Anarchy Online gfx update

[SnakeCharmer]

Alpha version of new build.

Hell of an improvement. 

[Merusk]

No SS's for those of us whose offices block such common internet hangouts?

[SnakeCharmer]

Before:




After (screen capture of video, same scene and view)



Probably some better examples out there.  I'll take a more indepth look around.

[Merusk]

Not bad.  Any examples of the avatars or are they going to stick with the same ones?  I can't imagine that looking good.

[Mrbloodworth]

Looks like the change is . Distance Fog. Water. Addition of shadows. and Texture filtering by distance.

[SnakeCharmer]

Not bad.  Any examples of the avatars or are they going to stick with the same ones?  I can't imagine that looking good.

Don't know.  That's something I'd really like to find out as well.

[Soukyan]

Not bad.  Any examples of the avatars or are they going to stick with the same ones?  I can't imagine that looking good.

I don't think they're updating the avatar graphics. It does look like in addition to the water updates, shadows, and texture filtering, they may have added more ground clutter. Not much else that I could notice, but shadows with proper dynamic lighting can make a huge difference.

[LK]

OMG, they Sony'd it up!

[tmp]

Looks like the change is . Distance Fog. Water. Addition of shadows. and Texture filtering by distance.

From the linked video it apperas there's also specular mapping and --unless my memory is failing-- they planted nice new grass. The dynamic shadows are likely to make huge difference -- their Shadowlands area was pretty as it was, with this update it might wind up quite spectacular.

[Krakrok]

Looks like they installed the same (or similar) new sky system as Second Life.

[Tale]

If I remember correctly (and Google supports me) Anarchy Online was originally intended to be shut down after four years. The intention was to run a four-year plot cycle, then close it down permanently. Here we are six and a half years later, looking at upgraded graphics :) Still gonna be an insane grind though.

[SurfD]

Its a shame that the textures look terrible however.  The new graphics bells and whistles additions make this even more noticable.

[tmp]

If I remember correctly (and Google supports me) Anarchy Online was originally intended to be shut down after four years. The intention was to run a four-year plot cycle, then close it down permanently. Here we are six and a half years later, looking at upgraded graphics :) Still gonna be an insane grind though.

They still have the ongoing plot i think, maybe reaching the conclusion of it got just as delayed as their new MMO release.

[Sairon]

The grind is in fact not as humongous as it seems. Sure there's a total of like 250 levels or so to get, but with every new expansion xp for previous levels have been significantly buffed up. Me and some mates subbed for ~2 months a few years back, before Alien Invasion. During that time I reached level 205. The game isn't exactly newbie friendly though.

[5150]

AO has always looked better than it played and always had the potential to be a much better game (in terms of story and RP) than it is.

It _is_ grindy though - Team Missions for those that dont have SL and SL for those that do. NW and AI are only for those in the uber guilds and I can't comment on LE as I've never played it.

Maybe it isnt actually too grindy if youre just looking to level up but if you dont want to pay out of your ass for some of the stuff (which you'd need to grind to get the cash for unless you get lucky with a loot drop) then youre stuck camping certain timed spawns (18 hours in some cases) as well as stuck at certain level points if your looking for particular team mission boss loot drops (which only occur at those levels)

and dont get me started on tradeskills.....

(yes I played an Engineer!  )

[Mrbloodworth]

40mb video trailer (On some guild site)

[SnakeCharmer]

I don't think they're updating the avatar graphics.

Bleh.

So great looking environment with shoddy looking avatars.

Fail.

[Draegan]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/29912.html

Found this on another board. 

[Slayerik]

Anyone else remember this game as frickin beautiful for its time? Crazy what a few years can do.

I still remember being able to fly for the first time as my MP.

So lets see, it introduced instanced PVE...flying mounts...2 Realm PVP... Not too shabby on the innovation side. Hell, Blizzard took AO, made it fantasy setting, and made it more casual friendly and able to run on older boxes :) And maybe a few other things .. heh

Here's to hoping AoC can innovate a little, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Rasix]

So lets see, it introduced instanced PVE...flying mounts...2 Realm PVP... Not too shabby on the innovation side. Hell, Blizzard took AO, made it fantasy setting, and made it more casual friendly and able to run on older boxes :) And maybe a few other things .. heh

Lets not forget the innovations of servers crashing every 5 minutes 2 days before the end of beta and a post release patch that broke the entire game.

Funcom's reach far, far exceeded their grasp.  This is what scares me for Conan.  When I see lot of innovation and ambitious goals coming from them, I can't help but think they'd have been better off just refining a formula.

And for what it's worth, I liked AO when it worked.  It was different enough while still being somewhat familiar.  And I really liked instancing (when it worked).

[Dren]

I only played it for a couple of month (one free month and one paid.)  It was fun for awhile from a casual solo point of view, but it sure did get repetitive on the instances, etc.  Without groups I was stuck doing the same ones over and over.  Same maps, same mobs, etc.  Everytime I left the initial city to check things out, I got ganked by wandering mobs, so I took the message, "You aren't ready yet."

I don't remember the graphics ever turning me off.  I like the difference shown in those pics but it look more like an upgrade that will influence subscribers, not attract new ones.  I mean, for a cheaper game that has a free to download and play for a month system, it was just fine before.  I certainly wouldn't have said that was preventing them from being more succesful.

I guess I would have expected some improvements to make the game more friendly to the newb, the soloist, and the casual.

[Ratman_tf]

Hm. Instancing and soloing were the things that were cool at first, but just led me to play it as an offline solo RPG. Which is fine considering you can play the game for free now, but I've got Hellgate: London to scratch that itch now.

[Nija]

Tits on a bull.

[Slyfeind]

Very impressive. I liked the end of the trailer with the "STILL ALIVE" sign there. I'm not too fond of the blue skies, though.

[Yegolev]

Anyone else remember this game as frickin beautiful for its time?

No.  Unless you are only comparing it to other MOGs, then maybe.

[Slayerik]

Anyone else remember this game as frickin beautiful for its time?

No.  Unless you are only comparing it to other MOGs, then maybe.

For a long time, MMOs were my thing. Now I'm a part timer :) Ah well, I remember it as pretty. And I loved killing leets and eleets! Best noob zone ever!

[KyanMehwulfe]

Anyone else remember this game as frickin beautiful for its time?

Just the soundtrack. Still the best music in a MMO.

Game did have some nice sun sets and rises though because of the nice (by 01 standards) view distance.

[Koyasha]

I don't know how many people are like me and how many are not, but I care a lot more about the way my character looks than how pretty the landscape is.  If a character graphics update was forthcoming sometime soon, I would be a lot more interested in taking another look around AO, but with the same old character graphics, this doesn't really get my attention at all.

[Ratman_tf]

I don't know how many people are like me and how many are not, but I care a lot more about the way my character looks than how pretty the landscape is.  If a character graphics update was forthcoming sometime soon, I would be a lot more interested in taking another look around AO, but with the same old character graphics, this doesn't really get my attention at all.

That's kinda what I was thinking. The landscape, past a certain point of quality, isn't as important as the character you see right in front of you, or the mobs your fighting.

I'm sure the screenshots show a certain something for the graphics hoe's here, but I think they look pretty much the same. I'd turn all that  crap off for performance reasons anyway. Especially the big three troublemakers: Lighting, shadows and particle effects.

Oh, and reflections. My god, there's a lot of horsepower saved right there if you turn that shit off.

[Draegan]

Animations and character control trump any pretty/ugly graphics.

[Dren]

Animations and character control trump any pretty/ugly graphics.

Completely agree.  If they were just stick people, but moved flawlessly and under my complete control, I'd be all over it.

Animations aside, I'd say this is one aspect I loved about UO when I had my latency licked.  With the standard 2d graphics, and all bells and whistles turned off, I had really nice control.  The graphics sucked.  The animations sucked.  I still loved playing my character on low lag periods because it just felt right.

WoW has this down pretty well too.  Not the best graphics for character or landscapes, but you move smoothly and you have pretty damn good control of your actions.  I turn everything down just to get even more.  Graphics are cool, but if I move like I'm in mud all the time, forget it!

[Draegan]

I just recently played VG when they offered free play over the holidays.  I was quite impressed with the combat animations of my halfling rogue.  Best I've seen in the MMO genre.

[Engels]

I think you guys forget how awsome AO character models where for not only MMOs, but for video games in general at the time they were released. They were not blocky or wooden like EQ or DAoC; they had curves and shiny surfaces, 'realistic' motion animations, and fantastic amounts of animated emotes.

By today's standards, sure, they need a revamp, but you guys are talking like AO never had anything going for it, and that's way off the mark.

[Dren]

I think you guys forget how awsome AO character models where for not only MMOs, but for video games in general at the time they were released. They were not blocky or wooden like EQ or DAoC; they had curves and shiny surfaces, 'realistic' motion animations, and fantastic amounts of animated emotes.

By today's standards, sure, they need a revamp, but you guys are talking like AO never had anything going for it, and that's way off the mark.

Sorry, that wasn't my intent.  As I said, I didn't feel like anything graphical was their issue.  I was just agreeing that if they were to go after graphics, it would have been better time and money spent on the characters, not the landscape.

Actually, I'd rather they looked at the ability to solo and make it more casual friendly.  Not that it isn't casual friendly, but if you play casual and solo, you don't progress very fast and it becomes a single player rpg very quickly.  It is not a very good single player RPG by any means.

[Slayerik]

I think you guys forget how awsome AO character models where for not only MMOs, but for video games in general at the time they were released. They were not blocky or wooden like EQ or DAoC; they had curves and shiny surfaces, 'realistic' motion animations, and fantastic amounts of animated emotes.

By today's standards, sure, they need a revamp, but you guys are talking like AO never had anything going for it, and that's way off the mark.

What he said.