Good luck with AOC,

but i must give out this advice in hopes to prepare you for the game for any issues you run into.

 if you are going to play the game solely on its story, for all sense and purposes, please , please, PLEASE stick to a pve server.

there is nothing worse than to actually take interest of the story, and have it interrupted countless times by other players looking for a easy kill, or having to rush quest dialogue (esspecially dialogue with speaking voice overs) to prevent being ganked, or prevent holding up a group that is watching your back SO you do not get ganked,  AOC story deserves to be read over if you do wish to pursue it.

if by chance the games story is not on your priority lists to appreciate, then by all means choose any server type you like and have fun.

Originally posted by eman_laerton

Id because your character did not look exactly like arnold shwarzenneger in this joke game. I was really looking forward to playing arnold shwarzenneger and what happens but I find out there is NO MENTION of arnold shwarzenneger in THE ENTIRE GAME!!!!!

WTF is up with THAT!!!!!>?>>>>>>> ????????????

I mean COME ON PEOPLE: everyone knows the conan the gayberry-en is all about arnold shwarzenneger worship and a game that does not depoct this is just hiding from the reality of all the players who play. They all worship arnold and want to be arnoldChange it. Change it to the right game and do it NAO!

 

I approve of this message

reason:

no Xfire numbers.

/thread

looking at all the nda questions/answers  and  in honesty i am abit concerned for SV to lift the NDA this early.

are anyone else questioning the nda life, or perhaps approve of it?

whats everyone else's input?

ill just cut and paste my reply , my stance remains the same.

""Why do these pompous f@(&s kill MMOS? Because it seems that some of these companies actually listen to them, not only this but they chase good folks out. Folks who also have hard earned money to spend on an MMO. Conan DDR finger mashing is a good example. Due to the numerous conversations I've had with players, I am convinved that as great as AOC has become, if they were to go with standard buttons for combos and get rid of the finger DDR"

Ya i was in that same conversation when they insulted you out of global for making that suggestion to get rid of AOC's DDR finger mashing.

Funcom Cant, Wont and it would not bring AOC back any further that they are now. Why?

Funcom Cant: the moment they get rid of their "DDR finger masher" design the people that stuck with them will leave to other mmos, what point would their be for AOC if it plays like any other mmo, and at that half of a mmo due to the majorities concern w/ aoc's limited content.

why bother with aoc then if it takes the same standard fighting you could find anywhere else? going that route, due to aocs condition only cheapens the game that much more.

Funcom Wont: getting rid of the "DDR finger mashing" design will do nothing more than add fuel to the fire for the failcom army (yes you guys are famous), the armchair analysts, and bloggers itching to earn their next i told you so trophy.

simply put, they advertised (and failed to deliver unfortunately) their combo system as a definitive feature -- and no matter how ill fated it is they are stuck with it, period. unfortunately, the system despite its flaws is still considered enjoyable and sought after strongly for one main purpose:

"to get away from point and click mmos"

Lastly, if funcom did get rid of the melee combo system (ddr finger mashing), we would have casters, playing a caster on aoc's is next to as standard as you can get for what you are asking for. the folks that you perhaps spoke to must be melee type fighters that wish to have the same luxury as a caster, no timing combos, no worring about checking stances, not worrying with the issues of stamina usage while sprinting and circle straffing, so on and so on -- it is a headache to some but a thrill to others.

Im gonna start over with my character, i feel like i have done so many things wrong,

gonna see to start off as a fleet character, and find some sort of spaceship called the York town

if anything that'll be my first personal mission.

Also tried (trying) the game out.

Im use to the graphics/movement etc. etc. , the games movement/pace reminds me of helbreath,

what i am not liking is the ghost town like atmosphere of the game,

i can understand if everyone else is outerspace, or on other ships.

but the empty chat rooms when asking questions (or help for that matter) is troubling to look at , especially for this kind of game.

who ever said that this is a game you shouldnt solo told the cold hard truth.

will play a bit more tomorrow to see if theirs any change to my time with this game. such as figuring out how to get the heck out of the shuttle pod ship to planet avalon)

edit:

the most amazing thing just happened to me,  i stayed in the shuttle pod way too long and started to begin getting Space dementia (got bored) and started clicking on random buttons..

turns out i went hostile and started fighting myself,  beating, kicking and punching myself out of conciousness.

no lie, i kicked my own a@@  by myself in a shuttle pod....   yep i dont know what the hell im doin..

Originally posted by Pelaaja

Originally posted by SirPaco

Ok now i know it is time to stop our little conversation.

If you had even read those links, without even clicking on them, you would have realised they were links to official forum threads--- not videos lol.
Bye now

You fed the troll, shame on you ;)

And I added nothing constructive to this conversation, sorry.

All in all, the Murder System needs to be fixed badly.

some low levels can careless if your in their zones, some guilds would promote the idea of sticking lowbies in 80 zone raids/groups when doing pvp, so they can give the other side murder points until they leave.

but not surprising you have groups that actually defend this kind of cheap tactic.

and it is still going on strong close to a year now

Originally posted by Karahandras

Am I alone in thinking that the ships from tos look out of place against the tng and beyond setting?

I  "think" the ship you saw was a Excalibur Class starship,

was supposedly to pay homage to the Constitution Class chasis design but with up to date tools in the inside.

and any rate, hate to say it, i watch the video again, all it has done for me was to actually consider diving into Eve online instead.

or find a Space Simulation game (if any exist these days)

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

Originally posted by Zionnax

Originally posted by battleaxe

So I guess we'll be able to hire legendary crew so we can do the "Picard maneuver" or O'Brien's shield modulation transport tricks?

One of the intriguing parts of the show was the ability of the crew to think "outside the box" and come up with unique solutions to unforeseen situations while being severely outgunned or on the verge of death (or both).  It did sorta get old since it happened almost every show, but it was one of the unique aspects of the TV shows.  As fun as STO might be, this type of thing simply can't happen in a game.

You make an excellent point, however, I don't see why the point was made.  You are correct, with current technology, this likely can't happen in a game...so why belabor the point?  This is a game, not a TV show, so why insist on the comparison to paint the game in a "lesser" light?

Tanking?  Really?  Will big ships be able to taunt other ships and suck the photon torpedoes that were aimed at another ship towards itself?  Will it be able to redirect phaser fire aimed at the medical ship to itself?  Will the medical ship be able to magically heal the tank's shields?  Just what we need - another damage sponge based game.  "No no, hit me, not that other ship."  *sigh*

I agree with you here.  The problem is...how to make it different?  Yes, if it's Tank, Healer, Buffer, etc...I've likely already played this game.  If the game space feels "alive" and interesting, that is what will keep people playing.  If it does not, it will be another of a long line of titles that people purchase, play for a month or two, and leave feeling disappointed.

The problem with mechanics is that nearly anything you can think of, that is REALISTICALLY FEASIBLE, has been done, several times, in numerous games.  There may still be room for innovation in the intricacies of a mechanic, but the overall mechanics of gaming genres will likely not change.  You don't like the Tank, Healer, DPS type system, then what is your suggestion?  It seems other types of systems, like classless with a point distribution, simply lead to more solo-centric games.  Class-forcing systems of tank, healer, dps tend to force people to group.  Can't find a good group tonight?  Well, you're out of luck, log off and try again tomorrow.

I don't pretend to know the answer, and even if I did, it wouldn't apply to every situation.  Developers are in a no-win situation.  No matter what choice is made on any given topic, there is bound to be a vocal group deriding the decision.  In the end, our constant bitching forces the industry to play a numbers game...what group do we cater to to make the most money?

 

 

 

 

Zionnax,

I'm not crazy about the Tank, DPS, Healer mechanic in general but for CHARACTERS in a standard fantasy MMO it fits reasonably well. The mechanic doesn't translate particulary well to GROUND BASED Sci-Fi character combat ( particularly if you are dealing with a setting that doesn't have magic and where the combat is mostly ranged with modern/futuristic style weapons). However trying to impose that sort of dynamic  on SHIP vs SHIP combat truely starts to enter the realm of the absurd.

I wasn't really looking for STO to re-invent the wheel when doing SHIP vs SHIP combat .... just to pick a dynamic that actually fit the genre they were working with. That shouldn't have been particulary hard as there are litteraly a TON of existing games that model SHIP vs SHIP space combat extremely well.... some of them even already Trek themed. They could have looked at Starfleet Battles or FASA's RPG to see how they handled ship classes. Heck SFC would have been a fine model....or even MOO2.  Heck, they could have even looked at WWI/WWII naval history (which alot of these games draw inspiration from) to get a good idea of the dynamic of how different ship classes might have worked.

As it was they probably picked the absolute WORST fitting dynamic that they could to try to shoe-horn in there. If they were making a sword & sorcery game....or even another super-hero game.... the Tank, Healer, DPS dynamic would have been pretty unorigional but certainly would have made sense. For Star Trek  SHIP vs SHIP combat it fits about as well as Gandalf would.

 

pretty much my thoughts as well.

I saw the video itself  and the first thing that popped in my head was <insert fantasy mmo> in space.

it would probably be better if they didnt mentioned anything about what ship filled what canned specification ( tank,dps,healer)

One turn off on the video was seeing big critical damage of 2000+ in bold yellow font appearing on the enemy ship(s) you destroyed.

ill pick the game up later if at all depending how launch and the first 3 months treat STO.

Originally posted by SirPaco

you still have not answered his question....

 

Hes talking just of buffs, so lets just talk about buffs hmm?

I heard you could download programs that make macros for you. This is one of the reasons I bought a g15 keyboard (but in the end don't use macros at all since I don't play my necro or demo anymore, it was usefull for the "pacts").

So basically, google around it is possible to make a macro so that when you hit one key, it activates all your buffs.

Other solution, play a zerk barbarian :p

Oh.

In that case,  g15 keyboard is the way to go.

as for programs dont know if they're anymore, some have closed down over time. majority of them that are remaining are usually custom ui's for more slots.

About those macros,

Early in the game people have looked to have macros for melee classes,  that or buy a g15 and key bind their combos for their characters. with varied results it works while other times it does more harm than good.

when it comes to pve,  a macro can make things simple, no need to miss combos that you want to pull off

(p.s. 5 button combos no longer exist).

in pvp it is another story,  you may be able to pull your combos off every time with a macro,  but here are the draw backs.

1. with the latest combat change which was made almost a year from now, loading up combos out of thin out and unleashing them is no longer allowed,  having to load combos up and not hitting a target gives a penalty debuff on your damage.

miss 1 = 5 percent   2= 10 -15 %   3 and up = 20%

so if you hit some one while your macro is running , chances are you'll get those penalties and your hits will be badly minimal.

2. pvp in general,  a capable fighter that can put 2 brain cells together will not stand still and let you hit  him/her

Macro makes the user predictable, if they see your attack coming they will easily interrupt it with a cc.  or they will circle strafing

and move about making you gain damage penalties and possibly lose your combo entirely.

also chances are you wont be able to control all your combination swings so once you press that key,  be sure you dont miss.

it is better not to obtain any sort of macro/keybinding for melee classes in regards of pvping in AOC,  it will lead to fustration.

Originally posted by Aercus

Originally posted by Wizardry

I disagree with the OP's argument ,the past and launch are HUGE factors.The points the OP are pointing to,imo are not valid either,there is not much different in AOC than any other game from dungeon design,to killing,to hotbars,there really is little difference.The graphics are better,that is a difference.

The fact is to keep gamers interested,they seem to be attracted to VERY superficial trinkets like mounts/pets/gear.Constantly give them something to want.

The difference between a large following and a game trying to make it big,is the large following has massive website information,tons of apps,it seems players want everything automated/easy mode.so they love their apps.If there is a way to cheat/exploit or a way to RMT buy overpowering items/gear,again they latch onto this.

None of it makes sense,but this is the true face of gamers,teenagers with simplistic minds and full of ego and drama.Design and content has come across as a very weak carrot for these teenie boppers to follow.What i am saying is that no matter how hard AOC tries to make a great game,it is the ridiculous things that attracts gamers.Look how many people are all woosey over flying in AIOn or screwing around with that character customization screen for hours then covering it all up with gear...lol duh.

To create success you have to start thinking like a young teenager,you have to watch them game to fully understand the immaturity in their wants/needs,always selfish never common sense attitude.They will always cry nerf,but give them the over powering class,everything is cool.Everyone has a few different wants/needs/expectations from gaming,but i painted the over all big picture,one i believe is quite accurate.

 

Those are some truly excellent points Wizardry.

I might chime in that the MMO market is rather small and saturated. People switching games are usually more "hard-core" (i.e. play more often and for longer) than the average MMO gamer. I doubt the average MMO player actually plays more than an hour a day on average. Decisions on a new MMO will always lay to ground the average player, but the actual players joining a new MMO will not be the average player. When a new game is launched it is mostly people who play 4-6 hours daily that switch, as they have become bored with the content of their current MMO, and they make a mad dash to the end-game. There seems to be a commoneality between all recent MMO launches that focus is on starter content before launch, and they think "let's add mid-level after launch, and then focus on end-game later".

This pisses the "elite" players off to no end, and the swarm to forums such as these to vent their anger and frustration, which ends up destroying the community and has a domino effect on the population size and mood.

I want to add to both what Wizardry and Aercus spoke of:

Never underestimate the power of fluff. 

people have constantly place fluff in a bad light, saying it is something that does nothing more than quantity but no depth; absolute paradox. they say this, and do not want it, but turn around and scream for content, or ignore content that is placed into the game and denounce it as something else because i does not fit  "their" definition of content.

but i say this out side of AOC's realm

Inside its realm, the game has its content, which they place effort in doing. however whether funcom realizes this or not, a dungeon or two maybe content, but will dry up in a matter of a couple of days before everyone goes back to brood about why there is nothing to do in AOC; evidence of what i say is towards the recent admission of Iron Tower, it does not take long to run that place to the ground if your a hard core raider/gamer either being a few hours or a few days, once its complete AOC is back to square one as far as lack of content, this type of  issue, overall is void when it comes to newer players that are yet to explore everything in hyboria -- veteran players however is another story.

As for my stance on Fluff in general, you'd be surprise what a small mini game of fishing would do for people, Esspecially if it ties in into the economy, or Dancing benefits at a tavern if they ever were able to tie it in with drunken brawler (they never will). AOC, with its linear behavior, has next to none. Crafting is perhaps the most straight forward and shortest i have ever seen in a game, tacked on with a number of materials that are next to useless in value on the economy, it continues to feel shallow or unfinished when it comes to reaching the top of your crafting level, the incentive to keep on going would be the tomb raiding hunts you do when you want to find recipes for cultural weapons/armor.

As for the OP's topic of not blaming everything on launch,  well thats too bad because unfortunately thats what people will continue to do; fans and haters alike.  why?

because the old saying goes "make your first impression your best one"  and AOC overall failed to deliver on that.

the customers, aside from bugs, were not impressed with the idea of mmo with console/arcade elements, with a game design of oversaturation of loading screens being the biggest negative towards the game, add the portion of having nothing to do once you hit 80 and all its limited or yet to be fixed end game, you are stuck doing the following.

Pee country Keshatta, the 12 Bosses of raiding olypmics (T1 , T2),  russian roulette sieging (finding a siege that doesnt crash),

and last but not least, Crafting, or what i call (if you got more than 20 gold you can master your craft under 2 days or less).

Originally posted by LordBonezy

Originally posted by Beanpuie

Why shut AOC down for 3 or 4 months?  would they benefit from it?  No

why not?  because after the 1st month all the people that have to wait for AOC to come back on, they would be taken from other mmos,  i myself  would or may go back to planetside if that was the case, everyone else,  scattered amongst the winds. and would i or anyone else come back in a heartbeat? i wouldnt count on it, aside from the "horrid" pickings of this generation of mmos, competition is still tight.

3 or 4..or 6 or 8 months or even 2 months  it wouldnt even work for AOC,  its just a whinefest waiting to happen.

"AOC is back and more stable than ever!"

"no its not! dont listen, it doesnt work on my uber 5000 dollar computer!"

"ya and they lie and cheat and still money, and and..they  got that E.E. fellow still...and, and,  zero content!    D:  "

" X-fire numbers!  duurr!!!"

No exaggeration,  it dont stop. and will never stop even if AOC is given a multiple month shut down to fix everything.

In Addition

3 to 4 months of downtime would not speed up the matienance of the game esspecially when they do not have the numbers to improve upon it. its even further a mute point when something called  "test live" servers are there to blow everything up and the kitchen sink to help move things along.

test live servers, it is there for a reason.   shut down AOC , again would do jack crap, would not FC in the short or long run, would not help the consumers to tell them to come back later, nor help the people that are providing FC the dough to keep their doors open-- they more than likely would be the ones to throw the biggest of tantrums.

 

 

 

 

Actually this whole thread was kind of a joke. I don't really want them to shut the game down. I want them to fix the problems, and busted mechanics. That is pretty simple, however the reality is that very soon, server implosions are going to occur and then they will be forced to release the expansion early, or take the game to free to play or merge servers again. Any any event it basically spells doom for the game. It also majorly screws the current players, if they merge servers, or if they go free to play that kinda fucks them too, and as for dumping a product on the market before it is ready, well we don't need a Part 2 to that story.

AOC would probably go  F2P before they try to speed up the expansion. in the meantime, they still have House of Crom and the T3 content to deliver, even though they are still within their timetable to deliver; im not holding my breath if they have to let go of something to work on til next year.

Why shut AOC down for 3 or 4 months?  would they benefit from it?  No

why not?  because after the 1st month all the people that have to wait for AOC to come back on, they would be taken from other mmos,  i myself  would or may go back to planetside if that was the case, everyone else,  scattered amongst the winds. and would i or anyone else come back in a heartbeat? i wouldnt count on it, aside from the "horrid" pickings of this generation of mmos, competition is still tight.

3 or 4..or 6 or 8 months or even 2 months  it wouldnt even work for AOC,  its just a whinefest waiting to happen.

"AOC is back and more stable than ever!"

"no its not! dont listen, it doesnt work on my uber 5000 dollar computer!"

"ya and they lie and cheat and still money, and and..they  got that E.E. fellow still...and, and,  zero content!    D:  "

" X-fire numbers!  duurr!!!"

No exaggeration,  it dont stop. and will never stop even if AOC is given a multiple month shut down to fix everything.

In Addition

3 to 4 months of downtime would not speed up the matienance of the game esspecially when they do not have the numbers to improve upon it. its even further a mute point when something called  "test live" servers are there to blow everything up and the kitchen sink to help move things along.

test live servers, it is there for a reason.   shut down AOC , again would do jack crap, would not FC in the short or long run, would not help the consumers to tell them to come back later, nor help the people that are providing FC the dough to keep their doors open-- they more than likely would be the ones to throw the biggest of tantrums.

damned if you do, damned if you dont

The only sandbox your going to get is the sand you find in keshatta... and thats not saying much.

the game is as linear as a arcade side scroller beat'em up.

what you are looking for in AOC just doesnt have it,  thats the answer i can provide for you as a vet playing this game.

More bank slots would be great, even if they have to be earned it will still be helpful (earned as in higher Tier City level or Guild renown, etc etc)

On a rpers stand point,  people that collect items are damned to be pack rats, plan and symbol,  not so much for collecting junk but to collect gear that they admire and rather show off to others, yet with the limited space they are forced to make alt toons to put all their junk in.

for a crafters stand point,  hell ..fn ..ya.. i dont know if i met any established crafters that wouldnt want to have a larger inventory space/slots to warehouse all the items that they make, and hold on to them for whatever reason,  economy boost, reserved materials bank, putting in extra stock of various supplies.

I wouldnt go so far to say it would be a means of people opening up their own shops and becoming player vendors,  however it would be a nice addition now since there are more than enough content (item wise) to give it a try.

Again,  with the new guild renown system around the corner as well as T3..  Funcom could take the chance of having one of the new guild city buildings be a dedicated warehouse,   Call it  Warehouse,  T1, T2, T3..  every Tier there would be 8 pages.

to further expand on that, back to player vendors in AOC,  giving trusted guild members a token to have them access the guild warehouse bank at anytime automatically establishes a player vendor element for the game.

What stops this idea, 2 things.  1. Funcom's timetable of course  and 2. Funcom last year already speaking about the server being bogged down and stressed by trying to remember everyones items, both individual player and guild.

If a said update were to occur, i wouldnt put it past AOC to have a horrendous bug that would wipe out some ones inventory or item,  anyone that remembered the introduction of 1.05 how some people lost a item or two due to the drastic changes; Now imagine having the risk of your whole guild banks storage getting wiped out due to a patch;  i wouldnt want to take that risk, even if the reward is visible.

5 bosses, 5 rare bosses.  guestimating the same length as  Xibaluku or slightly longer if you add the hidden bosses too.

got my eyes peeled for the new armors for soldier classes, even if they arent top of their game.

8 hour down time, if nothing blows up that is, we'll see how things turn out.

Originally posted by LordBonezy

Being that Sieges 48v48 Combat in Sieges was supposed to be a hallmark of this game and yet is busted to hell as of today players are still reporting that they are broken. Why not fix them? Have you shut down all operations aside from debugging the broken siege code? Have you pulled off the team working on the expansion to debug this? Have you considered removing casters from the game since they seem to be causing the problem in a lot of siege situations and they suck balls?

Not only this, but why is this game limiting the number of players who can participate in these sieges to the members of the most powerful guilds who can attain a battlekeep? Why not allow players to join in the battles via some sort of mercenary system which has been asked for since after launch? How many more months are going to pass before you involved 100% of the players in the component 95% are interested in. Instead of limiting it to 15-25% because of how guilds are setup. Given the circumstances of the game, the decline of your company and player opinions, you guys should be doing everything possible to re-write code and mechanics to allow players to do a whole lot more than just run a few new dungeons and run a few new characters through Tortage yet again and again and again...

Discuss...

the past week, ive gone through another 3 sieges,  1 a double header of  2 sieges in one day back to back a hour apart, and a third siege 4 days after.  2 out of 3 of the sieges ive been in have no crashed, but experienced one of the most nightmareish lags they could rival what ive experienced in early launch day of this game.

but there comes a point that even if funcom took away the casters, shut down the servers or whatever, sieges the way they are, are coming to a point that they, too, would need a complete overhaul; the idea of tweaking and fiddling with the code to re-fix them may curse funcom than bless them, forcing them to take too long to figure out a way to stop making sieges crash.

Again, sieges began to break left and right at the very implementation of 1.05, drastic changes with the game itself have to placed sieges into a dangerous spot of never being fixed.

why?

my guess, is because whatever the old code sieges are using, just does not match well with the new things AOC has gained.

i dont know jack crap about coding, but if it is still taking funcom a long time to figure out how to fix sieges; would a complete overhaul be the only way to go? look at funcoms plan of adding in super battlekeeps, and their dream of having 100+ battles;

talk with any customer playing AOC right now, they will more likely say it aint gonna happen due to their faith with sieges/battlekeeps today, and seeing such a idea go live before the year is out is a lie waiting to happen

(but of course funcom hasnt said that thankfully)

also, to add to what i said,  funcom continues to be confident with their choice of aiming for the state-of-the-art appeal over tried and true performance.  for AOC , we do have a pretty game, but at the cost of both game and customers being a test bed of things that work and do not work, added with being at the mercy of "hope to be ready" drivers/components from outside companies that suppose to further enchance the mmo's gameplay  (DirectX10).