All Posts by Scriar

Yeah loading screens are really getting annoying. I just had a quest that said go out side to this guy, loading screen, talk to guy, go back, loading screen, go back out side, loading screen, now go here, loading screen, and here, loading screen and so on, was a quest in tortage can not even remember the name of it because of how much running around and loading it was doing I just wanted to finish the damn thing.

It is a good thing they are only 30 seconds at the longest so far most seem to take 15-20 seconds, seems to be slightly quicker if you have been to the area before as well.

Btw my dad is playing this game perfectly fine apart from the crashes everyone is experiencing at the moment, on a geforce 6200, 1 gig of ram, 3.0 single core pentium 4 proccessor average of 15 FPS in Tortage with upwards of 20 people around, which means you notice a bit of stuttering(A game needs to run at 24 frames per second before you see it as smooth) but it is very playable.

Apparently they are adding a content patch soon that will add more end game content. Such as 3 sets of armour per class to collect, better itemisation, and more quests.

Right now there probably is not any due to the fact that the average gamer is more than likely not even half way to 80 so it is better to prioritize the bug fixes, crashes etc first rather than worry about the very small minority that is level 80 after just a week.

I am not defending the game btw, the amount of bugs, crashes, and loading screens is really pissing me off at the moment, the game seems to have a lot of potential ( from the small gaming sessions I have before it crashes lol)  but it is hard to experience it with the amount of problems it has(majority have nothing to do with technical problems, but hopefully they will be fixed such as the poor UI for example, and lack of bag space).

They are deffinatly client errors btw because others on the technical forum are reporting the same things with better rigs than mine. Such as a memory crash that keeps happening, which I was hopping would be fixed when I upgrade my computer tomorrow, but I just read a 9 page thread with people complaining about the same problem and they have much better computers.

Oh, and since you played to 80 and it kept you occupied until then, then it probably was not a total waste of money.

I don't think it is september as they have not even announced who their publisher is, plus this marketing has not started yet as far as I can see so september seems a bit soon.

I am pretty sure the game will be comming out around late october early november. It seems like they are aiming for a Q4 release which also means theyll be in direct competion with Warhammer online, although I think it is a different type of person looking forward to warhammer.

Originally posted by daylight01

I agree with most of your post m8 but if AoC releases without too many bugs etc,I think they will have alot more than 50-80k of dedicated fans.

Yeah I was amazingly wrong at how many they would have lol

It is 400k after just 3 days of being out. I think this will be a good thing for TCOS to be honest, since Age of Conan is quite a bit differnet but still familar to MMO gamers perhaps this will make them more accepting of new mmos when they come out like TCOS, especially since TCOS is large step above Age of Conans semi real time combat.

The official staff for as you call them for the Darkfall forums are all fans of the game. They only got made community representatives because they are the most avid of the fanboys/girls. They know no more than the average forum goer, and to be honest they act no better considering they are meant to be the ones that set an example.

Btw my response as I posted on their site is that I wish it was Darkfall but it is incredibly unlikely. And the reason it is unlikely is no one takes Darkfall seriously anymore. The only real media outlet that Darkfall has on their side is Warcry and even that is now up in the air since apparently their contact at warcry left. The last site out side of Darkfall that has a large community of Darkfall fans is this site, when was the last time they updated their news section? july last year I believe.

Personally I think it is either an article on the new Bioware MMO, or another non-mmo game that has not been annouced yet. It is not Diablo 3 or the new Blizzard MMO as has been confirmed already.

Its a shame they are playing it safe and going with a MMORPG. Would of loved to have a MMORTS, or an MMOFPS. Hopefully Stargate Worlds will do well, because it will be a evolution of Tabula Rasa's type of combat system, maybe theyll learn something from it to make it a better game. (Since I am assuming it is along the Tabula rasa more RPG like combat)

Anyway Ill wait and see, I can not remeber a Warhammer 40k game that I have not enjoyed of course they were all made by Relic and were RTS games. The only problem I can really see with this game is if it is to similar to Warhammer online: age of whatever. Or if they be really lazy and make a WoW clone in post apocalitpic setting ><

No mmos should not be ported to consoles if they were designed for the PC first, and then adapted for the console like for instance Age of Conan is being.

If you are going to make an mmo for the console you should make it for the console only and not give it to PC users. As a PC will always have a different type of gamer using them. PC games tend to be more complicated, and be a different design to accomadate PC gamers who tend to want more in their games.

We really do not need games designed for PC being dumbed down so console gamers can play them. I am sure there are quite a lot of console gamers that are not so stupid that even WoW is complicated for them, but the developers of console games seem to have different ideas. For instance Morrowind comes to mind as a PC game that was dumbed down in its sequal to accomodate console users as a whole.

The control scheme is not a problem for consoles. If keyboard was really needed for say an XBOX mmo, then Microsoft would make a keyboard for the XBOX. There are a lot of games that can be easily adapted to the consoles controllers, and the only benifit a PC has over them is the varied methods of communication. A console would be stuck with a VOIP software.

WoW could be used with an Xbox controller, similar to the way macros work you can have the buttons on a console react differently when they are pressed multiple times. Or like Conan if you have a combo system, that can easily be adapted to both PC and Console controllers.

The only real issue with PC to Console ports is developers always without fail dumbing down or limiting the game to accommade console users or the console hardware in general which is why Console ports to PC and PC ports to console are always crap games, or dumbed down to the point they are worse than the orginal version.

Originally posted by Delanor

 

Originally posted by Scriar

This game has similar requirements to WoW apparently, and they already tested 1 starting area with 200 people in, 

 

500 people actually, all heavily in combat, which is not just good news for the need of instancing zones, but also for the future shard conquest.

BTW, thanks for clarifying the point why Spellborn will be nothing like AoC in this respect. Apparently I do not realise enough that people in general do not know these things.

Ahh even less reason to worry then about instancing then, I did not realise it was that high a number, this was one of the starting areas if I remember right, which I would assume would mean it is also one of the smaller zones.

500 people in a zone all fighting heavily with a real time combat system probably means that this games servers can take a lot of stress.

It sounds like the only real reason then they would instance a zone is the example given in the previous link where the starting area is small so it is unlikely to provide a good gaming experience for a large amount of players.

They have already confirmed non instanced dungeons as well, which I forgot to mention in my post. I think instancing will be well used in this game to the point it does not take away from anything significant or in the case of instanced dungeons if you really do not like them theyll provide you with alternatives.

Ill just wait and see for the instance aspects of this game, but right now it does not really sound like anything that would annoy me to no end ;)

Technically I still play WoW, but its more logging in and using it as a chat room for my guild than anything. I do a few dailies on my characters level an alt. Think in the last 2 weeks I have probably played like 4 hours of it lol

I am waiting for TCOS or Jumpgate evolution at the moment. Also would like to try mythos no idea why since clicking non stop sounds annoying as hell, but for some reason it also sounds like an addictive game. And its free so does not give me a headache if I buy it and it turns out to be crap ;)

Age of Conan creates an instance of the zone after 50 people are in it apparently, also due to the graphics it has to have a instance for everything like going into a building and the reason that the max you will ever see in that game is 48 verses 48 battles is again the graphics.

This game has similar requirements to WoW apparently, and they already tested 1 starting area with 200 people in, remember this is a proper real time combat game not turn based. It is very unlikely that apart from perhaps when a new realm is opened or when everyone first buys the game on launch that you will see more than 200 people in an area.

This game will only create instances after 200 minimum to a maximum of 2000 people are in a zone, and only for specific zones that are not big enough to handle large amounts of players.  Very few games even get near 200 in a zone, let alone 2000. Even WoW never has that many people in one area at any one time, I believe the limit for each server is 4000-5000 people.

In world of warcraft the only time I can think I saw atleast 800 people in one zone, is when we opened the anquir'jera instance or however its spelt in Silithus. And the server lasted a graned total of 20 minutes before it crashed for 8 hours lol

I really doubt this game will feel like Age of Conan, most likely this game will get a small to medium sized population say 60k to 100k players due to it being so different to what has been done before plus face it there is very little media buzz about this game or hype. If each universe i.e realm has around 4k-5k players like most mmos do.

Then you will probably never see more than 150-200 people in a zone on average, im going on the basis of a full realm from WoW since it would be the best example for population amounts on a server in a single area.

I think apart from launch most will be spread out throughout the world to the point where creating a instance of a zone is not needed. And even if its a breakaway hit, I believe they have already stated 4000k-5000k max per server similar to other games, as other mmos have shown everyone plays at different times, it is unlikelty the world will feel empty or that it would get full enough to for the need to have to create a zone.

As for instancing, theres instances for dungeons, for ports, and for specific quests. I.E apart from the instanced single player quests and the ports it would be exactly like WoW which is probably why they said a lot of instances because there is a lot of instances in WoW except it is still a persistent game.

I really think people are worrying to much about instancing, and this is comming from someone who hates over instancing (you only need to look at my post history here and on spellborns forums to see that). The immerision or mmo feel would be lost in my opinion if we went in game and saw no more than an average guild size running around due to the amount of instances ala AoC.

200 people though as a minimum and 2k maximum for larger zones is more than enough, and it is unlikely that you would have the problem of logging into the world and not seeing your m8s. And even if you did you could just switch instances.

To address the problem of people not knowing how to do that, how hard would it be for spellborn inc to include it in a tutorial at the start of the game. A bit like the pop up tips that appear when you first start most mmos.

edit: btwI am comparing to WoW since more people are likely to have played it and therefore understand a comparison to that game rather than Everquest 2 ;p

As long as The Chronicles of Spellborn and Jumpgate Evolution turn out to be good games that have healthy communities I do not really care what the next big game is ;p Im assuming by next great game you meant the next market leader for mmos.

WoW will still be the number one subscription based mmo at the end of this year, and most likely when they release WOTLK they will get new players, retain old ones, and perhaps bring back some who left. I really doubt any game will become the new market leader any time soon.

I am not really looking forward to it, but Aion could easily give WoW a run for its money (In terms of subscribers) if it laches on to the korean/chinease market that it seems to be appealing to.

The only way any mmo will become the market leader is if Blizzard drastically changes WoW to the point they lose 3/4 of their subscribers. Which is entirely possible, just need to ask SOE ;p

Edit: btw I would not class Age of Conan as an mmo at this point, 50 people or so maximum in a zone before an instance is made of that zone, and a maximum of 98 people in siege does not make your game an mmo, just a multiplayer online game. Im not saying that it is not a good game, it probably is or will be in a few months. But I think that if a game has less that 300 people minimum in a zone it is not an mmo at all.

Atleast when Arena Net made Guild Wars at no point did they claim that it was an MMO and as such they did not charge monthly for it. Btw did someone say earlier in the thread that star craft 2 was an mmo lol

The ratings on this site really mean nothing, no one takes them seriously. 1 person and his alt accounts is all it takes for a rating to suddenly improve.

I have not noticed any messages being deleted and I have not been banned for saying negative things about age of conan, nor have others that I have seen posting negativly about the game. Age of Conans forums is very active to the point where posts disappear to the next couple of pages very quickly.

The adds on this site are most likely because Funcom, like Turbine, CCP, Blizzard, SOE, etc before it have payed for advertisments to be put on their site. Yet they contenue to do news, previews etc on other games even when there are advertisements for say LOTRO covering the entire site.

As someone suggested it is probably best to take off the tin foil hat.

I admit my interest has sort of gone up for this game. It was always there just went down as they removed features and I heard lots of negative comments about the game. Also the extra costs they sneaked in their and lastly the community does not leave a lot to be desired.

It helps the OP seems to like the same types of games as me judging by his post history. The instancing and how well the game is optimised for different hardware is my biggest concern so I will wait a bit  before I go out and buy the game and most likely a new graphics card since mine is starting to show its age.

Also this game appears to gone through a miracle patch which I find hard to believe so I think I will wait for official reviews and the actual release of the game. Before I spend around 80 pounds effectivly just to play it.

Originally posted by ShinDaiShi

 

Originally posted by WiccanCircle

 

Originally posted by Czzarre

To those who like FFA, no rules, no regrets...this is it.

This is why PvP always fails in MMO games.  If there are rules the kids cry; if there are no rules, same.

 

It never works.  Because societies fail under chaos.  MMOs are mini civilizations and require at least some rudimentary laws.  There isn't any way to do this... so all the gaming companies can do it try for the rediculous pipe-dream of balance through nerfing.

What ends up happening is that the 90% of the people playing the game stay away from PvP yet get beaten to death with nerfs that have nothing to do with their game mechanics.

 

This will never be solved as long as there is the console monkey / single player immortality / infinite lives design methodology.  When you can just respawn no matter what, why should it matter if you happen to die, or become KOS everywhere in the game.

 

Until MMOs start to have perma-death, there will always be this mindless mentality to PvP.  When a character can die for real, then players will start to treat their characters like their lives mean something.  Only then can real meaningful PvP with objectives that make sense be developed.

It is more likely that with the gamers today that no one would play the game, at least not enough to keep it afloat if it was permadeath.

If there is full loot (although I do not think full loot would actually work in this game, from what I understand gear is importent in this game so it would not make sense to be able to lose it so easily).

Or if items could get destroyed after losing to much durability from death either from PvE or PvP people would be much more careful. The PvP and I would suspect the PvE content as well, would fill that much more enjoyable if you are risking more than just your time doing it.

It would also have the effect of making the player economy more meaningful since people would be mass making popular crafting sets for other players to use.

The only downside I can really see from durability and items being destroyed is pick up groups being rare, as I would expect most would want to stick to guild runs to avoid needlessly dying.

Btw FFA PvP is not lazy development. You need a lot of systems in place to make it work, like a player driven economy, some kind of risk involved in dying, a reason to fight each such as territory to hold. FFA PvP is hard to design not easy, because it is unpredictable, it deffinatly is not lazy development.

To be more on topic, bare in mind I have not played the game yet as I still am waiting on official reviews and a trial to come out. I think that the problem with zone killing can be solved with a 10 second invulnerability that you can lose if you attack. This would give people enough time to see if there are people trying to camp, to get ready to fight, to run away, or to wait for the rest of your group/friends load in.

The instance warping, ( did not know they had that) can easily be solved by not allowing transporting, or any other method of instant traveling whislt in combat. To be honest this command console thing sounds like something that will be removed come release and is just there so that the people on the early access can quickly get around to see the content.

For the cutscenes, they could easily make it so that you are invulnerble whilst a cut scene is playing. It is strange that these problems exist they are obvious flaws that you would think funcom would of foreseen and easily fixed. Theres only 3 days or so till release so it is probably something they can easily fix in that time, it seems like a basic problem.

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by Scriar

 

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by Scriar

Than why did you say "Just like Burning Crusade"?  No, you WERE talking about BC but then I called you out on it and now you're back pedaling...in HIGH GEAR!!!

Of course they do, but you're trying to imply the ONLY way that anyone would want to buy the expansion is if the Death Knight is overpowered.  Actually I don't think anyone including Blizzard wants to see that.  You're whole argument is flawed.

OMG now who's talking about rehashing the ENTIRE FRIGGIN' GAME now?  Are you even listening to what you are saying?  In one sentence you're complaining they are rehashing stuff and the next you want them to rehash everything.  You don't know what you want.

Wait a minute, you DON'T play anymore?  Why not?  You couldn't have possibly gone thru the content because the game has been out for less than a year and it has almost as much content as WoW.  Golly gee it's great that you keep up with the game by reviewing the patch notes on it.  Exactly how much fun are the patch notes?  I may want to check them out myself. 

I'll be honest, I don't know jack when it comes to EVE because I don't play it.  I don't play it because I don't like it.  I like to stick to talking about things that I know.  I'm glad that CCP has over hauled their whole game, but honestly that doesn't impress me much because their lack of subscriptions seems to indicate that not many enjoyed the game the way it was in the first place.  WoW doesn't need to overhaul their whole game, it's fine the way it is.

You first.  Give me some facts to dispute and I'll do my best.

It is still not the exact same thing because you can only do a daily quest once a day.  You can repeat a repeatable quest as many times as you want in a day.  I realize I'm splitting hairs, but so are you.  The fact is they introduced a new feature to the game that had not been in the game prior to that time.  And what's more the whole purpose of them was to give people a way to make the money needed so they wouldn't feel like they needed to go outside the game to get money and it's worked.  Blizzard provided a potential solution to what was a problem for some people.  I don't see anything wrong with that.

I don't get why people bash it so much.  It's been going strong for 3+ years (not 4 by the way), it blows away all the competition in numbers of subscriptions and yes I realize that doesn't mean it's a good game, but even you yourself played it for a long time and have admitted it's a good game.  You've gotten your money's worth out of it.  If you are tired of the game, fine, walk away, I have no problem with that, but why come back here and bash the game that you have had your share of fun with?  Let someone else have the opportunity to enjoy the game the way you did.  When they get tired of the game, then they will leave too, they don't need you to tell them to walk away when they get bored.

I have not implied anything about people only buying the expansion just because of a class being over powered, I clearly said it was one of the incentives they would add to encourage people to buy the expansion not all people some like the flavor of the month rerollers for one.

How is remaking all of the old zones for players to level in with new gear and new quests rehashing? it is improving old content to bring it in line with the new leveling content just like dustwallow. Updating older content is not rehashing content is it? it is improving what is already there so you can hardly bash those parts of the game and claim rehashing.

And I know what I want thanks, you do not seem to be able to read clearly because I have clearly just said I want them to improve the leveling content by improving itemisation, and quest placement that is not adding new content it is changing stat placements around and changing locations of quests so they flow better.

I said I do not play LOTRO any more to show I am not a fanboy of the game, and yes I do read about the new books to see if anything is being added to make me want to give the game another chance.

Anyway, what does any of that have to do with Blizzard not releasing content to the same degree despite being A) richer and B) a larger team and C) having spent 2 years as opposed to 3 months to do the same amount of content that is not new in anyway.

About EvE it has 200k subscribers, that is not a failure it is successful game that gets by aiming at a very small niche of the mmo industry, it is not meant to attract millions of gamers not everyone likes ffa PvP or full loot game and they know that it is not for everyone, it is targeting the people that do not have a game like that to go to.

They over hauled the graphics, not the actual gameplay as far as I know, and I could not get into it either, I meerly sight EvE as an example because it is a huge game, with a very small team, and no where near as many subscribers as WoW yet they seem to add all of this content for FREE even though the content they are adding is arguably worth of the expansion pack price tag.

Again with your comment about showing facts, I have already said anyone that has been playing this game since launch can see that they rehash content. I have played this game from release, why they do I need to prove what goes on with the game when theres 9.999999 other players who have experienced it as well?

Can you not see all the rehashed content they add non stop? Alot of people on WoWs forums, here, and on articles preview the game are complain they are doing very little that is different. So we are all making this up now? we are just imagining the past 3 years of content miraculously reapearing over and over again?

I do not need to proove anything nor does anyone else that has played this game, the fact is they are rehashing content far to much, and they have the nerve to charge us for it. If you do not think they rehash content then you should provide proof of why it is different, I have noted a few reasons why it looks the same, why the core mechanics are the same etc and I am not typing them all again.

I agree I am splitting hairs with daily quests, I think they were a good adition to the game, but they are hardly a feature they should expect you to pay for. I was trying to illustrate that the game mechanics for them are the same as a basic quest, so them adding more content that is similar in the expansion is not hard, and therefore begs the question do they really need to be charging us for this?

The game has been out since 2004, thats 4 years now. I am not bashing the game to drive away players I would recommend anyone play this game as the journey to max level has always been WoWs strong point and many proffestional reviewers agree with this point, also I think the classes are all unique and provide different experiences I have 6 70s so I think I am not biased to say that all the classes are unique although quite a few are not balanced very well.

It is mostly the end game I have a problem with, and mostly because we end up spending a lot of time in this content yet it never improves, the new areas look far to familiar and the textures are always the same. This game has always had terrible cartoony graphics, the least they can do to help people stomach them is change the damn textures they certainly spend enough time developing content to do it.

I still play WoW by the way if that is not obvious already, so I am not comming here to just bash the game, I am discussing perhaps a bit to agressivly the games content barely changing, and that I think that this is due to them feeling safe with rehashing content, and get away with charging for it. If they add something to the expansion like for instance how burning crusade drastically improved leveling, then I would buy it because the work put into it justifies it, but right now it is more of the same and if you read the previews of WOTLK and the Q and As with developers it looks like they will contenue these trends.

Lastly I have not told anyone to go anywhere, dont put words in peoples mouths. If someone likes this game good for them, the core mechanics of the game are enjoyable and as you said I played it for 4 years now so obviously there is enough in game to keep someone playing.

The problem is this game is probably peaked now, they should really be working to retain their current players, rehashing the same content over and over again has already been proven by games like Everquest for instance not to be a very good idea.

I think I and others have the right to complain/discuss content that is not improving we have played it for long enough. Or ways that we would like to see them change the game, as well as what we are willing to pay for. Obviously you and most likely others are content with playing a game that is very static and rarely changes, I however am not, and as has been shown countless times neither is any one else.

This game reminds me of EA and their sports games, they always release games that are exactly the same every year and they expect you to pay for it, and people do, so they keep doing it. Now apparently they are losing a lot of money on these areas because people want something new, they do not pay for this crap anymore. And this is exactly the problem Blizzard will have if they keep rehashing content over and over again.

I have played mmos for almost 9 years, this is a problem that many mmos have, so when I see the same thing slowly happen to a game I have enjoyed playing for the most part for 4 years on and off, of course I will get annoyed and voice my opinion, that is what a message board is for. If someone does not want to read my responses, or 'whines' then just ignore me?

Anyway this thread is quickly going off topic, so Ill stop posting, but I will not change my opinion on this games expansion and content updates untill such times as they proove me wrong, which unthoughtunatly they never seem to do.