All Posts by LodenDSG

An old thread but this is what popped up from google so I though I would update it with what little information I have.

First the best site though still incomplet that Ihave found for AoC information is (http://aoc.wikia.com) and the followign link has some limited information about the Demo pets.

http://aoc.wikia.com/wiki/Spells/Demonologist

There are 5 pets total, that does seem to be the general understanding from my research, as to looks I have no idea the furthest I have taken the Demo is 22 at that level you only have the Demon Familuer (an Incubus or Sucubus depending on your gender) This pet helps out your parties mana and casting so I understand.

The most intresting pet I have heard tell of is the Demonic Warlord, this one amps your parties damage across both magic and melee/missle.

If any one has more information on the Demo or screen shots I would be intrested in seeing.

The game is great; and it does requier some skill to play, you do actualy have to pay attention to play this game one of the aspects of MMOs that I hated before; as much as I love the genre most games you can lieraly play a fight with your eyes closed its all a matter of timing, with AoC they have added a few unfamiler elements with the shilding system and directional attacks.

I do hear a lot of people complain that its to easy, it is rather easy through thouse first few levels though does ramp up; I am playing a few diffrent classes out so I wont be able to speak on mid to high levels for some time but just in 10-15 levels I can see some ramp up how far it goes or how sharp it gets I cant say but no I would not call it to easy, at least not at this point.

Originally posted by tiki

 

Originally posted by LodenDSG

 

Originally posted by Sinkitsune

Originally posted by tiki

funcom is on at least strike 2 for me, with that whole we r sold out of a virtual good, even though you have a physical piece of paper that says right on it "this key gives certain benefits such as in game items, and early access." 

 

Funcom's developers im sure are all amazing, but whoever has been in charge for the past few days has messed up pretty bad

Good, I hope that last strike comes fast, Less waiting to sign on when it opens.

 

The EA was always limited the key you have only granted you a chance to get in the EA that was Funcom's offical word so if there was a mess up on the bit of paper you speak of the the one printing that is to blame, likely the store you got it from. (Frade I cant link the post where Funcom vary clearly stated the above the community site is giving me issues). Now granted Funcom shoudl be slapp'n some wrist for fals advertising if that is the case, it is there responsability IMO to make sure retailers follow there rules especialy thouse that directly impact Funcom's perspective clients.

As to you not getting in game items, this is the first I have heard of that, so you are not getting your mount or what ever it was you where supposed to? Did they give a reason? Who gave the reason?

Not trying to badger you just wondering as I now have a few mroe hours to wait before I play I might as well read somthing intresting :)

As to strikes, I give them 0, yep 0, once the game goes live we will see how the game plays if it sucks it sucks and I find a new game no loss, if its fun then I play. . . doesn't mean I wont try Funcom or AoC later should AoC suck for now just saying I really give a rats back side what problems they do or dont have as long as I have fun its all good and worst case I write of the cost of the game as a loss and go play one of the others that I do like.

O no, ill get my mount, i was just saying what the piece of paper said it would get me that i paid 5 dollars for.

 

 

Im sure u would think omg 5 dollars not a big deal, but i honestly dont give a shit about the mount, the whole reason y i bought it was for early access and if it cant get me that i would enjoy my 5 dollars back and ill be fine.

Understandable, me I was after the goodies and the 10 extra days gives me the feeling that it is a no cost though granted 10 days is only worth what $3 or $4. As to the EA it will open and I should think it will open soon. Knowing my luck the servers will open right as I need to head out lol but I got my big box and all the goodies in it which is what I was after, same as with WoW and every other game that has a CE.

see you in the EA or at least after live on the 20th lol

Originally posted by bartoni33

Originally posted by Loben

I logged into the server the nanosecond that it was supposed to be up. Needless to say it didn't work. I spent all morning preparing hotpockets and putting in my catheter. This is an outrage! How can Funcom just decide to delay the opening 3 hours??? What do they expect me to do, go outside?? The world is going to end and it's all Funcom's fault. I hope they're happy because I'm not. That's offensive tackle #1. Twenty more and I'm going to record a demerit for Funcom. Thirty of those and I'm going to consider writing a nasty letter to Norway. I'm sorry if this is ranting but we can't let gaming companies get away with this!

LOL nothing worse than a wasted catheter! Can I have one of your Hot Pockets? You can keep the catheter!

An IV drip, will solve for the need to reheat the Hot Pockets and insures proper hydration

Originally posted by Anlar

Just to be clear, i'm not bad about the delay, but I disagree with the OP.

 

We paid for something, and they need to deliver. 5 bucks isn't a lot of money, but they have to deliver what we paid for otherwise they have to refund the money. It's as simple as that. 3 hours isn't a big deal, but they can't delay indefinitely because we paid 5 bucks for early access. They could be subject to a lawsuit if they don't release it today.

 

I'm a bit disappointed, as I have obligations in the evening so the more delays there are, the less I get to play today :(

If it launches on time, I'll have a good few hours to mess around and a bit more before i goto bed.

Frade they are not subject to a lawsuit but I understand what you are getting at; it is a major pain for thouse of us that have limited play time. I feel ya pain with obligations commign up I was really hoping to atleast ge tot play with the character builder a bit and toy with the settings. . . I play slow so I didn't expect to hit 20 or any thing tonight but do hope to get to see the game in action before I'm back to work.

We'll all get our chance to play, they will open the servers sooner or later; also note that the $5 you paid also got you 10 extra days on the 30 that you get for the box, again that you get, so all in all even if they cancel the EA you are getting your money out of it,

(you get)

10 extra days of game time tacked onto the 30 that comes with the box,

the potental to play early assuming the servers come up before May 20th lol

Lots of things to flame about and we all need extra stuff to gripe about :)

And lets not forget a little less hair on your head to brush in the morning less you where alredy bald then you did get shorted a handfull of your own hair

Originally posted by Sinkitsune

Originally posted by tiki

funcom is on at least strike 2 for me, with that whole we r sold out of a virtual good, even though you have a physical piece of paper that says right on it "this key gives certain benefits such as in game items, and early access." 

 

Funcom's developers im sure are all amazing, but whoever has been in charge for the past few days has messed up pretty bad

Good, I hope that last strike comes fast, Less waiting to sign on when it opens.

The EA was always limited the key you have only granted you a chance to get in the EA that was Funcom's offical word so if there was a mess up on the bit of paper you speak of the the one printing that is to blame, likely the store you got it from. (Frade I cant link the post where Funcom vary clearly stated the above the community site is giving me issues). Now granted Funcom shoudl be slapp'n some wrist for fals advertising if that is the case, it is there responsability IMO to make sure retailers follow there rules especialy thouse that directly impact Funcom's perspective clients.

As to you not getting in game items, this is the first I have heard of that, so you are not getting your mount or what ever it was you where supposed to? Did they give a reason? Who gave the reason?

Not trying to badger you just wondering as I now have a few mroe hours to wait before I play I might as well read somthing intresting :)

As to strikes, I give them 0, yep 0, once the game goes live we will see how the game plays if it sucks it sucks and I find a new game no loss, if its fun then I play. . . doesn't mean I wont try Funcom or AoC later should AoC suck for now just saying I really give a rats back side what problems they do or dont have as long as I have fun its all good and worst case I write of the cost of the game as a loss and go play one of the others that I do like.

lol

it is anoying having to wait but I really dont mined, it is after all a game not going to pull out my hair over it. The servers will be up as soon as they get them up then you will play and either love it or hate it.

I agree it would have been nice to have a bit more warning but hay going live aint easy; do I think less of Funcom cuz they got them selves an issue and had to push live back a few hours? nope. It happends

I work in software dev (not game) but none the less I understand that some times happends. I'll judge the game when I get in; if its fun I'll keep playing other wise I'll log into DAoC and keep waiting for somthing better.

Considering every thing is going to be stressed out I would recomend making it as easy as possible on your rig at first. . . i.e. I plan on setting to low settings and maybe bummping up a few of the features I really like i.e. I am a fan of great water so I'll be setting that high.

Over all I should expect an 8800 to run the game well at atleast mid settings but that is my openion, I run a X1650 512 pro (much lower than yours imo) and I can run mid well enough, of course I am more forgiving than most when it comes to FPS and enjoy high eye candy at the cost of performance as long as its not a flip book (< 25-ish FPS)

Of course there is more than your GPU to look at in terms of performance but the GPU is a big part; your GPU shoudl be solid for running with good performance at mid settings possibly better.

Note the above is my openion based on specs and the limited exposure I have to the game so far, in general though you can set it low and bump up from there, its a bit time consuming but you will always get the most out of the game if you take the time to tweek your system and the games settings to your personal taste; there are several sites and reasources that can walk you through the steeps for this or that when it comes to tweeking settings both for the game and whatever OS you are running.

Originally posted by Tarka

Originally posted by matrixvs

i just made the char and this IS open beta

Actually, Early Access which starts at 17:00 GMT isnt beta....its on the live servers. 

Yep we are gettign EA to the live game only by a few days but still nice for thouse of us that enjoy game enough to go through the pain which is a MMO launch :)

But no Beta toons will be there, at least with every other MMO launch I have played the Beta toons get wiped but the toons you make as of EA (at it is live) will flow into full blown open (May 20th)

lol;

I like MMORPG.com for all the little animations. . .  joking

But I 'm with ya should be right at 1hr, resently patched so short of the likely problem with everyone trying to log in at the same time we should be playing soon .

Best of luck to everyone I have no doubt there will be some sort of trouble its simply my luck  but either way we will be hacking away soon enough.

Ya I'm not using the net tonight other than checking the boards so I dont mined if they eat my upload, and they cant do much with out a key to activate the account so I'm none to woried about a leaked DL link other than making it that much harder for the few that might still be out there that have EA but for what ever reason dont have the DL done yet.

I got my box set to day as well over nighted from Gamestop, a nice supprise even though I alredy had it DLed. Looks like we should be up an playing in 12hrs or so; so see ya in AoC.

1 question, I know how to use the DL client but dont see a method for viewing the peers; not that it matters just wondering how you know the number of clients hitting you?

For thouse that dont know

The text below is from the about for the AoC DL, I'll be leaving my DL up till the servers go live good luck every one.

I would like to contribute by seeding, how do I do this?
Launch the downloader and leave the Age of Conan Installation Menu open (closing the menu will also exit the downloader.) You are now seeding and can minimize the downloader to the system tray.

Assuming its not an issue on your side the ISP point is most likely the cause though I dont know of any ISP that cut you off at x limit though do pull you down to lower speeds.

I would double check my firewalls and or routers if any, note windows has a built in firewall (you likely alredy know this) but it can and usualy does cause me issues in situations like this.

Originally posted by Celestian

 

---

You could be in a town with 600 other players and never know it. They'll all be in seperate instances of that same town. You'll hear them but you wont see them.

 

Thats not an MMO - Massive... thats a MO - Multiplayer

Im guessing they did this to allow the game to be ported to console. Its a dealbreaker for me and many others.

---

 

It's more likely they did it so the game would play reasonably well on even the most powerful machines and have decent graphics. If you expected 600 people in the same space AND have the graphics of AoC then methinks you expect to much from even SLI.

Good luck!

Agreed, and instancing is not new to MMOs by any means; I understand some hate it. I'm not a fan of it under some implementations though I have seen it done well. For AoC I think it will work at least for me.

I'll be there, looking forward to it.

patch complet, seems like it takes the patcher out of the picture i.e. once patch complet and I exit out then come back in there is no patcher it just jumps strit to game.

So is it 1am EST the servers go live?

Thanks for the note

Doesn't look to big, though I have been running the patcher as offten as I can to make sure I have as little pain as possible (or at least try :))

Originally posted by WiccanCircle

Not a single line of code is yet written in a game that will beat the 10-million benchmark set by WoW.  That doesn't mean that WoW was that wonderful.  It was just at the right place at the right time to capture the simple gaming preferences of the new-to-computers nintendo crowd.  The handful of us that played pre-WoW are still around, we are just diluted out by the kids that swarmed the MMO world after computers became cheap enough to become a child's toy.

No game is going to beat the 10-million record simply because the number of players are now going to be spread over a wider range of games.  There was a void in developement of MMOs in the early-00's.  That left WoW with no real competition.  WoW's only competition were games writen in the early 90's and were seriously outdated compared to the computing power that was available by 2004.  A gap like that will never happen again.

Many of the people that played in UO, EQ and Asheron's Call see the mid-2000's as the dark ages of MMOs.  Yes, WoW brought in people until they were stacked on servers like cord wood, but it also set back MMOs by perhaps a half decade or more.

The expectations of the early MMO players were not met by the bland, lack-luster games that have come out since the late '90's and early '00's.

WoW captured the console-creatures as they migrated from their TV toys to the internet.  WoW expanded the market, but did nothing for developing the MMO genre. 

Most of us early MMO players have been waiting for the damage that WoW has done to slowly heal.  With each new game that comes out, we click the 'Play' button, biting our lip, holding our breath, hoping beyond hope that the depth and excitement that was the early MMO experience has moved past the nintendo level of play that is WoW.

 

i agree with all but 1, other games will hit that number not because every player will play them like we saw with WoW but because the gamer population is constantly growing and growing fast. Granted its not likely that we will ever see the % of total gamers playing a single MMO like that again and I think that is what you where getting at.

You are dead on that WoW came when there was no compitiion to MMOs, even I tryed it but quickly became board and whent back to DAoC and even toyed with EQ and others while stand by looking for the next AC or DAoC to hit the stores.

Every new MMO that comes out does get better. . . and by the way I must say that I agree 100% that WoW though fun for a few is possibly the worst "MMO" I have ever played, its a good game here and there but its little more than Mario online (I do like Mario dont get me wrong)

While we are bashing on WoW let me talk a bit on what WoW did do well, WoW's UI is the best I have seen, they did a great job on there UI over all and I think or at least hope some of what was learned there will hold over into new games (not by UI I mean the HUD of the game not the mechanics per say)

WoW also runs rather smooth, granted much of this is due to the low end style of the game but there are some tid bits around effcency that we can see here, not to sugest that a game shouldn't look as good as it runs (WoW to me is the worst looking MMO on the market given its generation) I should expect that I can have good looking graphics, good game play and good performance and would prefer a balance among the aspects of the game than to have a game that looks awsome but runs like crap or a game that runs perfectly but looks like crap (there are other aspects but as you might have noticed my typing sucks )

I do think WoW was damaging to MMO genre but at the same time did bring some new blood to the genre which over all I hope will pan out to be a good thing. I wont say I hate WoW it has its points but know I dont hold it as anything more than a fair game. For note my fav MMO was DAoC (I still play it) my first was AoC; I started with MMOs I think was in 2000 possibly 99 though I was a RTS and RPG guy well before I was into MMOs

Originally posted by Baio2k

 

Originally posted by admriker4

 

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

 

Originally posted by Xorxhs

if this is true,then it really sux,and its kinda weird that this board aint thread spammed with cons of aoc

it is simply not possible to have an open, zone-free world with the level of graphics that AoC has. Impossible.

 

Anyone with a realistic understanding of PC limitations knows this.

The graphic quality of AoC has to be seen to be believed....it's beyond amazing. You can't have 2000+ people in one starting area and have it be playable. It's just not realistically feasable.

I think thats a copout excuse to save funcom some money. I bet it could be done.

 

Star Wars Galaxies when it launched had state of the art graphics. Definitely it was the best for its time 5 years ago. And we didnt have to settle for loading screens when we entered someone's house or a cantina. And we certainly didnt have to choose a zone when entering a dungeon / cave area.

If a game 5 years ago could do it with the best graphics back then, surely funcom can do it now.

When SWG came out it ran for shit,  People crashed when nearing towns, and there were not even houses yet.  Fixes were made over time even as it became more processor intensive.  And it possibly could be done but not without alienating over 60% of the potential player base with older/ slower computers.

 

They made a choice, and that choice was for the game to be pretty, cause that is what almost everyone talks about, the graphics.  Often mentioned even before gameplay, because apparently most folks would rather stare at virtual rivers and vistas than do just about anything else.

Actualy I seem to hear more of the game play, (story aspects, combat {hear this oen a lot}, hear a good bit about PvP) and have even heard people try to nock the looks. . . though persoanly I think it looks great and cant say on the game play <-- pore me didn't get into beta.

As a note I do think that graphics just as much as sound and game play are part of the game, if you have 9 bit graphics and poly sounds even if its the best gameplay mech the world hase evver seen its going to be passed up for a game thats more complet.

Am I say AoC is more complet . . . read above I cant say yet as I have not played yet. . . . what I am getting at is the fact that some see sharp graphics and think the game is gona suck fact of the matter is that the perfect game has sharp graphics, solid sound and perfect game play mech. . . does it exist yet. . . I have played a lot that are close but they always get better so I would say no.

Back to the main topic though; instancing I do think is a good idea assuming its done inteligantly (did I say they did again I have yet to play so no openion here) If done well it would mean that they could put more detail into the game while not overly rasing its requierments, if you go seemless you will fill the pipe so to speak, i.e. an incressingly small group will be able to run it others will get substandard performance due to the incressed load.

In short in the software world the lighter you can make the load the more you can carry; instancing lets you make the load lighter so to speek by keeping the population in a given area with in a given limit or by keeping the area in a give confined (you dont have to load the whole world just a zone of it thus giving you more room for other goodies i.e. mobs, NPCs, the enviroment some of you complain to much effort was given to.

Saying that I will aslo admit that instancing can vary easily be done wrong and badly hurt the game especialy a MMO, even in a supposedly seemless world the use of instanced dungons I think can hurt the game. . . instancing can be a good thing if done right. . . did they do it right? hope so :)