f13.net

Roll up! Roll up! Place your bets - which MMO is going to be the biggest launch disappointment of 2008? Will it be AoC, with a lot of hype behind it (i.e. boobs and blood) but a pedigree that includes Anarchy Online, or will it be WAR, with a pedigree that includes DAoC, but also graphics and gameplay that seem lifted out of DAoC too? Or is there some other contender launching in 2008 that will set forums ablaze with nerd rage at it's incompleteness and ineptitude?

EDIT - as I was driving around yesterday, I realised I'd switched up Neocron and AO in my head. I amz da n00blaz.

Why Neocron? Also, WAR will be delayed for a spring 2009 launch :)

Hopefully, AoC will be just mediocre enough to get me to WAR.  Hopefully, WAR will cure me of my gaming disease.  Then I'll have the time to teach my cats to clean their own poopy box.  Srsly.

Yea, AoC's pedigree is AO. Neocron actually launch fine iirc.

My bet for the biggest disappointment is WoW WotLK.

Neocron's launch wasnt great. There were memory leaks and the game itself still sucks ass.

Well, this was still at a time when just getting it to be playable on day one was worth a trophy or something. For how long did DAoC reign supreme for launches simply because you could log in, and even though Hibernia was little more than character models?  :grin:

I had a lot of fun with it. Great PVP. So quit hatin' :)

Pirates of the Burning Sea is pretty much already my biggest disappointment of 2008.  I'd also suggest Huxley if I had any faith in it arriving in 2008.

Trivia:

Anarchy Online launched in summer 2001 while Dark Age of Camelot followed autumn of the same year, just a few months later, to steal the first few Funcom's burnouts.

Seems like Mythic is trying to apply the same identical winning gameplan 7 years later. Someone in Norway must really hate that Mark Jacobs.

Mobs that respawn with absolutely no logic. Database wipes. Cars that you keep in your pocket. Memory leaks. Crooked GMs. Dumb ass hacking mini-game.

The only thing this game has going for it is ambiance. They make pretty cyberpunk.

http://www.kittygoespotty.com/how-to-toilet-train-cat.php

Well, have you tried it?  I bet it wouldn't work on my kitties.  They do, however, have their own bathroom, but I wouldn't want to share.

It'll work again, I guarantee it.

I hate to agree with you on this one, but I do.   I don't think there's high-hopes out there for AoC, so it's hard for it to fail to meet expectations.  WaR has been subtle and avoiding the hype machine, so I think it might surprise people.

WoW is the Juggernaut, and shook things up, but really doesn't want to risk shaking things up TOO much at the risk of alienating it's behemoth usebase.  I can't see them innovating much with the expansion, and I don't expect much from the "deformable terrain" zone.  Certainly not the levels of defomity and destruction I've seen some folks hoping for.  3-4 "stages" of a staticly-spawned building from "mint" to "destroyed" and that'll be it.

Then there's the Death Knight.  It will be a dissapointment because it's only going to be as powerful as other classes.  Folks STILL expect a WTFpwn face-rape class and have visions of being Arthas and soloing boss-level mobs.  Hardly.

Then to top it off, there will be a whole new series of inane rep grinding to do.  If there's one thing I HATE (even as a PvE fan) it's fucking grinding reputation.  I hated it in EQ, and I hate it to this day.  Pointless timesink bullshit is all that it is in WoW.   At least in EQ they had the excuse of trying to create a 'world.'  WoW creates a game then does bullshit in the name of worldliness that simply isn't there.

I expect large levels of  whining about "this isn't what was promised" for the whole expansion.

God, here I come in defense of wow again....well, for the first part I agree. I believe wotlk will be fun and more than likely a lot better than aoc/war however it will be a dissapoint simply because people have their bar set very very high, hell even I'm guilty of it.

I do want to say though blizzard is getting better, not at removing the grind but definitely making it more enjoyable. The new SSO stuff I really like, I think I hit exalted in, two weeks? of course i was doing all the dailies and a few dungeons but the dailies took 'maybe' two hours to do and were fun(for me) to complete. Also with the new quests there were pretty decent rewards as well, 10gold, random satchels of loot and occasionally a badge of justice, more than worth the time/grind and this is aside from faction rewards.  I personally enjoyed the new dungeon, hard as it was and just when I started getting sick of it all, I was exalted.

I think Wrath of the Lich King will be the strongest release out of the "Big" three.  It may be the juggernaut, but I have not seen much that is going to steal Blizzard's thunder from the contenders.

They may win the PvP junkies, but they won't steal the majority of Blizzard's fans.

Although AoC and WAR do both have their rabid fanbois jumping up and down on messageboards all over, ranting about how their_game is going to bring real PvP back.

AoC.

I remember, way back when....

My friend and new guildmate told me he had a boat! I hadn't been on one yet and thought, cool.  So we go sailing a bit, was neat. Eventually we find a man out fishing, wearing nothing but a triangular pirate hat. Well, I felt if I was gonna be on a boat, I would need a hat.  "I have nothing" the man said.  To which I replied "I really want that hat" his answer was not what I wanted to hear as he cried "please just let me fish."  So, after we boarded our ship, with me sporting my brand new hat, we watched the fish nibble on his cut up corpse.

ah, that's some good pvp.

If we consider historical success in comparing the AoC vs WAR launches, I'm going to say that WAR will be the more successful.  I still have a very bad taste in my mouth from the AO launch and they will have to do something spectacular to overcome that one.  While DAoC was pretty thin on endgame content, the launch was quite smooth... dare I say the best of its era.  I think Mythic has proven that they can do a launch well. 

On one side I see AoC not having particularly high expectations, but exactly how disasterous the launch could be will dictate exactly how far into the negative people will view this MMO.

On the other WAR has more fans, especially about "PvP done right", so I expect the screaming to be louder when this launches (assuming it is launching in 2008, which is far from being guaranteed).

Aion, Huxley and Stargate Worlds could be dark horses for the most disappointing launch, but there are no set dates on launch for these titles other than a vague 2008.

Ok I need some more guidelines here. Is this about the number of people who go ape shit about their game of choice eating a cock? Or is this about the biggest train wreck on server up day?

In either case Warhammer for the former, AoC for the latter. Although I like to think AoC will be the better game once the dust settles.

Funcom made a press release (http://www.funcom.com/wsp/funcom/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&func_id=1275&table=CONTENT) for (to?) it's investors today.

Keypoints for people without PDF-reader:
*Gamespot PvP weekend is deemed to have been conducted successfully
*IGN/Filespot "open" beta coming May 1st
*Game has received over 20 front covers on gaming magazines, expected to reach above 30 by the end of launch month
*Pre-order data in some important retail chains interpreted as being among the highest for any MMO launched
*475,000 unique visitors at ageofconan.com last week
*Server park for launch scaled for handling 500.000-600.000 active subscribers (can be scaled higher in a few weeks)
*Partners/service suppliers: IPsoft, SCi Entertainment/Eidos, Cisco, Dell and GlobalCollect

I think the biggest dissapointment with WoTLK will come when people realise that it is a like-for-like rerun of TBC, just in a new setting. Other than the death knight class I haven't heard of anything truly innovative coming with the expansion; this leaves just another reset of the game followed by a long and protracted grind.

That said, I'm hoping the best, expecting the worst with AoC.

I actuallly want AoC to do well, it seems fun, but you've got to love this little gem.  Freudian slip?

You mean besides how they use full stops instead of commas for thousands separation in Europe? :oh_i_see:

I'm sure i've said this before, but Fuck Europe, everyone knows America is the only market that matters, and as such, they should stop using silly things that make us point and laugh at them for their obvious stupidity.

I was talkin about PVP, and I played the game from launch on and did not experience half the issues you are talking about. The ambiance was not the only thing going for Neocron. Did you ever take part in any of the outpost battles? Pepper Park PVP? Small group PVP at some PVE areas? All these were quite fun...the game had its problems, but I had a lot of fun with it.

I'm amazed at the people who feel that War has more hype than Conan. Everyone I know is hyped for Conan and most of them are oblivious to the past and, I fear, doomed to repeat it.

So my bet is on Conan because I think it has more hype and I think it will be far less together at launch.

I agree with Falwell though, I'll bet a year after launch AOC is a better game. Funcom did a great job with AO other than the complete debacle at launch.

I don't care how long it takes, if they get it right.

WoW was delayed a long time, - I was quite happy with their launch.

Nintendo delays most of their big titles - but they ship about as bug-free as can be.

Getting it right >>>> sticking to original guesses on going gold dates

Any new battlegrounds coming? 

I'm still hoping for a Horadric Cube in some upcoming expansion.  That was the neatest crafting idea ever; why no one's stolen it for an mmo boggles.

None have been announced.  The only pvp announcement related to WK has been the open pvp zone.   I expect that's in large part because Blizzard is putting all their pvp eggs into the Arena basket nowadays.

Here's what the WoWwiki WotLK article (http://www.wowwiki.com/World_of_Warcraft:_Wrath_of_the_Lich_King) says about PvP:

I just read they (AoC) expect 500-600k within the FIRST WEEKS.

I chuckled.

Given they do have access to preorder numbers and we don't, maybe they know something we don't.

AOC will be broken within a week.

WAR will suck.

I vote for both failing.

No. Europeans use . instead of , for writing big numbers.

AoC will suck out loud. WAR will delay until 2009, and then possibly still suck.

WotLK will probably have the highest amount of unwarranted squealing about how it sucks. I'm thinking of the wailing about gear resets and omg u ruined teh raid game and such from TBC, only it will probably have some "someone died in the PvP zone" complaining too.

WoW is just a grind machine. I'm glad people like it, but each time I return it's for fewer hours. The game has not evolved in any way I find fun at all. But what really disappointed me is the one Hero class. I don't get that at all, particularly the choice.

Back to AoC: I do love how flat this reads:
We launched a test successfully. Woohoo! Wouldn't you think they'd rather have some statement about how well the test went?

500k-600k subscribers in the first few weeks is plausible. What other big MMO is coming out anytime soon or have recently launched? We're in the post-AO phase of EQ1 where anything that launches polished, playable and of any easily digestible fantasy theme is going to get scooped up. And considering the many multiples of people playing MMOs these days in both the US and EU, I think half a mil is plausible.

Of course, half of those will melt their same dinky crap PCs that run WoW fine  :drill:

And Nebu, not a cut, but I think you'd be surprised how many entertainment companies are looking to Europe first before the US, and how many US companies are realizing a bigger piece of their pie is coming from over there.

AoC off to the presses..

http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&&func_id=2405&table=CONTENT

I found an awesome bug, seems when they did the PVP weekend, they increased the size of the women's breasts for a few of the models. And since for the US version of the game the models with breasts have to have them covered, it really was just the breasts they enlarged. Seems some one forgot to enlarge the shirt models to go with it.

I saw a bunch of women running around with their nipples, and quite often a good portion of their whole breast clipping through their shirts. It was quite disconcerting.

What  nipples?!?

That didn't happen with LotRO which arguably has a much wider appeal than AoC.

Sure, it might have 600k subs the first month, but it will be around 400k the next.

Yea, no idea if they'll retain any of that. This could be a CoX slide.


Which is true. However, LoTRO was also widely understood to be little more than a WoW clone with LoTR wrapping by the time preorders went out. It also had nothing to do with the movies which is what made LoTR itself have the much wider appeal the books alone ever could have gotten. And it came only a few months after DDO and WoW:BC launched, the latter of which was providing a much better WoW experience than LoTRO could have. That they got so many lifetime signups at all, in my opinion, a testament to their success at reaching people who probably hadn't played an MMO yet.

Meanwhile, AoC is up against less competition for time and mindshare atm and is at least attempting to offer something actually unique, as opposed to musical instruments and playable chickens.

But that's academic if they can't keep a good chunk of those folks.

I have to note that you drop the DAoC pedigree as a positive. As someone who left after the great LA nerf and ToA, I have to wonder if you ever even played that game.

Fuck Mythic. I aint goin near it. WoW is stale and the PvE melee game of AoC has me hooked. AoC it is for me.

I think WAR will disappoint me the most, but AoC will fail far more spectacularly.


WAR will be, unexciting. It won't be terrible, but it wont be spectacular. I'm guessing it will get a player base similar to LoTRO does, smallish but dedicated.


I fully expect AoC to be a cluster fuck of epic proportions. Possibly literally.

Nope, never played it. However, F13 voted it the second best MMO that we've collectively played and its PvP has a great reputation. ToA is well recognised as a huge mistake, but DAoC did very well for a while there.

Please help me - I'm choking on the :nda:.

Unless Funcom somehow hacked into WoW and inserted naked Night Elves with "Play Age of Conan" scrawled across their heaving bosoms then no, I don't think they'll get close to those numbers.  And by setting the bar that high, they have oh so much farther to fall.

I think a problem that is going to face any fantasy MMO with serious PvP like AoC and War will be that even if a small percentage of the WoW user base gives their game a try it could put a lot of stress on their launch forcing them to either do queues or open new servers, then the vast majority of the WoW ex-pats will leave after the first month.  So either they have queues which will upset everyone and cause people to leave or they open up too many servers (driving up their costs) which they will then have to merge several months later.  If they get five to ten percent of WoW people to try their game (which I think is optimistic) that will probably represent fifty percent of their launch day population base.  That fifty percent won't stick around very long because despite all the "waiting on warhammer" groaning most WoW players have never played another MMO and are going to be very disappointed when they do.

The NDA is up even AFTER it goes gold?  DANGER WILL ROBINSON

WAR will have a great launch, AoC will have a moderate population base but will decline and stead off in the 100k-250k sub range in 6 months or so. I have doubts about Wrath of the Lich King launching this year, and yes I agree that when it does it will be TBC in the arctic, with new dances and hairstyles.

Wuh? Link please?

I do think it unfortunate that the build played during PvP weekend is the most recent impression a lot of people have of the state of AoC. Apparently I can't go into details due to the above :wink: But I will say that claims of it being an earlier build are not unbelievable.

Read Falwell's link.  The game is in CD form now.

Interesting from the link:

475,000 unique visits to AoC website

Large retailers say "as much interest as any MMO ever".

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this sells a million boxes the first year, although it'll settle into LOTRO-like numbers. 

Ya, did that, but didn't see anything about the NDA still being in effect. The thing I did see was the "tens of thousands" of testers bit. Outside of the PvP weekend, I wonder how many people have actually been in beta?

It's part of the NDA itself iirc, can't find a link where it's quoted but it's to the effect that "even after NDA is lifted you're still not allowed to talk about the period while it was in effect", similar to how it's done for the PvP weekend for that matter.

edit: oh wait, i misread the question. nvm then, guess it's presumed NDA is still in effect because well, there's no announcement to the contrary nor people spilling beans which they'd be free to, were it indeed lifted..?

not sure i understand the hate on AoC?

Game appears to be really good and the fact that i see people on here shouting about how they are sick of cookie cutter games, i dont get it.

Game has a ton of depth, nice graphics, fun combat... good pve. All the bitching about balance, thats n00b talk people. i cant wait for AoC.

The game imo, is well made. its not like this WoW sht, where my character does the same lame anamations... a lvl 10 demo/necro spells look 10X better then a lvl70 mage lol.

face it, the people who are bitchin, are poor fuktards who cant build a pc, maybe if you cleaned the piss out of the sunny d bottles under your desks and returned em, you could upgrade you vid cards, fucken lusers..

*edit*

I dunno about war. AOC looks better then war on fucken lowest settings, nuff said, so go sell a kidney and stfu n00bs.

What, are you like new? This is not unusual, every NDA has that clause. That doesn't mean that they won't say "post whatever you want" when it enters open beta in a week. Expecting them to relax NDA before it enters open beta is even more silly.

I expect great things from grunk in the future.

I'm happier now more than ever that I won't be playing aoc.

Grunk has few posts but he makes up for the low post count by making every post a golden example of its kind.

Good. Stay in your DIKU clone piece of shit. I am so sick of people bitchin about system specs. I swear, you people are so cheap, you probably use the paint chips off the wall to wipe your ass

"Omg, ive been using the same toilet paper for 5 years, why do i gota buy a new roll!"

WoW, WAR ... dont give a shit. I dont give a mystic shit, how many rolls you put on the rung.

I T' S  S T I L L  S H I T

Perhaps if you'd take some of that funding you're putting towards that killer rig and bought your perscription again your metaphores would make some kind of sense.  Failing that they at least wouldn't flip flop from one topic to another mid-metaphore.

w/e

The Grunkster is here to restore balance to the force. After all the shit that has come out, finally a good game and these bitches ... well they bitch.

Fucken clown shoes. these same fags are probably playing EvE online, or that lolWOW shit, i dont care. AoC looks uber, so go QQ it up bitches!

Awesome.

(http://nullword.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/brainexplode.gif)

I get the distinct feeling that arguing with you using facts and examples would go no where. But at least we got someone in here to go all fanboy so we can make fun of them after release.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Fanboy_Nintendo.jpg/450px-Fanboy_Nintendo.jpg)

Hey turd burgler, i'm not an aoc fanboi. in fact i am late to the party. Go fucken do a search before you open your fucken pie hole, that way next time you wont get raped with a fist and dental floss bitch.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v308/tekfiend33/making%20a%20point/anger.gif)

MAN YOUR DAD IS COOL!

(http://maochan.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/oh-snap.jpg)

This is awesome, it's like he's mocking himself!  :popcorn:

I remember you, you're the insane FFXI fan who posts from a rehab clinic.  Did they give you back your computer privileges for not spitting on the orderlies last month?

There's no way this act is actually real, I refuse to believe humanity is this broken.

This thread just took a hard right turn toward AWESOME!

That seems a decent amount of users to plan infrastructure for. Better to have a bit to much capacity which you can scale down as needed than to get blitzed not have enough room for new users and get bad word of mouth in an already cut throat market because they cannot play the game they bought.

Thank you for this. I mean it, thank you.

(http://www.smileyplanet.de/sin/smilies/brutal_10.gif)

LOL @ U emo asshat. Go die in a fire, a fucken forest fire!

 This is actually good RP for the Conan world. 

I like the word "fucken".  It inspires me.

I think of it as some kind of beast form, like you have Wulfen which are humanoid wolfy things and Tauren which are humanoid bull things. A Fucken would be some kind of quivering pink thing with obscenely red and slavering orifices.

*I'm doing this for you guys, thank me later*


If you're any good at online games let's see some proof. Also post your system specs please, using your xbox to play FFXI doesn't count.

The problem, as I see it is this.

Plan for 100k subs. 200k show up. OMG! Your game is so popular You can't even keep up with demand! Look at all the people waiting to play! Meanwhile your actual player base is pissed as they are waiting in a queue or lagging out.

Plan for 500k subs. 200k show up. Wow look at all the empty servers. I can't find a group! All the zones are empty. And then a couple months later you're merging servers. And then everyone starts saying the game is dying and yelling DOOOOOOM!

Basically it's a question of perception. Does it matter? Do normal humans who don't spend time on jaded gaming forums care either way?

Giving the guy a reason to post more = bad idea. 

I would think people already subscribed would tend to notice server merges, as it either affects them or they notice an influx of strange people.  Which only spirals the depopulation effect.  Speaking completely out of my ass, I'd say queues are better than server merges. 

This goes from just plain awesome up to pure win if you read it in the voice of Irving Cohen.

Give me a C, a bouncy C!

WoW was pretty smart launching, they had a deal with their hardware vendors that allowed them to double the number of realms they had almost instantly should they need it.  They needed it.  Perhaps this is the same thing, they will start with enough gear to handle 200,000 and have deals in place to ramp up very quickly if required.

lol. since you like xbox so much, go on tonight. CoD4 , mah name is WISEWUN.

And if your hands are so fat that you can't play a console game, ill destroy in c/s source... guess you expected me to challenge you in like DnD or some fag shit. nope.

in fact, ill rape you in any fucken FPS... ANY. pick a game bitch and the last thing youll see me squatin my nuts on your face after i pwn you. Oh man, im gona enjoy this.

And after you, bring schild so i can tap that ass to!

Da da da da, da dee dee dee, and whatever the hell else you wanna put in there.

So nice to have uberBobby back!

(http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/article-illustrations/titan_grunk.jpg)

I'm an enabler, of comedy.

Yup thats me. Old gear tho (still pimpin hard in that pic)

um, how do you know my first name lol...

I think that's what they were saying in that list. I doubt they'll open up with 20* unique servers in a list, as this'd spread the first players out to much. I figure they'll start with 8-10 and then open new ones up as needed.

Or, at least, that's hwo I'd do it for something unproven :-)

* based on a typical 5k characters per server limit divided from the 500k accounts cited.

Wait, is that Vanguard?

Your email address affirms that you're Rob from Pennsylvania, and you are six years old.

gah. so i was head of a PRE-LAUNCH guild for vanguard, sue me. go read the TTH interview for "Titan" if your so inclined.

Nah, try a 29 year old network engineer from Da Bronx. but w/e. this is about AoC and how uber it could be.

I'm from Jersey, and I can definitely tell you that people from the Bronx actually act and talk like that in social situations away from the computer.

I think "the" is only correctly shortened to "da" when placed in front of "Bronx", grammatically speaking.

Now why did you have to say that? Had everyone thinking i was like insane!!! and you fucken blew it for me!

I don't believe a 29 year old man with a job and a life and all that rubbish says w/e the way he does.  That's in the realm of resentful 15 year old girls.  This is some sort of gimmick account, isn't it?  I refuse to believe this is a real person.

I dunno, I see this kind of stuff every day and most of the people behind it are my age, or older... it's just more comforting to our minds to assume they are kids instead of adults who should know better.

Epic thread now though.  :pedobear:

Jobs are dangerous, Grimwell.  They make you believe in things that you are much better off not believing.  I'm happier not believing in Grunk.  I'm sure he must be imaginary.  Ok.  I'm happy again.  (http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/bunny.gif)

Not a person... a Fucken.

Yes, I had the misfortune of having a guildmate that one would have easily assumed was 14... and "challenged".  He was about 26 years old at the time. (I was... 19 I think.)

I really haven't had faith in humanity since.

(http://www.tmxclan.com/BlueRedPill.jpg)

Oh goody, you came back.  :uhrr:

His IP address does in fact confirm he was "released" though I doubt it was for successful rehabilitation.

(69.124.77.46) Hicksville, NEW YORK, United States US  (Optimum Online (Cablevision Systems))

Also, the odds of him being a retarded, six year old white boy is pretty high given the demographics of Hicksville.


Of course, absolutely retarded 20-something that makes New York the completely un-likable Hellhole Dirty Piece of Shit that it is might also be incredibly likely.

Anyway, just ignore him, maybe he'll kill himself. We already know he's completely unstable.

I have little interest in AoC, other than amusement at the trainwreck.

But this is the best thread of the season so far.

:drill:

You win.

The only thing I can think of while reading this thread is forumwarz.

(http://nullword.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/jimmy.jpg)

(http://xs226.xs.to/xs226/08174/emot-master917.gif) (http://xs.to)

I still want to know why he was advocating forest fires and gay sex a few pages back.  Aren't those frowned upon?

(http://stickers.signprint.co.uk/images/medium/stickers/0234_MED.jpg)

I partly believe Haemish and Schild share the grunk account to bring the MMOgiggles.

grunk: if he didn't exist, we would have to invent him.

Depends.  How much of a family board is this? :D

And I await a explanation for "go QQ". As was already said, "fucken" should go in the dictionary. That is gold.

A vital belated note to this thread:


Don't do it. The problem with toilet training cats is that they flush the toilet.

Over.

and over.

and over.

and over.

and over.

My one kitty, Magenta, is already fascinated with the toilet.  She wants to drink out of it like a dog.  And play in it.  We have to remember to keep the lids down all the time.  She's also batty about the shower.  She likes to stand under it while it's still dripping.  One of these days, I'm going to toss her in the jacuzzi tub.  I think she might even like it.  She doesn't mind the sound at all.

(http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m20/r3dknight/QQ.jpg)

Sauce?

QQ is the crying smiley, as in "go cry more, noob"

I'm reading this thread, and it's almost like that person is using real words. Maybe. Is this Google finally 'waking up'? And it wants to Play2Crush?

Or am I still suffering after effects of watching to many Terminator movies during a Jaeger binge?

Daeven.  If you vant to live, come vit me.

Exhibit A:

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

My cats now turn on the tap when they want a drink. Then wander off.

My cats sit on my face when they want something. Unfortunately in terms of IQ our cats are nothing compared to this Einstein : http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=buQKZOaB6cY

WHAT WENT WRONG?

(http://www.cesspit.net/misc/warwrong.jpg)

First is Warhammer concept art, second is game, third is Age of Conan.

what are we comparing here?

My guess would be the impact of gravity and fashion sense (or lack thereof)

Not really a meaningful comparison.

I just don't understand why game artists completely fucked the very good concept art. And then the piece of screenshot from Age of Conan, the game that is so beautiful and DirectX 10 that your normal computer cannot run, caught my eye.

With the amount of customization available in aoc char creation you can make some really butt ugly characters though, most look way better than that.

Other than the hair that seems like a pretty good rendering of the concept art.  Realistic looking long girly curls that don't clip into all the armour would be really hard to do and not worth the processing power.  The colour is also different and in that respect isn't the concept art just plain wrong, the dark elves are supposed to be blue right?

I have no idea why you put the Conan person in there.

Edit: I guess they aren't supposed to be blue, maybe the artist spent too much time in EQ like the rest of us.

Poor Hrose.  It must be terrible burden to be responsible for finding fault with everything Mythic does no matter how trivial.

You can make concept art for days, it will never be exact. Once the customization system is designed (what ever they want to use, attachment to just nodes, swap/hide meshes, Morph targets, Texture compositing system, ETC..), things tend to change.  In this area, the techniques used to created the customization system  dictate the requirement of assets, so, shit changes. Not to mention rigging, and animation requirements on polygon density, joints ETC...

concept art is just that. A concept.

BTW, read your blog, specifically where you copied and pasted reply's to me. I find it funny that the comments in it basically said the same things i did (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/1720#comment). IE: your wrong/offbase.

I think there are better examples of AOC models than the one you chose, also, what exactly is wrong with the WAR model?

Of course the game art will be simpler than concept art. But there are in that case arbitrary changes for the worse I don't understand. For example the two vertical black lines on the chest that are ugly and that don't correspond to any technical need. The same for the other slight differences and body proportions.

But what's wrong is especially the face.

AoC is just a piece of very bad art all around. It wasn't meant as a fair comparison, but as a provocation (so exaggerated).

Your mixing things. First, i don't think thats the same outfit, at all. Similar, but not the same one, even then it may have undergone more concepting and styling between concept, and painting the texture. Body proportions are most times are dictated by the skeleton, most likely all females use the same one (animation reuse reasons), so things have to be adjusted for them to fit, and work right. The face, i don't know, looks close enough for me, and i also don't know how they do customization on it.

As for the Aoc, there is way more techniques being used there from what i can tell by looking at the two games, not to mention, like someone else said, players can adjust the faces in regards to size, shape ETC.. using slider that go from one morph target (could be bone manipulation, but i don't think it is, it would require more bones in the skeleton) to the last, and everywhere in between. Goes the same for the body in AoC, thats why if you make a supper skinny person, some clothing seems not to fit (even "float" off), because the object was made to accommodate the extremes a player can choose.

In stark contrast, Wows avatars have very little geometry changes, most of the customization is texture swaps, and attachment of child objects(Huge shoulder pads!!!) and texture swaps on those as well, its a much simpler system than that of Aoc and War (not 100% on what War is using, i would have to see it in action), with much less variations to account for (also i believe that the child object assumes the transform of the node its attached too, IE: some may recall the very incorrect sizing of shoulder pads a bit back, this would be that system failing), this would be what allows gnomes to use the same equipment (models) as a troll.

As far as very bad art...to each his own, i think both are very well done artistically for what they are and the overall design choices they are going for.

I suppose for you even EQ2 and Vanguard had overall good art?

Yes. Many talented artists work on those titles, what ever you think of the game as a whole, the art direction was sound on those titles. Stylistic preference aside.

Oh, okay then. ;)

 :roll:

So tell me HRose, what MMOs are blessed with your stamp of approval for artwork?  We've already eliminated Aoc, WAR, EQ2 and Vanguard.

The boobs on the middle WAR screenie are almost coming out of her shoulders. There is too much belly.

That's the difference: style preference vs integrity of art.

And Hrose, not sure where you got that AoC character render, though of course I believe it's from AoC. It's just that every character I've seen, both player and NPC, looked a LOT better than that frumpy thing. I'd expect that image from EQ2 (which I found rather bland stylistically, with unfortunately shaped characters). AoC actually has some great models, even if the overall style is not something I like.

Yeah, he decided to skip this part in my post.

Stylistic preference aside.

I haven't seen an AoC character in game that looks at all like that pic.  I guess, since you have sliders and all for facial appearance, you could make something that awful looking.  I did try and make a cute little fatty but they were never fat when I logged them in.  Oh well. 

I did the same thing, I tried to make a short, fat lil Tempest of Set... yet he still looks as buff as a pro wrestler.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but since MMOs allow the player to wear different sets of armour, customize body size/proportions and pick different faces for their characters... it's not really very surprising there's some differences between that concept art and a random character in game? I.e. this screenshot doesn't mean it's not possible to create a character with appearance and armour much closer to the concept art than the one you've found... given choice of another set of gear and different face option.

 :star:

Since I don't think hotlinking works from WAR's site. Here's the 'concept art' for that outfit.  Oh noes.

http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/images/armiesofWAR/darkelves/socc_08.jpg (http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/images/armiesofWAR/darkelves/socc_08.jpg)

MMOs simply don't have very good art direction. Nor good production value. It doesn't help that the only MMO companies come out of nowhere and are often vaporware or close to it.

Some solid companies that released MMOs have STRONG art direction.

Final Fantasy XI. World of Warcraft. Guild Wars.

Mythic has some very good artists, also. The problem is that they aren't managed correctly, are limited by a shitty engine, and have been very poor with the level design in general.

Just an example about the screenshots I've seen today, huge castles that have unplayable, impractical layouts. You wonder why artists spent time to do something that will surely be just cardboard scenery.

Goddamn.  Just because you're an Italian doesn't automatically make you the almighty arbiter of artistic purity. It's all about poly counts and texture  space. Learn what real CG artists do and then go ahead and yak. Until then shut the hell up.
 

My god, the amount of stupid in the last two pages is amazing. There is nothing wrong with the posted WAR renders. Stop crying.

I might not have the same rationale as HRose, but WAR does look like shit. The environments do at least. Not even much of a step up from DAoC (also shit).

The character models are OK (the animations, otoh, are not).

Delurking just to say that it does really come down to taste. Because, unlike the previous poster, I thought DAoC's graphics were about perfect. For me they were "realistic" without being freakish looking and not completely cartoonish like WoW. Saying that, what I'm seeing from WAR so far looks pretty darn good to me. It's all about taste and opinion. Pollock's paintings look like some jacktard sneezed paint all over canvas. Yet, his paintings sell for millions.

I will give them the benefit of the doubt until closer to launch. I would rather see low res backgrounds if it means playable FPS rates in a PvP game anyway.

They are saying a lot of the animations and textures/art are place holders right now.  I hope that's the case because they look like garbage.

As far as the world design... :nda:

Didn't we confirm HRose was shit for brains like 8 years ago? I don't understand why people are paying attention to what he says.

Edit: I should preface this: He's a fanatic. Much like I'm admittedly irrational about some console stuff (despite playing more and enjoying more games than most, if not all of the people here) - HRose is a fanatic about MMOG design. Even though he has no experience and zero rationale behind most of what he says. He's just blabbering to hear himself speak. He's got zero credentials for 99% of the statements he makes and tries to pass them off like his opinion matters. But really, he's just another forum lurker poking around for whatever attention he can get from devs. He's like that dev from the WH40K studio who posted here, except he hasn't gotten a 'break' yet. Fuck, I can't remember that guys name. He's like Grunk, except he somehow became a developer. Whatever, let's just call him Shortbus.

This is one of the reasons I decided you were my perfect little soldier!  You made me all misty-eyed.

FIFY.

And otherwise, yes. He'd probably be more effective if he didn't act like a stalker.

linky (http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&&func_id=2421&table=CONTENT) :raspberry:

Otoh, I shouldn't be talking. My favorite mmo to date is still shadowbane.  :uhrr:

That said, I never liked Mythic's take on PvP either.

Well, that's the end of this thread.

Even though I missed out on epic fail entertainment, a Funcom success is a really good thing for the industry.

Seems like a good omen for WAR to me.  The market is hungry.

It also proves a market for Rated-M MMORPGs. Which I suppose was obvious given Second Life and such. Also, 2 entirely different animals. WAR will do well for other reasons, Conan doing well not being one of them.

The market isn't hungry for a clone of what's already out there though. AOC feels and plays differently than the EQ-WoW model games to me. The player city thing gives guilds something to own and care about other than downing the next raid boss, and the grouping has a lackey system (like COH) where you can bring along lower level members.  Gear is a non factor other than looking cool, you can do most quests in groups of 1-4, and it feels like there is a story arch to follow through the whole game.

Yeh it takes a decent rig to run it, but it can still run fine on a 3 year old PC.

I dunno. AOC benefited from great release timing. I guess we'll see.

:awesome_for_real: Really can't see outside your niche, can you?

Anyway plenty of room for both games to succeed.  It really is not a horse race.

I cannot believe that I just did it, but I bought AoC from Amazon. When schild reported that you can hit any mobs in your weapon arc without having to actually target them, I almost bonered.

There was a loud thump from under my desk when I read that as well. I might... just might... be stopping by Worst Buy on my way home from work. I haven't decided if I'm ready to get back into another MMO at the moment, though. Tempting... so very damn tempting...

I cant believe you guys didn't know that.  :ye_gods: Did you also know that if you use a LONG (polearms/spears) object, it will hit people rows back too?
The game plays more like a FPS/Action game, with a hint of Diablo if you get enough MOBS around ya.


That was like, the entire point of there combat system......  :ye_gods:

As far as I can tell healing isn't targeted either. all the bear shaman heals are group or aoe cone. and most of the improve when you melee

GUYS I THINK THIS GAME CALLED AGE OF CONAN IS GOOD.  :pedobear:

I'll be waiting after the smoke clears from the launch to see whats left standing.  Then decide on buying it or not.

So, internets, where is my boob size comparison chart for AoC and WAR? 

I'm waiting.

The boob size comparision people got sidetracked when they learned AoC has nipples.

Does WAR have nipples?  Well does it?  HUH!?

I simply adore your avatar. I shall have one like that one day, and he shall be mine, and I shall name him Bob, and I will cuddle and squeeze him until he dies. Then I shall put him in da stew.

On the other hand : Warhammer doesn't need nipples. It has Warhammer. And Warhammer is far superior to the Conan universe on its own! Note that I love both, but in depth the Warhammer universe is far more appealing to me than the Barbarian. I love both though.

im just waiting till War comes out so I can compare both side by side. I'm not that desperate for MMO fix at the moment. But AOC is surprisingly full of positives impressions from the early adopters right now.  :oh_i_see:

I am shocked that AoC is having a smooth-ish launch. Shocked.

In future, when the devs talk about a magic just-before-release patch that fixes everything and was programmed by angels, I will be less cynical and more believing.

AoC to me is not a launch disappointment at all, kind of the opposite.

WAR is rated T for teens.  And everyone knows teens hate boobs.

Yes the AoC launch seems quite successful, it might be a tough act for WAR to follow, especially in the graphics department.  By the time WAR comes out most people will be in the AoC endgame PvP and funcom will have had time to fix a bunch of problems with their systems.

I am worried that easily half of the AoC population consists of WoW players who will go poof in either the first couple months or when Lich King comes out though.

That won't matter. 3-6 months of 300-400k subs will put enough money in Funcom's bank to polish AoC quite well over the next 12 months.  The real question is how they prioritize what to tweak.  For example, a CoX-style "purple nerf" would be bad.

I'm not going back. The adult feel of AOC extends beyond just the tits and blood. It's darker and more low-fantasyish and appeals much more to me than the toony graphics and loot pinata "E-sport" that WoW has become.

The mature really extends beyond tits and blood. Dialog subject matter is also adult, so are the themes for most things, including areas and world.

I love the newbie quest to take the shirts from homeless people. That ruled.

I am going to take back what I said, this isn't Hellgate style failure. For the first time ever the "miracle patch" actually worked as intended. It fixed a bunch of the performance issues, and also a bunch of the bugs. There are still a lot of both, but the patch was good enough that the release wasn't a total clusterfuck.

For me the WoW expansion seems like more of the same. I didn't even bother with the Sunwell stuff. Nothing to see here...move along.

From the look of their boards, yes, a lot of wow people. "I was this and this in WoW" blah blah blah.

This game has to shake up the MMOG industry somewhat. I hope at least. Go back at look at WAR. AoC has everything and more. Those witch bitches have nothing on the Cimmerian chicks. There are a ton of things that an MMOG starting development today would do differently than an MMOG starting 6 months ago post-AoC. If the AoC launch had been the clusterfuck we all expected, then none of its "innovations" would have mattered. But now they do.

I never thought it'd be a clusterfuck.. I was pretty familiar with the world before, and knew it'd be hard to fuck up. Easily a 300-400k game (not sure what i posted exactly in falc's thread). NOW, however, I think it's sort of clusterfuck to put such stringent requirements on the thing. That's not a failure really... But they should have aimed for a wider audience. Most people aren't in uber geek with an uber rig category. And don't care to be. Hell, just some dynamic reduction of polygons would do.

I keep hearing about "innovations" in AoC, but can't remember being blown away by anything new in the open beta.  What are these "innovative" features that you're referring to?

Nipples.

And blood.

It's a whole motherly attachement thing.

I was really hoping it was going to be a AO/VG colossal failure :(

I am not entertained!

As someone who plays a lot of tank classes, I appreciate the level of interactivity you can opt to engage in by allocating your "shields," becoming a more effective tank in the process.

And of course, that's on top of the rest of the directional combat system.

Decapitations :awesome_for_real: though oddly enough I'm currently playing a class that can't do them (blunt weapon user).

The decaps seem to interrupt the animations or something. It's like a lag spike.

Of course it's probably worse for the victim...

Which is rediculous tbh, because all you really have to do is just hit someone hard enough....  :drill:

All of the "adult" graphics and dialog would mean a lot more if there was any choice in this game. Once you get beyond the cone-of-fire thing with melee weapons, and even if you have a rig that can handle the pretty, you're still in a diku playing towards way-unfinished mid-game content (don't even think "endgame" yet) and a whole bunch features that may come someday. Maybe.

This launch proves a) that timing is everything; and, b) people do want to have hope.


(http://blog.objectivo.com/gladiator.jpg)

You know, some time between 3 and 4am yesterday I realized it.

Conan is SWG + Good Combat - Stupid + a more compelling world - a gay lucas tainted assy world + awesome classes - image designers + a vastly superior housing and pvp system.

Basically, it's what SWG should've been and then some.

Between the exploration and customization and keyboard spamming (though, without the dumbass buffering of keys), I realized last night that this game should've come out in 2002 and that this industry is pretty poopy and completely not house-broken. It's still shitting itself.

Anyway, AOC is awesome. It has that thing nothing else had. And don't pull that fucking timing shit on me Darniaq, you punk, because I haven't done dick with an MMOG since Guild Wars, I have a 9 foot hard-on for Metal Gear Solid and somehow AoC has sucked 60+ hours out of my last week.

I'm probably just as jaded as Schild, and I'm inclined to a degree. I don't feel like trolling mmog threads and saying they all suck anymore.

Could it be better? Yes... But it does improve in some basic ways where it really counts.

Not sure about the SWG comparison though. Haven't been able to compare housing and building and crafting...

See a doctor. Immediately.

Sorry, there's just not enough disappointment or lulz in this thread. The thread is in dire need of a derail.

He only has to see the doctor if it lasts for more than 4 hours.

Wasn't talking about you. However, I do feel like you, circa November 2004 when you were bitching about all of fandom for a game that was largely a reskin-done-better of EQ1. Guess it's my turn to point out the more-of-sameness.

And when I talk about timing, I'm not talking about time of year. I'm talking about time-since-BC and time-before-WAR/ WotLK/ Bioware. For the AAA retailed-purchased MMO audience, it seems to have hit at the right time with the right level of quality and hyped-future-maybes in ways neither TR nor PotBS ever came close to doing.

Late, but... Neocron's still alive?!?

Blunt weapons have some good fatalities though, like the one where you smash them to the ground and then bring your club down on their head in a bloody mess.

The fatalities seem to change as you level. I have started doing a new one with my two-handed blade wielding character in which he sticks the blade in their gut, leaves it there, grabs their head by both hands and snaps their neck, retrieving the blade they fall to the floor. Someone in Funcom is a sick, sick person.

Uh, not sure why you make those comparisons. TR just isn't that good. PotBS I can't speak much for, other than it's got the presence of an indie title. They're not where they're at because of timing.

Conan and Hyboria is a popular enough concept.. Even when people don't know much about him, they still know of him. Hell, he's probably the most well known reference to "fantasy" in the world. Like Superman is for comics (fantasy geeks might think it's Lord of the Rings, but that is in fact why they are fantasy geeks). So the game will get some press just from that.

Damn you Schild.  This right there may be enough for me to start playing... after I move that is.

Thank you for giving me the bottom line.   

I wouldn't be so quick. Yes, it appears that there has been some positive feedback - but wisdom is wisdom: wait six months and then see if people are still gushing about it.

uh, i consider 6 good months already time well spent in mmo. People get bored is not a problem, it's just a game after all.

Individually yes. But will AOC have legs as a MMOG past the honeymoon?

Every still-open MMO still has "legs" past the honeymoon. It just becomes a question of whether people still bother to talk about it en masse. I don't think that'll be the case with AoC; however, to rk47, six months is still a good run for any of these games. Before WoW, that was the average length of a subscription. That became 14 months when it was measured again... 14 months after WoW's launch, an obvious skewing based on how many first-timers and looking-for-better-EQ1ers went there. I'm quite sure it's decreased since.

Nothing lasts me six months in a row.  Anyway... I loved SWG more than I love AoC.  I would like AoC more if it weren't instanced so heavily and so bloody linear.  Of course, I'm still a pretty low level, not quite 1/4 of the max level and haven't tried PvP, crafting, city building, sieging, all that cool kid stuff.  I am hearing, however, a good portion of those things I've not experienced are not even finished yet.  Hopefully, my fickle stuff will last long enough to do it all and it'll be complete by the time I get there.  Having said that, I'm enjoying the game more than I've enjoyed an MMO since CoX.

Will AOC still have legs as a big MMOG that everybody is talking about en masse past the honeymoon?

Sheesh. This is like posting on an internet forum with a bunch of gaming geeks...

Personally, I think AoC is going to start having issues once people start levelling up alts (Tortuga? Again?), and then more once either WAR or WotLK hit open beta. Designing a game engine for "PCs built in the last year only" tends to attract the neophiles...who will then move on en masse to the New Shiny whenever that shows up. Plus the "innovative" combat will get recast in the eyes of the playerbase as "buttonmashing" combat sooner or later - see EQ2 and its twenty-bajiliion abilities per class.

Server mergers within a year.

I'll do better.  Server merges by December.  Complete forum abandonment by devs before November.  By most moderators, a few weeks later.

It all came to me in a dream.  Srsly.

However, I think this mass exodus will be more about the devs not attending to issues and bugs promptly and less about the game, itself.  Remember SB and how a lot of people couldn't even play their original characters and kept having free time added on to their accounts, instead of a fix?  At least the SB people would acknowledge and do something, however unacceptable it was.  I have a feeling the AoC devs will just ignore it.  Regardless of how fast they might be working on issues and fixes, ignored people are angry people and they will leave.  I can so see that happening with this game. 

Since almost all the zones are heavily instanced I doubt they will ever really have a reason to merge servers.  Depopulation will be handled automatically by there being fewer instances mitigating the need to merge so that the zones have people in them.  We will be robbed of one of the best ways to see how poorly a game is doing.

I don't know what their community people and devs are smoking.  They brought the servers down today for four hours to make three nerfs?  Due to the lack of progress on serious bugs and complete void of communication I almost think that they gave everyone the first week after launch off to recuperate after spending many long nights to get the game out the door...

If they lose a lot of population, they'll have to merge if they expect proper sieges, no?

Edited because I suck at words.

They instanced those too.  It's 48 vs 48 now, won't be like DAoC.  Not that it's implemented yet so who knows.

I think instancing seige is a mistake, but an unfortunate necessity.  It will kill any type of meaningful feeling to pvp. 

What happens when one side wins a seige in one instance, but loses in another?  What's to keep people from instance hopping to get the most blood money? etc. 

This. One of the more fundamental questions that remain unanswered at a level of the game completely unfinished, with the rest unbalanced.

I'm not really doomcasting the game. I think it's solid enough in the early levels. It's just that mere weeks from launch people are already pushing into the levels where a whole bunch of stuff has yet to be developed. For how long will they wait around when there's all but nothing done yet?

I agree with schild in that this was the way SWG should have launched (combat first, crafting/economy/cities second). But SWG had three big things AoC doesn't: less competition, a license that people continue to want to like, and the feeling that people were part of the design process. So Funcom needs to move faster and more completely, basically. They did a lot of combat and environment/lore stuff right, and I'd like to buy this one eventually.

Exactly!


VG really upped the bar in terms of launch disasters, we had affairs and rampant drug use and mass firings and all kinds of shit happening! What's AoC got? "It may actually be a decent game, if they can get their shit together and patch it in." Pfft, someone needs to light something on fire!

 :grin:

AoC is a decent game. It just needs the meta content. Most games can't get the first part right and get the second part halfway right. What we're seeing here is why WoW worked. It only had the first part. Do one thing right and do it well, that's Blizzard's motto.

That's the most frustrating part. If they can just get the stuff they have to work, it could be a great game. The only design change I would do is better itemization at low levels - heck just getting tradeposts up might help that.

Blizzard never promised anything more than the one thing they delivered. AoC only has that one thing right now because they didn't get around to implementing the rest of it before launch. That's not an indictment. Their total concept was more complex to begin with.

Which makes it very much not WoW. AoC's vision is a double-edged sword: the later game is way more complex than WoW will ever be, but in order to prove it's workable, you need people to stick around until you implement it. If you lack those people, you end up needing something for the people you have left which tends to be content driven rather than system driven. 48x48 fights can be ok for that, but this is far south of the pitched battles over resource ownership originally envisioned.

(http://static.flickr.com/75/201866308_2e8c31b194.jpg?v=0)

If I was an artist of any type I'd present a picture of a mass of people rushing at a half finished bridge, while workers in funcom shirts are desperately trying to complete it to the other side before the crowd falls off.

"Now, our endgame content isn't in YET but trust us, when you see it you'll know it's a bajillion times better than those other games, just be patient."

 :awesome_for_real:

I like conan a lot, played it all weekend like a fiend. It's Different and new but is it better than say wow/eq2? No. It's not better because half the game isn't even IN. Now we are not arguing on maybes or what-ifs. Will the game be better in a year? possibly but that does not count, sorry.

Balance, content, user-friendliness. None of these things are in this game. It is a lovely 'concept' a wonderful and exciting 'theme' but it's been half-assed and pushed out there door.  I'll be playing my whole free month and probably one or two after but I can't see myself not leaving for WAR or wotlk at this point.

(http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/9085/gmszq7.jpg)
(http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/2425/gms1xv7.jpg)

:awesome_for_real:

Is that genuine?

Maybe AoC's GMs are volunteers too.

The current favourite pvp thread is something similar. (http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=33089)

The GM summoned the petitioner to the guy he filed against for ganking too much to discuss the matter.  He ganked him again in front of the GM.

Edit: Incase you have to login or something.

Its killing players while they are talking to an NPC, spawn and load ganking people is what the GM's don't like.

Seems like that was a very nice "Could you cut it out please", that the players flipped out about.

But i guess his name was red/purple, so like.......yeah. Lets flip out about it.

Crazy, this post even made it to my wow server forums. To add, the person complaining is in a guild named [Natural Selection]  :drill:

Meh, I'm by no means a whiney carebear, but really how fucking hard is it to code in invulnerability when talking to NPCs and safe zones around rez pts large enough that they can't be effectively held down by one or two people.

That kind of shit is exactly the reason I rolled on a Pve server, I'm fine with ganking in the middle of quests, during fights, etc, etc.

I draw the line at "Haha, you're stuck listening to this npc dialog while we kill you!", ban away.

Same here. But i am sure this will enrage all those (http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=39029) players (http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=39142) who think that spawn camping (or attacking someone who can do nothing, and is possibly looking at a loading screen) is PvP

As for the invulnerability, there is one, but its not invincibility.

PVP Jackasses are complaining about QQing and carebears are QQing?

Sky, blue, etc.

Funcom is pretty crazy.  "Play nice people" isn't a sane way to manage a FFA PvP server or any server.

You can't have it both ways. You either have open FFA PvP or you do not. Funcom is making the classic mistake that goes back to even way before EQ1's "play nice policy". You either control what the players can do at the systemic level or you truly believe in letting players figure it out. There is no in-between.

Playing on a PVE server in a PVP game. Sky, blue, etc.

I know this. But its my understanding that there is a "prison" system, and bounty ETC... Just isn't in yet, lol. (funcoms problem).

The point i was making, is it wasn't an unreasonable request by the GM.

But right here is what makes PvP get trashed. Its not the people complaining, its people exploiting the system and calling it Pvp. Its not. Its pure grefing, by any definition.

Bullshit, setting cities to safe and creating a 500m safe zone around rez points and zonelines would cut that griefing down to almost nothing.  Making players invulnerable while engaged in NPC dialog would cut it down even further.

I know this. But its my understanding that there is a "prison" system, and bounty ETC... Just isn't in yet, lol. (funcoms problem).[/quote]

Which helps no one, just like the GM saying "This will be in the next patch." How are the plaeyrs supposed to know that? Answer: They don't, so they act like they would be expected to act on a server that is labeled as PVP.


Actually, it IS an unreasonable request, because NOTHING in the game nor in the manuals or anything else would lead a player to believe they shouldn't be doing it. That's what a PVP invincibility timer and safe zones are all about. You don't give a baby a gun and expect him not to shoot someone. MMOG players, especially those who choose a PVP server, ARE FUCKING IDIOTS. They will run about slapping their bare, withered genitalia in your face constantly if you allow them to.


Sure, it's griefing. And if it's griefing, the game shouldn't allow it at the system level. No game company should expect their GM's to enforce fair play because they will be outnumbered, outgunned and overrun by the ravening hordes. And this is all shit any idiot who has followed MMOG's since 1997 should know by now. It's one of the main reasons I didn't buy the game, because I saw in Open Beta that the invulnerability switch on rez was turned off. Anyone that could make that mistake and not expect MMOG players to take full advantage of it is going to do it again.

I mean, I haven't seen GM screenshots about a hissy fit in years. It's like 2000 all over again in this bitch.

AoC may be billed as a pvp game but it is not BUILT as a pvp game. When My necromancer cannot solo a single necromancer PET(the necro left me alone to go make tea or something) only 3 levels higher than me(36,39) something is flawed.  Everyone keeps saying AoC is this bastion of pvp goodness but it's more flawed than decidedly non-pvp games. I do not think aoc was designed to be a pvp game or at least, it was designed to be a pvp game made by people who really only know how to make pve.

i'm not disagreeing with anything your saying HaemishM. This is squarely on the shoulders of Funcom, and what it is they want for the game.

But me thinks, that they will be putting a stop to it soon, for fear of loosing customers. What is going on, and what is being allowed is not PvP.

Also: This (http://support.ageofconan.com/article.php?id=107) AND This (http://support.ageofconan.com/article.php?id=111). AND This (http://support.ageofconan.com/article.php?id=110).

I completely, 100% disagree.

GMs should simply say, go play on a regular server, they have PVP too.

Frankly, QQ is for WoW and should be left there. I'm not supporting gankers, they're another can of worms. But rather, these are two flavors of pussy that don't mix.

WTF is "QQ" anyway?  :oh_i_see:

 :cry:

I figured it means crying, but what is the second Q for? "Qrying"?

\

q q

Two eyes with tears running down. Supposedly... I'm not much for this AOL bullshit.

ooooooooooooooooooooo........



 :ye_gods:

I'm not sure what's weirder, gankers or the people who willingly submit to having to deal with gankers and then get angry about it.

Basically, PvP server people are weird.

Most people that roll PvP, are looking for Player VS. Player.

Not Player VS.       <loading>........

There are two P's in PvP, the second P is missing from activities such as:

• Loading
• Spawning

• Locked into NPC diolog

The above is not PvP, and thats all anyone, including the GM's are talking about.

[/list]

My understanding is it's originally from Starcraft.  It just entered the MMO realm via WoW thanks to Battle.net 'tards.\

Also:  "We know the game mechanics allow xyz.. but that's not nice and you should play ABC" was figured out in other games in 2001. You don't code shit and then decide that because you can't code right or don't have time to fix it that 'whoops unwritten rule here!' 

So funcom got the technical part but has completly screwed the pooge on the actual game management.  Fucking stellar.

"Players will do what they can, if they can, when they can and when they want to"

It wasn't billed as a PvP game. It was billed as a mixed game, with PvE questing and PvP battles in the border kingdom, as well as little mini-games like bar-room brawls and capture the flag.

This is why the PvP servers have no real rules or PvP features other than simply turning PvP on, so that anyone can kill anyone almost anywhere. Free for all PvP has never been a priority for Funcom. They always talked about a game where people took part in exciting mass battles against other players if they chose to take part in the border kingdom stuff, not a game where you could be attacked while doing your quests in any part of the world.

In Shadowbane the players handled this by standing in the safe zone and knocking down other guild's buildings placed near that safe zone.

You put a safe zone in the wild and the griefers will use it to avoid retribution.  The game brings players together in predictible ways therefore they will be griefed in predictible ways.  It isn't rocket surgery.  You force a respawn point and it won't matter that the spawning player has 60 seconds of invulnerability until they move...  they'll still be ganked between the time they drop invul and get a summon out of that location.  They haven't even got a chance if they attempt to escape on their own.  While it may not be a meaningful encounter when one chump is dead before their client responds, but that's not a problem for the guy curbstomping him in an online game.

OMG YOU CAN BE SO CUTE SOMETIMES!!!   :heart:

It's not from Starcraft. The (original, afaik) Korean version was TT. QQ came from WoW or some other terribad game.

I can swear I saw it in IRC channels for Quake 2 ten years ago. I don't really think it's a new or even recent invention, it has just been isolated until WoW pulled in Engrish retards from all over the world.

Aah. Once FPS'es ruled the Internet. Those were good days.

I remember QQ from the VN boards back when I played DAoC. I haven't a clue when it started, but it was pre-WoW as far as I remember.

Exactly. Which is why the GM should have instructed those players to leave for PvE rather than pander to their carebearness with a meek request to their antagonists. If you're going to bill a server as FFA PvP, then you need to let players know that it is actually FFA PvP, not some quilted hybrid of here-safe/here-not that does little more than start a cold war between developers and griefers. Of course, if you do want that quilt, just go ahead and accept it, relabeling FFA PvP to something more appropriate.

AoC has servers for people who want some amount of protection. Those people just need to be channeled that way. And the GMs should be instructed on how to do so.

Yeah, there was a guy on our server that spoke pretty much zero english, but would always be RVRing out with us, and whenever he died, all he said was 'QQ'

Wow. That's pretty damn funny in a stereotypical foreigner in an American movie who can only speak slang or curse words kind of way. Or maybe I'm just desperate for humor as I sit here waiting for Sun to freaking call me back so that I can upgrade this freaking server. But I digress...

What a waste of GM's time to be dealing with...fuckin Funcom

I love the sweeping generalizations made here about some people and their playstyles. I might as well return the favor. Oh wait, everyone knows I think PvE servers are for little girls. Sweep on!

QQ ?

I think it does apply.  :awesome_for_real:

I'm really trying to remember what the name of his toon was, but can't for the life of me. He said a couple of other things that were pretty engrish, but all I really remember is seeing the killspam 'xxx was killed by xxx' and the 'QQ' Never where he died or anything, just a very sad and lonely 'QQ'

So, if I hate diku with a passion, should I just sit out the next few games? or decade? or maybe just play more FFH2 till my eyes bleed?

Yes.

The last decade too.

QQ  :grin:

lol I like

Mysteriously short patch notes probably indicate serious backend fixes that they don't want to tell you about.  Some designer got lucky when he begged to get his little harmless data changes into that dupe fix build (or whatever).

Like anything harvested before may 27 being un-usable in any tradeskill recipe, that shit is off the hook.

(http://image.listen.com/img/170x170/9/3/3/7/587339_170x170.jpg)

Goons told no massive battles for j00! (http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q188/madmaan/chatlogqe8.jpg)

More Here (http://digg.com/pc_games/Funcom_Tells_Guild_to_Stop_Killing_People_in_Groups)

I'm seeing all kinds of complaints about this GM, Agnosia.   He's obviously got a "Vision" for the server, since he's goading several PVP guilds into playing differently than they are.  Stellar, it's like the worst abuses of 1999 EQ and UO all over again.

I'm so glad I didn't buy this game.  :ye_gods:

I would say this for any game (this has nothing to do with Conan) - but any GM that cracks down on SA or 4Chan or Ebaums gets a lol from me. Particularly when they shootdown the obvious lulz SA went for by saying that 4Chan was Ebaums. This could've happened in horizons and I would've cracked up. But your sentence at the end doesn't even parse for me.

So there's a problem on PVP servers. Shock, awe, news at 11. Sky still blue. Etc.

Ditto.  Among other things.

You don't make FFA server if don't want people to play FFA.   Still total Amateur hour at Funcom.

Yeah, its weak. (the GM actions anyways)

Luckily I'm on a PVP server so I can experience the fun first hand. Seriously, I have had a ton of great fights and grudges created already and I'm not even to 40 yet. PvP is fun, ganking and spawn camping have not been a problem in the least for me. Maybe I'm just lucky.

Why do people still bitch on FFA PVP servers? Putting in a GM request for anything other than world/NPC bugs should delete your character and then put you at the character creation screen for a PVE server.

I'm glad I decided to wait on a free trial for this game. I hate being told by mods/GMs that I can't spawn camp or any other PVP that the game allows. I've been kicked and banned so many times for spawn camping in FPS games and every time I just wonder why it's my fault the campees are too shit to stop me. I get as pissed off as anyone when I get spawn camped or ambushed by a rogue when I'm low on health or my lowbie alts get killed, but that's just the way it is. I would love nothing more than to never be attacked unless I want to fight but if that's the price I have to pay to be able to do it back then that's what it has to be. You can choose the rulesets but you have to accept the rules of the rulesets you choose.

The problem isn't the server. It's the GM living a unilateral society-building dream. That is something interesting, in that it hasn't been a problem in a mainstream* game for quite some time.

* Eve's an awesome game and does well. It is not mainstream, as a core concept.

I can't wait until the bounty system et al are patched in - the exploits are going to be hilarious.

Update to all this (http://kotaku.com/5012111/update-on-the-conan-pvp-fiasco).


Not sure how "honest mistake" and "GM" go together without "lack of training". But ymmv.

I know there's a lot of Funcom hate in this thread, but that PR piece is strikingly well written.

Kudos to Funcom. Who'd have thought?

Indeed. I have more hope for The Secret World all the time.

So camping comeone's corpse 25/7 is a-ok, but calling that same person a poo-poo head is crossing the line... The hell does that work?

You're only allowed to prevent them from having fun. You can't use words though, because that makes it personal.

Uh, one is playing the game by the published rules that you and they accepted when you open the box, installed and created the character on the PVP server.

The other has nothing to do with the game and is just being an asshole.  The two are not related.

Go play a pick up game of flag football.  When you burn the guy defending you for a touchdown say some of the shit people try and get away with online and chances are you'll get a pop in the eye, kicked out of the game and told not to come back, ever.

Yes, because relationships online are defined exactly as they are in real life.

Anonymity.

More important though, acting like a jerk and talking like a jerk are generally not mutually exclusive. If I'm griefing you (which I won't, because I don't grief), I'm not likely to be all contrite about it.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I kill you again on purpose?"
"Oh man, I did it again!"
"Wow, really sorry, I did it again!"

Kinda the fuckin point, ain't it?  Online behavior comes down to pretty much one tenet.  How hard a concept is, "Don't be an asshole."?

So camping someone 24/7 is perfectly fine?

Yes, why is that so hard to understand.  Punching someone is bad, punching someone during a boxing match is not only fine but should be encouraged.

You ever question the rules? To ask, you know, if they might be poorly thought out?

Sure i do, and if i don't agree with them then i simply don't play.  Crying because someone tackled you during a football game makes you an idiot.

So if the public baths are broken, instead of fixing them the only solution is to burn them down - 'cause they're broken anyway so who cares. Right...

Point being, the original quote from the devs was assinine in it's assumption that being an arsehole according to arbitrary rules is ok (since camping newb respawns serves as some kind of an immersive character experience, apparently...), but calling someone an arsehole for doing it will get you banned.

Yes.  That's the rules of the game.  I know and accepted that when I bought it.  Also, I can reciprocate if I want too, which means there is risk taken by the camper.  If I have a good guild it could back fire and he could end up spawn camped 24/7.

Sending me 70 or 80 spam messages cursing out my family and my ethnicity?  The only reciprocation is for me to be an ass and abuse back.  Not really so much fun.  Also, as far as I am aware it's behavior that will get you banned in any game ever released.  Even Eve will ban you if you break that line once too often.

I'm not sure why you think the two subjects are even slightly related.

Um, didn't i just post why i thought the two were related?

And it still doesn't make sense to me.

Also, don't be retarded, this isn't about isolated one person calling another an asshole one offs.

But you rail on, you bright diamond you.

lol, how is it my fault if it doesn't make sense to you? I mean, sure, if i'm not explaining myself clearly enough or something.

I just think i'm seeing the innate hilarity in them saying (1) and following up with an opposite on (2), when the two are so closely related.

Yep, pretty much the exact problem I predicted during open beta, spawn camping and the whining that comes with it.

There are at least two layers to this discussion, but they are related:

1) Do you agree with the rules at all? I actually don't care about this level anymore now that they've clarified the rules (you can do whatever you want, you just can't make it personal). Internet. Case closed. Leave the server if you (general "you") don't like it.

2) Are you confused by the rules? This is the part that sparked these last few pages. It goes back to the GMs comment (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?action=post;quote=455266;topic=12952.210;num_replies=304;sesc=0c53d9f41bd215af3306884442e958fa):

That is the part they had to retract in the statement (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?action=post;msg=457167;topic=12952.280;sesc=0c53d9f41bd215af3306884442e958fa):


Note they approve the actions, just not the words.  Kill and kill again, just don't spam and get all racial about it.

Ironically, the person most likely to get in trouble with the GMs is probably the person being griefed through ingame actions, not the griefer :-) But like Haemish said, this was a predictable outcome.

No, that's what I don't understand.  How you think that 1 and 2 are related.

If you don't want open pvp, stay off the pvp server.  Those that are on the pvp server (or any server) should be protected from abuse that is outside the realm & rules of the game itself.

Getting your ass kicked in a system you voluntarily joined especially when you are fully aware of it's potential problems does not give you the right to abuse other people.

Being an arsehole by camping someone and being an arsehole by using bigoted language, etc are not necessarily the same thing. Just becuase they share a word doesn't make them equavilent.

When I play soccer with a friend I might nutmeg them, then rub it in by scoring the goal with my head. They might say "dude I know you're better than me, but don't be an arsehole about it". Or I might be an arsehole by tackling them studs up and breaking their ankle.

Just because we can use a word to apply to two things doesn't mean they are the same.

Camping, griefing = arseholes but permitted.
Bigoted, abusive = arseholes and not permitted.

How fucking hard it is?

If someone dislikes fighting we're not going to think them very clever if they deliberatly get into a fight and then complain about being hit and ask that fights be changed so that people can't hit each other.

There is no "nice" FFA PvP.

On a slight tangent, there's a lot of weirdness happening in the RP PvP community at the moment (euro side at least). People moaning that they have been put on some guild's kill on sight list (or more likely told that they were on a KOS list by someone who forget about it five minutes later) because they ganked people, and running to the forums to moan about it.

"Just because I killed your guildies doesn't mean you should declare war on my guild!!" seems to be the gist of it. I don't get it, it's the first time I have seen behaviour in an MMO that I genuinely can't work out at all.

This is freakin' hilarious. I swear, it's like 2003 all the hell over again. First there were people having faith that the fun/balance/content will be patched in later (http://www.shadowbane). Then there was the success that was just big enough in comparison to the big title of the day (http://eqlive.station.sony.com) to be relevant but not big enough to be considered real competition. Then there's a whole bunch of spotty performance issues. And now there's a bunch of DAoC WoW-trained newbs to the genre bitching that the PvP they left their game for isn't actually how they envisioned it.

Everything old is new again! Shit, I thought that was a 20 year cycle.

Everything moves faster on the internet.

It's not a surprise. Players have come from a warm and comfy PvP environment where they know the rules and the trails are clearly marked to a new world where they aren't sure of what is going on and the PvP contains actual new dangers. So of course they are going to get scared and complain on the forums about it.

I'm not sure what cycle you're talking about. When did things ever change with players?

It's still flying right over your and Murgos' head. Darniaq caught it on the first post, and you two slowpokes are still trying to catch up. Whatever, keep telling yourselves is "ok" because the devs said it was.

That's like like saying handball isn't allowed in soccer because Fifa says so right? What does Fifa know, eh?

...


wow

Keep going. I think you can say the same stupid thnig 50 times in a row if you try.

Stop now before you fall further behind.

The only thing I can do at this point is repeat what I've said three times so I'll just leave it there.  Look around you though, the statements I've made are what is enforced and used as policy by every single MMO that has pvp.

There just may be a reason for that.

I personally love having a KOS list again.

And RP-PVP servers are win. Me and my guildie were waiting on a respawn in Conall Valley (we are both Stygian) when two Cimmerians come up and basically try to cut in line. We do some light RP by claiming the camp for Stygia, and calling them Cimmerian pussies or some shit....the guys decided to have a go at us.

We focus fire quickly on one, the other guy just takes off running. It was freakin hilarious. So, we finish off the ranger and prepare for the inevitable revenge attempt. I have my friend hide, and I start running around like I'm alone fighting shit. A few minutes later they take the bait and are throughly trounced again.

The dude warns us that if we don't leave Conall Valley that we will be killed repeatedly by his friend. I figure he's talking shit, so we just go about our business. About 15 minutes later, a guy about 10 levels higher and the original ranger have tracked us down and killed us. Sonofabitch, that never happens. I thought people always threatened with friends that never show up!!!

They get us once more in the valley, and we ended up fighting some spawn campers on top of the hill. It was a couple guys that had us by maybe 8 levels each, so we'd kill one and eventually they'd get us. Apparently, the Cimmerian guys dislike spawn campers more than Stygian Dogs, and in the middle of one fight we were in...out of the blue they help us out and kick the campers asses royally. Through some tells later, we decide to make a truce and agree to help each other again if any dickwads start up again.


This is the kind of interaction you don't get on a PvE server. Sure, I coulda made one more level had I not been scrapping with all the guys...but I tell ya what, I had more fun doing the PVP than any ding grats. So there is my take so far on RP-PVP.

Yeah, the RP-PvP servers are vastly different than what i hear coming off the PvP servers. Most people at least try to play nice, AND there was a large guild summit a few days ago, a lot of guilds attended... i am sure its just the beginning of the RP set up for the server. Anyway, most will at least demand money, or sex or throw a insult your way before attacking.

There is little spawn camping, loading camping ETC.. going on on our server. And if it does, see slayers postings.

Hi guys!

I'm on the Cimmeria server and while I'm not liking the non rp pvping (that's why I rolled on that server, but I digress) I totally get what Murgos is saying.  Ganking, griefing what the fuck ever is fine, call them an asshole, that's fine as well, you can totally do that, but you can't go too far.  To quote a player I saw in local chat "I'd rub your mom's clit with sandpaper", or "Stupid fag ni##ers".  That shit won't fly.  And I know exactly how the GM's look at it because I was a GM for WoW.  That one GM screwed up something fierce, but when you have a flux of new people mistakes will be made.  Take for what you will, but i know it's a FFA PvP server now that the rules are out.

Same as it ever was
Same as it ever was

I'm loving this whole PVP spawn camping kerfluffle. It's exactly what I predicted. And of course people are bitching about getting spawn camped despite being on PVP servers. Yes, they are fucking idiots for expecting NOT to be spawn camped and shittalked to on a PVP server. But that's the price of success coupled with the hubris of making the same established mistakes over again. These problems have already been solved, if the developers would just open their fucking eyes and see.

Hell, Shadowbane had them solved way back when. In the most hardcore PVP game of them all, if you died, you didn't spawn anywhere near where you were killed unless your city was being sieged. And even then, you had the choice of a few freeholds which were likely miles from where the action was. Yes, it had shitastic travel times. I'm beginning to think that for PVP, extended but not obscene travel times may be a necessity. But then that also highlights the futility that is trying to squeeze PVP into a world that is built for story-intensive linear PVE progressions.

If I was the type of guy who sig'd things people have said on the forums I would sig this.

I've never been spawn camped and even if I were, there are multiple spawn locations in each zone.  I've encountered a few gankings by high level characters, but nothing really bad at all griefing wise.  Maybe it's just my server that's a bit better behaved for some reason.  I'm pretty happy with my choice to go FFA PvP. 

It also probably doesn't hurt that I play a sort of overpowered class. 

Ya think?

LotD is controlling an entire instance of the 70-80 zone on our server. An instance holds about 96 players from what I'm told. If you get spawn camped, you get friends to help you out if you plan to stay in the zone. Or you can switch to another instance and try your luck there.  On any PVP server or open world PVP, organized groups rule. If you aren't in one or you're in a weak one, life can be miserable.

I would imagine that the PVE servers are pretty tame though.

A lot of lessons could be learned from Shadowbane, but seem to have been ignored instead.  Ones that come to mind

-Most folks who think they are hardcore are actually not.  Design your Game accordingly.

-20% of your players will dominate the other 80%. If you don't design your game correctly many of the 80% will quit because they have no chance to win.   These percentages are fixed, so as folks in  80% quit , people in the 20% group move to the 80% group and the process continues.

-RP-PvP servers will die as guilds from the 80% group (see above rule) migrate from PvP servers to RP-PvP servers because "the competition isn't as intense and we can pwn those RP Phags"

This is the part that irks me.

AoC shouldn't be making the same mistakes that SB did 5 years ago. But it was inevitable that they would.

These games are almost too vertical to truly evolve. Developers going from crash project to crash project. How much of an expert can they be in the nuances of the less successful titles in the genre? Who's got the time?

Add to this the management complexity: being a market success is still seen as a big part of whether features work. You can have good execution with a unmarketable IP. But because the game didn't sell 10mil units, you can't even talk about what parts of the game were good? And worse, because it didn't sell 10mil units, there's a good chance you didn't even make it a priority to play it?

As a result, lots of good ideas are left to exist only in games most companies don't use as examples to convince the money away from VC/management. They just weren't successful enough to get the sort of headlines to excite, and therefore their features aren't used as examples of what to do.

Example: sidekicking. This has been implemented as a feature into games that have never posed any real competition to front-runners. Why the hell not? If you're making a diku, this should be as much a requirement as XP and levels. And yet, because EQ1 didn't do it and now WoW isn't doing it, and this by itself does not form a competitive advantage for the games that do, it's still a nice-to-have-maybe-someday.

This is being repeated but it is not a valid comparison. SB was pure PvP. AoC is clearly a PvE game with a PvP option.

That said, AoC's PvP mechanics replicate many of the same mistakes other PvE/PvP hybrids have, so the sentiment is fair enough.

AoC has apprenticeships, basically raising your armor/defense level/damage up to the guy you are apprenticed to. I was level 59 last night, running through a dungeon...(though much less powerful than the real lvl 60.

Yea, I used sidekicking as an example on my rant against the industry. AoC at least tries a couple of new and interesting things, and does some of them well. Too early to tell if they'll do a keep-growing WoW or quickly-decline like CoH though. The latter would because, well... no reason to repeat the rant :-)

@shiznitz: I agree on the game differences, but AoC set out to be a PvP game. The Vision(tm) was to only ever need PvE from 1-20. Then they did some focus testing or something and seemed to shift their resources back to making more PvE content. In a way I feel like they built PvE atop PvP, which is why some classes are easymode and others are just woefully sucky. I think they should have stuck with PvP personally.

Some might opinion that corpsecamping is equvalent to constantly tackling the other guy in football whenever he tries to get up. Even after the whistle's been blown.

Of course, there are rules in football against that kind of thing. Those same people might opinion that a similar rule may be neat for FFA PvP servers.

Of course, others think FFA should mean "Rules are for pussies. Die faggot." *shrug*

Including, by their own words and not those of an errant GM, the Devs. Who happen to be the ones makeing the rules?

Especially. They're the ones deciding (for whatever reasons) what is and is not kosher in their game ruleset.

Then they get to deal with how the reality of players affects what they intended to happen in the game, and wether it turns out to be a popular or unpopular decision.

Although I don't really talk design like I used to, I do like to think (if you'll excuse a slight delusion of grandeur) that this is where usefully cynical commentary comes in handy. When we're lauding games for little innovative bits, community people should be jotting stuff down and passing it to the dev teams. A list of stuff should be kept, innovations over the years that shouldn't be left off because seasoned players expect them, but more importantly, because they make games better.

Whether it's targetless combat, movement not interrupting skills, sidekicking/mentoring, appearance slots, vehicles, web access to guild chat, whatever. The genre has accumulated a lot of nice little bits that each new titles should dedicate some resources to putting in early on.

Of course, that's entirely beside major stuff like class balance and level and gear disparity in pve/pvp hybrids, but that's a dead horse for another day...

The only problem with AOC apprenticing is that it doesn't buff your health points or your damage. Therefore a level 30 tank apprenticed to level 60 is weaksauce in PVP and PVE situations. I see guilds trying to control zones on the PVP servers carrying around an army of level 50's with 1 level 80 apprentice, and we tear through them like a wet paper bag.

AOC does need more zones to level in after 40, and especially from level 70-80.  I'm stuck at level 78.5 because I'm spending too much time driving other guilds out of the zone so my guild can access the few high level exp areas.

Honestly, I'd rather fight over sieges/arenas/resource nodes than still be fighting over exp camps 12 years into MMO gaming.

The server code is the referee though.  There simply isn't the manpower to staff every zone with enough people to keep things running smoothly.  If the devs do not want something happening in their game, they need to design systems around this desire and hard code it.  Doing otherwise costs them CSR time and hurts player retention.

I'm not saying it's easy to code around player actions, but certain things are easily predictable, as we've demonstrated already.

I was doing 1200 damage (non crit) with a lightning strike on mobs in the Sanctum, so maybe it only effects PVE. And took a ton more damage than I would ever have a chance of taking. YMMV

Not trying to be as ass, but the verb form is to opine. Just trying to save you some awkwardness later in life.

You could have conversated that to him privately, you know.  How did conversate get to be a word, anyway.  All of a sudden, I hear it all the time on television.  Why?

You are right, Signe. I always forget about the PM option.

Don't be silly.  You wanted to make him feel awkward and I approve.  I just wanted to see if I could make you feel awkward.  We could have started some sort of feeling awkward chain.  It would have been fun but you ruined it.

I am married, 40, and three kids.  I am beyond awkward. Way beyond.

Back to the thread!

I've been crying to myself
cumbersome and full of pain
and i can taste it on your breath
the sober crash; you've gone away
but I can't take it anymore
chasing stars that never fade
so I'll kiss you just once more
and hope the feeling fades away
but you'll see me in those lights
ocean eyes wont sleep today
so just go back to yourself
in a lucid halogram of apathy.
Break free from this awkward chain
you see me now; I'm not going away
swallow your pride and open your eyes
there's no reward in trying to hide.

My mind is racing in the night
frantic in my search for you
but I can't waste away on dreams
heaven is never what it seems
until the day that you awake
and question not this blissful fate.
Break free from this awkward chain
you see me now; I'm not going away
swallow your pride and open your eyes
there's no reward in trying to hide.

Ignorance has failed you now
i can see you look at me
say your last goodbyes
to the distance that you made
you're inside pandora's box
and there's no use trying to hide.

by: Nautica Mourey

I google weird things.

I can only wish that was the most awkward thing I've done in my life.  :grin:

Shit, I'm still not sure if I"m spelling "wether" correctly, and far too lazy to correct myself or care too much about it.

You aren't.  :oh_i_see:

(http://www.queenofwands.net/comics/20051023b.jpg)

I wasn't expecting something by Aerie to show up here.  It's nice how f13 can find new ways to surprise me.

I just wanted to point some thing out to some people.

In AoC they have multiple measures to help you avoid being camped as you res. One is that your recall spell becomes nearly instant when you are under the "just rezzed" protection buff. Also, you can change instances. If some one is getting corpse camped, its their own fucking fault.

These are the same people that said "I got pked 13 times in a row when I tried to walk through XRoads with all my ore 13 times in a row!"  Such people should not believe in evolution, as it would be very unkind to them personally  :awesome_for_real:

Well, ok, but what do you do about this (http://www.mmorpg-info.org/age-of-conan/griefing-by-a-horse/)?!  :grin:

(sfw)

Kill the defenseless person sitting on horseback from range?

Also see here:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=13373.0

Yea. I generally don't read the sub-forums for games unless I'm actually playing the game  :-)

If they have a horse they're high level, enough to have at least three gold.  Also, if it's like the CE rhino or mammoth, the horse will add several thousand health.  I'm guessing most of the victims were lowbies and couldn't do much against it on their own.

I was under the impression that the horse is a separate entity than the toon riding it, as in, you can shoot him off, or kill it out from under him.

It's not for the rhino.  Horses could be different, but I doubt it.

(http://tog.acm.org/editors/erich/DPG/black_pixel.gif)

I think WAR will be wholly underwhelming, and I would call you out on a   :nda:  but I totally doubt you are even in it.

I have to say for once I agree with you , though, about auto attacks and cooldowns.

Schild cruelly took away the grunkster's post so now I am at a loss as to what you agreed with him on.

I turned white noise into empty space. You missed nothing. The fact Slayerik agreed with him (on anything) should show signs of Slayerik's problems as well.

Wow's auto attacks and cooldowns being not fun.

Schild's just being a child again.

EDIT: Next up he will threaten to make me go away for good, and /flex on me. Fear ze schild!

Keep asking, please.   

And the borderline WAR nda breakages need to stop. Some of you we cannot verify that you are in or not in the beta.  If you're going off NDA breakages elsewhere, do not reiterate that information here.  K?

I think I might have to change my mind again. AoC could be the biggest disappointment of 2008. Mostly because it has so much potential, and so much if it is broken or not implemented.

What's wrong with auto attack?

"sandwich combat: A combat or style of combat that lets the player click a button, start fighting a monster with his character, and head out of the room to make a sandwich while the character goes on killing the monster."

-From a page someone created in 2003 (http://www.mit.edu/~rei/game-terms.html)

No MMO since UO has actually been that way though, unless someone was solo grinding as a Warrior in EQ1.

In general though Chenghiz, auto attack is not an immersive experience. We all know our characters are largely the sum of their statistics. But if you don't ask the player to use some skill, even if that skill is little more than pressing the right button at the right time, they'll get bored and move on.

Just wanted to bring this back to the top so we can all have another good laugh.

I personally don't see a problem with autoattack as long as it's implemented well.  Autoattack is a way to ensure dps > 0 during the learning curve.  Where games get into trouble with autoattack is when they give it too much power.  If you can kill something using autoattack alone, the game is broken.  So given a choice between autoattack and any player-queued attack, the latter should always be substantially better. 

I see the benefit of autoattack being something in game to a) provide some damage while learning and b) reduce the number of lag-related deaths. 

c) Saving me from tendonitis.

Puss. Carpel Tunnel is imminent anyways!  :drill:

Anyways, back on topic the launch was smooth but it is really starting to show how totally unplanned and unfinished half the game was/is. I'm still playing and enjoying myself, but it seems like they are making a lot of bad decisions. Flushing away money basically.

I hope that AoC gets it together.  I've always liked what it seemed Funcom was trying to do in their games (see AO).  That and I want someone to play with when I eventually get around to trying the game.

I don't think its as bad as people make it out to be. Funcom tried a lot of things diffrent for this mmo, instead of rehashing a lot of the same old same old. Other than this mad rush of patching, that does seem to go untested. I think it does come down to the players, they came into the game expecting what they know, and assume to be correct, only to find that the game is not like others in many, MANY ways.....so frustration sets in, and turns to anger.

Game has issues, but nothing that cant be worked out.

Written about every single MMOG published to date.

Shadowbane is still running isn't it?  :grin:

That's classic blame the players crap.

The people seem happy with the stuff AoC is doing, but unsurprisingly they would like it actually work.

Oh, i am mainly talking about the Official forums. Everything on there is exaggerated by 100X. Everyone i meet in game is having a blast.

But i also do think that alot of people came with preconceived notions, and found out they were wrong.

Thats probably because they people who dont like it have already quit? Now, I am not saying the game is OMG!!1! Brokenz!@!, but they are having a LOT of issues, and there is a huge amount of core gameplay that is broken, yet they are working on class balance rather than fixing most of the broken shit. They are doing things like changing animations and fixing typos and reworking complete Feat trees, when most classes have core mechanics broken or downright not working.

(I highlighted the important part)

I just don't see this as true.  The core mechanics of pretty much every class works, however, they need to be balanced.  I don't see how balancing is not a priority at this time.  Perhaps I'm missing something, but do you have examples of classes where the "core mechanics" are broken?

Perhaps we disagree what "core mechanics" are?  I mean, to me "core mechanics" is the, you know, core mechanics of the class, i.e. casting spells, swinging swords, summoning pets, etc.  I haven't really encountered anything that is fundamentally broken at this level.  The next level up, sure, things are out of balance (my blighted ones pwn you newb) but that's where balance comes into play.

As far as changing animations or fixing typos, I doubt the same guy who is working on those has any IDEA or is even in the same pay grade as the people who are doing the class design, it's the same for any mmog.  Did you want the animator to sit back and do nothing while the coders/designers fix things so that you'd feel better about the progress they were making?

Stamina + Sprint and active blocking is the big one. This shit is so broken its not even funny. The fact that at higher levels casters can sprint for so much more than melee. Its nice they are trying to address Active Blocking, but its a band-aid fix. The core Stamina mechanic is broken. Up until today, casters couldnt cast while riding a horse.
The combo system is stupid goofy in how it scales. The higher level you get, the longer it takes you to do combos, if you are interrupted at ANY time during a combo the person is refunded ALL damage done, this is borderline game breaking for the HoX at higher levels due to the windup time on our combos.
Female Attack speed for melee is still 34% slower than males. Thats pretty core mechanic also. Personally I would call all of those broken Core Mechanics.

Sorry to SirBruce but:


I guess we just disagree with on semantics then, because to me this is a balance issue.  And they are addressing balance issues every patch, much like every other mmog I've ever been in.  Hell WoW still addresses balance issues every patch.  It's part of the ongoing nature of things to constantly have something that isn't balanced.


As a caster, with a horse, I have to ask, is this really that game breaking of an issue?


The refunded damage and the slower attack speed are certainly bugs, but I can't see how the class designer who is redesigning feat trees is even remotely going to be the same guy who is the coder that is going to have to fix these two bugs.  I can't see how it would delay them any to do class balancing at the same time as someone else in the office is likely working on these issues.

Because there is so much broken shit, when its finished and working, they are going to have to go back and completely rebalance classes.

Also, they shouldnt be working on balance issues until the broken Feats are fixed. I know as a HoX we have many many feats that outright dont work. I guess you would call that a balance issue, I would call it broken mechanics.

That's what scares me.
I LOVE Shadowbane, but it took almost 4 years to get it where it was supposed to be at launch.
I don't want to wait 4 years to have a working and meaningful PvP in Age of Conan.

Temporarily shutting down your main forums because you don't know when your servers are going to be back up and you don't want to listen to your customers is one way to handle customer server, I suppose.  :grin:

How the hell would you go about listening to anything on those forums ?

If you assume every post is a whine(a reasonable assumption) then just scan the database a nerf whichever class/feat gets the most hits.

But that's been a huge part of the feat redesign on the Necromancer side of things, they fixed most (all of the reanimation tree works, I'm not nightfall so I'm not sure about that side) of the feats as they moved them around.  I figure that's part of the balancing pass.

The same thing happened in WoW, half my talents didn't work or only marginally worked until they went through and did the Warlock balancing pass.  It was all part of the same process.  Go through the classes, fix the broken things, fix the things that the "community" calls "broken" because it doesn't do the exact thing they want it to do, and balance the class around the new fixes because if you don't people will freak that it's ZOMG OP because you changed things to make them more useful.

I can't imagine going through the HoX tree and fixing the things that are "broken" because they don't work well enough that the community considers them useful without moving a few things around because you just made feats more powerful.

And to be honest, a lot of the "ZOMG THIS R BROKENZ FUNCOM SUX" things in the Necromancer trees worked, they just didn't have enough impact for people to think they were worth taking vs other things that were more useful.  The exact same thing that happened with talents in WoW, where you had certain builds that were "right" and others that were "zomg broken" or "u took that skillz u noob?!", not because they didn't work, but because their usefulness was outclassed by other things.

All said and done, I hardly see where it's a big deal that they are moving things around in some feat trees as things progress.  I personally think you are probably repeating silly trolls from the forums verbatim because you want to bitch about the game.  :)

Nope. I have felt this way since the second patch or so. I think WoW did it much better. They first went through and fixed a ton of stuff that was just blatantly broken, THEN they started in on the balance tweaking.

I guess you playing as a necro and me and a HoX color our experiences differently. I personally think they shouldn't put the "Feat People" on reworking classes a few weeks in to the game, when they could instead have them going through the feats going "OK, test this one, OK, it does nothing, lets fix it. Next." Once they have done that to all the classes then they can start with "OK this tree isn't performing as we would like, lets start moving stuff around".

No, they REALLY didn't.  For instance, Improved Drain Soul was broken until they did the balance tweak.  Improved Curse of Agony was so usless as to be considered broken and character gimping until that point too.  In fact, none of the broken talents in the entire Warlock talent tree were fixed until the balance pass, and there was a large list of broken or useless talents.


Perhaps it does color our experiences differently, but surely you're smarter than the average AoC forum dweller.  And surely you are smart enough to see the difference between a designer and a coder.  And I bet, if you really got around to thinking about it, you'd probably see that it's two totally different people that perform that task.  The designer is going to be looking at the feat tree and moving stuff around, probably using some internal toolset and that guy probably either doesn't know HOW to code or was a coder years ago and is now a full time game designer.  A coder is going to be going through all the broken feats and fixing them.

I'm sure there is a lot of overlap, but I suspect they are two different people, probably two different groups of people.  Thus any real mental exercise will tell you that those two tasks will probably not interfere with each other.

Will there be another balancing pass in the future, after everything works?  I bet there will be.  So far in every mmog we've ever seen it's been an ongoing and constant process that is done time and time again.  But I fail to see why it's a huge "ZOMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY FIXED THAT AND NOT THIS" issue, other than to idiots that dwell on official message boards.

Hey Simond, I respect ya cause you play Eve...and Eve owns..... but seriously all you do is flat out rag on Funcom/AO and kinda obsess about the shit. So you are either :

A. Playing the fuck out of it

B. Not playing it at all


Either way, you suck :)

Yes, but they seem to be doing what every other MMO has done before, making a list from most broken to least, and then working them 1 or two at a time. The rest of that stuff, like animations and GUI are diffrent departments.

Recall, teams for thies things tend to number in the hundreds, and they all have areas they are responsible for, and development or changes in one do not always affect anything else.

That, and everyone always thinks there class is the most broken, and how dare the developers not fix their list of things first... even IF they are perceived broken, when they are not, they just play diffrent than game XYZ (The point of my previous post)

Heh - stumbled across this necro by accident.

So, with the hindsight of history, what was the answer and why?

For me personally, it has to be WAR, if for no other reason that I never thought AoC was going to do much in the first place, so I wasn't very disappointed by it.  I had very high hopes for WAR though.  To me, their downfall was that they tried to do too much, and the game was well...too much a game.  By this i mean, I never really felt like I was actually in a WORLD,  everything I did felt more like a series of mini games than it did a real presistant world (aka Theme Park Syndrome).   I did enjoy the game a lot wen it was first released, but it QUICKLY wore on me.  What I wanted was a persistent war that really felt like it meant something...instead we got just another thinly veiled loot grind.

they both win horray

Both released unfinished.  You just have to pick between the liar and the one that won't listen to reason.  Pick your poison... or don't. 

Looking at our reactions and the continued traffic on either game, I think War had to be the bigger disappointment.

I look at War and I think of what could have been a really good game. I look at Conan and I think funcom's a joke.

Both, though I feel that War takes the cake, though that is probably more because the bar was higher from my playing DAOC and not having touched anything Funcom had released.

AOC had a lot of innovation in the combat corner, but it was obvious that the later part of the game was horribly broken out of the gate.

WAR just felt bad, I wanted to like it, but everything seemed to be out of sync.  The biggest disappointment was the fact that after pushing the PvP and seemingly learning from the mistakes of DAOC, they decided to say screw the new approach and re-ramp the PvE portion... Mythic is horrible at PvE....

Having skimmed this thread:

1) I didn't say anything that turned out wrong, but I accept my desire to see The Secret World is my own problem.

2) Wow, this had both HRose and grunk in it.

This.

It did help both that they didn't release right on top of each other. And they both more than showed that there's at least interest in a game that isn't WoW. But they also both showed old school thinking and prioritizing rather than fresh thinking and truly grokking of what WoW did right. Basically, neither was so cast in stone in early 2004 that they couldn't course correct, if they had read the WoW tea leaves right.

I thought AoC was a much better game and could be fixable with enough work,  WAR is broken at its most basic level and should have been scrapped and restarted from scratch years ago.  WAR seems to be winning the subs race though, although both are pathetically low.

I would say WAR is the biggest disappointment.  If you take out the PVP from both games AOC is still kindof reasonable.  WAR without the PVP is simply putrid. 

I tend to like running around in AOC every now and again and checking things out.  Too bad it isn't more expansive like LOTRO.

WAR.

AoC had an awesome start, some of the best combat, and held my interest until my roomie decided they didn't want to play anymore.  It had room to improve, but nothing in it made me rage.  (Customer service on the other hand, especially their pre-order fiasco, was clownshoes.)  I left satisfied and feeling I got my money's worth.  It's one I'll consider re-upping eventually.

WAR had tons of good concepts.  Loved the Chaos races.  It made me a blood-thirsty PvPer.  Only it was all in scanarios.  Then the Tier 3 wall smacked me upside the head.  We see tons of possible improvements to make this game awesome and watch as Mythic makes the wrong choice Every. Single. Time.  I have no interest in returning.

WAR is the champion.

I agree with Lantyssa completely, though I've always been a bloodthirsty pvp'er.  Ok... not so bloodthirsty.

AoC is the better core game.  WAR had the most potential.  WAR sqandered a wonderful opportunity and continues to drive in reverse.

Having played AoC and not WAR, I think AoC had more potential but they really messed up the small stuff.  Reading the AoC threads in the Graveyard, it sounds like that game has very good, fun and optional PVP. The PvE is also MUCH better that WAR (which isn't saying much) but the loot is horrific and that keeps the PVE people away.  WAR looks like ass. AoC has decent character variety.  I am still baffled by the way WAR cross-linked PvE and PvP wioth that gear grind.

WAR.

Conan would have been a fun, solid game if they would have had time to actually add the game instead of just a tutorial. WAR was on the other hand a fully realized, deliberate mistake.

WAR

From the folks who brought us RvR in DAoc we got Guild Wars III with a PvE Grind and crappy Titan Quest character Advancement mechanism.

Why they built someone else's sequel I'll never know.

Not only did they not learn from their own mistakes in DAoC, they had the good idea to rehash all the mistakes of two or three other games they emulated.

AoC struck me as the best that funcom could do; it doesn't strike me as odd that their best is not that titillating.

Their single player games are pretty much the best in their class (adventure titles). As such, I'm not quite sure what you're talking about.

Edit: War was the bigger disappointment.

Why?

The changes were simple and Mark just decided to be totally bullheaded about it. "We can't just flip a switch and halve the EXP." SHOULDA FOUND A WAY MARK, SHOULDA FOUND A WAY.

Halving the Exp at that point would've just meant people getting to the broken End Game content quicker.

There's a lot of truth to this.  At least people would have stayed a little longer since playing alts wouldn't have felt like punishment. 

As Nebu said, alts.

But at the same time, people quit because of the grind, not because of broken content. And most of the people in Bat Country had already been in more than one encounter and it did not - NOT EVEN A LITTLE - contribute to them leaving. Well, maybe a few people, but I know for the people I bopped around with that the gamestopping grind was what did them in. Fixing content is something I can wait for. Hell, nearly 2 years in SWG should show that. But leveling curves are simply something I have NO patience for. No one likes spending a shitload of time doing anything and not being rewarded.

Alts work better though when there's a reason to level one up. So I think you're both right in a way. Smoothing (not simply halving) the XP would have helped more people want to have different ways to play the game different ways. I think though that even that would have worked best if they had deactivated 2/3 of the PQs and half the lakes. PvP only works when there's people around, and for awhile the only way to ensure that was by joining Scenarios. Which most people did because they could do it from anywhere.

Oh, which is coming (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=14950.msg532427#msg532427) in WoW in 3.1  :awesome_for_real:

On this topic I have to say that WAR was a bigger disappointment because I expect so very little from Funcom. Except for The Secret World. Which may never come, given how much money Funcom have been losing.

I quit WAR on arriving into a new chapter, looking around and seeing yet another PvE "kill these guys here, now go up here, now collect these flowers" grind in front of me. The number of anti-kiting mechanisms in the PvE were also insane (I was a SW, so using terrain and range should have been helpful to me, instead of watching mobs run up steep slopes / across water at the same speed they'd travel over flat ground; also the bugs that would see mobs HP returned instantly if they 'dropped' out of combat). I'd done my dash on scenarios as well. Mythic's inability to recognise their own flaws / understand player behaviour was another big factor in deciding to quit.

WAR did respark my interest in PvP, but that's about it.

EDIT: Slopes, not slows.

AoC actually. I thought it was going to be a fun game with some fun PvP

What I got was a completely unfinished game with no PvP system at all. It's a shame too, because I really enjoyed the game for the first 30 or so levels. It just fell so hard and deep after that though. One wonders how after 5 years of development, they could launch the game with so many promised aspects  completely missing, with the rest of the game in an early beta state. :drill:

I mean, even to this day, they have failed completely to implement DX10, something that was written right on the box and said to be available from launch. I don't even want to go into all the actual missing game content, because it was just so terrible.

I like that reason! I want to switch to that!

No one expects a game let alone fun from Funcom!

The rate needed to be set such that I went through one racial pairing and when I got done with it I was a mulitple of ten of the tier.  That would have actually required more than doubling the rate of xp, but it's what was needed.  That also means up to six alts worth of content.

I would have to say WAR. I also never expected anything from AoC/FunCom. I DID expect WAR to *not* make the exact same mistakes they made in DaoC...  :awesome_for_real:

I'd have to say AoC myself.  WAR you could see was stuck in a ditch design-wise and getting deeper every day, plus I'm not personally interested in anything Mythic has done or claimed they wanted to do anyway.  But Conan! Dark lore, nice graphics, beheadings, barroom brawls, mysterious magic, exotic locales, etc, etc.  And Funcom actually does content well, when it bothers to do it at all.  I had hopes in spite of the PvP focus, and beta reports of the combat sounded really really cool.  But then they went and yanked the rug out from under it when it was only 1/4 finished.  WTF???  And they have just announced that even after taking a 36 Million dollar loss/writeoff on AoC that they are still well capitalized with another 30-something Mil in the bank (hope it's a Norwegian and not Icelandic bank!).  So why the hell did they not finish the rest of the game instead of rushing it out the door when they did?

What's the term? Winner winner chicken dinner!

EDIT: WAR was disappointing. AoC was just Funcom.

I found WAR more disappointing because it didn't engage my interest on the most basic levels - combat and exploring the world. AoC at least had somewhat different combat that kept my interest for a while, and although the world wasn't put together like I would prefer, the zones were interesting and visually pleasing.

I actually enjoyed my first 30 levels or so of AoC.  WAR, even from level 4 or 5, seemed like a grind.

This was my experience as well, I really powered my way through conan, even got an alt pretty high. The problem with conan was that the content they had was pleasing but as you travelled further and further from newbie island it began to unravel. Though when you had it, it was fun.  DAOwarhammer was different to me, from the start it felt like nothing more than a soul crushing grind. The lore was awesome but the scenery felt flat to me and i couldnt seperate my pixel grinding into a fantasy world, it just felt like a game.

I tried a character on my brothers account when he got the game. I made it maybe 15-20 minutes, said to myself, "Ah. Been there, done that." And never logged in again.

It utterly failed to capture my attention. Perhaps partly because I'm a MMOG vet, and played the heck out of DAOC in it's day.

WAR was the biggest disappointment of 2008 for me because I could tell on the first beta weekend that I was not going to buy AOC. I didn't think I'd buy WAR and should have listened to my first instinct which predicted most of the problems the game would have. But I gave in to the cravings and bought the game and we all know how that turned out.

Dingratz != the only reward in mmo. All but one of my characters in EQ2 is combat xp-locked, because leveling is /too fast/. And I don't even have the xp bonus of having capped characters (each capped characters give an xp bonus to your alts).

But I will agree that if the content is lacking, even if the game is otherwise fun (CoH), then the grind gets old. Maybe that's why I stick with EQ2, I see no grind there, except crafting and even that's only grindy on a couple classes.

Well, to be honest, open beta was only tiers 1 and 2, which are both a lot more fun that tiers 3 and 4.

AoC has the comfort of releasing before WAR. So when the mmo-gamers left the AoC in mass they turned to WAR to be robot raptor riding jesus that will deliver them WoW...and found a grindy piece of shit. Hence why WAR gets more ehatred. And just to note no amount of money would have possible filled AoC with enough content to support playing it for more than a month. People just going to have the face the fact that Funcom simply figured they go korean mmo on its subsribers once they get past level 20 and hope the PK metagame will fill up the void.

This sums up WAR  quite nicely and succinctly :ye_gods:

Tier 3, specifically Tor Annroc, is the reason WAR beats AoC for biggest dissapointment.  As bad as AoC was, there was simply no equivilent to being knocked into the lava 753,895,321 times just to level up once.

WAR.

they should've known better.  And honestly?  They weren't trying for anything that was really that new in the market or innovative design-wise.  Just better PvP design and backstory.  And the feeling seems to be it ain't a good experience.

I wish they both succeeded, but this market will prolly eat both games and companies alive.

This is ridiculous. Quests were MORE than enough to get to level 40 without a single second of grind since day 1. What confused players was the zone layoyut. They started in a common zone (Tortage) then they were split in three different 20 - 38 zones (Wild Lands, Kopshef, Conall's) that were full of quests. You couldn't make 20 levels in just ONE of those zones but you could have made 45 by doing all the quests in all the three zones and you would have been MORE than fine by doing all the solo (no dungeons) ones in at least two of them. Not a great idea, I only noticed that on the second run myself, but content was there.

Point is: the game was very good in pointing you to where the mobs were, it just forgot to tell you where to the OTHER ones as you finished the first wave.

Seriously, I am the Conan fanboi but so many here confused "not as detailed and rich as Tortage" with "empty and without content". The first silly wall was at 50 something, Eiglophian Mountains. Oh boy. And then things were pretty cool again with Thunder River and Atzel's only to let you down again for the last 8 levels or something to get to 80.

I honestly think that quests were more than enough EVEN in the very first day of Conan. Not WoW level of "enough" but fine for sure. What killed the interest of many here and not here was clearly the crappy itemization: no shiny rewards? silly .0004% numbers? ugh, boring. And gross!


Oh, and back on topic they BOTH disappointed me for the unbelievable amount of promised and not delivered things, or for the wasted potential if you want. To someone who like me is out of the industry that is simply too hard to understand.

The reason I am still playing Conan is because it has the best MMO PvP out of EVE (which gets bonus points for the consequences, not because it is fun per se).

WAR almost got a month's subscription fee from me. AoC didn't come close.

AoC wins.

I played AOC and after I got to level 80(yeah I stayed THAT long) I looked around and realized it was more fun to go ride a bike without a seat.  There literally isnt sh*t to do at 80.  I still play WO, to some degree because I refuse to go back to WOW or start some old MMO from scratch.  WO is getting better, but I understand why people have issues with it

Two different kinds of disappointment.

With AoC, they hyped it up, right up until the moment of release with features that just weren't ever going to make the cut. What they promised and what was delivered were two different things. Marketing wrote too many cheques that the devs couldn't cash, and there was a serious lack of high-end content. After passing lvl 20, it was something of a 'heeey wait a minute...' kind of disappointment.

War got progressively worse after numerous  :uhrr: design decisions in late beta / early release. Something of a 'WTF just happened' kind of disappointment.

:oh_i_see:

If either are getting better, that's great. I'll check out a free trial in year or so. Meanwhile, Lotro, a previous year's disappointment for me, has seriously bounced back. It can happen.

There are raids and dungeons as in any other game, problem with them is they give uninspired rewards. And some very cool PvP, like in no other game of this kind.

The raids were bugged, easily exploited and also boring. The PvE instances were bugged, unfinished and also boring.

There was no real PvP endgame whatsoever.  I remember the "endgame" on my server consisting of the large zerg guilds guarding the best grinding spots where they exploited the apprentice system to get people to level 80 in one or two days. This went on for the month I tried to enjoy the game, but it never really evolved past that. I recently resubscribed to AoC, perhaps only two months ago, and the PvP seemed to consist of clusterfucking around a small area near a spawnpoint in Kheshatta or doing what has to be the most boring "battleground" ever.

It was all just so...dull.

And the grinding was horrendous as soon as you got to the fields of the dead (40ish). There were not nearly enough quests even if you traveled all over the world and did quests far above your own level. You had to grind, and you had to grind a lot.  I hear it is different nowadays, though, with more quests and new questing zones and even a PvP system. But it all came more than half a year too late.

If they do release an expansion however, I will return to AoC, because there were pockets of fun to be had in the game, and maybe, just maybe, they wont make as many mistakes with an expansion as they did in the vanilla version.

The difference between AoC and WAR is very simple. There is hope that AoC can satisfy it's an audience once the initial "this game is HARDCORE" 13 year olds are gone (i think funcom stopped listening to them). WAR just simply can't please anyone considering that its playerbase can't admit that DAOC was a failure and hence Mythic is stuck listening to those kids great ideas since they are both the vocal minority and close to half the remaining playerbase. 

I think many MMO developers would be content making the same money a "failure" like DAoC made.  It was a fine niche game.  Trying to make a niche game mainstream is where MMOs are failing. 

I never played DAoC but i always thought of it as a successful game by the standards of the time.

FTFY

Awesome, Nebu is to blame for DAoC and by extention WAR.  The laundry list of Mythic's issues is very long.  The playerbase isn't one of them.  The playerbase's loyalty (some would say it's misplaced) is what allows Mythic to get by with it's mediocre talent.  Which makes Mythics passive-aggressive relationship toward the players all the more surprising.  It's really a shame the Mythic always has to wait until the subs go into the toilet before listening to the players.

The idea that DAOC was a failure has always been nonsense, DLRiley is just trolling as usual.

Um, Trials of Atlantis was DAoC's downfall. It was a solid, popular financial success story until that time, and especially dominant in the PvP/RvR category.

For WAR, ex-DAoC players should have been listened to more and earlier, as it is squarely Mythic's fault that they (for whatever reasons they have) ignored the essence of how DAoC worked, then tried to shoehorn in some of it late in Beta due to real feedback from real people trying to have a real motivation to RvR.

I doubt half the playerbase is ex-DAoC players now, since they are the first ones to cancel or not renew their 3-month subs. But it sure was 60-70% of the initial playerbase if not more whenthe promise was there.

That'd be impossible.

bah, wrong thread


edit:  WAR takes my vote for biggest disappointment.  I had hopes that it might not crumble immediately.

it was the ex-DAOC players who suggest the no scenario server.

Yes a few did out of frustration, but most thought they needed to tone down scenarios (or better yet elevate open RvR rewards). And remove the tedious locking depdendence on non-RvR things. Removing scenarios after already having them would be a bad move, but hey if they had never existed I wouldn't have noticed ...

Scenarios as a short side-game == fun. Scenarios as the main thing you do in game ==  too repetitive and mind-numbingly by-the-numbers boring.

As enough have said before, they WoW-ified it, then half-heartedly tried to somewhat DAoC-ify it in Beta, then caved to more WoW-ification when things got rough.

When MJ was flailing for what to do (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=14972.0), and everyone here kept telling him
- you won't out-WoW WoW, so play to your strengths of open RvR, not PvE which you will never hold a candle to WoW on
- lessen the PvE grind curve especially in T3/T4 (a direct follow-on from get people to your strength and get people away from your weakness)
- Open RvR needs to be more attractive relative to scenarios, given that you already have scenarios and need to now live with them as well as you made this a WoW always-chasing-the-carrot loot-centric game devoid of realm identity and motivation like DAoC naturally had.

its just the same thing any sane ex-DAoC player would say (as many of the f13 members themselves no doubt are). And as we all now know he didn't really apply what he heard here.

I can only go by my opinion and those of everyone I know who plays these games. And every one of them has said the same thing I say: if I had known that WAR was so instance-fested and WoW-fested and not just a naturally realm-oriented and motivated Open RvR game, I wouldn't have even bought it.

WAR was a bigger disappointment. I wanted to like it so badly, but the grind just defeated me. If I had been level cap in the time it took me to hit the low end of tier 3, I would have stuck around longer to at least check out the endgame dungeons and stuff.

Conan was true, genuine fun up to the point where I realized there was no endgame content, and everyone else I was playing with was level cap and bored. I played a Guardian. I quit the day after they nerfed Overreach, heh.

AOC for me.  I was really looking forward to it.  But I knew WAR was fail when I got into Beta around June of '07.

WAR for me definitely.  Never had much interest in AoC.  It seemed like it was going for things that wouldn't really work in a massive game, and plus it was Funcom.  WAR's further depressing because I still hold out hope that Mythic will have a come to jesus kind of moment and wake up.

The biggest disappointment for me was that there wasn't a MMO launched that wasn't retarded enough for me to actually bother getting, let alone getting, playing and then giving up on once the hopelessness became clear. Maybe it's just because I'm older and know better, but to me it seems like all the potential was bled out of these titles well before they launched.