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Age of Conan: Unchained News - Beta Concerns Q&A
Posted by Jon Wood on May 07, 2008 | 173 comments in our forums
Last week, we spoke to Funcom’s Age of Conan Product Director Jorgen Tharaldsen about the company’s decision to hold an Open Beta through the subscription-based website Fileplanet. Now that the Fileplanet Beta is underway, a number of player concerns have arisen about the game’s performance and potential launch problems. This week, Tharaldsen speaks once more with MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood, Speaking to some of the concerns that have been raised by our readers.
MMORPG.com:
We have heard many complaints about the presence of loading screens in Age of Conan. Can you tell us why they are there? could the game have been made without them?
Funcom:
When we started to develop Age of Conan we really wanted to bring a new level of immersion to MMOs (and judging from the feedback we have done exactly that!), and we wanted the most lush and detailed areas we could possibly deliver (while hand-picking the best from the Conan lore, across Hyboria). It was therefore a trade-off that we divided Conan into zones, and by doing so we also, naturally, had to have load times between the zones. I think this price is worth paying, for sure, but for Open Beta we reintroduced an old bug which expanded the loading times way beyond the acceptable (the bug makes the game write and store tons of code while loading, which increase the loading times too much).
It is noteworthy to mention that if you want a seamless world, you need to stream a lot of the content to make it load right. We tried this, but it meant degrading the quality of the graphics, and even getting a lot fewer interest points in the game, so the end result was an easy choice. Quality won!
Read the whole thing here.
thats gonna be some supreme carnage on the 10TH.
After reading this I'm a bit discouraged. I'm one of those people in the minority with bad performance. So are my sons. I actually have a nice computer. My son has a brand new VERY nice computer. It has problems on all of our systems. Weird graphics lag and poor performance.
Don't get me wrong - other than the bad performance the game is awesome. I really love the classes and the immersion the world gives me. The problem is, I'm not going to buy a game at release if I don't know for a fact the performance is smooth. I've tried changing settings six weeks from Sunday, followed every guide etc. I want to be able to buy 3 copies for my family when it releases, but until I know this poor performance is fixed, I'm not buying. Perhaps after release a few months... I don't know.
Then you can make up your mind of the released product and decide if it is worth to buy the game for your family.
NEVER pre-order if you are not sure you will enjoy the experience, regardless of what other people say.
I'm not looking forward to the carnage. I will stay on Tortage. I don't like FFA-PvP.
For the people who have good computers and having problems playing, there have been a lot of tips given. I know experienced players know these. The most important are the usual:
Thank you very much. I think that's exactly what I'll do. I'll send you a message after launch. :)
Good Questions and Answers.
Im confident of a good launch, sure there will be bugs but the company has the ability and the knowledge to provide a smoother than expected launch I think.
Can you say damage control? lol
Me, and two friends are in Open Beta, all 3 of us have vastly different systems from low end to high end.
All of us are experiencing the problems, the crashes, the lag, etc.
One of my friends wants to play it so bad he reboots like every hour or something just so the game runs ok.
See once the game crashes one time it fubars your video somehow to the point only a reboot fixes it (for the game) , otherwise the game ctd's like every 2 minutes.
WindowsXP is more stable than a game, never thought i'd see the day!
Anyway, my point is this game is not ready for launch, and I won't be buying it. It's just plain not ready.
Aside from the afformentioned things to do to increase performance, there's one huge one that cleared up all my frame rate issues and most of my hitching:
Go into the in-game options and disable NPC names. You won't be able to see the names on any NPC unless you mouse over them or target them, but your fps should jump up considerably.
I was getting frustrated as I'm running over 2 gigs RAM and a 512 MB Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT. I just couldn't figure out why my fps would be 1.6 when I looked out into an open field in the daytime setting, but when I faced a rock or wall my fps was around 52, and this was when I was running on Low.
Once I turned off NPC names I was able to crank the game up to high to play with around 26 fps, but opted to bump it down to medium and then adjust some other options until I was satisfied with around 36-40 fps.
All in all, I think that it's a great game and the combat system has really grown on me. t first I thought it was rather gimmicky and too complicated, but once I got used to it I love the animations and the depth it adds to fights. For you WoW lovers out there, I got talked into reactivating my WoW account to play with some friends and I just can't do it after playing AoC. The combat seems even more stale than it did when I got burned out on WoW the first time.
Nothing beats throwing your 2 handed sword and impaling your foe with it, and that's not even a finishing move.
I find the Q&A, well at least the answers, to be very misleading. I think most will be very unhappy and feel let down in the near future.
hehe i was thinking the same. I really don t see a great release for some reason.
Hehe, that was my sentiment as well.
I'm going to take it at face value and say that they will have all of the gamebreaking issues that make it almost unplayable for a lot of us fixed. However, I'm still waiting 1 month or more after launch to possibly purchase it
To be honest, every answer contained good information, assuming it's true, but also had the tone of misdirection to it, like he is being the perfect salesman for a far from perfect product. Reminded me of a politican being asked about a hot topic, and he or she gives a light, fluffy answer that really doesn't have much to do with the question that was asked. I'll explain...
The first question about loading screens kicked it off ....
Answer contains..."we really wanted to bring a new level of immersion to MMOs (and judging from the feedback we have done exactly that!) "
Next question about about old and new clients...
Answer contains..."people are having tons of fun AND good performance"
Next question about poor performance...
Answer contains..."a number of players are reporting stellar performance"
Couple questions down about why would Funcom create a game that requires a high end computer...
Answer contains..." it has also propelled us into the position as the, by far, most read about, viewed and awarded MMO in development. "
Next question, about how people are complaining about a "rocky" start
Answer contains..."We are on track to something special, and it’s FUN."
Next question, what's the best thing you've gotten out of beta
Contains..."That most people love our game! That it’s fun..."
Last question regarding the beta surprise
Contains..."the players will love what we have coming for them, and I think they will"
Ok, the last question was obviously a "sales" type question, but the others were all relating to technical issues, and it seemed like he always had to throw something in there about the fun you will have!
It's like Funcom had a meeting before the interview, and they said, "Look, give them some technical answers, but always remember to remind them about the FUN, FUN, FUN they are going to have. Maybe then they will forget about the problems and not notice them at launch. We will call this our brain-washing phase"
Ok, that's a little over the top. Nevertheless, that's the feeling I got from the answers. Lets hope I'm wrong.
And I know 4 people that have absolutely no problems whatsoever concerning CTD's, BSOD's and whatnot. It sure seems ready for launch on their end. Sure, there are in-game bugs but that's par for the course and to be expected. These guys have booku hours put in and none have crashed other than a few times when exiting the game. Nothing hard. This game will give a rig a run for the money and reveal weak points in the system. There is a flip side to this and not everyone is having problems.
Seriously though. What did you expect? He's part of a company that's trying to sell a game. Obviously he will point out the good things. Now, I would call BS if there were no good reviews out there, but there are, so his answers are close enough to the truth on that front. Hell, even Shannia's survey has double the people still on pre-orders than cancelling with the rest waiting till release. That's not exactly a result I would expect to see from a Beta in which everything went wrong.
But hey, that's just me.
I think you completely missed his point where Funcom did not give a definitive answer in any of the technical questions while not forgetting to throw out a "remember to have fun like everyone else".
In fact, I am curious what point was to be made. What do you expect? Do you expect them to tell you exactly what their coders/programmers/scripters and whatnot are doing? Do you expect them to hand out the code to you for analysis? Do you expect them to show you every little bit of their internal workings? Has any company ever done that?
No, I don't think so. What he did was answer the points adressed in a simple way, yes, without many specifics, but he answered them...and as I said, he threw in the fun stuff because he -IS- trying to sell a game, apart from the fact that there -ARE- people who are having immense fun playing.
I ask again, what did you expect?
After being in open beta with no issues at all, I'm really eager to wait for the launch date! After being mmorpg-free for quite some time since nothing in the market pleases me, I think this is the game for me. Personally I have enjoyed the game play alot.
And I'm ok with the loading screens. We all saw how the "seamless world" turned out to be for example in Vanguard. There will still those loading areas, where your computer froze for a moment while loading for new content and in the background your character kept running forwards. Once the loading was done, you were suddenly in the middle of mobs, ready to die once again due to the "seamless world".
My only concern is the ability to use hotkeys for example those two additional quickbars. So far I've found no way to do it and while I've never been a mouse clicker, this really is a huge minus in the UI. I know it opens some "special attacks" with Alt key pressed down, but as long as there is this Windows-hotkey in keyboards, using Alt during some combat is a sure way to end up in desktop. I just hope the final version does have support for hotkeying every single quickbar possible.
I think we can finally silence that stupid rumor that this is an old Client, said in game and I will say it here. That theory makes no sense whatsoever is is complete rubbish cooked up by fanbois.
Nevermind
I feel the same way. I am on a nice machine and iIhave to play on low settings. Contary to what he said most people I have met in game are having performance issues and most fo them are on rigs like mine or ones ever better. In the towns i have fps around 10 in solo instances i get to around mid 30's and that is on low settings. I have no idea what the spell effects look like because i have to have them totaly turned off along with shadowing and the water effects. I am very discouraged that they are not impliments fixs for this before the beta ends.
2 Duo CPU E6750 @ 2.66GHz
2 Geforce 8800gt sli
2 500gb HD Raid 0
4gb ram
Killer NIC Gaming Adapter
water cooled
Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Still, about the red-highlighted part. You know that?
Or is this just another "This is just like Vanguard" assumption?
Well considering he just said in the interview they were not going to impliment fixs before the close of the open beta I assume that it is true.
Hmmm...my apologies. I misread the sentence. XD
I'd like to point to the tweaks that might be in anyway. Perhaps that will fix some things for some players. You never know.
Did you read the interview?
The DIRECTOR confirmed in his own words that the "old client" thing was a RUMOR. He explained that the issues people are having came up unexpected because they rushed a few fixes in.
So what he is saying is correct, the OB was never an old client.
I have a decent set-up
nvidia 780i mb
intel quad core @2.66 ghz
8800 gts 512 mb
4g of 1060mhz ram
500gb hd
windows vista home premium--
you get the jist of my system
i get the expected lag sometimes worse than other times
But how am i suppose to beta test and give feedbak when i crash every 15-20 min for no apparent reason
I have been an aoc fanboi since day one-been trying to get in every beta and finally made it in-i like what i see but i cant see much cuz of these crashes-no sooner than i see something "oh cool" crash to desktop.
Im getting really down and discouraged- i have beta tested many mmos- and based on my past exp--- i was actually able to beta test them- i cant even stay on aoc long enuff to find enjoyment or assist in any beta testing
IMO this has to be the worst beta-FOR ME- i have ever been involved in-and im wondering if the guy they are interviewing is actually talking about AOC-cuz he says a MINORITY of people are having probs--- just based on mmorpg.com forums alone i would tend to disagree and say its the majority are find ing problems in one way or another.
I have already pre-ordered and will keep it and play at release and as bad as i want this game to succeed,everytime i log into beta i get more discouraged -so im beta retired from AOC and will cross my fingers until release
FFA-PVP--- GREAT guess ill just get pwned by folks as i crash when they attack me
I was really hoping it was the old client. But it's not. This really brings alot to light. And if this is the closed beta client, then what are the people in closed beta saying that it is different, and the CB one runs better? My performance has gotten worse and worse over the last few days....and not even due to population. I have a character in the tavern right at the beginning of tortage, a level 6 necro who i cant even log into...because 10-15 mins into loading it hangs up, and when and if i do load, i cant move for a good 5. This is after i just defragged and removed the shader files.
IF this is the client they are going with, and they said there are not going to be any major fixes to it, then this launch is going to be really rocky.
just out of curiousity...i would love to see who the liar is that started to OB is old client rumor
Wow........that's an old-ass bug! They fixed that one months ago on closed servers.
thats kinda odd considering the open beta is the same as closed beta client, even if the CB was patched recently to rectify (in the last week) then it was not fixed a month in
I believe it was an email or something that stated that the OB client is "a couple versions" prior to the PvP weekend client.
I'm pretty sure it was an official source as well.
read the interview above dude.....
I'm answering your question about who started the old client rumor. Should've quoted you but I mis-clicked, sorry for the confusion.
odd that i still have this problem then isn't it
What do you all think about the questions MMORPG asked, I think they got right to the point and got decent answers. Funcom is at least answering the issues directly, so they do know they exist. Overall, I liked what Funcom had to say, with that said it doesn't change anything other then tells up the launch will be alot better. This means exactly what it meant weeks ago, that if you want to preorder do so, if you are not sure about this game, then wait for post launch reviews.
I do think you all should be at least happy they answered your issues, even if you disagree. I will point out again also that there have not been many games recently that were considere completely polished on launch. Last, at the end of the day, is this game entertaining you or not.
That bug notwithstanding, I also get stellar overall performance on an OG e6600 OCed to 3 Ghz on air with only 2 megs of RAM and an original 8800 GTS 640MB running a V-Lited Vista kernel on closed servers. I do have a Raptor drive though, and I have never had a problem with the loading times, even when they were bad by most people's tastes. I run the game on high with all effects on and quality settings maxed, and the FPS never drops below 35.
I have no experience with this open beta's ill repute.
That's cute. I bet the "defrag" made everything "ok" for them as well.
Unless Funcom designed it to run on just the spec your four "friends" have this game is gonna be a train wreck at release just like AO.
I've been playing for a while and have a decent setup w/current drivers and it still runs like a dog with settings at LOW. I don't have the mentioned crash issues (other than when I exit the game it likes to take 10 minutes to crap out) but it runs like crap w/stuttering and stalling no matter what the settings are at.
The 10 minutes or so it runs fine doesn't make up for the 40 is runs like a old granny.
I have had this game on pre-order x2 for almost a year now. I went from being very excited about it in the begining (because I'm a big fan of the lore and because I'm an adult gamer who has always wanted a mature mmo) to forgetting about it to just recently being very excited about it. if it weren't for all the bad posts about it I'm not sure if I would have even tried to get into the beta but the other day I figured I would see what all the fuss is about. to sum it up when the game runs it is extremely fun and immersive to me. On the flipe side I will say that the open beta client crashes frequently, has frame rate issues and various graphics glitches from time to time (for me on my vista and xp pro pc's). when I play during low population times (like 5am est) most of these are few and far between when I was on earlier at about 7pm est I could barley walk around populated areas as my frame rate was about 5-8. This is not my first mmo and not my first mmo beta so I'm still keeping an open mind about it. I have almost never played a mmo or any pc game that was perfect at start, I'm not trying to make excuses for the developers but you do have to consider the countless number of pc configurations that exist and it can take time to get it right across the board thats why pc games have patches and if you have ever played a pc game then you know what a patch is. wow had server and lag issues when it first launched, lotro crashed on vista every 20 mins. or so (for me) in vista because they had a memory leak when setting the textures on ultra high for months after release (heck it took turbine what seemed like forever to even get dx10 in the game) and so on and so forth. if you don't like a game thats fine speak with your wallet but for me I will keep my pre-order, download the pre-release client which costs 5 dollars and gives you 10 days play time and see if it will be worth $180 (2 ce editions on pre-order), if it sucks I won't have to buy the game and can use my pre-order credits for another game.
I had very minor issues in the open beta, and my system is just scratching the minimum requirements.
I had a few CTDs from changing graphics options while in game (apparently it doesn't like this at the moment :P ), and one random restart which was probably some driver conflict as I had just updated to the nVidia beta drivers.
Took me about 2 hours to get it up and running nice and smooth and played for over 8 hours last night without a single crash or lockup.
Obviously I had the absolute minimum graphics settings, but things still looked pretty darn decent.
My FPS drops alot when running around Tortage in the daytime due to other players etc. and my system only has 1GB RAM so it hits it pretty hard.
I am going to be upgrading my PC soon though, as this one uses good old DDR1 memory, which is certainly well out of vogue. Plus, finding DDR1 DIMMs is a real PITA these days, so even if I wanted more memory its gonna be an epic quest to get it.
Speaking of epic questing... bring it on AoC!
Yeah, good comment. I seem to see alot of this type of response, that the game is fun, but technical issues are bothering people. Seems that client at launch will be a big selling point for people.
And yes, I have seen the same rumors that it’s old, but it’s not entirely true. We tried to include the best we had on a stable approach, but in our eagerness to please we wanted to get a few additional fixes out (hence we pushed the launch back a couple of hours). In order to reach the May 1st date some of those fixes led to unwanted side-effects which weren’t discovered in time. For some, it got a bit rockier than we wanted. We are running an extensive survey now, and from the first few hundred replies (which should be statistically correct), it seems that most people are actually having tons of fun AND good performance. We are humble about it though, and admit that things could have gone smoother, but the experience some people have had now has helped us to improve for launch, which is what really matters.
I said that this is what had happened in an earlier thread and the fanbois came out in force with the 'It's an old client, it's not the release client' mantra. Well sorry to say I told you so but I TOLD YOU SO :)
Anyway, kudos to Funcom for finally coming clean and telling the truth about what happened, players respect that a lot more than half-assed lies about old clients. Hope you get it sorted and have a good launch guys.
The two people who posted very decent rigs with problems have a common thread...
They are running Vista...
I highly suspect that performance on Vista will be significantly lower or more hit and miss than on XP at release.
Furthermore, add the complicating factors of "are they running 32-bit or 64-bit Vista?" and "are they running DX9 or DX10?" to the "are they running XP or Vista?" question, and you have alot of crap to deal with as a developer.
This is one of those times in game development where you have to bridge onto a new OS and its always a little hit and miss sometimes.
This time is even more complicated due to the change from DX9 to DX10 and the graphic cards that go along with that (GeForce 8000 series, Radeon 2000HD series).
If AoC can provide solid performance on Vista and DX10 a few months after release, it will be a great boon for the game development industry as a whole, as it will prove that Vista and DX10 can in fact perform better than, or at least on par with, DX9 and XP (Crysis absolutely failed at this goal, with DX10 performance being absolute crap).
And thats the point, isn't it?!
Edit: Thought of one more thing.
Crashes under Vista may not be the game's fault at all. The programmers may have followed the OS API perfectly to the tee, but if the code of the OS itself is buggy for certain aspects of the API, then utilizing those aspects will cause issues.
The solution is either Microsoft fixes the problem (unlikely in a reasonable timeframe), or the developers try to workaround the issue, which may or may not be possible.Debugging these kinds of issues is particularly painful as development could have centered around one buggy aspect of the API, forcing that entire part of the software to be redeveloped.
actually he said "And yes, I have seen the same rumors that it’s old, but it’s not entirely true." that is not the same thing as saying it was not an old build.
not sure if you were referign to me or not. But i defrag everyweek and alwasy after i download a new program. I could drop a core and not have it run on sli which should make it run smother. However that defeats part of the reason to be in a beta. I am there to find problems. I woudl rather have ti run crappy in beta and keep reporting that and any improvements. Then to disable cores and sli and go wow the game runs great. I agree that release things should improve. Again i base it on the pvp stress test when i was running at max settings and everything was going fine and the servers had a much heavier load then as oppossed to the light load now. Either way, i have the preorder and will see how the build is at lauch. Bugs do not bother me as long as i can play the game without crashes or freezes every frew minutes. As i have posted before i noticed that even without client side patchs that after the broke teh servers down the last two times the game ran smother each time. However, this could be because of the drop in server populations over the weekend it was funning at mid even at off peak times now it runs at low even in peak times.
well part of the issue is why is a game that MS and Funcom are touting as the Flagship MMO for Vista not runnign well on Vista. Second there is no dx10 for the ob so that is not an issue at this time. It does go back to the old client vs new client which he danced around in the interview. AS people who were in the pvp stress test did not have issues with crashes and freezes but did in this build. also there are people with xp having problems while some with vista have none.
i am running xp and i am forever stuck with one of my toons in the tavern :(
I shoudl add that yes the game is fun and yes it looks great. I enjoy the combat system. I had to laugh today when someone complained becasue there is no auto attack and he has to sit there and actually hit keys to fight. Since the npcs/mobs cahnge their shields during the fights you can not just mash the same keys in the same order. ( not talkign about shields you hold in your hand..for those who have not played it you can set 3 shields ie your areas you will defend either in your left right or middle or even stack 3 in one area if you wanted to..they decrease the damage you take and decrease the chance you will be hit if attacked against them.. so you can hit an npc easier and for more damage it you swing at his weakest point which he can change as the fight goes on)
Oh no, it sound like old SWG lag :p
First, their policy of talking about things is a refreshingly good experience - compared to the endless silence I always had with SOE.
I am not sure if a FFA PVP is my taste of things, I will try it out, but if there is only mindless zergfest and death every 5 seconds I might log off very fast. I fear some will band in groups and terrorize the world, so I am not going to see much with my lv 20 chars and the open world. I wish they'd make an option not to participate in PVP so we can explore the continents a bit.
Thanks to MMORPG.COM, now we have all the details about this subject. Thx MMORPG.COM
Fanboys are fanboys, even if 95% of computers of the planet are crashing when players launch AOC , they'll say it's players fault. They're fanboys, that's all. And ridiculous,. Most of them have been VG fanboys, TR fanboys, lotro fanboys before beeing AOC fanboys: same people.
FYI I'm running with Vista Ultimate x64 on my Q6600@3150Mhz, 4GB DDR2, Seagate 7200.11 (game/storage), Raptor 74GB (OS), and a 9800GTX. Currently running at 1680x1050 HIGH + 4xAA, fps are between 35-65 fps, average around 50. It hasn't crashed (except on exiting the game) since day 1, and no stall since day 1. Loading times were also off first day, now when entering from character screen it takes around 10-20 seconds (I guess depending on where I log out), when entering / exiting houses like the tavern it just takes 2-4 seconds.
So atleast for me the game runs quite well except for the first day I tried it, had alot of stalling and long loading times. But after that it really runs great, dont know why it was like that the first day. Btw, I always deactivate my antivirus software when playing games like this, since they seems to scan all files that the computer access.
It's too bad so many ppl have problems, I hope funcom can fix most of the performance issues ppl are having. Would be sad to see this game fail, then it would be only WAR left to take on WOW. Would be better if AOC and WAR did it together ;) When there's competition, the games usually get's better :P
You show me one place he states that it is not an old client. The closest he comes is by saying : "And yes, I have seen the same rumors that it’s old, but it’s not entirely true." Which again also means it's not entirely untrue now doesn't it?
If I was owner of this game and company I would kicked everyone in FUNcom in the ass. There is no excuse to give the public such crappy experience with the product you are trying to sell.
It seems like most MMO companies never learned some basic buisness rules. IT seems like they are controlled by some nerds who have no prior experience in the buisness world.
Just ask your self. Would you buy a car that did not preform as it was ment to?
I have had enough of half ass finnished mmo's.. If you can't make it play, don't make it at all.
also now after this client is crashing constantly on logging in after that, i did a file check and it did not find any problems...
and that relese client is different is clear they will turn most debugging off for it to use a bit less memory and a bit improved performance, it will probably add a few fps for everyone but i guess it will not be a stellar gain from deactivating debugging.
Ah well, he who laughs last, laughs best. Don't preorder, don't buy if that's how you feel , but why put the rest of us down who think we wil enjoy the game. That doesn't mean we are fanbois or gurls. It just means we are willing to give it a try because we have been in open or closed beta and found it enjoyable.
The game is really good and fun for me. I'm having fun in the open beta, performance is good on my computer most of the time, I have a nvidia 7900 gs 256, 2 gigs ram, AMD dual core 3800+ wich runs at 2,0 ghz each core. It's more or less an average computer I think. Anyway the game runs well most of the time so I'm happy with it but, I have a problme with shaders. No matter i do, they keep disabling most of the time on busy places like tortage. So Ina moment my Character looks awesome and detailed, with skin details, skars, and shinny armor and in the next second it looks like a cloth doll. It's looks like a small and easy to fix problem but I will not buy the game If I dont see this fixed. If I don't see this fixed on Open Beta Ill wait after launch and ask for a buddy key so I can try the released one and see if it runs nice. And I hope it does cose I really want to buy the game.
Yes, I agree the client will not be the one for release. They will patch it and fix it to at least an acceptable level for a lot of us. However, I still believe the OB client and CB client were the same based on this statement, sorry. When someone tells me something is not enitrely true, the translastion is "it's true, but I don't want to come out and fully admit it because it would make me look bad."
Who knows, maybe at release they will have us playing on a pre-alpha client. We will be getting the same horrible performance and crashes. The berzerk fanatics will flood the forums with "OMGZ, this is only a pre-Alpha patch. Just wait a couple of months until they fix it, the game will be awesome!"
No no, I'm sorry, that may not be ENTIRELY true.
OB and CB clients *are* the same - you can log into the fileplanet beta if you exchange the localconfig.xml for another i recently found in an german forum. I haven't got the whole link anymore but the HP of these guys is
http://www.destruktive-brut.net/forumwar/index.php
according to their readme... haven't checked it yet, i'm just DLing GenBeta per torrent because fileplanet's waiting line shows "21min" for the last 3hrs or so
So, if it's not all hoax it should be the same client. Peace.
Of course. Funcom is infamous for patching AO within a day of updating (even their last update had a patch within 24 hours), no matter how long the update was on the test server beforehand.
Personally, I take very little of what Tharaldsen says as fact. We got the same sidestepping when he was working with AO. Since "Sil" took over with being on the frontline between the AO community & Funcom we get a lot more straight forward answers.
after reading up on Conan for ages now i am starting to get worried that this game is just going to be the next Guild wars.
I hated that zoned instance rubbish, so i have now cancelled my preorder for this game and will let it run for 5 months before checking it out again.
Zoned instances are a cheap and nasty way of designing a mmo tbh.
Yes it will look lovely, ONLY if you have the computing power to run it at those specs.
/move on
Lets hope WAR isnt instanced made rubbish, i want a mmo that has a world beneath it, that extra spark to emerse myself into the story and game play. That lacks totally in guild wars..
can just picture it, load game, enter newbie zone,
LOADING instace
move to kill boar
LOADING instance
kill boar
LOADING instance
and repeat.
i guess im one of them dudes that dont have issues folks are talking about while playing AOC.
OS Name Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium 64bit
Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer NVIDIA
System Model 122-CK-NF68
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz, 2400 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s) 64bit
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 7/11/2007
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.0.6001.18000"
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 4.00 GB
Corsair twin x2 memory
680I (A1) version mobo from evga
Onboard 7.1 digital sound.
Comcast gaming connection, 8mb/1.2mb
Runs the game at 50-77 latency
maxed settings with 4x/16x with all the reflections etc on, Bloom off 54-64fps The lowest ive seen, while entering the bar was 35 fps, mabe a 2 fps but only for like a second (stalling) in the bar where you talk to tina.
Deleting shader.cache
and setting the exe file to run in service pack 2 compatability fixed any of my issues, or possible issues.
Go download a proggy called "CCLEANER" Google it, download it from filehippo, check everything to on and then run it a few times, clean your harddrive and registry . reboot then try again. dont be dipshit, download the program and run it, and youll see how much crap youve got on your harddrive that is sucking your computers resources up. BTW its free to use. Its fast and simple to use and frickin safe. Or be that guy and sit here and share the sob stories of how your good pc blows with this game.
Funcom has some credits for "inventing" (?) the instance system with Anarchy Online. So wait.. these dudes deserve some patience. Ok, maybe It will suck, but let then consume our patience first :DD
might I ask if you are runnign the OB or the cb version of the game also what video card or cards are you running . Have you set it to run just one core and if sli have you disabled that ?
I posted in another thread how I canceled my pre-order but last night I did more research on my drivers and updated them using a Mod INF file (I have a Toshiba gaming laptop and they hadn't updated the driver set since last Sep.) at any rate using a later driver set (even if a mod one) made a HUGE difference in my game play. The game actually was playable (still a bit laggy but playable none the less).
For me the keys to making the beta at least half way playable was:
1) Get latest Nvidia drivers even if not from my laptop's maker.
2) Set CPU Affinity to just one CPU
3) Set all graphics to lowest settings, still looks better than 90% of the MMOs I have played
I have a Geforce 8700m with 512mb Ram, 2Gb of System RAM under Windows Vista 32.
running OB version,
and vid card is 8800 gts 320mb sc model from evga overclocked to
635 core clock
1488 shader clock
923 memory clock
Set on high quality mode
my power supply is 1100w tagan ITZ series (ABS certified)
Case is a nine hundred model.
I havent changed any of my processors, i have them all running, and im using just one vid card at the moment. I could use a few more upgrades but im not a wealthy man so this is what i have to deal with. I built it myself
Also to add to the list of things to remove, if your not using it to run your network, uninstall "nvidia network manager" completely from the add/ remove programs section of control panel ( this was a fix for black screen issues and stalling with crysis running in x64 mod) if you have that program.
thanks
Just found new beta drivers from nvidia that they posts last night.. game now has 64 fps and i have spell effects and am on mid settings instead of low. The date of the divers were the 6th of may 7.15.11.7516 i have Gforce 8800gt with vista 32 bit
Ahh ok, yea i havent downloaded the drivers yet. I think ill do that, i may get a boost to fps also.
That gt is a good solid card and very overclockable so i hear. and much cheaper then my gts. I was thinking of dropping two in my pc and maybe having the gts as the third vid card alone for what ever would use it.
I only have 2 pci express x16 slots but a third slot for a card is still there. just not sliable. i hear the 750i mobo has three pci exp x16 slots for three sli cards, and its not to expensive.
And i could use liquid cooling. but im ok at the moment when it comes to heating, with my nine hundreds case fans.
I don't know about others, but my lag is definately caused by swapping.
My hdd's (2 raptors in raid0) go mental all the time .... Conan is using an astonishing 1.4GB ( of my 2) internal memory ...
Maploading takes ages .... after loading map it takes another 5 minutes before i can move :)
But, the game never used more than the 1.4g of memory...so, it was all good...(ps: no memory leak here either as some have stated)
Try it and see how it works..
Funcom's talking like there was no apparent problems
sorry but whoever I playd with was crashing every 20 mins to 45 minutes
I, for myself had stalling, huge loading, crashing every 15 mins or so, made my core duo reboot 3 times.. after the loading screen.. had to reinstall twice
but yea gameplay is good, pve is huge
My performance issues (ie. lagging/hitching/stalling, etc.) have pretty much been fixed, but I am still getting a large number of crashes - windows messages, no debugging information/form. I'm really hoping this is resolved by the headstart.
hehehe
PR FTW
Why in the world would you REMOVE the shader files? Ever thought the engine wont finish loading the game if its looking for the shader files and coming up with nothing? I'm bettting it needs those shader files to run half the graphics in the game. Or did someone instruct you to remove them ... though I stil don't see why..you don't remove shader files you turn them off in the options.
I'm not a fanboi of any game and the way they released the open beta just shows that MMO game companies just don't get it.
After wonderful games such as SWG, Vanguard, Dark and light.... we are sick of paying retail for beta and having to play beta when the games are live! Only to be told by the devs and dumb ass fanbois that we have to wait, it's your system, or what do you expect... you know the usual tripe to cover their asses. This game has been put off for over a year and should've been polished by this time concidering they've had a closed beta for some time now. You don't have an open house and invite the public in only have the house a mess and damaged. Just doesn't make any sense. Two weeks before the game going live this thing should have been done. The open beta should have just been a stress test for the servers and introduce players to what the product has to offer. This is starting to look allot like SWG, vanguard at launch TBH.
For some reason game companies just don't get it (actually they don't seem to get allot of things). When people go to car shows the car companies don't give the press cars that don't start, run for 2 minutes and crash... you get the point.
Why would you show off a product that is NOT done? and then have the balls to ask the public "well are you gonna buy it?" Or spend months on end trying to spin doctor it? Yeah this kinda of crap works for fanbois but not the general public especially a public that has been stung before with these tactics.
The reason is ,they think it's gonna work and it does not. If anything they lose prospective buyers and give the product a reputation of being broken.
I love how they always say things like "Well it's a major game and you can't expect everything to work" or "show me a game that hasn't had it's problems"... spin and excuses. I love how he said "our bad" like they don't have 80+ mil wrapped up in the product... LOL talk about casual.
And that is the problem right there! Instead of releasing finished products they just try to excuse it as being the "NORM". and as of late it IS the norm.
Problem is it never works and won't. Only the rabid fanbois will fall for this every time.
I have a top end machine and the game runs pretty well tbh and I 'm having a lot of fun playing it, the answers given in this Q&A are very misleading though.
I'm part of a pretty large guild, many of which tried the OB and it 70 percent of the time failed miserably to deliver without major tweaking on low/medium/high settings after apply the so called fixes. Loading times for some of my friends with recommended rigs are crazy with no fix being implemented before retail this is a very bad move by Funcom.
As a mature guild we all know how bad stress testing is and how you take the rough with the smooth, but to launch this stress client was madness, another week of waiting for the client would have been a better option for a more stable and universal client. I really think if they fail to patch and fix this client it would probably lose 50 percent of my guilds following before launch, mutiply other guilds and thats a lot of lost business.
No amount of open pvp in OB before launch can make up for this ball being dropped.
Who as a guild would move into this game knowing that over half of their player base couldnt even play this game effectively?
I think they should wait and release a stabel version. But I also remember WOW's launch had major issues with AMD 64bit processors where we were getting booted. It was fixed int he first 2 weeks of release. I want to see AoC be successful. I just think Funcom should do a major PR move and wait. MMORPG players will respect that and become more loyal to the game.
I have a top end PC and the game runs with alot of hitching and huge spikes.
By top end Im talking about real top end - including 9800 gtx. New install - nothing else on the Raptor and still its shit even in low settings.
Seriously - this Dev is simply lying. Funcom can not guaranty a top end players with a game that runs. So minority... Is that 49,9% ? Or maybe players that are not even given the chance to test if the game runs at all on their machine will have to find out by buying something that doesn't work ?
Grats Funcom. You will be so populare.
This is a joke
DONT BUY THIS GAME UNLESS U ARE GUARANTIED IT WILL RUN ON YOUR PC. IT has NOTHING to do with minimum or requmended. Funcom have not done ANY testing on what the game is running on - and they simply dont give a dam.
Vista - 64bit
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66Ghz
4 Mb RAM
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT
I suspect that it'll be stable on more systems come launch. From all accounts they have indeed done testing on what the game is running on. Any MMO company would be moronic not to look into it and Funcom isn't out to NOT make money and they have a lot riding on AoC, given that they also have another MMO project that will follow behind it.
Just my 2 cents though.
Lol...So..Maybe your "super new hardware" has some issues ? New hardware like the 9800 gtx for instance ALWAYS has problems with drivers, Vista, Motherboard etc etc etc etc...
My card the 8800 still has unresolved driver issues..
Age of Conan is GREAT
The point is it doesnt run universally well/poor on any machine. It seems totally random what setup you have.
Some low end machines run it well on med settings some high end machines cant run it at all.
Funcom should really get their shit together.
In the rush to get this GREAT game out they forgot to tell the computers that they could run it.
I would be interested to see how much time all these people with top end systems actually devoted to testing. My guess is some of them started the game up, got the stuttering a couple crashes (happened to me too) and then wrote the game off. My first day I crashed about 8-10 times in 2 hours, stuttering and freezes of up to 10 seconds galore.
It wasn't until about the 2nd or 3rd day of logging back in did all the crashes disappear and the stuttering reduced to within reason. I read this has something to do with cached shaders and it made sense to me. Basically your hard drive has to memorize the different shaders in each zone when you first enter. As you store more shaders it will run smoother and smoother.
I run XP, 2.4 GHz AMD, 7800GT, 2 Gigs of DDR 400 ram so basically the low end and I'd say it's very playable. I upgraded another gig of ram and saw a big jump in performance so my best advice is to have 3 Gigs ram minimum.
I'm not saying go pre-order, but definitely take the opinions you see here with a grain of salt. My advice for those on the fence; wait for a buddy key/ free trial and see if the game is for you.
PS Anyone who says this beta is in a class of VG or AO is fos.
I hope these bug fixes have not already been implemented, because the game is still running like crap on my machine. I have really enjoyed the game so far, but I have to admit that I will have a hard time continuing to play if they don't fix the performance. My computer is very high-end and there is no excuse for it running like this for me.
I have tried many of the suggested fixes and I have still been experiencing stuttering and freezing whenever entering new areas and especially inside.
Here are my specs:
AMD Athlon X2 3.0 GHz
4 GB RAM
2x Geforce 8800GT SLI
7200 RPM Sata HD
It does run well or even very well on my pc...
Seriously, this is the same in ALL MMO's that has any form of graphics to show..EQ2, Vanguard, LOTRO, Heck i bet even the giant WoW has some serious issues in their tech forums that is unresolved for many many people...And these issues will eventuelly clear, but then it will get bad again and again and again to reflect the updates to both the game and the PC market that is constantly changing..
There is no chance in hell a game of this scope will run on every PC that meets the requirements, all PC setups are NOT alike, and even if you test on 100 diffrent setups, you will ALWAYS have these issues in the PC market..
That's why consoles are popular for both developers and many customers..they are ALL the same
If by saying would you buy a car that did not perform as it was meant to you mean a prototype car that is being tested by people to work the kinks out in order to make the car better, would I buy it, then yes I would buy the finished product.
You're trying to compare a finished product to a prduct that is in the final stages towards being released to the public.
This is the problem I have with the new era of fileplanet betas. Too many people that are just there to try out the game and decide in beta that the game isn't up to their standards, then the badmouthing starts and other people that are unable to form their own opinions about finished products start listening to these tools.
I tryed to get into the open Beta from day one and it always only showed me a black screen and the mouse on it. I heard the musik in the background. New Driver did not help.
I got no answer from Funcom yet about it.. so I can only tell the people I know that I am not even ablt to play the game.
My Specs:
Intel Core Duo E6850
NVIDIA 8800 GTS
4GB RAM
WinXP SP2
Well I hope they fix some stuff until the launch.
Lol! for some reason I thought the same thing. I am seeing a repeat of vanguard for some reason. Well... not as BAD as vanguard's demise, but you get the picture.
I'm running on:
Vista Home Premium 32bit
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ @ 2.4 GHz
2 Mb RAM
Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT
I get great performance. I was getting horrible performance, but I got my drivers up to date and turned off NPC names in the options menu and everything has been working great.
What's the MMO project that will be following AoC?
I can't understand why people bitch about this game so much jesus If you don't wana play the game please don't buy it . I have been in the Ob from the 1st and have had little issues with the client
I run an Intel duel core 2.4 2mb ram 8800 GTS video card and I'm getting 54-64fps.
Yes game has a few issues with shaders but I'm running it on med setting with a few tweaks and game looks nice. Love the quests and combat but the spells need work .
Stop fooling urself no game is ot of beta just look at wow I have been playing it for 4yrs and still get server lag and what not .. I stress if you don't like the game please don't play.
Here we go again with the .... from some PC noobs.........if a game is terrible optimized just get more ram.....its always more ram.........I NEED MORE RAMZ OMG!!!!11
NO GAME TO THIS DATE SHOULD NEED MORE THAN 2GB (up to date ram) TO RUN GOOD WITH MID (even high imo) SETTINGS.
And just because it worked for your low end PC doesn't mean it will work for others with even better PCs, so stop giving advice because you obviously don't know ... kthxbb
Are you talking to me Lum cause I never said anything about ram. And lose the wow tone buddy.
There was a typo. He wrote "Minority" but I think he really meant "Majority".
removing the shader cache files is a "proven fix" listed in the official forums...so yeah he was instructed to remove them...(i realize he doesn't say cache but if you were reading the beta forums you would know this is what hes talking about)
In other words - roll a dice. Noone knows what pcs can run the game and what pcs cant. And is Funcom telling us what is causing the bad performance from some ? Nope - they have no idea themselfs.
In my experience with tuning AoC's performance, defragging my HD did not significantly improve load times but compacting/repairing AoC's database with SimpleConfig.exe made a huge difference.
ps. I have twin 10K Raptors in RAID 0 configuration.
1.MMOsite needs you to have more post forum topic in your account.
2. Fileplanet needs you to be a subscribed member to get a beta key .
3. I've been waiting for my key for about 1 year and a half to get my key at the official site and they never gave me one.
I've a mid range machine. Not bad, not amazing. This game runs horribly on the lowest possible settings. Its definately something from the developers side. I've tried every little trick available to boost performance. Nothin changed. Theres some points in the game where i can get up to 30fps for about 20 mins (outside Tortage). I really seen that it can be an enjoyable game at these points. But between freezes and horribly long loading screens theres no way i'm buying this game at launch. I'll give it 2-3 months and see what the feedback is.
And for those of you that are not in Beta, don't fall for any cover up crap some of the devs and fanboys feed you. The game runs horribly on the MAJORITY of peoples machines. Not minority. Just look at these forums. Would a reliable game be getting flamed like this? No. The game isn't being flamed for being a bad game. Most people seem to enjoy the gameplay when they can play. Its all down to performance. Buying a game like this at launch shows companies that they can dish up loads of crap and people will still pay. Doesn't bode well for future projects...
i been waiting over a year for the WAR one....but i know its luck of the draw, so i don't cry about it :)
Well i'm not crying about it , it just the fact the Fileplanet and MMOsite has a problem with giving keys out to people.
i got the key the same way most did for the open beta. i used a paying FP account and signed up when they offered them. They were offering them for i think 5 days.
Well that was quick for you to get the key, But anyway did you registered your key at Funcom.
i been playing since the OB servers launched.
Is it good?
I think your point is good and is what people are missing here. I have yet to meet anyone who has said it is a bad game. Yet most people I have met have issues with performance. I know I love the game myself and have since I got my first taste of it in the pvp stress test. That being said the game has performance issues. Look it is beta will it have buggs sure just like most games do. However, people having crashs of freezes every 5-10 minutes is not a minor bug but a major problem. What is worse is that since open beta had started not once has anyone actually from funcom posted anything in the OB forums concerning the issues. All we have had are ign personal repeating the same workarounds they publish the day OB started. ( which begs the question how was funcom surprised by performance problems if they had ign publishing workarounds prior to the actuall start of OB since it was delayed by several hours.
It does get rather anoying to have people say if you do not like how the game is do not buy it and get lost. I think the fact that most of us are having or had issues and yet are still tryign to play and are begging them to fix things shows that we like the game and think it is worth the effort we are putting in trying to get it fixed.
it's not for me. And i probably won't buy it. Am not a huge fan of the combat system it has. I am still working on it though to help find bugs and technical issues. But in the end, no, i don't think i will buy it
I have no problems playing on either my low end computer, nor my new high end. I did do some tweaking for better performance. I did follow tips given. On my new computer, the only program on it at this point is Conan. I mention this because I know how bloated computers get in time, and how that can effect your gameplay. From my experiences, plus others I've read, those who can't play Conan can't blame that entirely on Conan developers. Yes, the game does need some improvements to help cover more kinds of computers, but considering how unstandardized computers are today, especially home built, the company can't realistically find solutions for everyone. I know they will continue their tweaking and updates after release, to satisfy more players. I still think they will have a successful launch for players who are patient. The game is worth it.
This is EXACTLY what i witnessed in all the vanguard hoop la,simple truth is that MOST gamers havn't the experience of online play or any knowledge about online play and what it takes as far as PC components go.
An experience online player of say 7 years plus ,wouldn't need any website or game specs to tell them about performance.Graphic drivers and how machines utilize them have not advanced at all over the last 2 years.They like to HYPE up these new PC chips and these so called high powered graphic cards but in reality how your PC utilizes them[gaming] is a far cry from what they hype.
The people who can't play high end games will of course scoff at the real MMO developers,and use statements like"MY game is better than your game because we have more subscriptions" ..lmao.That's like saying a honda civic is a better car than a lambourghini because more people drive honda civics.
After reading this guys responses i have more respect for him than other games who hide from the public.When was the last time you read a q/a about WOW and there poor quality graphics,and why they chose to copy EQ instead of coming up with there own ideas for an mmo?You won't see it happen,there chicken xxxxx,and wouldn't dare to make excuses for there multi million dollar operation putting out low budget games.
FUNCOM was very direct and i applaud them.
As a software tester, I can honestly say that 150 developers can do a LOT on a product in 2 weeks. Expect to see something different from the beta for launch day.
I have beta tested a great variety of MMO's and I must say that the AoC beta for me was one of the worst I have experienced. Lag...terrible rendering rates...crashes...bugs galore and a combat system that doesn't yet seem "finished". If I were Funcom I would delay this game at least another six months. But, since MMORPG asked a Funcom guy and he is oh so positive I am sure that AoC will be launched with a lot of warts. As to the "150 developers" working on AoC for the next two weaks to tweak and polish, good luck on that. I have seen a lot of MMO's in far better shape going into that "crunch" time and I just don't see how they would ever address without making worse some of the problems this game has.
I know it won't do much when I say this but, if you were going to buy this game at launch....wait. Wait at least a month and see what reviews come in from those that failed to listen and put down the cash for a half finished game.
For everyone having FPS problems & graphic glitches; Make sure you adjust your display properties for your video cards in you OS to application controlled and best performance. A lot of people forget these options are there and only rely on in game options. In most cases fix the majority of performance issues.
Those with nvidia cards that are experiencing these problems, try setting your AA & AF settings to half way instead of full or off. Newer cards perform better with them on instead of off and with it being in beta, it might not be fully optimised for your spec being on max settings.
If you are still having problems, set your OS display properties for Vsync to application controlled and turn it on in game. (If this was already on in game, try turning it off). This option can improve or make your performance worse depending on your spec.
Hope this helps.
You seem to take quite a negative stance on the game, there are however, some people that haven't had any issues with the game.
I think in most cases it will just come down to people not understanding how to tweak their settings. It pays to play around with them to get the most out of any game.
Possibly, but I have only come across a handful. Most of those I play with in MMO's won't touch this game based upon my and their experience with it so far. I have had extremely poor performance issues on both a system that meets the specs and on one that is well over the specs. As I said, I have never seen a MMO that has been this poorly recieved...or at least with such mixed reactions. Therefore, I have to stand by my comment that people should just wait before they put down money on this one.
I tried all of this and it really did not help. In fact, it made the game look so ugly that I just turned it off. It still did not address the crashes or the lag or the poor rendering.
I don't agree with the choices Funcom made, but I'm wililng to see if they can pull it off. They pretty much reaffirm that Funcom is targetting more dedicated/hardcore PC players who have nicer systems. They're probably expecting their Xbox release to reach a wider audience than PC players. If they can provide a good game for that portion of the market, then AoC will finally break the terrible record of MMO releases we've seen recently.
I'm not in beta and haven't really followed the game simply because at first it didn't appeal to me and I'm still not sure if it does. Anyhow, from what I'm hearing about beta so far, I'm more opted to say it sounds a lot more similar to Asheron's Call 2 beta than Anarchy Online's beta.
I'm sure anything is possible in 2 weeks. 150 developers sounds like a lot, but what can I base those numbers off of? I don't even know how many developers most games had working on them 2 weeks prior to launch. Is 150 a lot or is it average or what?
As for the most common issues currently going on in beta, it sounds about right. Performance issues are almost guaranteed, but I sure hope they fix it 100% before launch day, cause nothings worse than performance issues ( Lag, CTD's and so forth ).
Broken quests, missing NPC's and those types of game bugs should be on the back burner. Who cares if you can't complete a quest when your CTDing every 2 minutes.
Anyhow, good luck with the FFA PvP folks and good luck to Funcom on their launch. Maybe I'll be there and maybe I won't, but the way it looks right now, I'm probably going to wait and see.
Well reading a post like that is like anything els.
They say plx give us response/feedbacks, they invite you to beta ( some paid for other free ). And then a more or less powerfull system as Mmorpg.com go face to face whit funcom, and ask em what we users are responsing to there game, and what they done respons to. And they say:
Well it realy has to be the user´s lack of RAM, or Gcard. And the games technoligy are denfently not ower power to the comen computer in a normal house this days.
And ofcuse there is all the other things, that some way just fly by em like the wind, as nothing happend.
Well what can one say..... ???
Nothing.
But my guess is that they will laern in time. What we meant in all this letters that are send to them as feedback.
Ps:
And no my computer arnt old, lack on ram or anything. I was in pvp beta and now on my way to 2end beta, if i ever get it loadloaded. ( I did not pay for more speed, will never happen - becuse of a beta :)
In away beside the bugs, and my personal feelings about the game, i had more or less no problem. But as a Beta, i feel that i have to look at it as a nutral person, and say what i feel, from the normal computer, to the powerfull ones. And it will be a hell, for the ones that dont whant or have the money to Power it up.
So, pay for extra download if in beta, pay for extra days ect. pre-ordre the game, or just wait till its out and pay for it then. And get f..., becuse it will happen. When it come to the proformence, and the loading walls( as in eqI/eqII ), 1 its old fashion, 2 it kills the action, and feeling of been free as they say u are in AOC ).
And bugs, yes there will always be bugs, so what thats what patching are for.
Well, that is no more form here for now :)
----------- COMON, lat me haer all the nacking/ winning ect. :) -----------------
Also chose a different resolution like 1024x768.. this worked for many in the guild
Turn off blooming
click on low settings and click on shadder to 2.0
Defrag you hard drive with disk keeper or something better than the POS that comes with windows.
Turn off NPC names because they are not needed in the game anyway since the quest mark the goals with an giant X on your map and radar.
Make sure your running the latest drivers for everything and also the latest bios.
Also the rabid fanbois would tell people that had posted about the problems to: go away, get a more ram, video card was too new/old, sound card was too new/old, your machine sux, Features would be added and finished later, this is only beta, stop wining, called them haters/liers.. pretty much what you see here. Oh and they went live anyway despite what players were saying.
Well the good thing is most got fired in a parking lot and the game served as another reminder to NOT buy beta... hope the same doesn't happen here...
But don't take my word on it just go dig up some of the old post on the vanguard forums here starting from jan of last year
This game has a good "shell" or foundation but it is far from being ready. The performance is the same as Vanguard when it was released. It will have the same fate.
Funcom. You guys wasted a lot of money. Performance first, everything else last. It is not a "minority" of people. When you are down to 1 server due to people leaving your game you will have a "minority".
my own experiance on the aoc beta has nt been good i did see in the article that people would be suprised how well it runs on low end computers . my pc fall somewhere inbetween the required and recomended specs . i cant run it smoothly in tortage and especially in the inns on even the lowest settings . i defrag my pc regulary and update my drivers . i ve tried all the tweaks i know and also some of those suggested in these forums and i still cant get it to run well enought to consider buying it . there is rumour that this beta client is nt the same as the release client . the only thing that i can judge by is the beta and i ve seen enough to make me think my pc proberbly wont run the game that well even though it runs things like lord of the rings on the ultra high settings .
if it really is a case that aoc cant be played on the average pc then it wont be popular untill the average pc catches up with it . by which time it may be just another failed mmo .
i hope this is not the case .
Funcom : " Hey lets distract them with Boobs, they way we can say we are releasing a "mature" game . Never mind it running.
Corrected:
We have heard many complaints about the presence of loading screens in Age of Conan. Can you tell us why they are there? could the game have been made without them?
Yes, it could have been made w/o them, but the technology we use for our world requires them.
We have heard that the Fileplanet Beta client is actually an old client and won't be the one used on release. Can you speak to that?
It isn't the client that will be used on release because we'll have patched a few times before release, but it wasn't an "old" client when they received it. In fact, they received the latest client, but we had a few patches to apply, so we delayed launch and then patched a little later because we wanted to test them before we finalized our shipping client.
A number of players are complaining that they are experiencing poor performance despite meeting the recommended system specs. How do you respond to this?
While we do have many reports of issues, we have many reports where players aren't having issues. Honestly, we don't know and we're just going to ship and let our tech support department spam canned responses to people who are unhappy. In the end, it will all even out.
Do you expect performance issues to be resolved before launch?
As with any other project this size, we fully expect to have some issues on launch. For example, those having issues in beta will likely have issues on launch. Those that don't have issues probably won't have issues with the final client.
Can you tell us what led Funcom to decide to create a game that would require higher-end computers to run?
WoW has low end graphics. If we want to compete, we have to do something better. We're putting all our eggs in one basket, graphics. We're also going to do what we can to convince people that our combat system is so unique and FUN, that we're that much better.
There are members who are complaining that (from their experiences in the Fileplanet Beta), they expect AoC to have a "rocky" launch and point to AO's launch as an example. Can you speak to this?
Funcom would like to avoid getting K.O.'d by Apollo on launch. Having said that, what do those people know, they're just gamers!
On the flip side, what are the best results that you have gotten out of the beta so far?
We learned a lot from all the clients patching and trying to connect on the first night. We really weren't ready for that and hopefully we'll have the servers to handle it when the game is released to the public.
You hinted at a beta surprise in our latest interview, care to reveal this today?
We're going to have DEATH MATCH (aka FFA) EVERYWHERE (except in towns and starting area). Exciting right?
TLDR summary: spoof
I am glad and happy for those who can run the game with minor glitches.
The simple fact is that there are massive amounts of people who cannot. This is no small issue. An unplayable game is a broken game.
I hope you will be around to explain to all the people who buy this meeting the required specs and can't play it because it is fundamentally flawed.
I played the open beta and... well...
Funcom: When we started to develop Age of Conan we really wanted to bring a new level of immersion to MMOs
Funcom: It is noteworthy to mention that if you want a seamless world, you need to stream a lot of the content to make it load right. We tried this, but it meant degrading the quality of the graphics, and even getting a lot fewer interest points in the game, so the end result was an easy choice. Quality won!
Funcom thinks quality is graphics over immersion. Loading screens are not a new level of immersion... it's a step backwards.
WELCOME TO SPIN CITY.
The first question is the most important - why would graphics require a loading screen? Why would you need to stream more if you wanted 'lush graphics' without a loading screen? That doesn't make sense at all.
It's quite clear that Funcom simply does not have the capacity to make it's seameless.
Loading-screens on normal zone-progression is bad coding, nothing else, all the damage control/PR mumbo jumbo in the world won't change that - pure and simple, bad coding.
If this is the level of coding, GL spending your money on AoC the first 6-9 months.
I'm a newbie here,and want to know more about Age of conan, thank you in advance.
I'm glad we have such expert game designers and coders here that they can enlighten us with their knowledge, no doubt based purely on facts.
Funcom has some truely brilliant people... unfortunately they also have some hardasses in the finance dept.
Most likely they are launching before the game is ready, having forgotten the hell which was AO.. or thinking that ANYTHING is better than an AO launch.
What is most certain and true is the fact that I HAVE learned my lessons, and I DO remember the AO launch. So I may buy Conan... after summer has come and gone.
my rig: e6600/2.4ghz/8800gts512/1600x900/2AA/bloom/all sliders maxed/everything checked.
2gb ram, have another 2 sticks waiting to be installed tonight for when i reinstall vista64. i'm running the latest nvidia beta drivers.
performance = extremely good.
i have a weird issue though when the sun is shining on my back (which is more often than not) the back of my char has weird jaggies on it that i haven't been able to get rid of no matter what i toggle, haven't exhausted the options, but not putting much effort into it at the moment since i'll be running the retail in vista64 (for the dx10). whereas right now i'm using my XP side. maybe its the beta drivers, maybe its the beta code, i'll find out in a week i guess.
Some of us do infact make a living coding you know!
Some are even former Funcom employees that decided to work a place where quality of design and code matters more than textures...
And some of you apparently like to make vague statements that can be misconstrued to mean that you actually worked on the project and decided to leave it for greener pastures.
The game runs fine for me and the people that have judged the game by the open beta code, which has been patched twice all ready since some of you uninstalled, have made a premature decision about the game.
I like AoC and it kind of reminds me of old school SWG. I really enjoy the combat and the stories in the quest lines.
So for those of you that haven't played the game, don't jump on the cool guy bandwagon and hate on a game you've never played.
I'm not commenting on wheter it runs smoothly or not, the storyline/lore neither on the combat system, so stop trolling.
I'm commenting on the poor code and choices of design in regards to having non-seamless zone traversal.
It's poor design - regardless if you like/dislike/love/hate the game, it's still poor design.
How many MMOs have you worked on?
Oh that's right you're just some arm chair quaterback that has no idea what he's talking about.
You keep talking about this elusive "horrible code", but you don't use specifics. Your posts have been shallow drivel designed to try to make you look like you know what you're talking about when it's obvious that you don't.
There a few games that have "seamless zone traversal". If you're refering to WoW, they hide the loading really well, but it's still there. Vanguards "chunking" was and is a load of crap, instead of a loading screen your character just freezes there until the zone loads.
I timed my load screens the other day when I was reading people's post about how long the load times are. My longest time was 24 secs, but most of them were 10-14 secs.
I thought I would post a response a staff member for AOC put up on the IGN boards today forum name pasandra
"LOL. Where'd you get your information from? That's just so far off the mark it's untrue. I'm on this and CB forums every day, and i would guess at 5-20% of CB posters are saying they experience only has mild issues. About 1-2% say they have tiny issues, and i actually can't think of any (though i'm sure they exist), who say it's pristine, or close. The other 80% are saying how it is; buggy.
In fact, they'd be bullshitting, when funcom themselves admit to everyone (incl OB) that it isn't."
He went on to say
"It IS buggy. The client IS unstable. There's NO secret. There are posts on this front page from Funcom explaining just that. It's in beta. The devs are trying to work out the bugs. Where's the big mystery"
Also here is a link to what are the notes to the new patch for CB that someone in CB posted on the ign boards
http://msgs.ageofconan.com/patchnotes.php?UniverseName=GeneralBeta2&Language=en
one line that is interesting from those notes:
"There are some larger known issues with the version, but we decided to release the version with them due to the greatly increased performance of the client"
I would say if they are pushing a patch with known larger issues inorder to increase performance of the client that contrary to some of the 'fanbois" in this thread there are major issues with the client casuing the problems and it is not the lack of ability of people to turn their rigs that are causing the issues.
Either way I am still hopefull that they can get this fixed intime to have a relativly clean launch as I do enjoy the game when i am able to play it
it's poor design to those who don't like the zoning aspect of the game. from what i've read, it was done to provide better visuals/graphics for the game, rather than having to 'dilute' the visuals so that things are generic enough that less loading of textures is necessary and seamless zoning is viable.
you prefer seamless to eye candy, i prefer extra eye candy to seamless, ANY DAY.
TO ME, the poor design would have been "yet another mmo with lackluster graphics".
just because YOU as a programmer like one thing over another, DOESN'T mean 100% of your audience agrees with you. Last i checked you're a person like everyone else, your likes are your own, not anyone else's.
Turbine seem to have it sorted out with LoTRO
Haha and in the next post you advise someone to loose the WoW tone.
Did it occur to you that some people really like the game and really want to play? The fecked client of course makes this impossible for a large percentage. Maybe you think people enjoy spending hours trying different drivers different settings rather than playing? Have fun playing with yourself...sounds like you have had lots of practice.
Most of these answers to these questions were straight up lies!!! They are trying to sell a game that runs like vanguard did at release......vanguard is finally running decent now ,but guess what it's too late and they pissed off to many people for most to even try it again. The answer about graphics is nobody cares about graphics ex. diablo 2 still high sales numbers and world of warcraft, lol i can't even imagine a big pvp battle with the crap job of programming this game has...Turn down the graphics make it a seamless world a load screen here and there no biggie...And guess what nobody is gonna say AWWWW man these graphics suck i am not gonna play this game. Well enough ranting good luck funcom sorry your game is gonna fail and you wasted your funds. Well there is still Warhammer and Mythic will deliver hopefully.
My advice:
Pickup collectors edition.
Get a buddy key
Test
Sell collectors on eBay
Play Mount & Blade/HL2 Mods until the next MMO
Rinse and Repeat
I mean, none of these MMOs based on movie/book/tabletop franchises have done half as well as they were expected to. Why don't people start making some original stuff : /
"new level of immersion..." "load times between the zones..." "end result was an easy choice. Quality won!"
I actually have 4 year old alienware that is slightly above minimum requirements and strangly on highest setietings with bloom not enabled just highest resolution my game seems to run much smoother. Beta convinced me this game willl be a blast , I cancelled my other MMO subcriptions in anticipation for this game.
Guys, the lastest patch rocks. No more FPS drop, no more slow loading screen. The only thing i'm now concerning with is "tweak the game so we can have High FPS for Massive Castle Seige"
( around 28fps with E8400 3GB duo core 2 CPU, 2gb Ram, 9600GT 512mb VGA at high quality graphic setting but i think it will drops in Castle Sieges)
well i hope you mean a patch for cb that has not made it to ob. Second 28fps is very low. I would exspect an fps around mid 60's but at this point would setting for your 28 if it ment no more freezes and crashes every 10 minutes. I will wait to see if they patch us untill then i am giving up on ob. It is to frustrating at the moment. monday after they brought servers up after maintance the game ran great. same with tuesday after maintance by wedn night i was strt to crash alot now on thrusday it is just unplayable. This would seem to point to a server side issue with the client and their servers.
That interview was so much spin and double-talk that my head is still reeling.
I especially liked the point that if you think the AoC launch could possibly be a bad as the AC launch, you weren't there for the AC launch....PRICELESS!
You have been warned, people.
Jeezez, why would zoning improve the visuals unless the cache/setup engine is poorly designed/coded? There is NO link between those two - you can have seamless transition while having lush graphics if you want, polygon count has nothing to do with that.
I will bet you that Blizzard any day of the week can ramp up polygons and won't have to break the seamless transition, they won't do it because too many people have sub-standard computers (especially the graphics part), but that is a whole other debate.
Again, facts doesn't change with your misunderstanding of the subject - it's bad coding/design, nothing else.
to each their own, i completely disagree with you.
I don't know how vanguard went at launch, since i wasn't interested in EQ3, but i can tell you my rig is running AoC as smooth as butter with everything cranked up.
I DO care about graphics, I DO think WoW looks like shit, and I DID hate Diablo2 for the crappy graphics (last i touched it was the year it came out when they allowed max of 800x600, pixelated as hell on a 21" monitor). However, i thought the original Diable was one of the most brilliant games i have ever played in my life. Diablo2 didn't even get close to matching its predecessor in quality (as far as I'm concerned).
And I DEFINITELY DO say very frequently "AWWWWW man these graphics suck, i'm not going to play this game."
Exactly why I'll never touch WoW and Warhammer.
Don't confuse your lack of a good gaming rig with the sentiments of every other gamer out there.
Getting back on topic though, i've spent a total of about 4 hours in the AoC beta (in the last 2 days since i got in) and i can unequivocally say the game is fun as heck (for me), looks damn good (to me, on my rig) and i wouldn't change anything about it (other than making the mob fonts more readable for color blind nerds like me). My CE is still on preorder, and i'll be having a blast next weekend.
If you prefer some other game, all the more power to you, stay there and enjoy it, nobody said every game has to be like every other game, that'd be pretty boring.
i've been gaming since late 80's, so i can't be called a graphics whore by any stretch of the imagination, i prefer story first and foremost, but it just so happens that AoC has both, graphics AND a story. most other MMO's don't have both, or in some cases, have neither.
Well exactly. To each their own. Some people prefer looks over actual gameplay and thats fair enough. Other people are all about gameplay and don't care much about looks.
I personaly would think i am in the middle. I'd rather not have the highest end graphic settings, but actually a fun and enjoyable game that captivates me with other things than stunning looking.
i probably wasn't clear in my reply, i just thought it was funny that the post was all doom&gloom because he personally didn't like the game.
Sorry Buddy, you are wrong in this..Btw..Don't you think FUNCOM did research on this before they chose to go with zones ?
It's about details in the outdoors and indoors, not only polygons and detailed faces and armor, also more animations and voices on NPC's all these things matter if you have a zone or not, you WOULD NOT get fluid gameplay without cutting down greatly ...
Vanguard is seamless and a good example of this, It's not even close to the level of detail as AoC, buildings for instance is mostly EMPTY with maybe one chair and an NPC standing silent in a corner...
Another example:
Until just recently EQ2 had VERY detailed ZONES, but as soon as they started with HUGE seamless zones it was very noteworthy that something in the brand had changed greatly for worse in the latest expansion Kunark..
Even thou I would prefer seamless world with the same level of details as AoC or EQ2, I have to wait for that a weee bit more...
Age of Conan is GREAT..
/Junker
not to jump on the cool guy bandwagon; but i'm curious about something -- how many games gave players a craptastic experience in the OPEN beta (which more often than not is ONLY a combination stress test + free demo, rather than playtesting for bugs) and then turned around and had a GREAT experience in the actual retail game?
seriously, how many, and what were they? cuz none come to mind, at all.
i say this, because i'm sick and tired of reading about
how gods -n- heroes is a great game,
and how vanguard was having a so/so beta but would be great on release,
about how great potbs was going to be on release
and on and on and on,
and i think the only game that actually has had a GOOD release, was LOTRO. did they have a hellacious OPEN beta?
everyone sitting here talking up games that haven't been released -- historical data shows you're wrong. every post i'm reading here, i've already read a bazillion times while waiting for potbs, vanguard, hellgate:london and countless other games. and they were all WRONG.
i could care less if someone is talking like they work for/worked for whatever gaming company. let them be the queen of france online, for all i care. as long as they give me good information on games.
i don't care one whit for what anyone "believes" a game will magically transform into from open beta (not closed beta, not alpha, but OPEN BETA) to retail-- it's not going to happen. maybe there will be one exception that proves the rule; but so far, hasn't really happened. by the time open beta hits, the only real work left before release is tweaking the server load and hoping it can handle all the people they anticipate on opening day.
a craptastic play experience during OPEN BETA normally (read -- every time) means craptastic for the first few months of retail as gullible players, essentially, proceed to pay to play a beta game.
this post wasn't directed at anyone in particular (not even the quoted people); but, lose the fanboi glasses, lose the hater shades. there's no "us vs. them" in the player community. there's only players looking for a good game to play.
if you're a fanboi that can't objectively deal with criticism -- go tell mommy, cuz no one else cares. not even your dog.
if you're a blind hater (read - blind hater, not a hater that has actual facts backing up their complaints) - you're not doing anyone any good either.
if you're someone that's just tired of hearing people complain, people who have LEGITIMATE complaints -- again, go whine to mommy, cuz there's no one else that wants to hear you complaining about people complaining. no one. not ever. not even after you're dead.
if the game sucks in open beta, it'll suck on release, UNLESS it gets pushed back another 6 months, in which case, it wasn't REALLY an open beta, now was it?
the answer is "no. it wasn't."
so give me a good game, give me information on a good game, or warn me away from bug-filled launches, because i'm done shelling out $50-$200 for new games that are as fun as wallowing in a septic tank.
i'm not sure if i got the point of your post, other than that you need to take some calgon (sp?) ;) as for the open beta experience in aoc, you seem to think that because the vocal minority is spewing doom&gloom then that speaks exclusively on the state of the client. which is a joke, the ones that aren't having problem are buys enjoying the game and not dry humping the forums and bitching.
by your logic, if i had issues with my aoc client, then i should just assume that aoc sucks crap for me and everyone under the sun and will bomb as soon as it gets released?
then by the same logic, since my aoc client is running smooths as butter and i'm having a blast, then aoc will have a brilliant launch and is the second coming.
or maybe i'm just not getting what you're talking about at all.
either way, there's no such thing as a bug free game release. especially with mmo's. some people will have issues, some people won't.
funny thing is that i've always been building my own computers, and i've NEVER had a single problem with any mmo i've ever played, and i've always played the clients from opening day, when there would be an abundance of issues. but by the same token i'm sure there's people out there that have had nothing BUT problems on every client. can't put all the blame on the software all the time, there's plenty of people that are either stupid and don't know what they're doing with their computers, or have overlooked something accientally and either don't want to look for it or don't know TO look for it and just assume it's not their problem.
You must have only played LoTRO and DAoC. Either that or are not very observant when it comes to problems. Trying to think what else....nope can't off hand
You know what actually had great promise for a seamless world. Big World severs with Mafate engine, if you looked beyond the instability and the lack of a game that was some interesting technology. (for those that dont know D&L)
No offense ,as i am sure you meant none to the people pointing out the client instability in the aoc OB, however even Funcom staff adimit that the client in unstable . I would point out that one AOC staff member has been having the same issues that most of us have been having and has pointed that out in the IGN tech forums.
Today after they brought the servers back up was teh first time I was able to play for hours without any issue and I even bumped it ip to med settings. Now I made no changes to my rig. That same Funcom staffer also mentioned how his game improved dramatically after the servers came back up today. I am sure that since you build your own rigs you are more knowlegeble on getting the most performance possible out of your machines than most of us. However, that does not mean that becasue it runs smooth on your rigs that the client does not have issues. I am hopiful with the progress the client made in stability today that all will be well at launch.
or, *GASP* i didn't HAVE any problems.
Granted, i haven't played that many, EQ, AC, DAoC, WoW, AO(briefly), Lotro(beta only), AoC.
you're right, i didn't meant any offense to anyone, nor was i implying that their (or anyone else's) clients/engines are perfect. I just think that people assume that as soon as people start having problem, then EVERYONE is having problems and therefore the client is ALWAYS to blame and the game will undoubtedly fail because every client problem automatically takes 6 months to figure out.
as a programmer (albeit not of the game variety), i can also say that it only take one tiny little 'oops' in many cases to throw everything out of whack and make it appear the whole thing is just garbage code. but that doesn't mean an intelligent programmer (or in the case of aoc - 150 of them) can't figure out what the issue is very quickly and resolve it without requiring months of brain scratching. they're there because they have skills, not because funcom picked 150 random poeple off the street to come up with a game.
Oh i agree. Thats why since i like the game i am looking forward to seeing how it plays in the prerelease. I remember during EQ2 beta just 2 months before lauch you could not go outside freeport if there were more than 30 people out there the zone just crashed. Yet by launch they had it all fixed.
As we speak they are patching they OB with a nw client that is suppose to be much more stable.
this new patch sure fixed the stability issues. I went from running on low with fps around mid 40's and crashes if i tried to play at day or when i zoned to all settings on max with fps at 72-87 with no crashs and fast zone times for 2 hr 45 minutes all in day time in a group
Well the PvP FFA started today for the OB. Of coruse it was a real gank feast. The one bright spot though was the stability. FPS did drop off a bit. I know i went from 70's-80 down to the 40's and lat went up from 62 to 163 . Most people I talked to ingame had similar drop offs. However, when you consider how you were beign ported over to your home city and were surrounded by 40+ people thats not to bad at this stage. Most fo the pvp consisted of people standing outside the city gates hitting people as they came out or groups camping the rez points. again to be expected. The big patch Friday did fix the stability issues although it did come with bugs. However Funcom did say inadvance that it was buggy but that they pushed it live to correct the stability problems. The one big bug is your character creation model beign blacked out. Thus you can create a new toon you just have no real idea what they look like till they get ingame. I am sure this si something they will be able to fix
This is another game that needs at least another 3 months tuning before it is ready to play and for those with non DX-10 video cards, even playing on low settings is going to be a problem.
You watch on the ffa-pvp servers there will be big changes on them soon otherwise Funcom will be looking at ghost towns in the near future.
I also do not like the way they implemented stealth. It is far too powerful. You think they would see how bad stealth is in pvp games like DaoC and not make the same mistakes.
This game has major problems in it's design. I am majorly disappointed Funcom, This game won't even give Wow a ho hum.
I guess we will just have to wait and see what Funcom does about the problems.
This game is a definite NO BUY at release, they should have waited until fall like Mythic. It is inexcusable that they are foisting another partially unfinished game on us.
You do know that there was no DX-10 implimented in the OB right ?
Well the AoC OB experience for me was at best extremely poor, due to inability to play the game for more than 10 seconds at a time between crashes. Even with the last patch, the client was consistently unstable for me during this open beta, and as many have already pointed out, crashed frequently and for no apparent reason even with all the setting set to low and religiously following the recommendations on the boards.
My test system had an Intel Core2Duo CPU @2.5Ghz with 3GB RAM and dual NVIDIA SLI GeForce 8600 GT with a 320 HDD and all updated drivers. I did notice some improvement when disabling SLI and one of the processor cores, which at least allowed me to experience some of the game initial instances. However, and I know most of you are already saying "this is a beta" and all, but you'd think Funcom would at the very least have a functional client by the time they released it for open beta, so they could focus on the "stress test" for their servers/connections as they originally stated. Instead it seems from this response they stressed tested the tester's systems which was my experience along with a very large "minority", which I would wager are a larger number than acknowledged.
Additionally, this gentleman's sidestepping of the issues proposed in the interview questions, as others pointed out earlier in the first few responses, gives me significant reason for concern and certain doubt about the actual status of this game's client stability come release. I am very leery because throughout the beta no solution was actually formulated or communicated other than the general comment akin to the above "a number of players are reporting stellar performance on the very same approach (meeting recommended specs). " If this is the case, then perhaps only this "number of players" should get the game at launch and force Funcom to fix it for the everyone else in lieu of loosing a large portion of the player base. Sadly, from experience during previous game releases, this may not be the case because there will be such an eager horde of fanbois pre-ordering this game, that the instability issues may very well continue for a lot of people long after release. It seems they are "banking" on the mindset that if they build it, we will come, which really doesn't promise anything other than frustration and aggravation for those coming along for the ride who will not have such a great experience right out of the gate. I expect this sell-it-now-fix-it-later attitude to continue, and will wait a while until they actually fix it before making any investment into this franchise.
I've been playing CB with a rig far inferior to many people here, and havn't had any probs at all.
However, I do have a new gaming rig arriving soon ( gift from my son ) so I hope my experience remains as smooth :)
Vocal minority lol? If you can't recognize that AoC has major performance issues at this point you are blind as a bat. Watch the people drop out after 30 days, while this game will probably be not as bad as Vanguard, this will be strictly a niche game because of the performance issues and the braindead pvp server design decisions. It remains to be seen whether Funcom can save it before the 30 day flight!
I cancelled my preorder after closed beta.
Oh, after trying it for a while I am not at all convinced that this will turn out like Vanguard. I think that it is more like Shadowbane. I suspect that it will be a good game, but not my game.
You have to give the company credit for not hiding behind the launch date and actually addressing th issues. I have pre-ordered the game and expect some trouble at launch and if it stinks bad I will just pick up EVE again.
True enough. I would rather spend my money on a box of condoms and a night out :)
Honestly... I gave up after the first couple of days... :P
My computer may not be a crysis-running beast of a gaming machine, but it isnt a slouch either. And to say that it was a minority is a vast understatement. At the IGN forums, last time i checked, there was more than 16 pages of posts basically saying the same thing, and the machines in question were anywhere from bare minimum to said beast of a machine.
Hell... there were even blue screens of death caused by the game screwing up the video drivers... :P
Hell, they created a "Technical support" forums at IGN just to keep the complaining out of the general forums...
The best thing of all, was that there seemed to be no difference in graphics on the regular settings, and the lowest of low. The 'fighting' to me was worse than WoW, considering I had to click constantly to keep him attacking, and with the .4 or less FPS, that just makes it more of a drag than usual...
go ahead and flame me, go ahead and say I'm whining, dont care. The game was completely unplayable, from what I've seen, the game is more compatable with some old crap computers runnin on XP than a powerful, dual-core system on Vista (which I thought the game was designed for... :\ ).
Hopefully they will do what Blizzard did with WoW and not charge us for the time that the game was unstable at launch. I know when WoW came out there was a lot of server crashing and downtime and they refunded me of the days that there was extremely a lot of down time. They did this without me having to complain. I just looked at my account info page and it had a lot of added free plays time. Hopefully they will do the same.
Cant blame you but I have a wife therefore no need for the above 2 items :)