Fresh off their victory in the "Best Online Game" category at Games Convention, The guys from Funcom's Age of Conan gve a great presentation on the upcoming game's Siege PvP system.
Siege PvP in Age of Conan
Check out this video featuring Siege PvP in the upcoming MMO Age of Conan.
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I'm not impressed.
Meh, it looks the same as all the others out there.
Oh wait, it has boobs.......whopee
Flat out boring looking.
Looks moderately interesting, the hiring of mercenaries is a cool feature. The fact that you can build a keep with your guild is kinda cool. But its just a rehash of Shadowbane to a degree mixed with dumbed down DAOC and pretty graphics and you have what they are showing as far as PVP in AOC. Don't get me wrong I'm probably going to buy this and check it out, but thats only because I'm a compulsive MMO player and will play every game that comes out just once and give it a shot.
Guys you do realise that its beta and the reason it played so choppy is because that two computers were controlling all those characters. Right now, Conan has the potential to be the best of new MMOs coming out. Combat is different than anything out there right now, the setting is darker and more adult themed than anything out there, and it has more options for the player than any of the new games coming. (and trust me, ive beta tested some of them , most of them are nothing to get up in a roar about) I think it looks great.
I keep seeing people say " oh sucubus, thats original" meaning they think its not. I guess those same people think that wow created the sucubus. The conan universe, along with LoTR, and Warhammer is the basis for all of the current fantasy games available today. People keep saying oh this game is just a mix of shadowbane, WOW, and DaOC. So what, at least its not a carbon copy of one of those games. Noone seems to remebver that wow coppied every game before it, aas most games do. I think its a great idea to take the best idea from all of those games. its very hard to have an entire game full of new ideas that have never been tryed. Name one MMO that did that in the last 4 years and succeded. Even games like guild wars that introduced a few new ideas still play just like the others one when you get down tot he combat.
The success of this game will depend on the combat system. If they can suceed in making it really more action oriented, rather than a simple click and forget system like all the other games out are(wow,eq2,etc), than i think they will have a great game on their hands. Everything ive seen looks amazing as far as graphics, the settings are beautiful and very dark, and combat looks fun. Sure some of the videos are a bit cluncky from time to time, but most of it looked smooth on the Pve end. people need to remeber that it is in a beta stage, not a fully optimized release state, and quit judging it simply by the frame rate. They arent going to release a game that has 15 FPS i promise.
I found the whole thing unprofessional when a game like that is demonstrated even in Beta it should run lag free. The fact it lags shows there are some Hardware/software issues still.
And ?
If you actually view the video you would notice them saying they were trying to simulate a battle on one PC with 200 players, as far as i can tell that is very impressive to say the least..And from the picture they were actually playing it on rather high settings..
And...The game isn't out until march ...so..
/Thark
Not nearly as much as the warhammer lag in the 3 gamespot videos that came from the show - point being there is 6 months of beta to go and I laugh in your face for your unprofessional comment.
Who one best online game at the show??
I have been following AOC since about Dec of 2005. I keep hearing how awesome the combat is and how we are going to love the combat. I have yet to see one video of any kind of exciting combat or the much touted combo move. Even in this the lasted video I am sorry to say I see nothing exciting about the combat . It seems that if you wanted to get people excited about the game, you would show them the one thing that they have been bragging about for months....the combat. And I am aware the combat is being revised, that is the combat we were supposed to love, but turned out to be the suck after 2 days of beta testing. I am not trying to get down on the game but the thing they have been bragging about; I haven't seen one bit of excitement out of. Even the 3 second WarHammer video of the High Elf swordsman put out more excitement then all the AOC combat I have seen. The dude is playing a Barbarian, the most combo heavy class in AOC and he seems to have one slow move. Maybe he is still learning the moves.
Have you ever been involved in game development before? Serious question. I have more than once, and I know there was absolutely nothing unprofessional about the demo or how it was handled.
I thought that the demo they ran worked very-very well, the stuff they wanted to show worked, and they were very cool about problems in the interview on and off camera. The guys that work on this game are great to talk to and were very accomidating.
You got a peak into something not out yet... not even finished. If everyone did it your apparent way, we wouldn't see anything until they were on store shelves. I'll take buggy/laggy/crashy previews any day.
....
According to the devs the only reason for the delay was because the combat system was too hard to understand, and they needed the time to rework it. They said absolutely nothing about lag problems, sliding, incomplete systems, etc.
However as these videos prove quite clearly, there was a whole lot of problems that funcom neglected to tell the community. They leave out every truth that is inconvienant for them. Have to hide the truth to keep that hype up, of course.
They had plenty of ways to show a true siege with other live players. They CHOSE not to. Why do you suppose that is?
Since I'm not there, I'm curious how the network connection/internet connections have been.
I would imagine that the bandwidth get's swallowed up pretty quick, so I'm not convinced that the game lags just because of someone's machine.
In all, not a bad video, showed some more of what people were looking for, and the individual PvP video's that I've seen people taking have been fairly solid. I know push back was a huge issue for many people, but quite frankly, the game NEEDS some more time in development, (female avatars, chat system, anyone?). The ideas are still good, and if they take 5 extra months to polish, and the end result is a smooth release, with a solid game that appeals to multiple playstyles, I'm all for it.
Look at it this way, if Vanguard released today instead of 7 months ago, it would not have suffered as much poor publicity as it did, and it may never have reached its hype, but it certainly would not be the gold standard for shoddy releases it has become to many gamers. Get it right Funcom, because realistically this is the last pushback many fans will accept.
Uhhh, the truth was pretty much out there, you just had to pay attention to it, and realize it. (I fully admit in many cases, I had my blinders on) however no female avatars, the chat system, and plenty of other things indicated that it was not 100% ready for release. Now could those things have been taken care of in two to three months time? Probably, but the quality of the solutions? No idea.
I dont really think Funcom was hiding anything, those concerns were made abundantly evident in many previews written about the game.
I agree it was very clear to everyone that was open minded enough to see it. But its not the fact that it was clear that is the issue. More that Funcom said nothing of these things. And that made it very easy for the more extremist fans to always deny that there were problems.
If funcom had just come out and said 'we want to rework the combat to be easier to understand, but we also feel we have some big problems with lag, animations, etc before it lives up to the standards we have for release'... well than the fans couldn't deny these things, because it would have come straight from funcom. We wouldn't have seen all the insults against the people that were skeptical, because they didn't conform to the idea the game was flawless.
I just think it would have been more honest and avoided a lot of problems the AoC community has in regards to spin and misinformation.
One thing you have to realize. Has your computer tried to render a start to finish keep being built in under 10 seconds, everything bump mapped and showing drop shadows? Has your computer spawned 200NPC's in under a minute on the screen running at full resolution at high settings. Cant forget their mounts too. They are also speeding up the siege engines as well, the trebuchets were firing faster than the fiery boulder could even reach its target, all the while speeding up all actions and calculations for the time restrictions of the demonstration.
I think most computers would Cry at the task the dev's tried to do in the demo. Even if they had top of the line computers, which they didn't, to run that demo, its processing and doing more things than you would normally get on your screen when playing the game in a normal scenario. Obviously there are hardware and software issues, were they running DX10? dunno? Vista? dunno? Debug code? dunno? Non optimized code base? Dunno? Making assumptions that it should be that way with out knowing the ins and outs on WHY it was running that way is just.. well.. naive.
Why do people always say the frikkin word lag....sigh. A lag is a byproduct of network latency.
I have/will of/given funcom the benefit of doubt that they could of fixed the issues seen 2 months ago before start of november. Critical people like yourself wouldn't. The point is its still in Beta now but with double the amount of beta time to go - deal with it. The delay upset alot of people including myself, but I wasn't disapointed to the point where insults have to be thrown around. Lag and animations have constanted been stated by the devs throughtout spring time that these are the last things to get tweaked up in beta.
Whatever your issues with AoC are (all negative) the fact remains you can be critical of the performance of the game engine during this "demoed" "simulation". You have flat out said before that funcom lied etc etc which is just not the case with the seige information. Fan and Forum hype done that and took me long for the ride too. People like Metal Dragon above don't conform to the game because they have no interest in it, just like half a dozen other beefcakes. Banding comments around like "unprofessional" is stock and stable of the insults that the AoC community have had to put up with the last few months.
Btw Funcom did come and say they wanted to rework to combat, just not for the reasons you insist it should be for. In their eyes there wasn't a need to include, animation and "lag" <- overly misued term (as previously said,last things to go into beta)
You see if you listen to the commentry as well as watch the video -
two people controlling 200 characters -
all the tracking for these characters are done thru these two -
50% load on CPU because of system resources which are drained -
They mention several times - demo and simulation - they say they expect the client to crash "alot"
You harp on about an unfinished product, how bad, how lacking it is, how Funcom neglected to tell the community; Its BS, wake up, listen and realise its beta. Stop the SH*T stirring and take your hate blinders off for once, you don't like what you see then come back when the game is finished. - re-read Alchemda's post above again too.
I will note that from a server/netcode perspective, there really isn't any difference between players and NPCs. In fact, it's generally harder on the server to have that many NPCs, as they all have brains/scripts/AI to run, rather than players that do not.
Balance Team Lead
As long as people like you Avery are around to spread propaganda and misinformation to hype up the game, there will be people around to make sure a more balanced view exists on this forum. As long as you continue to be an extremist persona on this board, you will not have any rest. I will certainly not give you that luxury after seeing your behavior for the past few months.
Every criticism about any aspect of the game is met with a response from either you or Fion discrediting them. From the minor to the major. How hypocritical of you to ever use the words 'hate blinders'. You hate everyone that doesn't feel like you do about the game.
Funcom choose the method for the siege pvp video. They could have easily done it with live people. Easily. I can call up a few people right this second and get more live players than funcom had. That is pretty sad. Since it was their choice to show the siege in this way, it is entirely their fault if 2 computers hosting a bunch of stationary npcs was too much for it to handle. They knew what they were getting into.
If you don't like people telling things as they are... I suggest YOU take a leave the community and not come back until release. Because e-bullys do not have any power here im afraid.
You have no interest in the game, you hate Funcom and AO therefore you have taken it upon yourself to discredit any AoC information that comes out as bad. I don't like people like you, you act like the E-Bully < wtf? I suggest you re read ALL of your post history with referance to AoC and feel the hate flowing from your words. If you cannot except the fact that a fan will defend something they are a fan off then I suggest that you yourself move along, I know your new to the community but to be honest you don't offer anything to it. Read my post history and you WILL find crititism you just don't want to admit it. I put facts in front of your face backed by dev quotes, then my opinion, - that is allowed you know! - you like to avoid the truth and are nearly hellbent on your own crusade as stated in your opening lines above.
"Funcom choose the method for the siege pvp video. They could have easily done it with live people. Easily. I can call up a few people right this second and get more live players than funcom had. That is pretty sad. Since it was their choice to show the siege in this way, it is entirely their fault if 2 computers hosting a bunch of stationary npcs was too much for it to handle. They knew what they were getting into"
Im sorry its obvious this was a big let down for you - it was a slight one for me, but I didn't make it my crusade to say Funcom "lied" "misguided" "misinformed" whatever terms you want to pull out of your... You offer no luxury to me, so leave your serving at the door. Like I said before - you don't like AoC - why bother???
Ok you do understand the logistics in doing something like that. Having limited space at the conference, as well as furnishing all those computers, tables, prepherials, chairs all those things. It just simply is smarter to do it that way, preface your demo that its going to be like that because of the stipulations. They could of not shown it all, but then the visual representation of what they have been saying is going to be in the game wouldent be able to drive the hype machine. See I think alot of people realize the stipulations of the demo, REALIZE that its not really going to be like that, and take the smarter road and look past it.
Some people can't let it go Im afraid.
I think the most PC's in one area was 24, from the photos on the mmorpg.com photo blog. AoC's showing was split into 3 different area's. I thought that the information that came out was most productive, intriguing and interesting, its a shame that no one wants to talk about it.
WoW.. That pvp looked impressive compared to other fantasy mmo . And I loved how building that camp worked. Gathering resources. There is actually meaning in this game other then killing monsters in dungeons.
I dont even like fantasy mmo, but I cant wait to try AoC.
And the graphic, sound etc... is computer perfomance, lag is for network, not computer resources itself.
other way, I like the video, seems it will be a great game! (or at least, hope so...)
I think it wa AWSOME!, If you look at other games with massive pvp thay usaly have lagg, after release. Even for me with top of the line comp i experience lagg in many games. USALY they optimize graphic at later stages, this making the game less hardware demaning, like SOE is doing for VG right now. At release VG was terrible peformance wise, now i can run it @ 80+fps, tryed yestorday, with high graph. This kind of things gets fixed, in time. I havent really cared much about AOC but if this game got this much allredy.. this much endgame 7!!! months befor release its far content wise and much more serius than any game released so far. WOW for example dident have much endgame at all at release, LOTRO dident have ANY. Waiting with release is allways good, better safe than sorry. I think most companies will learn from VG
I can't believe the idiots in this thread trashing AoC because of this demo. The game is still technically in alpha, and they warned beforehand about the issues with the pvp siege demo.
I feel lucky to have been able to get a glimpse on something that "is brand new" which they "are still working on".
Coding and testing takes a long time. If you prefer a game that pushed out code with little testing, play Vanguard.
Umm, just to jump in and make a point here.
Funcom, and everyone else that was demoing anything at the show behind-the-scenes, had to deal with a huge number of obstacles in terms of scheduling. Maybe a little bit of perspective on the way that things work at these shows would help you:
For me, I was moving from appointment to appointment, with no time in between. The same is true for the developers. These demos are scheduled in advance, often weeks in advance, and include a number of different press outlets. They didn't do just one presentation. They did half an hour presentations almost back to back for a number of days. As a press person covering this event, I don't have time to waste in a booth waiting while 200 live players are organized. Have you ever tried to organize 200 people online? It's possible, but it's exactly the kind of situation where things go wrong... a lot. Again, as a press person, I can't spend my entire day waiting while something like that is organized, and all of the planning beforehand in the world isn't going to help you. It's an on-the-fly job.
On top of this, the internet connection in the hall (or in any large, open space) is not reliable 100% of the time.
I have never been involved in a demo like that, for any MMO, that had live beta players.
I should also point out that we visited their booth on the show floor where I watched people playing live without any lag that I noticed.
There are a number of technical issues as well. Remember, they are sharing internet with every other booth in the complex.
Now, I don't have any particular feelings about Age of Conan, but your statement was extremely harsh when you clearly did not have all of the information. I hope that this helps.
As futher evidence i remind you i said Hardware/software issues. Which meant that the computer needed better hardware to run that demostration.
How is it unprofessional? The two devs giving the demo stated during the "flyby" scene that the player fort/keep was being built in super speed mode. It would take weeks or months to build one that size once the game goes live. So, super accelerated dev/god mode is no way to judge the performance of the game, since none of us will ever see that in beta or live.
Regarding the PVP demo, the two computers were running scripts that controlled ALL 200+ characters. Not just rendering them, but performing actions, reactions, etc. Again, they warned about the performance due to the load on the two PCs, and fact that the content was brand new.
I'm not sure what some people expect.
----
Lets say you make some cookies.
You put in everything except the sugar and start mixing it, and your friend Bob walks in and wants a taste.
You warn Bob that its not done and it may not taste good, but Bob is persistent.
Bob tastes a spoonful, then spits it out in your face and tells you its crap.
----
In a nutshell, thats what you're doing.
Sighs
Did you actually read my last post at all?
I completely agree, I would prefer a preview.
Personally the whole C&C element to PVP I found amazing.
I thought the music sounded pretty nice, pluas the graphics and the exciting aspect of the mmo. to be honest though I only watched the pvp the most lol, didnt care about the first half much.
Let me start off by saying I have not followed AOC at all other then the occasional look at videos or screenshots here. So far everything I've seen about the game has looked fabulous, that is if you like that fantasy crap, just my personal opinion however.
As for the game demo they did, I have demo'd at shows and I can tell you, take heed to Jon's last post. There are many factors when demo'g a game at a show that most of you don't have a clue about and will and does impact demos and videos for that matter. I think they did a really great job of the demo and the game looks "somewhat" interesting to me, even if it is fantasy. They were certainly not unprofessional in anyway, more likely they were highly skilled and professional and very good at demo'g the product after many many interviews of the shows.
Some things that impact shows:
So long story short, I think they did a good job showing off this demo even advising the audience that it was expected to crash due to the amount of content they were working with (building complete fortresses in seconds, full 200 on 200 pvp simulated script battles, and still using high end graphics-it is a show after all). Like I said, I haven't followed AOC closely at all in the past but I think I might keep my eye on it a bit closer, i'm not a fantasy guy but it looks rather well done t me when I think of Conan, I think they got it right.
Yep, I did and it made no sense. You are complaining about their hardware, when they clearly stated they were performing developer functions that would be slow and possibly crash.
Would you rather see nothing at all until the game is finished?
Thanx again for taking the time to film it.
Some people just like to look for the smallest insignificance to whinge about, half the haters openly admit they won't buy the game, maybe they just like to hear their own voices.
The mercenary system sounds like it will be most helpfull!
In his defense
Avery doesn't troll in the WAR forums. Never has to my knowledge. Maybe never even looked there.
But he makes up for it in other areas
Thanks, I don't troll there. Its true im afriad kellanved, I think its great you created you account here today and decided your first post went down the way it did. Thanks for pointing out my true colours too kellanved, but from the looks of it you have been around a while, even though this is your first post, if so you will also have seen people like Metaldragon come out and say stupid things like he did. I was pointing out that AoC wasn't nearly as laggy as another games media from the show I had seen. If you can't deal with a comments / opinions like that from someone interested in the game, to someone proved no so in the past then im sorry. How about I won't even mention war anymore?
As apposed to being a Viral advertiser then Avery?
and what stupid stuff havve i suposidly said then, hmm i said that using a machine that couldnt handle the load created a bad impresion for those who looked at the video of the demonstration [as evidenced by all the responces too it in its relivent topic].
I thought the game looked promising and I hope I have a new rig to play it on.
...oh and somebody ban the poster above me!
Looks like it's coming along nicely. Can't wait to see how the next 4-6 months turn out for this game. I definitely plan on buying it when it comes out!
i wasnt impressed mainly because they were npcs and the battles last 10 seconds, but like he said it would take hours to take the keep ..... everything looked great except for the horrid fire rocks the catapults were shooting
lol but he did say new code so i doubt it will be like during release.
I don't see why people seem determined to pitch themselves against each other depending on which game they like, it's all over these forums... a little perspective please.
I'll be trying AoC and WAR... and any other high profile mmorpg i remotely like the look of. You NEVER know until you play.
I think the siege PvP certainly is an interesting concept and adds a bit more depth to the gameplay. If they think it through and pull it off i think it'll be great... all i'm doubting atm about AoC is if they are going to get all these unique features nailed down before the intended release.
I think they'll be putting the release date back even further at this rate. I'd hate it if they released it unfinished and flopped.