the bigger engine-based issues (chunking, crashing etc).

2. That's true enough, and indeed it's the reason for the performance issues that exist in the Beta at the moment. But just because something seems difficult or over-complicated, doesn't mean it can't be done. Funcom have set themselves an ambitious target and have gambled heavily that they will overcome it. We'll have to wait to see if they succeed, but it's certainly possibly and in general I'd say adopting a defeatist attitude never helped progress in any field.

3. As in 1. above, I don't think Funcom are pitching at FPS gamers at all. I think they'll find a comfortable and reasonably sized market within the sick-of-current-MMO/RPG-gameplay-<2yr old-system-owner-low-fantasy-fan user base. Certainly not universal, but then it was never trying to be "E for Everyone". Also don't forget that this game will also (eventually) be releasing on XBox - unless they completely screw up their programming, this should be a far simpler platform to code for and thus will render the "only rich gamers with high-end rigs can play this game" argument meaningless.

 

I'm inclined to agree with mmonkeyboy that the most likely reason for this strategy is that either Funcom misjudged where the tech would be at or they misjudged their ability to create an engine with reasonable specs.  Perhaps Funcom decided to risk going down in a blaze of glory for the sake of their art.  Seems unlikely, but perhaps.

That is an interesting thing to discuss, not because the world is ending or art is dying or Funcom should be morally condemned, but because the business of development is interesting.  If Funcom screwed up, that will be interesting.  If all that hype was for a niche game, that will be interesting.  If someone decided that pushing the creative envelope was more important than feeding their employee's families, that will be interesting.

I have to agree with you that Funcom probably did misjudge where we'd be as PC owners in 2008, but not by much (though indeed if they'd released in 2007 as they'd originally planned then they would have been that much further off the mark, it's true). In doing so they've created problems for themselves, but I don't think these problems are insurmountable by any means. World of Warcraft played it incredibly safe when they engineered their MMO engine, and its subsequent colossal success has if anything been a blow to what could have been a much more progressive and experimental genre of gaming. Investors (who are not gamers and only care about the bottom line) have seen the numbers and dream of similar glory, so they put a lot of pressure on developers to compromise their creative concepts in favour of mass appeal.

Sure Funcom isn't revolutionising the genre, but they are trying to make a couple of significant changes (combat interactivity and graphics/art direction) in an effort to make their product more immersive and ultimately successful. To say that they shouldn't be trying to do this feels pretty narrow-minded to me, and the fact that it's certainly not going to be the failure Vanguard was means that even if it isn't a staggering success it will still do well enough to hopefully encourage a little more much-needed lateral thinking and boundary-pushing in this godforsaken industry.

Originally posted by Ngeldu5t

 

Originally posted by Greek_Matt

Originally posted by Ngeldu5t

Originally posted by Greek_Matt

Originally posted by Boneserino

 

Originally posted by Greek_Matt

Originally posted by Elsabolts

Brad McQuid thought the same thing as you stated in the above.

So does every other progressive software developer in the world. Just because McQuaid screwed the pooch doesn't mean software should stop trying to push the boundaries of technology and, in the case of MMO's, future-proof itself against rising expectations in the future. It's hard enough as it is for a 2-year-old MMO to maintain current and attract new subscribers, without it looking like it has 5-year-old graphics.

The only reason you care about  "5 year old graphics" whatever that is, is because you boys want to say hey look at me, I can run AoC on high settings and get 60 FPS!  My PC rocks!

 

 The majority of us regular guys with with our ancient PC's just want to play games.  five year old graphics were good enough for me then and they are good enough for me now.  I have nothing against  people who want to have the latest technology.  But your argument that MMO's should have cutting edge graphics falls flat because they are meant to attract large volumes of players in order to be economical.  How many people are willing to go out and spend hundreds of dollars more in upgrades just to play a game and then do it all over again when the next one comes out?  Not as many as you think I bet. Not anymore because they see graphics almost as good on their consoles at a fraction of the cost of PC gaming and without  90% of the bugs that plague PC games these days.

 And how much better do the graphics in a "game" have to be before you people are happy?  Sure immersion is a good thing, but its a game, on a PC.  Use your imagination a little bit and just enjoy the game.   After the first initial oohs and aahs of playing a new game with nice graphics you quickly forget about them and concentrate on the game itself.

Its the game I want to play not the graphics!  Without the game graphics are just pretty pictures.

Anyway I hope the beta issues get worked out and the game succeeds to some degree.  If many more MMO's continue to die quick deaths, we could see a lot fewer companies willing to spend the big bucks on development.  That would be a shame.

That's all well and good for people who have chosen the time period they're comfortable with and intend to live the rest of their lives in. You see them in the street all the time, with their seventies haircuts and their disregard for contemporary clothing (and hygiene) tastes. For those of us who prefer to move with the times and see what new things the world has to offer, sentiments like "five year old graphics were good enough for me then and they are good enough for me now" (your words) seem anachronistic to the point of ludicrous, a parody of something someone's grandparents might once have said.

And no, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the size of my 3P33N (my own system is well due for an upgrade) and everything to do with taking pleasure in seeing something new and beautiful rather than wallowing in the same ol' same ol'.

Do you have the latest Ferarri or Mc laren? do you have the latest Bob carver Signature amplifier,are you buying the Red Cinema digital camera which will be available? if the answer is no...assuming that you know what these products are,then you are living in the past man its time to be back to the future

No I don't own these things. But neither do I get angry or resentful that they exist or are being developed. Unlike you, I don't expect progress to grind to a halt just because I can't afford to keep up with the latest technology. I spend money on what I enjoy, I update my gear as and when I can, and I manage to get through my life without whining that things are shitty just because I can't experience the best that's currently on offer in the world.

I'm not resentful  or angry and I do own 2 Bob carver signature amplifiers, why I asked you that is because you want people playing games to upgrade their gear as you,different person different priorities but both are potential customers for any company.That's what everyone here are talking about, FC took a route which will reduce it`s playerbase because its target is high end (gear) customers and if they miss their number of subs to be profitable now they might end up like vanguard with a small niche market.

 

Like I said in another thread Blizzard open the market to a wider playerbase people who has never played EQ,AC or DAoC who could believed that an mmo would have a 10 Million playerbase and these people are looking for another game to play as WoW is on its 4 years life cycle and starting to fade from its supreme jewel status.

So telling people that they are living in the past is not a good way to make your point.

 

1. I never said that I want people to upgrade their equipment to play games, I'm saying that just like everything else if people want to continue to enjoy the latest and greatest that technology has to offer then they have to upgrade. Just like with HD TV, mobile phones, cars with power steering, whatever. Or if they'd rather not (or can't afford to) pay for newer things, there's nothing forcing them to do so.

2. I keep hearing the same tired old argument over and over again: "WoW is a success because it's so universally playable on old equipment, so it follows logically that all games should be equally primitive since they're obviously trying to achieve the same level of success." Believe it or not, not every studio is seeking to recreate World of Warcraft, and even if they did they would fail, since that ship has long since sailed. WoW was an aberration whose success is due to a large number of quite different factors I can't be bothered listing. Its universal tech accessibility is just one of these, and one that many argue is as much a weakness as a strength. Games like Habbo Hotel are even more accessible, even more simplistic, and even more hugely universally played than WoW, but does this make them better? Should every studio be trying to create the next big Habbo-Hotel-Killer? Ridiculous, isn't it?

3. Congratulations on your Bob whatever amplifiers, I'm sure they bring you happiness and make you very proud. Thanks for letting us all know about them.

Game developers are (for the most part) creative people who are trying to make something new and fun as well as economically successful. Funcom have staked their flag in the ground and created a game that taxes your system but is still quite playable on a 2 year old system (like mine is)... assuming they iron out all the crashes, of course. For the record, it plays a lot more smoothly than Vanguard did and is graphically far superior (*in my opinion). I think you'd be lucky to find any new release this year in any PC gaming genre outside puzzle games that is playable to a satisfactory level on these clunky 5yr old WoW junkers people keep going on and on about.

Fact is most people would agree games today are a lot more varied and visually exciting than they were twenty years ago. Imagine the doldrums we'd be stuck in today if developers back then had listened to all the ranting Luddites and frozen computer games tech requirements at 1987 levels?

Originally posted by Ngeldu5t

Originally posted by Greek_Matt

Originally posted by Boneserino

 

Originally posted by Greek_Matt

Originally posted by Elsabolts

Brad McQuid thought the same thing as you stated in the above.

So does every other progressive software developer in the world. Just because McQuaid screwed the pooch doesn't mean software should stop trying to push the boundaries of technology and, in the case of MMO's, future-proof itself against rising expectations in the future. It's hard enough as it is for a 2-year-old MMO to maintain current and attract new subscribers, without it looking like it has 5-year-old graphics.

The only reason you care about  "5 year old graphics" whatever that is, is because you boys want to say hey look at me, I can run AoC on high settings and get 60 FPS!  My PC rocks!

 

 The majority of us regular guys with with our ancient PC's just want to play games.  five year old graphics were good enough for me then and they are good enough for me now.  I have nothing against  people who want to have the latest technology.  But your argument that MMO's should have cutting edge graphics falls flat because they are meant to attract large volumes of players in order to be economical.  How many people are willing to go out and spend hundreds of dollars more in upgrades just to play a game and then do it all over again when the next one comes out?  Not as many as you think I bet. Not anymore because they see graphics almost as good on their consoles at a fraction of the cost of PC gaming and without  90% of the bugs that plague PC games these days.

 And how much better do the graphics in a "game" have to be before you people are happy?  Sure immersion is a good thing, but its a game, on a PC.  Use your imagination a little bit and just enjoy the game.   After the first initial oohs and aahs of playing a new game with nice graphics you quickly forget about them and concentrate on the game itself.

Its the game I want to play not the graphics!  Without the game graphics are just pretty pictures.

Anyway I hope the beta issues get worked out and the game succeeds to some degree.  If many more MMO's continue to die quick deaths, we could see a lot fewer companies willing to spend the big bucks on development.  That would be a shame.

That's all well and good for people who have chosen the time period they're comfortable with and intend to live the rest of their lives in. You see them in the street all the time, with their seventies haircuts and their disregard for contemporary clothing (and hygiene) tastes. For those of us who prefer to move with the times and see what new things the world has to offer, sentiments like "five year old graphics were good enough for me then and they are good enough for me now" (your words) seem anachronistic to the point of ludicrous, a parody of something someone's grandparents might once have said.

And no, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the size of my 3P33N (my own system is well due for an upgrade) and everything to do with taking pleasure in seeing something new and beautiful rather than wallowing in the same ol' same ol'.

Do you have the latest Ferarri or Mc laren? do you have the latest Bob carver Signature amplifier,are you buying the Red Cinema digital camera which will be available? if the answer is no...assuming that you know what these products are,then you are living in the past man its time to be back to the future

No I don't own these things. But neither do I get angry or resentful that they exist or are being developed. Unlike you, I don't expect progress to grind to a halt just because I can't afford to keep up with the latest technology. I spend money on what I enjoy, I update my gear as and when I can, and I manage to get through my life without whining that things are shitty just because I can't experience the best that's currently on offer in the world.

Originally posted by TheFirst109

Originally posted by gamerman98

 

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Originally posted by Kokushibyou

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Originally posted by Greek_Matt

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Originally posted by Gishgeron

 

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Originally posted by Greek_Matt

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And no, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the size of my 3P33N (my own system is well due for an upgrade) and everything to do with taking pleasure in seeing something new and beautiful rather than wallowing in the same ol' same ol'.

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I would much rather the game play be moved forward BEFORE the graphics. The truth here is, all you are getting is a reskin of 'the same ol same ol' instead of something new and beautiful. IT sounds to me like you would find more entertainment from the pure art industry. That industry is founded around 'new' and 'pretty'. Gaming markets are based around gameplay and the entertainment therein. Instead, because of people like YOU, these smacktard developers have been wasting YEARS of progressive development time focusing on pretty instead of advancing the actual gameplay.
So, the REAL fans of this market are suffering because you art nuts only care about how nicely the boobies look on screen. This and this alone is the entire reason the console market has had the success it has. The hardware is limited graphically, so the teams working on those games have to put more stock in gameplay to win over its audience. Thanks, you've ruined my gaming medium. I suppose I'll just have to move to the xbox like everyone else that wants a decent game to play and leave the PC gaming to people like YOU who only wanna see something with bloom.

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Wow, I musta touched a nerve! Heh heh thanks, that actually made me laugh out loud... imagining myself with a beret and monocle poring lovi