I know the devs are settling into the new studio and have a fanfest coming up,  but is there any news on the  engine upgrade lately?

The Engine:

I am sorry if there was any confusion with the information I gave out before concerning delays. When I mentioned that this move would result in significant delays I should have specifically mentioned that this of course would also affect the engine work. We are not going to be able to release the engine in Q1 but we are still hoping for an "Early Beta" in Q1 or early Q2...but at this point it is still dependent on the release of the new version of the engine in Conan as to how much resource we will get in getting it set up and running. There are a few visual glitches (shadows, water and grass) I absolutely want repaired before we open it up...but we need external assistance in resolving those before we continue. I have to admit to being a bit critical of what I will allow outside the building with our expectations being so high. On a positive note the more time the artists get before we open it up the better the first versions will look. Work is getting close to complete on new bodies and heads and a great deal of the "high impact + most used" resources (trees rocks etc) are being upgraded at a good pace while we wait for the tech to come together.

http://forums.anarchyonline.com/showthread.php?t=587798

This engine upgrade is Funcom running joke, the Funcom Duke Nukem Forever.  It's been in the work for at least 5 years, i first heard of it in 2006 when i was playing and it was supposed to be up and running the year later.   I dont believe them anymore.

If they upgrade the graphics of this game, I will play it in a heartbeat!

Originally posted by Aguitha

This engine upgrade is Funcom running joke, the Funcom Duke Nukem Forever.  It's been in the work for at least 5 years, i first heard of it in 2006 when i was playing and it was supposed to be up and running the year later.   I dont believe them anymore.

 I don't believe them either.  Its just been too long and every time they say anything about it they always have an excuse.  Not only will Duke Nukem come out before their upgrade, but world peace will break out sooner.

I'm guessing that FC will end up pulling the plug before the new engine ever sees the light of day.

There are only have 5 people working on AO.

The joke is on those that keep paying to play for subpar support.

Not to mention that those 5 people kept destroying the game over & over bits by bits.

If it happens, i hope they open a fresh server without transfers.

Originally posted by rageraiden

There are only have 5 people working on AO.

The joke is on those that keep paying to play for subpar support.

Not to mention that those 5 people kept destroying the game over & over bits by bits.

So they all have two personalities and 3 of them have 3? ;D

13 is official number. Still, I hope FC would have thrown some more man power in...

Ok so it reads like age of conan gets their engine upgrade first which I know is a few weeks away since I play that game as well and test on the test server. It also reads like the longer we wait the more they accomplished art work that needs to be redone. At this point AO II could have been made.  I say throw it on a test server and let the chips fall where they may.

Originally posted by Ekaros

So they all have two personalities and 3 of them have 3? ;D

 

13 is official number. Still, I hope FC would have thrown some more man power in...

That is false, there are only 5 dev.

Montreal: Means, Kintaii, Genele, Parsed, Macrosun

Europe: Metaing and Lindelu

7 Devs

Artists and some other support roles dedicated to AO are still in Oslo

13 people total spread over the globe.

Much of the AO engine work is being done by the AoC graphics coders, as the AO rendition is just a (large) subset of the AoC Dreamworld Engine.

That AoC engie went Live on Tuesday, looks like they'll need 1 or 2 rounds of patching to smooth it over(looks outstanding in nVidia graphics, low-end ATi solutions need major polishing), then those coders go full bore to finish off the AO engine.  As Means stated the other week, they are jsut waiting for those coders to clean up some sky and water issues in the AO engine, then they can move into Beta.

Will they improve the character models?

I'll be honest is in that I'm ok with the buildings and the environment etc, even the mobs are passable its just actually characters that are so dated for me which puts me off.

They have been posting a few of the new character heads as their Bejing office produces them.  Expecting a big layotu of all 300+ heads soon. Bodies are also getting a rework, but it will all be surface changes. The avatar animations will be unchanged from their creation some 10 years ago.

way WAY too late... done, done and done.

AO 2!!!!

update!! they decided to work on a race track instead of the new engine. rip AO

I stopped looking forward to this years ago. It was the only thing that kept AO installed on my computer and why I kept my free account. I would have loved to sign back but saw no real reason until they updated the engine like they said they were going to. Saw that they weren't really serious about it when Age of Conan was announced and then released. Then Secret World, etc.

I hate to say it but I believe that player numbers- on RK2 anyway-- have finally fallen below critical mass. I think it's pretty much game over at this point.

http://forums.anarchyonline.com/showthread.php?t=588403

Some assets in new engine... So atleast they are on to something, or this hoax is getting out of hand...