Profile: zantax
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• • The pay to play paradigm - its time has passed

  • I completely dissagree with the OP, the reason being is we are seeing CRAP being created for F2P MMO's.  Like one of the above posters said "Guild wars isn't really an MMO".  The reason people think every game should be F2P is because the quality of MMORPG's has gone down hill in a dramatic way.  When EQ was released it was polished quite a bit for the time, I am not saying it didn't have it's problems but being the only REAL choice out there untill Asheron's Call Came out helped its popularity.  You pay so that there is balancing in the game, new content...etc.  EQ lost this focus and started releasing expansion packs for sale, and this is where I think they shot themselves in the foot.  It is fine to release an expansion pack but not one a year come on?  Your updates should do that, that is why you pay 15$/month.  The only game with consistant monthly updates, content add ins and fixes to systems that were not working is Asherons Call.  Pretty much 10 years have passed since release and 1 update EVERY month, otherwise known as PATCH DAY.

    Now don't get me wrong LOTRO and DDO are good as well, not really my cup of tea though.  Not as free flowing as AC was, too scripted and path orientated.  I always like the idea that I could go anywhere and do anything at any level, as long as the monsters would alow it.  Not to mention the random loot drops...ahhh the good old days.  Anyways...

    I think P2P is still a good thing IF the game warrents it.  Otherwise the games should all be F2P with cash shops.  Either way I only thing P2P is stagnent because of the crap that is out there now.

  • Posted: 5/12/08 12:32 PM
    General Discussion
• • Vista help

  • Well I have being running vista pretty much since release.  Here are my suggestions for you and you won't have many if any issues.  If you have a dual core processor and 2Gigs of ram, upgrade it to 4 Gigs even if you aren't useing the 64bit version of Vista.  That extra 1.5 Gigs will help out ALOT, if you choose to go the 64bit route as I have you will have a couple little glitches here and there but overall nothing to terrible.

    I was running a core 2 with a 7950GT and 2 Gigs of ram, with vista x64 ultimate and I did see about a 10% hit in performance in games like HL2, CS:S, WOW, ...etc.  However I upgraded to a quad with 4 Gigs of ram and a 8800gt 512MB card and the differances are negligable.  Please understand that there are still performace changes you can perform to vista to help get back all the performance you need.  Look those up they are a great help, changing the secure desktop, and UAC are the first things I look at.

    If you choose to do this upgrade for DX10, which is a good reason to me, remember that Vista is a power house.  Just like the upgrade from 98 to xp was back in the day, you have to tweak vista just like you had to tweak xp back then.  However once you get used to it, you won't want to go back to XP.

    Either way good luck, let us know how it all turns out.

     

  • Posted: 5/06/08 12:08 PM
    General Discussion
• • Impressions of AOC after the weekend of playing...

  • Well I am not going to go into alot of detail today, just some short simple points.  First off let me give my configuration so that people understand what I was looking at.

    Intel Quad, 4GB of Ram, Vista X64, Nvidia 8800 GT 512MB, 10Mb Cable line

    Settings for the game for video are 1280 x 1024, Highest settings

    First off graphics - Wow not impressed at all, Cabal has just as good of graphics as AOC.  I realize the models are greater polys but come on this looks HORRIBLE, I prefer LOTRO graphics over this.

    Gameplay - What is there to say about this, the game plays as a standard MMO, when I say that I am being sarcastic.  The "Standard" MMO is a cookie cutter path based system now a days that AOC takes to a new level.  There is no OPEN world to run around in, invisible walls everywhere to stop you from getting off the path to the next area.  Oh and lets not talk about the instancing, this is a MMO, not a single player game.  If I wanted this level of instancing I would go pick up Oblivion and play it by myself.  Games that surpass AOC for game play, EQ, EQ2, AC, AO, WOW, SWG, ... wow this could be a long list.

    Combat - I will admit the showing of protection with the < on a side is kinda neat.  Is it revolutionary no, the ability to block more on one side then the other, ok that is a new thing and I will give it props there.  The ability to use your shield on angles to block has being around for awhile, but the ability to say, "I want to block right, left or middle more" is a new technique. Games with a similar gameplay but not exactly, AC, when fighting more then 1 monster you always lined up the mosters so the second one is attacking you on your shield side, you took alot less damage.

    Sound - The voice acting is good, I like that, it makes it more personalized.

    Load times - Pathetic, nothing better I can say about this, 4 minutes for some sections to load, and why so many load screens can't people make a large area with no load screens, SWG did it, AC did it, hell even AO did it.

    Overall First impressions of this game are very poor for me, I can honestly say this game is nothing like the hype it was ment to be.

    3/10

     

  • Posted: 5/05/08 11:52 AM
    Age of Conan
• • Fileplanet beta ripoff :(

  • You know the only time I have problems with fileplanet are when I download off of servers that are in the current buisness day.  I am in MST, so I usually download off a server that is in the middle of its time zones night time.  I seem to do pretty good like that, I get anywhere from 400k-1100k.  Oh well maybe its just me.

  • Posted: 4/28/08 4:02 PM
    Age of Conan
• • My Video Card Keeps Crashing :(

  • Honestly this sounds like an over heat issue.  If you say the sytem runs vanguard and other games perfectly, do any of those use DX10?  If not try lowering the ability of your card, turn down all the frill, don't use the max graphics, try running it at 1024x768 with everything on Medium.  This should not be an issue for your card at all, and I can't remember I have to look again but I believe you can turn off the DX10 support in LOTRO, if you can turn that off as well.  All these things will decrease how much work your card has to do, then see how long it lasts in LOTRO, if it fixes the issue, then I would check my heatsink make sure it is snug, if you can tighten it then do that.  Next if the heatsink is good check the temp inside your case, make sure you have good airflow.  The next step is to decrease your clock speed on your card down to a normal frequency, and any of that works then great.  If it doesn't work then simply take the card back and get it replaced, tell them the card keeps over heating during DX10 games.  Get a new one and hopefully your problem will be fixed.

  • Posted: 4/28/08 10:00 AM
    Lord of the Rings Online