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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Everquest 2  |  Topic: First Impression: Hour 1 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Big Gulp
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Reply #35 on: October 17, 2004, 07:00:39 PM

Well, after two days I'm now very much "meh" on this game.  Got my rat scout to 5, my human monk and troll shadowknight both to 10.  It's rapidly lost a lot of luster, but on the upside haven't seen many bugs, either.

Truthfully once the eye candy wears off I like the feel of the original EQ far better.  They have added a lot of nice stuff; easily the best quests I've yet seen in one of these games.  Still, it lacks a certain something that EQ, for all it's failings, still has for me.

I'll still keep at it, as it's probably hard to judge the game from 10th level, but while it's well done it doesn't appear to be my cup of tea.
El Gallo
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Reply #36 on: October 18, 2004, 06:52:18 AM

HO's reek of the stupid.  They just feel like something that should be in PS2, not a MMOG.   It's like they dumbed down the core gameplay so much that they added this tic-tac-toe minigame to get you to pay attention.  Gems was better.

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Soukyan
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Reply #37 on: October 18, 2004, 07:25:10 AM

Quote from: El Gallo
HO's reek of the stupid.  They just feel like something that should be in PS2, not a MMOG.   It's like they dumbed down the core gameplay so much that they added this tic-tac-toe minigame to get you to pay attention.  Gems was better.


See, but that's it right there. Gameplay on consoles is much more fun and interesting, right? I hear players say that all the time. But then I hear things like "consoles are dumbed down". I know we all want both, fun AND intelligent gameplay. I never found any MMOG to be particularly intellectually challenging in the first place, so perhaps I missed something other than boring, mundane gameplay in them. From the sounds of it, they got rid of tedious stupid shit.

Now, I will agree that I do like some surprises in RPGs and it sounds like they have even done away with that. I mean, when they tell you ahead of time what mobs will assist each other and even which will assist which, well, that just takes all the fun out of adjusting your play strategy on the fly. So yes, it sounds like they took out the "surprise" factor, and I guess that makes it a dumber game. However, MMOGs were never intelligent games in the first place. I would be glad to hear that gameplay is faster paced and more involved... can someone verify that?

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Big Gulp
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Reply #38 on: October 18, 2004, 08:07:40 AM

Quote from: Soukyan
I would be glad to hear that gameplay is faster paced and more involved... can someone verify that?


Not really.  It's more chaotic, yes, and can be harder to target the baddies, but the "more involved" part I disagree with.  The heroic opportunities basically come down to one optimum order to do things.  If you're a fighter it goes like this:  hit kick, which turns on your auto attack.  Then hit "wild swing", then hit "taunt".  For some reason a lightning bolt then zaps them.  Rinse, repeat.

If that's your definition of involvement, so be it, but it ain't mine.
Soukyan
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Reply #39 on: October 18, 2004, 08:34:26 AM

Quote from: Big Gulp
Quote from: Soukyan
I would be glad to hear that gameplay is faster paced and more involved... can someone verify that?


Not really.  It's more chaotic, yes, and can be harder to target the baddies, but the "more involved" part I disagree with.  The heroic opportunities basically come down to one optimum order to do things.  If you're a fighter it goes like this:  hit kick, which turns on your auto attack.  Then hit "wild swing", then hit "taunt".  For some reason a lightning bolt then zaps them.  Rinse, repeat.

If that's your definition of involvement, so be it, but it ain't mine.


Nope... that's not greater involvement. That's canned style chains a la DAoC. Pity.

Anyone have any experience with other classes? Are casters more involved? Scouts?

"Life is no cabaret... we're inviting you anyway." ~Amanda Palmer
"Tree, awesome, numa numa, love triangle, internal combustion engine, mountain, walk, whiskey, peace, pascagoula" ~Lantyssa
"Les vrais paradis sont les paradis qu'on a perdus." ~Marcel Proust
Big Gulp
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Reply #40 on: October 18, 2004, 08:37:58 AM

Quote from: Soukyan

Anyone have any experience with other classes? Are casters more involved? Scouts?


Played a priest to 7th, so far nope.  Not much more involved.
El Gallo
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Reply #41 on: October 18, 2004, 09:44:33 AM

Quote from: Soukyan
Gameplay on consoles is much more fun and interesting, right?


I disagree, and I think that's the source of just about every disagreement you and I have ever had :)  While my fingers could still punch out Liu Kang's MK2 finishing move on a nintendo controller, I have just never been enamored of that style of gameplay, and I have never found twitch to be very fun or very interesting.  I'm, like, from Venus or something.

Anyway, I think that the EQ2 class that you would like the best is the scout.  Scouts are the masters of the HO circle, they can initiate the most HO chains and they can switch a party from one chain to another mid-battle.  They are the most "arcadey" class, I would say.

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HaemishM
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Reply #42 on: October 19, 2004, 11:25:38 AM

What BigGulp said about the HO's. It isn't interesting or fun, it's just the ONLY WAY YOU'LL KILL THINGS. It is so completely nonsensical for me to be a warrior, with no magic whatsoever, and just because I hit the exact same sequence of moves, LIGHTNING BOLT LIGHTNING BOLT! I'm not a goddamn finger waggler; I want to see things like my warrior twist around and chop something's fucking head off, not tossing off wistful, come-hither looks and "HELLO SAILOR!" I have lightning bolts coming out of my arse.

If it wasn't so necessary to kill anything blue or above, I'd never use them because I hate the concept that much. It might be different if the HO wasn't triggered by human-initiated robotic macros, but then again, AC2's little glowy special move thing wasn't fun either.

EQ2's melee combat could be botted.

Sky
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Reply #43 on: October 19, 2004, 11:49:54 AM

Maybe it's static electricity from flailing about like that.
HaemishM
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Reply #44 on: October 19, 2004, 12:01:32 PM

Actually, I think it's the nerons in my brain melting down with the thought, "YOU'RE PLAYING EQ!"

Trippy
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Reply #45 on: October 19, 2004, 07:55:18 PM

Quote from: El Gallo
Anyway, I think that the EQ2 class that you would like the best is the scout.  Scouts are the masters of the HO circle, they can initiate the most HO chains and they can switch a party from one chain to another mid-battle.  They are the most "arcadey" class, I would say.

How do you switch chains as a Scout? I cannot for the life of me figure it out. And I can't get on the beta boards to look for help there either.
Kageru
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Reply #46 on: October 19, 2004, 08:18:25 PM

There's some "coin" icon on the HO wheel I believe (outside of the skills themselves?), which allows you to modify it if you use one of your "coin" icon'd skills.

From what I have been reading the pace of high level play doesn't allow for a priest to stop healing or a tank to stop taunting which means virtually no sequences are ever initiated. Although i was amused at the priest "summon bread and water" heroic opportunity. I think i'd be trying for that one just for shits and giggles.

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Trippy
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Reply #47 on: October 19, 2004, 08:35:23 PM

Quote from: Kageru
There's some "coin" icon on the HO wheel I believe (outside of the skills themselves?), which allows you to modify it if you use one of your "coin" icon'd skills.

Bah if that's all it is I already know how to do that. The problem I have is that the "special ability" that's triggered by the start of a chain is randomly picked from within a certain set so sometimes you get the same three buffs in a row rather than the special attack or whatever you really wanted. I was hoping you could shift around the special ability that appears.
Margalis
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Reply #48 on: October 20, 2004, 12:44:35 AM

It comes down to decision making.

In a console game like Mortal Kombat (f,d,f, lp for the spine pull!) you are making decisions every second, or every 1/3 of a second or so. It's interactive. You may not like it, but it's involving, if you choose to do something other than hit random buttons.

Twitch isn't the only type of involvement possible. Strategy games are involving. You need something to actively THINK about, and then do. You can play a fighting game or strategy game without thinking, but the best ones engage your brain as well.

I play a lot of fighting games, and we often talk about degenerative cases where the game loses that involvement. For example when one character and move is so overpowered the best strategy is just to use it over and over. Or in Madden for PS2 to choose McNabb and just throw deep and run with him over and over.

Most MMORPGs lack any real decision making at all. Nearly all of the time in combat there is a clear optimal choice. Once you know what it is, that's it. It's just learning the optimal thing, then executing it. (Which usually isn't hard either)

That's why systems like "fire works well against ice creatures!" never work. Once you learn that, you just use fire. Boring. Same for hitting a button when something flashes, doing things in a certain order, etc. There's no decision making, just learning (faq reading) then execution (pressing a button occasionally)

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Kageru
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Reply #49 on: October 20, 2004, 01:57:37 AM

This is amusing, translating info from a discussion (which is less than clear) to someone else playing a game you've never seen. It's much like chinese whispers. But here's the long version.

The start of the chain is picked randomly from a pool of three (common, uncommon and rare apparently).

One sequence of the chain shows a "green coin" in addition to the skill you should use to continue the chain.

You can use one of your "coin" skills other than the one indicated, which will change the outcome, and then continue the chain with the skill requested.

here's the thread I'm drawing from;

http://www.thesafehouse.org/viewtopic.php?t=15825

So it sounds like at points in the sequence you get a branch ("green coin") that allows you as many paths as you have "coin" skills - 1. The negative one being the skill that will continue the chain.

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Trippy
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Reply #50 on: October 20, 2004, 03:20:34 AM

Quote from: Kageru
here's the thread I'm drawing from;

http://www.thesafehouse.org/viewtopic.php?t=15825

Thanks, that helps a lot. Now if only the zones would stay up long enough for me to try this out...
Cyraxx
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Reply #51 on: October 25, 2004, 01:17:46 PM

This is so much more entaining than work.

edit: btw f,d,b,b hk is for the dragon fatality!


    OO
        <       roar!!
     |
    |
  / \


and then it bites off his torso, pretty cool, no bump mapping or vertex shading tho =x

edit edit: Crap the stupid autoformating fucked up my perfect dragon! Luckily I'm extremely talented in Paint, so this is what it looked like:


Still no vertex shading.
jpark
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Reply #52 on: October 25, 2004, 01:59:59 PM

Quote from: Cyraxx
This is so much more entaining than work.

edit: btw f,d,b,b hk is for the dragon fatality!


    OO
        <       roar!!
     |
    |
  / \


and then it bites off his torso, pretty cool, no bump mapping or vertex shading tho =x

edit edit: Crap the stupid autoformating fucked up my perfect dragon! Luckily I'm extremely talented in Paint, so this is what it looked like:


Still no vertex shading.


Hmmm... just a guess - did you manage the EQII graphic team? :)

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Reply #53 on: October 25, 2004, 02:37:19 PM

What the fuck happened in here? Why is there a Trogdoresque thing, what? Huh? Did I miss something?
Murgos
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Reply #54 on: October 25, 2004, 03:05:29 PM

Trogdoresque?  Is that the classic 70's undercover detective version of Trogdor (With cool shades and fro?)

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Samwise
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Reply #55 on: October 25, 2004, 05:14:59 PM

You're thinking of "Dangeresque", I think.

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Cyraxx
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Reply #56 on: October 25, 2004, 05:23:52 PM

The MK2 dragon looked like that, well maybe it didn't have tiny arms its been a long time. It was kind of worm like for sure.

I think Strongbad sort of copied it when he made that Trogdor the Burninator with the one bodybuilder arm and neat fire breath.
Cyraxx
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Reply #57 on: October 25, 2004, 05:31:54 PM

Okay I found a real picture of it



Exactly like my drawing.
HaemishM
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Reply #58 on: October 26, 2004, 09:11:57 AM

Yeah, there's virtually no difference between your drawing and the screenshot.

Why are you crapping up my beautiful thread of hate with this?

Fargull
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Reply #59 on: October 26, 2004, 10:10:58 AM

I dont know, but I find it far more of teh stupid than the newbie post thread in general.

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Cuular
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Reply #60 on: October 26, 2004, 01:47:40 PM

I've spent the last 4 evenings playing.  Starting on friday evening.

Now to give you the picture of where I'm coming from.  Being an "older" member of this forum, I have a computer that can handle the game on high settings at 1280X1024 very well.  

I know that my system is way above the average user, but there is no way to get the huge texture/shader requirements to run on older hardware.  The older hardware has neither the memory bandwidth,  nor the required shader hardware to run it.  Sony for whatever reason wrote this game for hardware that has yet to see the light of day.  Hoping to have that end of the work already taken care of.  Unlike the original one that was written for the Voodoo2 graphics card and lost it's good look just a few months later.  This engine will continue to get even better looking as new hardware comes out that can take advantage of it.  In the short term it may hurt sales.  In the long term it should stand up better,


I haven't noticed any of the lagging or slowdown in the graphics department.  But I've still been fed up with the load times while zoning.

Other than that, the voice acting, and music has been top knotch. The "Could you turn around and get my sword from the weapon smith across the counter" quest, I found to be funny.

I have a level 12 sorcerer, that is a level 11 crafter.  I've been able to finance crafting from selling items I've found that I can't wear.  Killing lowland snakes, klick's, and the moat mice has generally given me 2 pieces of iron or similiar armor each time I've gone through a batch of them for a quest.

I have come to both love and hate the crafting system.  It does require you to pay attention and be on top of things.  But there is way to much "randomness" to it as well.  Because when I've bought the freaking exact ingredients, in the quantities that the recipe calls for, I full well expect to not have an error related to "wrong item type" or "wrong amount" show up.

On to my crafting rule of best exp per a con.  It's best to find an item 2 levels below you, that has the most "layers" that show up when you start to craft it.  Most of the crafting exp is earned from the quality of the item, not the actual creating the item itself.  So if you are working on like an iron spike that is even con, it starts with a single "layer" available to it.  Therefor as the item is "chewed" up through the process, the best quality you can hope for is the first level.

But take a deer pie that starts with 3 "layers" and is about 2 levels below your crafting level, and you can get a good 2 layer item out of it.  Giving about 6 times the experience the even con iron stud does.

Because for each layer of the item you produce, the exp is scaled very highly.

So far it's been fun, and I'm not even partially burned out on it as I was after the 10days of WoW beta.
HaemishM
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Reply #61 on: October 26, 2004, 02:05:54 PM

Quote from: Cuular
I know that my system is way above the average user, but there is no way to get the huge texture/shader requirements to run on older hardware.  The older hardware has neither the memory bandwidth,  nor the required shader hardware to run it.  Sony for whatever reason wrote this game for hardware that has yet to see the light of day.  Hoping to have that end of the work already taken care of.  Unlike the original one that was written for the Voodoo2 graphics card and lost it's good look just a few months later.  This engine will continue to get even better looking as new hardware comes out that can take advantage of it.  In the short term it may hurt sales.  In the long term it should stand up better,


You know, at first I thought this sounded reasonable, if not entirely a smart move, IMO. But the more I think about it, the more I think that's a smokescreen. I just think they tossed all the shiney shit in, but still can't figure out how to make it run decently. And the thing that pisses me off the most is that my machine is in the minimum system requirements as posted for the game. But there is no way it will run it well, and when it does run it well, what I see will be nothing like what will be on the box.

Now, they are certainly not unique in this little bit of marketing trickery, but I see the above statement as being the new "Vision" response whenever someone complains that it runs like ass.

Merusk
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Reply #62 on: October 26, 2004, 03:36:23 PM

Quote
I know that my system is way above the average user, but there is no way to get the huge texture/shader requirements to run on older hardware. The older hardware has neither the memory bandwidth, nor the required shader hardware to run it. Sony for whatever reason wrote this game for hardware that has yet to see the light of day. Hoping to have that end of the work already taken care of. Unlike the original one that was written for the Voodoo2 graphics card and lost it's good look just a few months later. This engine will continue to get even better looking as new hardware comes out that can take advantage of it. In the short term it may hurt sales. In the long term it should stand up better,


This is also done in the hopes that there isn't some super breakthrough that renders current 3-d technology obsolete the way the Voodoo cards were.  

IMO, that's a pretty dumbass manuver.

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Cuular
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Reply #63 on: October 26, 2004, 05:33:39 PM

Quote
This is also done in the hopes that there isn't some super breakthrough that renders current 3-d technology obsolete the way the Voodoo cards were.


Well I can truly hope that they watched Mythic's success with using a 3rd party engine that was modular, and built this one as a modular engine where they could tweak parts of it to access new features.

The engine Mythic used for DAoC has some pretty good graphics now.  Who knew at launch that those fuzzy looking green things atop the tress in the forests actually were pine needles with pine cones and such buried in them.  As the engine progressed and the graphics hardware did as well, the detail started to unfold.  And now it's cool to zoom in on apple tree's and see the apples actually hanging there instead of the original splotches of red and green that looked like leaves in the fall.

I'm hoping that as the hardware gets better, that even more shiny will be seen in EQ2, as was the case with mythic's engine and the current line of hardware.  Back on the TI4600 I had when DAoC first released there was a lot it couldn't do.  On the current X800XT PE, that game looks really good.

We can just wait and see how it all unfolds.  But it still isn't going to help people that don't have the money to invest in a top of the line system.  And that is a point that I think is going to cause SOE some problems.  

Sony shot high, hoping that hardware would progress further than it has, before they released it.  Then along came upstarts like CoH, and WoW, that caused them to have to ship early, or bleed even more people away to other games.
Krakrok
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Reply #64 on: October 26, 2004, 09:54:18 PM

Quote from: Cuular
Who knew at launch that those fuzzy looking green things atop the tress in the forests actually were pine needles with pine cones and such buried in them.  As the engine progressed and the graphics hardware did as well...


Anyone can have the same trees as DAOC for $6k using SpeedTreeRT (which is what they use). And oh look.. I knew those trees in the Vanguard video looked familiar.
Kageru
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Reply #65 on: October 26, 2004, 10:34:03 PM

I've only read a little bit about the EQ2 crafting system, but it seems more evidence of their complete lack of imagination or insight. They seem to have decided that it's the number and depth of sub-components that makes crafting fun. Combine this with a dependancy on rare random drops and a tedious little mini-game and it sounds like the textbook definition of how to construct gameplay only a masochist could love. The fact that recipes are susceptible to TLC I assume is just brain damage.

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
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Trippy
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Reply #66 on: October 26, 2004, 10:43:34 PM

Quote from: Kageru
I've only read a little bit about the EQ2 crafting system, but it seems more evidence of their complete lack of imagination or insight. They seem to have decided that it's the number and depth of sub-components that makes crafting fun. Combine this with a dependancy on rare random drops and a tedious little mini-game and it sounds like the textbook definition of how to construct gameplay only a masochist could love. The fact that recipes are susceptible to TLC I assume is just brain damage.

Yup that pretty well describes it. In all my years of online gaming I've never FAAK but I almost did the first time I tried crafting. It was only my fear of dying from crafting that kept me awake.
Sky
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Reply #67 on: October 27, 2004, 08:06:31 AM

I'm with SOE on this one. They really got bit hard on EQ1 with the core requirement of the Voodoo1 card (not voodoo2, a 4mb voodoo1 was the original spec, iirc). The voodoo cards didn't become obsolete because of directx, hell, CoH is opengl. They became obsolete because they couldn't make a voodoo6 without slapping multiple gpus on it, and the funds dried up before they could design a new chip. Lack of foresight killed 3dfx, imo. The Voodoo 5 was a beautiful card, I had bought my buddy the eqholic one for xmas back when it was a modern card, and I felt it looked better than my own card, which was a TNT2. 3dfx was the master of screen processing for its time, such a nice image.
Quote
The fact that recipes are susceptible to TLC I assume is just brain damage.

Anything being TLC is brain damaged imo. I played on the EQ rp server for a while and outlevelled my newbie quests. When those quests form the foundation for a quest that spans the character's life...the benefits of TLC are so minute compared to the negative side effects...
Lanei
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Reply #68 on: October 27, 2004, 12:18:17 PM

First 2-3 hours:
It runs pretty good for me, graphics performance is smooth, with eye candy on medium-ish settings.  Zone times are short for every zone I've been in so far, and I've not seen any noticeable lag.

Noob isle was pretty well done, in my opinion, with the ship section covering the basics, and the set your class guy at the dock giving you a fair, if small overview of the class choices.  I didn't feel overly handheld through things, but never was really at a loss for what to do next.

The map sucks.  The map of Qeynos sucks REALLY BAD.  CoH really spoiled me for that.  Even the EQ1 maps were better than the eq2 maps.

Crafting is 'meh.'  Its less click more wait, like daoc, but there is a lot more feedback about the quality of item you are making.  Its still basically just waiting unless you interrupt the process early.

I like the movable furnature, though the placement ui could be better.  Housing's instanced everyone-uses-one-door system is a lot like in The Realm, not that that is a complaint, because the UO and SWG housing situations were a real negative for me. Tehy may be invisible but you don't have to see the nonsensical houses in your hunting areas.

Gameplay...  Yep, its EQ.  I wouldn't pay to play even if I could afford it.
AOFanboi
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Reply #69 on: October 27, 2004, 02:37:18 PM

Quote from: Sky
The voodoo cards didn't become obsolete because of directx, hell, CoH is opengl.

To nip that misconception in the bud: The "GL" of 3dfx and the Vodoo cards wasn't related to OpenGL (an API coming from the Unix world, in particular SGI), but stood for GLide, 3dfx' proprietary API. (After the arrival of DirectX/Direct3D, it took almost forever for PC graphics card manufacturers to support OpenGL properly, which sucked for e.g. Linux et al.)

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