All Posts by Ben1778

Interesting to see a reference to Solomon Kane on the WAR boards, with all the WAR vs AoC stuff going down these days.

Solomon Kane was created by Robert E Howard (of Conan fame).   The books are amazing, as are his stories about Conan.  Forget about the Governator's Conan movies, the books are far superior and gives a totally different perspective on him.

Anyhow, if anyone here is a fan of Solomon Kane, definitely  head over to amazon.com and pick up a copy of any in the series.  I'd start with "Savage Tales of Solomon Kane". 

Also, I'd suggest checking out Bran Mak Morn: The Last King.    (also by robert E howard).

I must have been hallucinating last weekend then.  I could have sworn I was playing DAoC and participating in a large battle to defend our realm relics.   Maybe it was something in the water?  There were at least 50-60 people in the immediate area, unless my mind is playing tricks on me.  Oh, and the only AFK people were at their home fort, so they weren't leeching xp/realm points. 

Perhaps it was those trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the US drinking water that made me feel as if DAoC has the best model for PvP (RvR) and even though it is an older game, with less impressive graphics, it still feels far more satisfying than WoW.

I echo the feelings of many others in the thread.  Those who want to go farm bosses for gear that's 1-5% better than your current stuff, go ahead.   I look forward to being out on the RvR battlefield caving in skulls and such.   

Cheers.

I just came back to DAoC after a long vacation.  I quit for non-game reasons 6 months after Shrouded Isles.  No other game does PvP as well, and I really missed that.  Glad to be back.

My advice:  Try the 14-day trial and grab the catacombs expansion (free, but separate download).  Roll on a classic server and play around there.   Lots of new things to make life easier and the game more fun.

Mids are stomping people on the classic cluster.  Last night we had 5/6 relics, and we've had all 3 power reilcs for over a week (go melee classes!).    If you  hate Midgard then roll Alb, they are the 2nd most active side I believe... or at least they provide the most fun to fight against.

Yeah I definitely reccomend the classic cluster for some activity.  I was away for a while and came back to DAoC after playing WoW and trying AoC.  (AoC was an epic failure).

     There always seems to be a good amount of people around and usually some RvR activity going on.  I've found a lot of friendly people in the community willing to teach a noob some tricks and help me with some RvR tactics.

I've played a lot of MMOs and I usually favor PvP play and for my money the MMO market has no better game to experience PvP (RvR) than DAOC.   Hopefully WAR will not dissapoint in that area either, I'm rooting for them. 

Before you bash the lore, maybe you should read the lore.  GO read some Robert E Howard and quit watching the Governator with hippie hair in the movies.  The lore is amazing, the execution by Funcom is what is lacking. 

It kinda feels like being a Pittsburgh Pirate fan.   I'm not, but I live in Pgh with some of the few remaining fans.  We haven't had a winning season in 14 consecutive seasons.  It's because the owners of the team are more interested in running a profitable business than a winning sports team.  They know as long as they keep having fireworks nights and bobblehead give-aways that people will still come to the games.  Sure a lot more would come if they won maybe half their games, but they make enough already so they don't have to shrink profit margins to please fans if enough just keep coming.

More people would play AoC if they fixed a lot of the bugs and had great reviews.  Maybe that's not their ultimate goal though.  Every day they don't hire more CS people is a day they can bank those profits instead of paying more for more/better CS employees.

Perhaps Funcom is more interested in a profitable business venture than happy players.  Yes, depsite what all the knee-jerk reactions will be, there is a difference there.   There has been a lot of talk about an Xbox 360 port and obviously that's a money-minded decision.

I'd expect FC to run AoC as profitably as possible without having to invest much more $$ in the game before doing the Xbox port, or selling to SOE.  If its hyped up, it will make more money as a general rule.

I certainly meant no disrespect to the Warhammer IP, but you have to admit that even if you loathe WoW - there are still some good mechanics in there that can be fun in other games. 

I'm coming to WAR for some good RvR.  I've never had more fun in PvP than I did in DAoC.  Hopefully WAR's RvR will be awesome too.  Those dragon pics do have me curious though.  Could they be part of a scripted scene for a quest chain maybe?

I think using dragons as siege weapons would be a pretty slick mechanic. 

Similar to the big summon in Alterac Valley in WoW.

Other than the long timers on the summons in Alterac Valley, I loved a fight when someone summoned a HUGE boss style NPC in PvP.   Summoning or paying a dragon to fight for you could be a lot of fun.... as long as they didn't have to stand around for 10 minutes before moving towards the enemy.  

"Alright everyone, throw some coin into the wheelbarrow, we're going to go pay the dragon to roast those dwarves!"

I was all prepared to construct a new computer for AoC & WAR.  My current rig is old and slow, so I wanted to build a new one anyhow - AoC & WAR were just going to be my excuse.  However, witnessing the varied responses about AoC and watching a friend of mine play a bit through the opening week of AoC I decided to wait.

I'm saving up money through the summer to ensure i'll have enough to get the kind of rig I want, rather than having to be miserly with every dollar.   Delaying WAR allows me to get a better computer prepared for the game and makes me feel better that they aren't going to rush it to compete with AoC. (although they may push to get it out ahead of the new WoW expansion)

Hopefully the delay will result in a better game for everyone, and a better gaming rig for me.

Well it's neither funny nor important to know exactly WHAT the above poster wrote that got him the 2 yr ban.  The important part would be what the mass bans imply about the company, and how they are servicing their paying subscribers.

They can delete the obvious flames, and simply lock the threads they simply don't like (ie the ones where people are reporting they are cancelling and such).  It's not fair to paying subscribers who are interested in the community to delete threads where people are displeased. 

It's not so much the loss of a couple sentences, it's the mindset behind those actions that bothers people.  What else are they deleting?  That just "feels" shady and that bothers a lot of people.  It does nothing to engender good feelings, trust, or to foster a close-knit community.

I think the real issue for many gamers is buried in the middle of the OP.  

If the game is very similar to other, already released games, then players expect a high level of polish.   AoC was touted as "different" from WoW and other current MMOs in many ways and has yet to deliver.  Most players would be content to play with the similar stuff and wait for proper implementation of the "new" or "different' features but the problem is that much of the basic features are poorly done at this time.

People have nothing to hold onto while waiting for the advanced stuff like end-game raid content, siege pvp and stuff.   It would be a different type of flame war if the drops were good, crafting was fun, stats were important, armor had varied looks and styles, servers weren't overloaded, and DX10 was knocking our graphical socks off.

The real issue, I think, is that they didn't even do the basic stuff right.  All of the cookie-cutter MMO mechanics SHOULD have been polished and ready upon release to keep us busy while they worked out the other bugs.   

I hope that a lot of the DAoC RvR crowds are still gaming because I agree that it was the best PvP experience I've ever had.  I used to wake up early to meet with guildmates and go raid keeps - and I don't like waking up early for anything.

I remember "guard duty" around the keeps in the PvP zones.   A 3-way battle for a central battlekeep in the "BG" was often a lot of fun, expecially when people literally went the extra mile to haul in mats to make siege equipment and the special ammo.    Having forward spotters target people on other sides of walls for your catapult was awesome.

I'll try WAR if only to see how EA Mythic has evolved their RvR experience.

I enjoy the challenge of facing off against another human as opposed to simply trying to perfect the "boss dance" to take down a raid boss.  Raid bosses are okay opponents, but I prefer the thrill of taking down real people.  Hell, not having to loot other players in PvP is great, saves me the time clicking piles of garbage on the ground.     Plus, I don't mind being content for someone else.  ;-)

I think many of those remaining 500,000 copies are going to be hard to sell, since a lot of gamers would have to spend a decent amount of money to upgrade their rig to play AoC nice and smooth, as opposed to most current games which can be run fine on slightly outdated PCs.  Add in all the negative press about bugs, full servers, and others it is going to be a tough sell to those who didn't pre-order.

I absolutely LOVE the IP and have been a devoted Robert E Howard fan for years, so I will be patient with Funcom.   It's not easy balancing the desire of gamers vs staying true to the IP. 

I will wait to see how the development and support continues for a couple months.  I can't remember the last MMO that was awesome right from launch.  Does anyone have an example of a great MMO right from launch?  Usually I see games really hit their stride (if they do at all) after 3-6 months.    I'm sure FunCom is painfully aware of all the important MMOs and other projects coming down the pipeline from other companies (WAR, Wrath expansion for WoW, StarCraft 2, etc).   They know a lot of their future profitiability is resting with AoC, so they can't afford to blow it with all the other choices competing for a gamer's dollar.

It feels like watching a car trying to beat the train to get across the tracks.  Funcom is too invested in this game to hit the brakes, so they just have to plow forward.  They need to get enough subscribers in the next 6 months to ensure a solid fanbase to defend against draws from other products.  IF they don't, they won't make a profit, and that spells trouble.   Can the Funcom car outrun the debt train and make it through the turbulent first couple months?   I hope so.   I'd like to see AoC be here for the long run.

To the OP,

I am left-handed and use the mouse in my left hand.   I prefer to use the mouse for turning and movement.  I use a combination of point-click  for interacting with the MMO worlds.   I am also a big fan of setting up my own custom keybindings since I play multiple games and like to have my binds be similar (if applicable).

You can still circle-strafe your opponents without WASD use.  I do.

Why would a game be any "looser" if they used a point+click style? 

Correct my vocab, but is misspelling the word "loser" when typing an insult at all ironic?

Remember to use "I prefer" instead of "People prefer" when trying to make broad generalized statements.

Also:  If you ever try any serious PvP, trying to turn using WASD will get you killed very quickly. 

WAR pvp is based on RvR.   It's easy to forget or lose sight of that fact if you've never played that style before. 

When thinking about large-scale RvR types of PvP, it would make sense that you would need large scale groups.    I think some of the strategy will be found in directing the various "zergs".  Just because you have a zerg, doesn't mean that it's totally mindless or undirected.

 Having played a lot of DAoC, I can say that zergs are very important.  We'd zerg the door to pretect the guys running the battering ram and to distract the nukers on the walls from the rogue or two that's stealthed and trying to climb up unseen.

We used 2 zergs to simultaneously overwhelm siege equipment and provide targetting/scouting  assistance to people running our own catapults.

In large scale combat the strategies of a single player are less important than controlling and directing the groups (or zergs since we're using that term liberally in this thread) to specific goals.

If you are trying to hold a control point in RvR combat by your lonesome, you are delusional if you think you're not going to get "zerged".   They key is to accumulate teammates to repel the "zerg".    RvR style PvP is not about 1-vs-1 combat, and it will never EVER be balanced for that.   It'd be like tuning a racecar to have a lower top-end speed, but great at hauling big loads! 

WAR is about RvR style PvP and that means groups of people roaming about more often than single people.   If you go out singly, be prepared to get "zerged".    WAR isn't about balanced 1v1 pvp, so get over it.

Free trials to paid games can be your best friend.   I'd suggest maybe trying EVE online or City of Heroes/Villains next.    The ones with the paid subscriptions that have been out for more than a year are going to be the most polished, unfortunately you have tried MOST of the big name games (WoW, Lotro, FF).   EVE and CoX seem like the next logical step for you.  I'm not sure if you have a favorite genre, but EVE is sci-fi and CoX is modern superhero stuff so that could be enjoyable.

Otherwise, i'd say apply to the beta testing for both Age of Conan and Warhammer Online and see if you can get in.  At the  very least it would chew up some more time until AoC comes out in a little while.

That being said if you are still bored, head to the list of released games and find some free ones to try out.