"your bizarre need for reality in a game."

Umm YEAH....that's why the WHOLE PC VIDEO industry is working on better and better graphics cards, because of people's "bizarre need for reality in a game." ROFL

Where the phone? I must call Nvidia and ATI and tell them how their whole business is a waste of time.

Originally posted by Praxus

"your bizarre need for reality in a game."

Umm YEAH....that's why the WHOLE PC VIDEO industry is working on better and better graphics cards, because of people's "bizarre need for reality in a game." ROFL

Where the phone? I must call Nvidia and ATI and tell them how their whole business is a waste of time.

 

 

But not the PC MMO industry. The Hollywood CGI departments are definately working towards it, but pushing for realistic looking MMO games is a waste of time. Graphics have never been the cause of a game's failure when there are so many other problems like network and database coding. To top it off, with Games like Bioshock, Crysis, Oblivion, and others constantly push the "realistic" look of games...  it is not hard to transfer techniques or designs over to an MMORPG. The push for realism in PC graphics, is more from Hollywood, and to a lesser extent, single player games... not MMO's.

AoC, yeah it runs great, but WHY do I keep CHUNKING when it obviously isnt the graphics that are doing it? I can guarantee it isn't my video card, but what about the network code? Instruction code? Or how about how they all tie in together? The chunking takes place on low and high settings... no change no matter what I set my visual settings to.

Finally... first and foremost these are games - not real life. We, as gameplayers, are willing to sacrifice on realism so long as we get a game we can enjoy and play. Else, we'd all be LARPing.

In line with my new anti-troll policy, here's a link for all.. of... you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZtiJN6yiik

Don't argue wiht them about AoC when they buy it and play on retail and the figure out there are only about 3000-5000 people playing on the server..they will find out how fun it is playing with themselves lol.

Originally posted by Praxus

 

Originally posted by Fraxture

Oh God! I spent more times lodaing than leveling. I think when I reached 8th level in the AOC Open Beta, if it wasn't for the instancing, I would of been 13.

Hell, even to take a crap in the game is an instancing experience of 7 to 10 minutes. Then it hitched during the crapping process continually.

 

Speaking of crap, the above post is full of it.

Loading in AoC is quick if you have a newer pc. But I can see warhammer is going for the lowest common denominator with its cartoony wow graphics. Did they actually hire artists away from Blizzard? Cause it sure as heck looks like it.

 

 

Guys this is getting old..

Originally posted by zelpher

Don't argue wiht them about AoC when they buy it and play on retail and the figure out there are only about 3000-5000 people playing on the server..they will find out how fun it is playing with themselves lol.

Hey look everyone its Zelpher! Come lets all oooo and aaaaa at the wonder that is the quintessential forum troll. Make sure to note his utter disregard for punctuation or capitalization. Let us feel the awe of his perfectly misspelled words and completely broken sentences. This,ladies and gents, is the real thing. Nowhere else can you see a forum troll in his natural habitat but here at mmorpg.com. Lets all take a moment to thank our public education system for such an individual as this.

Originally posted by bsmith239

Originally posted by zelpher

Don't argue wiht them about AoC when they buy it and play on retail and the figure out there are only about 3000-5000 people playing on the server..they will find out how fun it is playing with themselves lol.

Hey look everyone its Zelpher! Come lets all oooo and aaaaa at the wonder that is the quintessential forum troll. Make sure to note his utter disregard for punctuation or capitalization. Let us feel the awe of his perfectly misspelled words and completely broken sentences. This,ladies and gents, is the real thing. Nowhere else can you see a forum troll in his natural habitat but here at mmorpg.com. Lets all take a moment to thank our public education system for such an individual as this.

ohh your cool  all you did their was try and put someone down ..yeah, mature...  How is that post by Zelpher even bad.. i mean  please most MMOs cant hold mroe then 3000 on a server (if they have muli server games)  so even if their is 3000 players on AoC and those are the only subs they have  but all on oneserver you wont even notice...

Originally posted by Greek_Matt

Fact is most people would agree games today are a lot more varied and visually exciting than they were twenty years ago. Imagine the doldrums we'd be stuck in today if developers back then had listened to all the ranting Luddites and frozen computer games tech requirements at 1987 levels?

Who are these ranting Luddites and why are you so concerned about them?  It's certainly not the OP, nor excellent responses to your posts by elvenangel and mmonkeyboy (post #99) that you may have missed.

The sane point of this thread is questioning a business decision made by Funcom, and it's a very good point.  For whatever reason, they have ended up targeting the traditional FPS PC gaming market who are accustomed to regular hardware upgrades.  In every other PC gaming market I can think of, companies (often Blizzard, for better or worse) have succeeded by dialing down system specs.  Funcom's apparent strategy raises at least 3 legitimate concerns.  First that a large number of potential customers won't buy the game because of real or imagined hardware barriers. Second that MMOs are already a technical nightmare without adding higher code complexity and content requirements.  Third that many FPS gamers find MMORPGs boring, unskilled and beneath them, further reducing their potential stake in a highly competitive market.

I'm inclined to agree with mmonkeyboy that the most likely reason for this strategy is that either Funcom misjudged where the tech would be at or they misjudged their ability to create an engine with reasonable specs.  Perhaps Funcom decided to risk going down in a blaze of glory for the sake of their art.  Seems unlikely, but perhaps.

That is an interesting thing to discuss, not because the world is ending or art is dying or Funcom should be morally condemned, but because the business of development is interesting.  If Funcom screwed up, that will be interesting.  If all that hype was for a niche game, that will be interesting.  If someone decided that pushing the creative envelope was more important than feeding their employee's families, that will be interesting.

Originally posted by etomai

 

 

Originally posted by Greek_Matt

Fact is most people would agree games today are a lot more varied and visually exciting than they were twenty years ago. Imagine the doldrums we'd be stuck in today if developers back then had listened to all the ranting Luddites and frozen computer games tech requirements at 1987 levels?

Who are these ranting Luddites and why are you so concerned about them?  It's certainly not the OP, nor excellent responses to your posts by elvenangel and mmonkeyboy (post #99) that you may have missed.

I admit that I have neither the time nor the inclination to reply to every post which has replied to one of mine... I'd hoped that my general position would become clear through the posts I had made, and would rather not reiterate or restate things if I can avoid it. Also haven't read every post on this thread in detail, so yes perhaps I've missed some valid points. You seem to have summarized them nicely here, so I'll save myself some time and just reply to yours. The particular ranting Luddite I referred to was Boneserino, who claimed to speak for the 'silent majority' of old PC owners. Also to a lesser extent Gishgeron, who argued that high graphic demands had ruined his genre (MMO gaming).

Also, for the most part my arguments have been concerned more with the concept that high tech demands have no business in the MMO genre in general rather than debating the particular merits of AoC specifically, since until release it's difficult to gauge for sure exactly how successfully they'll hit their target.

 

 

The sane point of this thread is questioning a business decision made by Funcom, and it's a very good point.  For whatever reason, they have ended up targeting the traditional FPS PC gaming market who are accustomed to regular hardware upgrades.  In every other PC gaming market I can think of, companies (often Blizzard, for better or worse) have succeeded by dialing down system specs. 

Not quite. I believe Funcom have correctly perceived that many (MMO)RPG players have grown tired of playing games where everything is completely determined for you by behind-the-scenes dice rolls, to the point where you don't really have to dedicate much of your attention towards playing the game (which seems to defeat the purpose of playing in the first place). They are certainly not the first to introduce a more action-oriented gameplay style to a RPG, but this certainly doesn't amount to a move towards FPS gaming. It's still firmly a RPG-style game in many senses, albeit one that requires your complete concentration and a little hand-eye coordination. And really, when was the last time you saw a significant part of the playerbase truly "roleplaying" in any of the MMORPGs currently on the market?

As for FPS players being the only ones who need/choose to upgrade their PCs at least every couple of years (which is the time frame we're talking about here, since AoC runs fine on a 2yr old computer), I don't believe this is the case at all. Take a look at the RTS, RPG, driving, adventure and even sim games that have released in the last year - think you'd find in most cases if your rig is more than 2 years old, you'll be dialing down the settings significantly to get playable performance. Unless Flash games are your bag, of course.

 

 

Funcom's apparent strategy raises at least 3 legitimate concerns.  First that a large number of potential customers won't buy the game because of real or imagined hardware barriers. Second that MMOs are already a technical nightmare without adding higher code complexity and content requirements.  Third that many FPS gamers find MMORPGs boring, unskilled and beneath them, further reducing their potential stake in a highly competitive market.

1. I'm not so sure that's true at all - I think you've seriously underestimated the interest in AoC (don't let the users on MMORPG.com be your only benchmark). I think a huge number of people will at least try the retail edition of Conan, either by buying a copy themselves or using one of the many tens of thousands of buddy keys that will be floating around out there (5 keys per preorder copy wasn't it?). Whether they choose to subscribe themselves is another story, but again that won't only be due to performance issues. The game was never going to have the low-maintenance mass appeal of WoW, Funcom have stated this from the outset (and indeed have deliberately attempted to limit their potential market to the 18+ age group). I'm inclined to think that more than a few people will be pleasantly surprised with their computer's ability to pay this game, if (and I know it's a BIG if) Funcom manage to iron out the bigger engine-based issues (chunking, crashing etc).

2. That's true enough, and indeed it's the reason for the performance issues that exist in the Beta at the moment. But just because something seems difficult or over-complicated, doesn't mean it can't be done. Funcom have set themselves an ambitious target and have gambled heavily that they will overcome it. We'll have to wait to see if they succeed, but it's certainly possibly and in general I'd say adopting a defeatist attitude never helped progress in any field.

3. As in 1. above, I don't think Funcom are pitching at FPS gamers at all. I think they'll find a comfortable and reasonably sized market within the sick-of-current-MMO/RPG-gameplay-<2yr old-system-owner-low-fantasy-fan user base. Certainly not universal, but then it was never trying to be "E for Everyone". Also don't forget that this game will also (eventually) be releasing on XBox - unless they completely screw up their programming, this should be a far simpler platform to code for and thus will render the "only rich gamers with high-end rigs can play this game" argument meaningless.

 

I'm inclined to agree with mmonkeyboy that the most likely reason for this strategy is that either Funcom misjudged where the tech would be at or they misjudged their ability to create an engine with reasonable specs.  Perhaps Funcom decided to risk going down in a blaze of glory for the sake of their art.  Seems unlikely, but perhaps.

That is an interesting thing to discuss, not because the world is ending or art is dying or Funcom should be morally condemned, but because the business of development is interesting.  If Funcom screwed up, that will be interesting.  If all that hype was for a niche game, that will be interesting.  If someone decided that pushing the creative envelope was more important than feeding their employee's families, that will be interesting.

I have to agree with you that Funcom probably did misjudge where we'd be as PC owners in 2008, but not by much (though indeed if they'd released in 2007 as they'd originally planned then they would have been that much further off the mark, it's true). In doing so they've created problems for themselves, but I don't think these problems are insurmountable by any means. World of Warcraft played it incredibly safe when they engineered their MMO engine, and its subsequent colossal success has if anything been a blow to what could have been a much more progressive and experimental genre of gaming. Investors (who are not gamers and only care about the bottom line) have seen the numbers and dream of similar glory, so they put a lot of pressure on developers to compromise their creative concepts in favour of mass appeal.

Sure Funcom isn't revolutionising the genre, but they are trying to make a couple of significant changes (combat interactivity and graphics/art direction) in an effort to make their product more immersive and ultimately successful. To say that they shouldn't be trying to do this feels pretty narrow-minded to me, and the fact that it's certainly not going to be the failure Vanguard was means that even if it isn't a staggering success it will still do well enough to hopefully encourage a little more much-needed lateral thinking and boundary-pushing in this godforsaken industry.

I'm sure I've droned on far too much here already, just wanted to quickly add a reference to THIS THREAD, which seems to suggest that my faith in the abilities of the Funcom devs to fix the performance issues of Conan was not entirely misplaced.

/relief

If you recall when Warcraft came out, it was pretty much impossible to move in the major cities because of the graphics issues.   Also, Wow had a patch at least every week for months/years. 

Originally posted by kujii

If you recall when Warcraft came out, it was pretty much impossible to move in the major cities because of the graphics issues.   Also, Wow had a patch at least every week for months/years.