With aoc gone gold, been reading up on the state of the game when trying to decide whether this should be something to try and found:
AOC.
Performance. 2 Even tho the game is still in beta it had ovbious problems in handeling the hectic gameplay of PVP battles. Lowering the quality of the graphics helped abit but with over 5.0 raited pc you dont expect to have to go down to minimum to enjoy the game. There were several diffrent features that became notable in terms of performance.
a) Lag. Qute a few times I had big lag spikes going up to red (10k ms) This seemed to be server internet connection and happend to often to my liking. PVP was ofc effected by this alot.
b) FPS. Normal frames per second in the starting area with high settings and 2xAA was around 50 fps if standing still. Normal fluctuation was about 25-45 while moving. Not bad. But.. then came the bad part. The game quite frequently had long glitches - sending your fps all the way down to 2-3 fps and stoping completlee. This happened quite often when I looked behind my character but also while running fast forward for some time. This effected the PVP experience quite abit.
c) Game crashing. THis was my biggest dissapointment. Game crashed way to often for my liking. It was affecting other players that I was talking but maybe not to the extend that I had. After few loading screens I had the chance of client freezing or just crashing to desktop. When trying to figure out why this was happening - I noticed that the game was using huge amount of Memory and it kept rising to about 1.6k causing the game to crash on the next loading screen. Most likely reason for that is very worring. Memory leak - Im almost afraid to mention this word cause it can be really hard to prevent but I could see no other reason. If current game has some memory leaks then Funcom will have torrid time fixing that in just one month. It could be a feature this game will have to live with alot longer. And that simply can't work in MMO game.
d) Bugs. Ofc I ran into quite a few bugs while playing. Even the first NPC quest you did had the girl standing in locked position after you freed her. You would think that this could easily be fixed before beta event such as this. Gamed also buged up few times in terms of shadows when switching between diffrent settings - for example minimum to maximum. Then the shadows didn't follow your movements.
Few bugs noticed while in PVP were visual like the shadow bugs and walls not showing correct colours and even loosing all textures. Few times I fell thought the floors and got stuck. Still some work needed on the PVP mamps.
Class balance 3 Class balance was almost none existant in the game. While going throught the starting area I soon found out that melee was quite balanced while the casting classes were kinda one shotting everything at the start but then started to struggle big time towards the end on higher lvl mobs. When going into PVP at lvl 20 you figured out really fast what classes were dominating and who were dead all the time. I would have thought Funcom would have done more in balancing this basic when it comes to showing off their PVP system. But then - it was only lvl 20 and few games can provide perfect balance through all the content.
Class fun factor balance 2 Most melee classes were fun to play. Some more than others to. The high dmg classes (barbarian, assasin, ranger) gave alot of pleasure going around butchering pretty much everyone. At the same time it became more of a nightmare trying to play the magic classes - not to mention the "healing" classes that had almost no role and very few features to keep themselfs alive.
Loading screens 1 After you died in PVE or PVP you got teleported back to certain spawning points. The problem with this system is that every time this happened a loading screen popped up and when you were playing the more vulnarable classes it very often lead to you seeing more of those loading screens than actually enjoying the game. Loading screens are drag in every game but in PVP it is just horrible. Every time I see a loading screen it takes me from the game and gives me the chance to quit. High frustration lvl long term and not fun.
Mob Combat AI 2 First 5-6 lvls I played in starting area provided few mobs that I was hoping would be giving me some insight into how advanced the AI of the game would be. I was really dissapointed. The shielding system on the mobs worked to a degree but then only for melees. Considering this game is much more than slashing It became another boring factor for the casters - ending up as you felt kinda silly standing there - casting some spells on mobs that were hitting you. In other words - plain boring.
But worst part of the AI was the movement of the mobs. There were obiously some pathing problems that will probably be looked into. But the most unrealistic and just stupid part in PVE was that the Mobs moved in diffrent speed towards you. For example when you hit a mob that was sitting around a fire with 2 other mobs - just one came running towards you right away. While the other two desided to take 2 seconds standing up and then slooowly walking towards you while you were killing the first one. If there ever was a bad AI - then this was it. Very dissapointing since Funcom was talking about the AI beeing the strong part of the game.
User interface 5 Many parts of the user interface are good. Others are not. The positioning of the action panel and the lifesigns of player and target are good. But there were some really annoying factors that ruined the gameplay abit. For example you alwasy had tooltips showing up when you moved mouse over action button. That tooltip was huge and usually went over the lifesign of the mob you were killing. I tried multiple times to remove this feature from the action bar - but simply couldn't. Not without it affecting all other tooltips witch then become annoyingly slow. Group/team UI was very very bad. It showed up as tiny tiny bars in top left hand corner. Worst part tho was the Mob lifesigns in PVE. I desided to remove those from everything but the target. But then I could not see what the other mobs that were attacking me at the same time had much life. You would think this was easy feature to implement. Some parts of the UI are great - Others just plain bad. Needs alot of utilization to become usefull for diffrent classes.
You really can't judge a game by it's beta.. Granted, there do seem to be a lot of disappointments, but keep in mind that the beta of AoC isn't the complete thing..
Plus, comparing PVP from a couple months ago, to the recent NDA lifted weekend event, it's come a long way.. :]
First off, yes every beta has problems. Thats why its called a beta, so they can polish the game before its released.
Secondly, Darkfall may or may not come out, thats true (however I believe it will come out, remember Rome wasnt built in a day). However, saying its not an actual game is stupidity. What, did the devs get bored one day and decide to make a book? No dammit, its a game! Thats fact, or are the videos they have released showing actual gameplay (slim, pretty widely spaced out and not enough to satisfy some, true) not to mention other news sources.
Thirdly, I will probably try AOC, but only if it offers a free trial. I dont want to waste money on something that could potentially just be another MMORPG. Sure, it offers unique things but is that an excuse for restricting mounts to level 40?
The_Toe_Bighter98: First off, yes every beta has problems. Thats why its called a beta, so they can polish the game before its released.
Secondly, Darkfall may or may not come out, thats true (however I believe it will come out, remember Rome wasnt built in a day). However, saying its not an actual game is stupidity. What, did the devs get bored one day and decide to make a book? No dammit, its a game! Thats fact, or are the videos they have released showing actual gameplay (slim, pretty widely spaced out and not enough to satisfy some, true) not to mention other news sources.
Thirdly, I will probably try AOC, but only if it offers a free trial. I dont want to waste money on something that could potentially just be another MMORPG. Sure, it offers unique things but is that an excuse for restricting mounts to level 40?
Correct me if Im wrong, as Im sure you will.
Good stuff, i agree and will do the same
Hemi thanks for your retarted reply, you're as stupid as ever :)
I played during the PvP weekend and ill say this. I don't know how anybody could consider it bad. In the lobby with 20-30 people on screen i was getting roughly 35-55fps(on HIGH, even in PvP). I had no issues with lag and only crashed 3 times the whole weekend.
Yea class balance needs some love. I was playing a ToS and playing ctf in the ravine, i was having a blast defending the flag until 2 assassins jumped me. When they jumped me i held my ground for about 10-15 second because i was using the active blocking "X" and was messing up there combos.(i think i was anyhow =p)
I think the game was in very good condition being a beta and all. I really like the combat system, i think some people just need a little bit of time with it. Most people didn't know about pushing X for active blocking. Also there was the dodging and leaping forward and backward. If you double tapped your W key during combat you would leap forwardand get a specific buff for about 8 secs. The buff you got was dependant on your archetype i think. Barbs would get a chance to stun and i think soldiers would get a chance to knock back. If you leaped backwards(double tap S) the rogues would get a short duration buff to evasion. I didn't bother to much with the shields although i can say they were effective if you had 3 bars in the right spot.
As far as loading screens..i dont see why people care about an 8 second loading screen. I would rather have areas look and feel different at the price of a loading screen vs. Everything looking similar without.
I'm happy with what i saw and had fun, i didn't see anything bad.
Lol. You make my point for me. An "ACTUAL" game is one you can play, or at least that SOMEONE can play. Those videos are AWESOME! lol. 7 years and they got some videos, nice. Rome wasn't built in a day, but if after 7 years they only had a little cardboard model of the city to show, somebody would be headed for the pit.
And Nightfreak...way to post 71 times in 6 weeks. You MUST know what you're talking about. Troll.
The thing that is hillarious is the fact that I'll play AoC, get tired of it and move on to play something new before Darkfall sees the light of day.
Lineage 2 just had their 4th anniversary and the graphics in that game kick ass over Darkfalls "innovative" P.O.S. They bit off more than they can chew and rather than get some financial help, they are letting technology pass them by. If Darkfall ever gets released(which I doubt) it will be under a different license and stripped of features.
Leave games that are real alone. At least they are developed and then RELEASED.
AoC will be fun. Who knows how long I will play it..a month...a year. Point is, I'll actually get to play it.
P.S. Look at my join date. Darkfall was "going to be in beta soon" way the hell back then!
The_Toe_Bighter98: First off, yes every beta has problems. Thats why its called a beta, so they can polish the game before its released.
Secondly, Darkfall may or may not come out, thats true (however I believe it will come out, remember Rome wasnt built in a day). However, saying its not an actual game is stupidity. What, did the devs get bored one day and decide to make a book? No dammit, its a game! Thats fact, or are the videos they have released showing actual gameplay (slim, pretty widely spaced out and not enough to satisfy some, true) not to mention other news sources.
Thirdly, I will probably try AOC, but only if it offers a free trial. I dont want to waste money on something that could potentially just be another MMORPG. Sure, it offers unique things but is that an excuse for restricting mounts to level 40?
Correct me if Im wrong, as Im sure you will.
so why in their last dev diary did they claim there npc ai was as smart as real players so they really dont need real people to test it and so they arent gonna open a beta and also are not gonna give a release date till there's a finished product? I agree with hemi there is never a finished product with an mmo they are always gonna have issues that need fixing esp if darkfall is gonna be as exspansive as they claim so i think its better to just release it and fix the problems as they arise rather than build up the hype.unless they are hoping the hype will at least sell the first copies
Hemi just shut up retard, you're calling me a troll yet you're the one bitching about me. And bringin up darkfall here, rofl you got some issues, go see a shrink
I havent said AOC is as bad as the poster of the review, i just asked if it was still as bad at this point, which other seem to be able to respond normally too, so take your meds and get lost.
Tnx for your view Kriki And now can we keep this about AOC please, dont need every Warcry board to talk about darkfall, it has a forum of its own you know hemi & gutts
-Hemi-: Lol. You make my point for me. An "ACTUAL" game is one you can play, or at least that SOMEONE can play. Those videos are AWESOME! lol. 7 years and they got some videos, nice. Rome wasn't built in a day, but if after 7 years they only had a little cardboard model of the city to show, somebody would be headed for the pit.
And Nightfreak...way to post 71 times in 6 weeks. You MUST know what you're talking about. Troll.
The thing that is hillarious is the fact that I'll play AoC, get tired of it and move on to play something new before Darkfall sees the light of day.
Lineage 2 just had their 4th anniversary and the graphics in that game kick ass over Darkfalls "innovative" P.O.S. They bit off more than they can chew and rather than get some financial help, they are letting technology pass them by. If Darkfall ever gets released(which I doubt) it will be under a different license and stripped of features.
Leave games that are real alone. At least they are developed and then RELEASED.
AoC will be fun. Who knows how long I will play it..a month...a year. Point is, I'll actually get to play it.
P.S. Look at my join date. Darkfall was "going to be in beta soon" way the hell back then!
Usually, you quote someones post so that people know just who your arguing against. So, just a heads up, do that next time otherwise it makes you look like your avoiding me. =P
Yes, you have a point. But the thing about Darkfalls scenario, its happened before. Look at STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. People argued it was vaporware for ages, the game didnt have much information for it, but it was still released. In fact, it was actually good, though they did break a few promises which they plan to fix with their next game.
The point of that? You have youir beliefs, I have mine. Im not trying to change your mind here, just posting my opinion. You can argue and argue about how crappy Darkfall is, how other games will be released way before it, but I will still believe it will be a good game when its beta is released later this year. Sure, they could fail the deadline again, but I can wait. Its not like there's a shortage of good games (Spore, Half Life 3, Project Origin, Mass Effect (PC version)).
So, how did I topic change from AoC to how crappy or good Darkfall is? Way to go off topic. =P
EDIT: Also, by your standards I must be a troll too! Or, I could be bored and started posting and checking on Warcry or Escapist, seeing that my account goes to both sites. Whatever floats your boat. =P
Usually, you quote someones post so that people know just who your arguing against. So, just a heads up, do that next time otherwise it makes you look like your avoiding me. =P
Yes, you have a point. But the thing about Darkfalls scenario, its happened before. Look at STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. People argued it was vaporware for ages, the game didnt have much information for it, but it was still released. In fact, it was actually good, though they did break a few promises which they plan to fix with their next game.
The point of that? You have youir beliefs, I have mine. Im not trying to change your mind here, just posting my opinion. You can argue and argue about how crappy Darkfall is, how other games will be released way before it, but I will still believe it will be a good game when its beta is released later this year. Sure, they could fail the deadline again, but I can wait. Its not like there's a shortage of good games (Spore, Half Life 3, Project Origin, Mass Effect (PC version)).
So, how did I topic change from AoC to how crappy or good Darkfall is? Way to go off topic. =P
EDIT: Also, by your standards I must be a troll too! Or, I could be bored and started posting and checking on Warcry or Escapist, seeing that my account goes to both sites. Whatever floats your boat. =P
Meh think he is bitching to me from the fact that is trying to make it into a trollfight by bringing up join dates, postcounts and other games.
And i know Darkfall is a brilliant concept guys, but its not out yet, and i was just hoping for some impressions here whether AOC was a nice in between mmo's because i'm really bored with WoW.
Meh think he is bitching to me from the fact that is trying to make it into a trollfight by bringing up join dates, postcounts and other games.
And i know Darkfall is a brilliant concept guys, but its not out yet, and i was just hoping for some impressions here whether AOC was a nice in between mmo's because i'm really bored with WoW.
Anyone else actually tried this beta?
Sorry, but I never got the beta so I cant really comment. Hope you get a intelectual response.
Meh think he is bitching to me from the fact that is trying to make it into a trollfight by bringing up join dates, postcounts and other games.
And i know Darkfall is a brilliant concept guys, but its not out yet, and i was just hoping for some impressions here whether AOC was a nice in between mmo's because i'm really bored with WoW.
Anyone else actually tried this beta?
Sorry, but I never got the beta so I cant really comment. Hope you get a intelectual response.
No problem, your intentions were good and if this doesnt work i can always do a trial and try for myself
Hekynn: Ya man dont judge a game before its release I'm getting this for sure cause of DX10 and better combat system than Everquest 2 :D
Dont get me wrong, im not saying thats my view on AOC, im just reading a lot of negative user feedback on AOC and i was wondering if its still in that state now and whether its best to wait a bit before trying it out (start up bug phase etc), or if its good now, or if it'll never be any good
But apperantly, not enough beta testers here to reply on it
Hekynn: Ya man dont judge a game before its release I'm getting this for sure cause of DX10 and better combat system than Everquest 2 :D
Dont get me wrong, im not saying thats my view on AOC, im just reading a lot of negative user feedback on AOC and i was wondering if its still in that state now and whether its best to wait a bit before trying it out (start up bug phase etc), or if its good now, or if it'll never be any good
But apperantly, not enough beta testers here to reply on it
Hmmm...maybe they're PLAYING THE GAME! Why don't you play Darkfall until you get some better user feedback...oh thats right it's not in beta.
Closed Betas = bugs. Open Betas (especially this close to release) are expected to have less bugs, usually just a major stress test on the servers and a nice polish before retail.
What's your rig's specs to be getting such crappy performance issues? Were you playing in DX9 or DX10? Settings?
This post was started back in march, i'm fairly sure before the cheetah2 revisions were done to the engine. That supposedly had an absolutely HUGE impact on playability.
Having been in the beta for six months, I can definitively say that the game is in a lot better shape than the review indicates. And while it could still use some bug-fixing, it's a lot more innovative than anything we've run into in the MMO genre for quite some time.
The combat system alone makes it worth giving the game a shot -- you will not mindlessly mash buttons in this game, believe me. Fatalities are so cool they will make you giggle like a schoolgirl when you encounter some of them for the first time. All in all, there is so much to love in this game that you will put up with the bugs on release.
And with that NDA bending comment, I'll leave it be... :-)
With aoc gone gold, been reading up on the state of the game when trying to decide whether this should be something to try and found:
AOC.
Performance. 2
Even tho the game is still in beta it had ovbious problems in handeling the hectic gameplay of PVP battles. Lowering the quality of the graphics helped abit but with over 5.0 raited pc you dont expect to have to go down to minimum to enjoy the game. There were several diffrent features that became notable in terms of performance.
a) Lag.
Qute a few times I had big lag spikes going up to red (10k ms) This seemed to be server internet connection and happend to often to my liking. PVP was ofc effected by this alot.
b) FPS.
Normal frames per second in the starting area with high settings and 2xAA was around 50 fps if standing still. Normal fluctuation was about 25-45 while moving. Not bad. But.. then came the bad part. The game quite frequently had long glitches - sending your fps all the way down to 2-3 fps and stoping completlee. This happened quite often when I looked behind my character but also while running fast forward for some time. This effected the PVP experience quite abit.
c) Game crashing.
THis was my biggest dissapointment. Game crashed way to often for my liking. It was affecting other players that I was talking but maybe not to the extend that I had. After few loading screens I had the chance of client freezing or just crashing to desktop. When trying to figure out why this was happening - I noticed that the game was using huge amount of Memory and it kept rising to about 1.6k causing the game to crash on the next loading screen. Most likely reason for that is very worring. Memory leak - Im almost afraid to mention this word cause it can be really hard to prevent but I could see no other reason. If current game has some memory leaks then Funcom will have torrid time fixing that in just one month. It could be a feature this game will have to live with alot longer. And that simply can't work in MMO game.
d) Bugs.
Ofc I ran into quite a few bugs while playing. Even the first NPC quest you did had the girl standing in locked position after you freed her. You would think that this could easily be fixed before beta event such as this. Gamed also buged up few times in terms of shadows when switching between diffrent settings - for example minimum to maximum. Then the shadows didn't follow your movements.
Few bugs noticed while in PVP were visual like the shadow bugs and walls not showing correct colours and even loosing all textures. Few times I fell thought the floors and got stuck. Still some work needed on the PVP mamps.
Class balance 3
Class balance was almost none existant in the game. While going throught the starting area I soon found out that melee was quite balanced while the casting classes were kinda one shotting everything at the start but then started to struggle big time towards the end on higher lvl mobs. When going into PVP at lvl 20 you figured out really fast what classes were dominating and who were dead all the time. I would have thought Funcom would have done more in balancing this basic when it comes to showing off their PVP system. But then - it was only lvl 20 and few games can provide perfect balance through all the content.
Class fun factor balance 2
Most melee classes were fun to play. Some more than others to. The high dmg classes (barbarian, assasin, ranger) gave alot of pleasure going around butchering pretty much everyone. At the same time it became more of a nightmare trying to play the magic classes - not to mention the "healing" classes that had almost no role and very few features to keep themselfs alive.
Loading screens 1
After you died in PVE or PVP you got teleported back to certain spawning points. The problem with this system is that every time this happened a loading screen popped up and when you were playing the more vulnarable classes it very often lead to you seeing more of those loading screens than actually enjoying the game. Loading screens are drag in every game but in PVP it is just horrible. Every time I see a loading screen it takes me from the game and gives me the chance to quit. High frustration lvl long term and not fun.
Mob Combat AI 2
First 5-6 lvls I played in starting area provided few mobs that I was hoping would be giving me some insight into how advanced the AI of the game would be. I was really dissapointed. The shielding system on the mobs worked to a degree but then only for melees. Considering this game is much more than slashing It became another boring factor for the casters - ending up as you felt kinda silly standing there - casting some spells on mobs that were hitting you. In other words - plain boring.
But worst part of the AI was the movement of the mobs. There were obiously some pathing problems that will probably be looked into. But the most unrealistic and just stupid part in PVE was that the Mobs moved in diffrent speed towards you. For example when you hit a mob that was sitting around a fire with 2 other mobs - just one came running towards you right away. While the other two desided to take 2 seconds standing up and then slooowly walking towards you while you were killing the first one. If there ever was a bad AI - then this was it. Very dissapointing since Funcom was talking about the AI beeing the strong part of the game.
User interface 5
Many parts of the user interface are good. Others are not. The positioning of the action panel and the lifesigns of player and target are good. But there were some really annoying factors that ruined the gameplay abit. For example you alwasy had tooltips showing up when you moved mouse over action button. That tooltip was huge and usually went over the lifesign of the mob you were killing. I tried multiple times to remove this feature from the action bar - but simply couldn't. Not without it affecting all other tooltips witch then become annoyingly slow. Group/team UI was very very bad. It showed up as tiny tiny bars in top left hand corner. Worst part tho was the Mob lifesigns in PVE. I desided to remove those from everything but the target. But then I could not see what the other mobs that were attacking me at the same time had much life. You would think this was easy feature to implement. Some parts of the UI are great - Others just plain bad. Needs alot of utilization to become usefull for diffrent classes.
so is it really that bad?