All Posts by Cephus404

Originally posted by digitydarkman

Damn kids, who really cares about graphics at the end of the day. Content is 90% of what matters.

True, but in this case, there are so many graphical problems in AO that they have to update it.  The whole graphics engine is a mess, the collision system is bad, etc.  If my Adventurer character is in wolf mode, I can see through walls and it's hard to get through doors because you get close and the walls all vanish.

Heck, a couple of weeks ago, I was fighting a dyna boss at the top of a cliff in Newland Desert, I killed him, he fell over the cliff and got "stuck" about half way down the sheer face.  It took me a good 10 minutes to figure out a way to get down there and loot him.  Walking out of the rhinoman valley in Newland is laughable, watching all the rhinomen stuck in the walls.

When it affects gameplay, it's time for an update.

They're really not RPGs in the strictest sense, only in the sense that games like the later Final Fantasy series that called themselves RPGs but were not.  In the strictest sense, your character needs to be unique and under your control and what you do must impact both your character and the world around them.  Final Fantasy cast players in the roles of pre-formed characters and dragged them through overblown stories by the nose that could not be significantly changed.  That's often how MMOs operate.  You have a generic character, your customization is limited and everyone does the same thing, usually mindless grinding to level, because that's the only purpose of the game.

That's not roleplaying, sorry.

Originally posted by 3on1

i cant even listen in those "places" cause i never had a clan toon ;) with the new fc baby called aoc there is just no way support will improve for ao sadly, but i love the game too much, theres still content i havent been able to try out, its just too much hehe
 

Unfortunately, they stopped supporting it long before Age of Crap came out.  Does anyone think that AoC is going to last 7 years?  Seriously? 

I agree entirely with perma-bans, they need to ban all the gold-sellers on first offense and probably limit how much gold can be given to any single player per day to stop those who sell off-site.  EvE is horrible with this kind of thing, you have all kinds of gold-selling spam going on in the public channels all the time.

Originally posted by 3on1 

uhm i have no lag issues at all, lag used to be a real pain but its really gone now, also i dont hear anyone complaining about server lag, the problem lies with u.
 

also petitions usually get deleted when u log off, sending emails is better.. but yea ao support is very slow atm.. but im used to it

Then you're not listening in the right places, the clans have been complaining for a long, long time about it.

And shitty customer service isn't something you should get used to, it's something you should absolutely demand improves.

Originally posted by burmese

AO is running on a new server farm they put in place almost a year ago. Lag has little to do with the servers, it has a lot to do with how your hard drive spools graphical data to the video card and most modern video cards and drivers don't expect to handle the game the way AO code wants to run.  That's one of the major reasons for the upcoming graphics engine.

 

As for petitions, I put in one or two a day, mainly to get rid of RMT gold sellers spamming the channels; and get responses from ARK's normally within the hour.

That's not the cause though, take last night when I was dyna farming out in Newland.  I was fighting a lvl70 dyna and everything just stopped for about 30-45 seconds.   My character was still bouncing up and down as usual, but the fight seized.  When it finally started up again, the whole clan channel came alive with "DAMN LAG!" complaints.  Are you suggesting that everyone's video card had a problem at exactly the same moment?  Seems unlikely.

As for my petition, I put in a complaint about a broken object in my inventory that won't allow me to get rid of it no matter what I do.  It's NODROP so I obviously can't sell it, but I cannot drop it and otherwise delete it, I cannot give it away, I cannot do anything with it and it's been sitting in my inventory for over 3 weeks now. 

Personally, I think they need to ban the accounts of the RMT gold sellers consistently, that's one of the things that pissed me off about EvE as well, you can't get away with people trying to make a buck.

Not only do they treat their customers like crap, they ignore them and have stuck AO on their worst servers, to the point that playing the game is often impossible.  I never had this problem before, but now... I can hardly stay connected for more than 10-15 minutes at a time, I get lagged off and when I get back, it turns out half the clan did as well.  The lag is just horrible, if I was paying for this, I'd be pissed.  I considered their $7 upgrade offer, I'm just glad I didn't do it, why pay good money for bad service?

That's not to mention that they don't pay attention to petitions.  I sent one in three weeks ago.  Never heard anything.  Sent it again a week and a half ago.  Nada.  They don't care that their game is screwed up.  Why should I?  I haven't logged on since last week, who knows when, or if, I'll try it again.

And lots of people think the same.  Funcom, if you're listening, you're fucking up big time.

Originally posted by duffalpha

Just like anything with a massive market potential MMOs will eventually be perfected. Just like coca-cola, the big mac, and cigarettes. Its only gunna get better, and im pumped. America.

That's the problem though.  McDonalds isn't perfect by any means, it's fast and it's cheap and it appeals to the lowest common denominator, that's why it's popular.  It doesn't make it good, most of the food at McDonalds is crap.

MMO devs don't care about having a superior product, just one that appeals to the most people possible.  The MMO market is and has been getting worse as they continually dumb down the games so that more and more people will play them.

That's not improvement.

That doesn't explain why I can pick up one sword and use it, but another sword with exactly the same statistics, I can't use because I'm the wrong profession.

Just admit it, it's idiotic.

What do you mean, people rip on console and PC games all the time, there are plenty of forums and magazines where they talk about the failures of pretty much every genre of gaming.  Far too many developers promise the world and fail to deliver on those promises, no matter what genre you're talking about.

Originally posted by Shadowsara 

lol, you can pick it up and then sell it to other players. It is a way to obtain money. well, I think it is good for the interaction among players in the game. You konw. We don't like to fight alone.

Unfortunately that doesn't answer the question.  What logical, rational reason can you give for letting one person use a sword based on a "profession" when someone else with equal stats and another "profession" cannot?

Everyone is missing the point, this is about age-restricted SERVERS, not age-restricted games.  You're not going to have kids lying about their age to get on servers where no one wants them when they can play just fine on a non-restricted server.  I'd say, charge a one-time $5-10 fee, provide your driver's license number (which proves you're at least 16, maybe there's a way to prove older) and get access to the server.  If you don't like it, don't pay the fee.

Isn't this about serving the customer's wants?  If people want to play around more mature people, shouldn't they be able to?  That's why lots of people won't touch WoW, because of all the annoying kids, if they set up an adult-only server, they might have even more subscribers.

I always thought that was really idiotic that you can find a sword or a gun that you can't pick up and use because it's designed for another profession, even though you've otherwise got the skills to do so.  How does the sword or gun know what profession you are anyhow? 

Originally posted by lkavadas 

Thedrizzle has a very solid point.  Ultima Online is the ultimate sandbox that would meet the criteria of most of the sandboxers around here, myself included.  So why, when there is a game that fills every need for a seemingly huge tract of the population here that loves to lament linear MMOs, are they not playing it?

Because it's a graphically ugly game.  Same reason I don't play Anarchy Online right now but will return when the graphics get updated.  I can handle sub-par graphics but only to a point.

It has nothing to do with the graphics.  UO is a fantastic sandbox game, the only reason I don't play it is because I'm sick to death of fantasy.  If they had a sci-fi version, I'd be on it in a second.  And I *DO* play AO because it's got the gameplay and the community I want.  Screw the graphics.

Originally posted by Revthought 

The game is very sandboxy. There is only one server, with 30,00 or more people logged onto it at once. That said, the universe is huge. Over 5000 systems.

The game is very sandboxy. Everyone's end game is different. By in large most of the older players hang out in 0.0 space (lawlass areas) in alliances of corps (guilds) putting up player owned stations and outposts and fighting over resources.

The problem, however, is that those 5,000 systems are all essentially the same.  It's a screensaver with a few asteroid belts and a couple of generic stations.  That's it.  There's really nothing that differentiates one system from another.

The endgame that you suggest is boring, why would anyone look forward to that?  If there are really thousands of systems and potentially many, many more, why wouldn't everyone want to take over their own system?  Heck, if EvE was really thinking, why not have everyone be able to BUILD their own system when they get to that level?

Oh wait, it would just be another screensaver, wouldn't it?

I do still play it and it is still fun and it has a great community, much better than any other game that I've come across recently.  I don't care about the graphics in the least, I'm just hoping that the new upgrades fix the lag problems (which are bad sometimes).

People who have to have mindless eye candy really don't impress me at all.

I played for a while, never really got into it though.  It didn't take long before I was bored out of my skull.

PvP:  I detest PvP with a passion so that's probably why I hated the game.  The system ratings seem to be pretty randomly laid out, if you're going a long way, you have no way to decide to fly only through 0.5+ systems if you don't want to get shot at, in fact the navigation system really sucks.  You hit that 0.0 system and get blown up by the PvP losers who are just waiting for the next person to come along they can gank.  The entire economy is based around you dying regularly and having to rebuy a ship.

Things to do:  Well, you can mine.  Or mine.  Or mine.  Or occasionally shoot at a few pirates.  And then mine some more.  Boring as hell.  Plus the fact that the systems are really shallow and generic.  They look beautiful until you realize they're all screensavers and have no substance.  Planets?  Not really, you can't ever go to any.  Moons?  Same.  Endless asteroid fields, a couple of generic bases and that's all you've got.

It just never impressed me that I'd be able to do anything I wanted to do in time.  It's just mining more ore so I can buy bigger ships so I can shoot more stupid pirates so I can die when the PvP losers decide I'm a convenient target.

Screw that.

Actually, training is one of the features I really hated about EvE as well.  If you're going to train, it should have something to do with what you're actually doing.  You can spend 30 hours flying around asteroids and be training in something completely unrelated.  What the hell?  Why waste the time "training" when it makes no sense?

That's exactly how Anarchy Online works, you get points per level that you distribute yourself and how you design your skillset is essential to how effective your character is.

Plus it's got a pretty good community to boot.

I don't care about graphics at all.  I only care about the gameplay and the community.  If there was a fantastic game with a great community, I'd forego graphics entirely and play text-based in a second.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of shallow people who are only looking for eye-candy, you can find them posting on MMORPG all the time.  "Ooh, I want a game with great graphics.  Sure, the game sucks, but I want it to look good" 

I make it easy, I hate fantasy with a passion and refuse to play any fantasy game.  You've got elves and wand-waving wizards?  Take a hike.  Not interested.

We really do need more non-fantasy games, there's such a rich tapestry of possibilities out there but, like devs mindlessly putting out more WoW clones, they just keep pumping out more generic fantasy clones.

The hell with that.