All Posts by dethgar

Hate to break it to you, but all stats are broken. Stats from gear, skills, and feats don't apply. My main is a conqueror, and other than the chance to proc or an unlocked ability, my character is the same regardless of spec. I die on purpose, to travel from graveyard to graveyard. The penalty is indeed a joke.

Regening health should be life like and require a stay in a hospital. There should of course be permadeath, and death by natural causes(heart attacks, strokes, starvation, disease). Also, anything 3 ft or shorter should be puntable.

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by pencilrick

Read this from a review on Gamespot:

"Players stepped onto this stage as Commander Shepard, a hero at the vanguard of humanity's ascension in the arena of galactic politics, and thus began an epic story bolstered by engaging characters and rich, branching dialogue..."

Sounds more like a movie than a game.  They name your character, you're in a story, "branching" dialogue.

How is the gameplay.  Any freedom at all?

 

No same crap as SWkotor and NWN. After BG1 when a good bunch of their designers left, bioware is going downhill.

Is there a game out there that this forum won't take a big shit on?

Level 6 in a week is amazing. I bet you are burned out.

Honestly though, combat at level 6 is meant to be easy, in the 30s it gets complicated.

Originally posted by Wilshire12

I have been lazy lately and have done nothing except play AoC since it came out. Basically, I just can't take it anymore. Below are my truthful reasons why the game doens't measure up to any standards.
Note: I have played this game on a macbook pro running xp and have had ZERO problems with graphics. My FPS ranges between 20 and 40. Sometimes dropping lower when many (25+) models have been rendered. SO.. I will begin with the extreme problems of this game.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

1. The graphics - The graphics are actually FANTASTIC, but they have major compatability issues. The game has major issues wtih both ATI and NVIDIA cards. That means that even if you have an awesome system, the game could still be completely unplayable. If you buy this game you are rolling the dice.

2. The Content - Okay pay really close attention here, read closely. At any given point in the game, there is at the absolute most three zones at you can adventure in at any given level. Three.... ........ .... no really, three zones (which happen to occur at level 20-32ish). From levels 1-20 there is ONE zone, from levels 20-32 theres three (one for each starting race). From 32ish to 80 theres between one and two zones, usually one where you can grind. Quests are great until about 30 or so, then they devolve into the same type of other quests that any other MMO has to offer. The intial zone is great (tortage) but ultimately its a single player 7-8 hour mission. If you start a new character you must replay the same quests. And in all actuality, theres pleanty of quests to level up by questing alone (till about 40, then its pure grind), but theres not more than about one round of quests (should of been a single player game). There are a few "okay" instances, but mostly all of the dungeons and instances are just trash filled with one generic monster type and don't even have any quests.

Tortage is an island, not a zone. Within Tortage there are 5 quest zones(including night time destiny). 20-32 there are 3 available quest zones, yes. At the mid-thirties these branch out into 3 more, 40's there are 2, 50's there are 4. You also forgot dungeons and quest instances within each zone. Also, anyone who takes 7-8 hours to finish Tortage, probably enjoys playing a nintendo wii or using an apple computer, because they're...well they're stupid.

The lack of content in this game is disgusting.
It does need more mid and end game content, but it is in the first month. It's not like WoW didn't add zones and dungeons and raids months after launch.

3. Point Three - On the box i was promised some ass and titties and some mature sexual conduct and I have seen none so far. If I pay for some nudity in a game, I want it.
Well...create a female character, take her top off. Bam, nipples and bouncing tits. If you want interactive sex, try second life.

4. The Combo/Active Combat System - Wow, this is by far the most overrated aspect of AoC. Instead of having abilities that you can do, you are forced to play simon-sez with the computer to cast abilities. Its fun for about 2 hours, then you're sitting there going shit... I have to press 1-3-1 to cast my 3 hit combo. The game does keep your attention more than say a game wtih auto attack, but ultimately its just as mindless and boring. The game has all the same types of abilities as WoW, but just makes you press extra buttons, which gets extremely boring after awhile. They try and make it play like an action game, but if i wanted that I would go play an action game like devil may cry or something. It sounds interesting, but its just retarded. Also take note here, you can not cast abilities while moving. You can chase something and swipe at it with normal melee attacks, but to cast an abilities like a slows, stuns, and combo hits, you have to stop (more on this below), which is extremely stupid. This is not okay, this is not an easy fix, this is an extremely piss poor piece of code written into the game, and is a FUNDAMENTAL flaw. This is retarded.
I have a feeling you cried a lot because you weren't able to go one on one with a ranger. If you're smart enough, anyone can be beaten. As for the combat system, no you don't have to stand still to execute a combo. You can move and swing at the same time, as long as they in range of the final swing, it lands.

5. PvP - There is no PvP, I mean you are allowed to attack other players on a PvP server but that just means that you can gank someone right after they get done fighting a mob and are low on HP. PvP is the most incredibly unbalanced thing that has ever happened. The game itself does not lend itself to PvP because the combo system forces players to STAND STILL TO CAST EVERY TYPE OF MELEE COMBO! For instance, if you start a combo that stuns an opponent, but you are forced to press 1 then 3 and then it fires before the stun will fire, the other guy can simply take two steps back and can completely avoid it. What? How retarded is this? So basically, if you're a melee class, don't expect to be able to use any of your abliities in PvP.


Next up with PvP is how rangers (the ranged class, duh) are insanely overpowered when it comes to PvP and go around ganking everything. Its retarded. However, my guardian (the AoC version of a Protection warrior in wow) has such high defense and HP that he can sit there and laugh at people who try to PvP him. I can take about a mintues worth of damage from another melee class, and then simply run away from them and regenerate all of my HP in about a minute, and then allow them to beat on me again. Its such a joke. There is no balance, there is no "honor" system, there is no group pvp, there are no battlefields, did I mention there is no balance?And there are no rewards. Its just random ganking, anything goes. Retarded. PvP SUCKS!
PvP leveling is turned off right now. Why you ask? To keep people from going around ganking people. There aren't enough level 80's to even warrant having the system in place, since the gear is for end game. As for the battlefields, did you ever read the manual or look at the help? You can join a PvP match at any time from the social pane.

6. Broken talent (feat) trees - There are feat trees similar to talent trees in WoW, and they are full of holes and are broken. No though or rhyme or reason has gone into making them, and they copy and pasted half their abilities from WoW and the other half just came up with stupid repetative shit to put in there. I have heard some people say as many as 25% of the feats out there don't work or malfunction consistently.
It's not broken as much as it is unimplemented and unfinished. Some talents don't work, and some don't work right. You win this one.

7. Lack of Community - The HUD absolutely blows in AoC. Also, NOBODY GROUPS IN AOC. WHY PLAY A MMO IF YOU CAN'T GROUP WITH OTHER PEOPLE? Well, theres a disgusting lack of group content for starters, then from there it just gets worse. Hardly anybody talks to each other, and the player made guild cities pretty much suck. Its amazing how bad the chat system is and how not condusive the HUD/CHAT/GAME is for players to interact and form a community. Thats why you play an MMO, for the community, and thats pretty hard to get interested in an MMO when nobody talks to each other. Sucks right?
The interface isn't perfect, but that is no reason for you to complain about finding a group. This game is built on guilds, pick-up groups can only be found for the harder quests really. The chat system functions, its a chat system, what else do you want out of it? Or maybe you failed at reading the manual...again.

Conclusion
This game is unfinished, and the only *decent* part is the graphics which are buggy at best. The starting city (tortage) might be the greatest zone ever made for an MMO, but its only good for a single run through. From there, the content level drops to zero over the next 15 levels.
Bottom Line: The graphics, the bugs, the unbalanced classes/pvp, and the active combo system are all unfinished, and these are NOT easy fixes, these issues are fundamental flaws with the game. Fixing these issues will take at the very least 6 months but most likely at least a year to fix. If there are so many flaws in the game, how can you expect them to deliver new content like siege PvP? I doubt siege pvp will ever go live in 2008. The game will kill itself off before it ever truly gets off the ground, just another wow clone with different graphics and fatalities. WoW remains the industry standard, they actually do everything right over at blizzard.
If by do everything right you mean, count the money, leave class imbalance, and force massive large scale grouping for hours in order to see the best content...then yes.

This game is a joke, no really it is. What kind of f**king retarded developer would release a MMORPG that has 7-8 playable zones in it?

[flame]
"LAWL DIS GAME BLLOWWSS I KWIT!! HAR HAR HAR!"
[/flame]

LoTRO was only smooth because they didn't promise much of anything and other than raiding and lore they still lack anything, especially innovative. AoC is a beast that can only be compared to DDO in the area of combat, and in launch comparison AoC has bested it ten fold. There are bugs, yes. Are they total game breakers? Not to me. I am still confused as to what content isn't there that is supposed to be?  Sieges? Already had one on my server. Raids? Other than Ebonlore who the hell has a full group of 80's? Crafting? Somewhat, because of traders. However, they need to fix the exploits in them to prevent whatever the koreans throw at it. It's not like they're having trouble getting servers populated, my server has a queue every night. It's STILL growing in subscription base. Largely the trolls are the people sitting on the fence looking for a reason to go back to WoW or GW so they don't have to start over again as a newb with no epeen.

It's been a few weeks since I've posted here, but here I go again. I've spent all my free time playing AoC for the last two weeks. I'm currently level 38 and I am enjoying it greatly. Granted there are bugs, but this happens at mmo launches. PvE is fun and requires a lot of tactical strategy in places, compared to knowing what you're gonna get in WoW. The open pvp element is nice as well. My guild is a defensive guild only, we only fight when antagonized and do not camp, grief, or gank. We only have two guilds on our KoS list and we have a ton of players that are dedicated to the game. It's the most fun I've had since I played pre-CU SWG. There is so much to learn and so much more that will be in the game potentially. I've been waiting for WAR for almost 2 years, but now im not sure if it will have enough to draw me in fulltime away from AoC. If you don't like it, fine. But really, making a troll post on mmorpg.com is not only cliche but its cheesy. Next time make some points that are more valid to potential players rather than flaming about system performance, instancing, and load screens. If this was all out open world, not many computers would survive. There's too much graphical detail for 100 people to be around the same place, not to mention that would be the biggest non-stop spawn fight ever. Spawn fighting in an open pvp game isn't my idea of fun.

This new patch has me loading faster, keeps a consistent frame-rate, and has polished a lot of the visuals and bare parts in the interface. Not a miracle but a damned good patch indeed.

SoE fails logic, you can't LFG when there is no one to group with to begin with. So the 50 guys other than Obraik that play NGE are mad now? Wow that only took 2 years.

I understand having two patch archetypes, it helps you understand why a new bug is presented when fixing an old one and how to prevent it. However, I wouldn't think that would be something done a few weeks before launch. Everything feels so rushed, not unfinished, but just rushed. These memory leaks shouldn't be popping up a few weeks from launch, they should be something patched out during prime beta testing. The fact that quad core's with dual gpu's can't run at high speaks a bit to Funcom's inability to stabilize their client for a range of spec's. It may run great on their development machines but we don't own their dev machines. We all own different machines, with different parts and different specs, generally working out compatibility kinks is the first thing done during a beta other than testing content and finding bugs. This rush is disappointing.

I believe a polygraph would return with all comments being "deceptive" if FunCom's PR staff were given one. If it weren't for memory leaks and having to constantly recompile shaders, the game would be in far better shape. I've actually noticed more leaks since the opening and am again considering cancelling my pre-order because of the difficulty for the client to stabilize at times. I don't exactly feel assured that what we get at release will be much better than what we have now, im sure some stuff will be fixed but 150 programmers can't iron out the game in 2 weeks, regardless of whether they know there are bugs or not.

Originally posted by SGoodyer

I'm beyond FKNIGFSDG angry right now... 96% complete and I lose connect... and Firefox FKS ME OVER by not resuming... Guess I'll install in 3 days because of this BS.

Use their free IGN Downloader and you can resume when disconnected.

Edit: Also -- "Age of Conan Beta download mirrors may disappear when full. Please stand by as they will automatically reappear when available for you to download."

I'm still weary of the combat and if it improves and is implemented better going forward past 13, before then it all seems the same, feels like a button mash fest. The performance issues are less worri-some to me because its something they can tweak and patch much easier rather than changing the structure of the combat system. It makes no sense that my low end rig can run smooth if I disable sound, yet people with quad-core's and dual gpu's have major problems. It'd be nice if they would patch the OB client to the latest CB client. Thats a wild card that im looking at as a make or break, is the cb/gold version as polished as some claim. Saying "what you see is what you get" isn't true, but that doesn't mean what we get will be working properly. If early access has this sound problem that increases my loads then ill be cancelling my pre-order before it ships. I originally cancelled but found that gogamer.com was selling for $5 cheaper and decided to take up the offer and register for early access. If I can't cancel I can at least ebay the retail box and break even. Until then im going to play some offline games and maybe start an Eve account as a fall back.

Yep I got this too, im guessing it means they received a new shipment quote from the distributor. Only time will tell. Hopefully this means the beta will get opened soon for us pre-orders. I'm sure it will create another troll fest much like AoC though.

Maybe this is their way of falling into a f2p system in case the game doesn't succeed. Sort of like what Vanguard should have done before development...

Originally posted by DeadJester

Originally posted by cagan

and yes that was the other thig, the REVOLUTIONARY combat system was basicly smashing my keys. I like the shield block and parry stuff but comboing and key smashing gets old after a while, I wanna ALT TAB and download porn when fighting a mob thats like 10 lvl lower than me... I miss my wow paladin :)

 Give me a break.

Want a piece of my kit-kat bar? I promise it has no razors.

I just cancelled my preorder. Not because of performance or bugs, but simply that the combat isn't deep as promised. Melee fighting is just 1,2,3 - 1,2,3. Using my abilities makes the fight take longer than just spreading attacks out and hitting across multiple targets. Not being able to time blocks and parries is annoying too, its WoW/EQ without auto-attacks or good spec trees. I also noticed that on low the only way to detect an incoming spell is to see the caster moving its hands, never had a fireball or damage effect happen, and died because a caster was off my screen. Just not innovative, intuitive or fun to me. If I could do my combos without having to activate them, it'd be a lot more fluid and fun. A lot of times using an ability causes the npc to shift shields to that abilities attack side before inputing the combo, making it a waste. Not to mention everyone has the same abilities up until level 4 or so. Needs a lot more concept work.

Originally posted by ParkCarsHere

Good links! Too bad this wont help quell the troll population.

Remember, help control the troll population, have your troll spayed or neutered, goodbye everybody!

For those experiencing immense load times and lots of hardware lag, try going into audio options and unchecking "Enable Sound", I don't know why this works at all, maybe because of sound card issues, but my loads went from 10 mins to 30 seconds and I lost most of the lag I received when enter combat and rendering new areas. This on top of the shader dumping should help immensely. I now run at 35 fps or higher on  the highest available nivida agp card, 1.7 gigs of ram, and a p4 single core 3.0ghz.

Originally posted by ParkCarsHere

 

Originally posted by dethgar

Originally posted by ParkCarsHere

Originally posted by dethgar

Originally posted by namelessbob

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Believe  what you want.

If you ever played any open beta , you would know i am speaking the truth.

I am not saying that AOC is bad, or comparing it to Vanguard.

Just stating that

THERE IS NO MIRACLE PATCH

What you see now, is what you will play at release.

QFT, why can't all open beta's be as refined as Turbine's.

You sir are wrong. I participated in open and closed beta for LoTRO and it was a totally fubarred mess for weeks. The server stress was so bad that it took literally an hour travel from the Dwarf Starter area to gondamon, because periodically your toon would lock in place for minutes at a time. It was in no way refined, however they did get the info they wanted and the day that early access began it rolled smoothly. Hate to inform you flamers of this, but the LoTRO FP Beta used a client about 5 patches behind the closed beta one, for the purpose of keeping loggers, debuggers, and server load efficient to the specific build that they had refined the most with the 5 patches. One could speculate that picked up and applied fixes to the other unknown problems within that build and applied it as part of the launch patch.

Uh... what!? LOTRO open beta was flawless. I dunno what you were doing while the rest of us were playing LOTRO beta...

The fileplanet stress test beta was not flawless, not at all. The "play to level 15 and keep your character if you pre-order" open beta was, but that was after a bunch of us stress tested it for 3 weeks of shear hell only to have our toons wiped and told to start over. Having done that, I lost the desire to play the game and cancelled after month one, because I didn't want to rush through the stuff i'd spent hours laboring to do before in service to turbine to only have a nice punch in the face as a thank you.

Well now it just seems like your complaining that you were not allowed to keep your characters from the beta. Sure, it may have had performance problems, but this was obviously fixed VERY soon afterwards if the open beta I experienced was flawless.

 

People don't realize that a Beta is not a gift to the community. It is the developers asking for volunteer WORK from us in order to test their game. You're not supposed to get anything from it - you're supposed to be helping the company. Yes, it also doubles as a "free trial" in a sense, but a beta is IN NO WAY a finished product.

 

Anyways, how about we criticize the game AFTER it has released and stop all this ****ing complaining. How about the OP go troll somewhere else.

I was fine with losing the characters. I was more-less angry that the people who had done the work got shafted while the new people who were playing the fruits of our labor got a bonus and if we wanted the same we had to do it all over again. I realize it was testing and I have no right to anything in it. Just miffed that open beta players got to keep their toons, and play in the polished OB. It just didn't seem fair that they selected a marketing group of testers to give gifts to while us grunt testers barely got a thank you and also didnt get access to the ob without a fileplanet account.