AOC - State of the Game: February 2008

[Nerf]

AC1 had directional attacks (low, medium, high) and different AC for different zones in 1999.  It's been almost 10 years now, I wouldn't call it groundbreaking.

This game will be fun for the gore and decapitations, I think the combat is going to end up getting macro'd for most people, so it'll be pretty neat having to do the different swings for different combos in the beginning, but it's going to boil down to press 1-9 in the end.

[Tebonas]

Or Omega (1987)

Nothing is new and groundbreaking anymore. Its about finding the right mixture.

[Ratman_tf]

AO had the aggresive/defensive slider. Which everyone set to max aggresive and forgot about. 

[K9]

AO had the aggresive/defensive slider. Which everyone set to max aggresive full def and forgot about. 

FIFY

[Ratman_tf]

AO had the aggresive/defensive slider. Which everyone set to max aggresive full def and forgot about. 

FIFY

lolwut? First thing I do with new chars (when I played AO) was set full agg.

[WayAbvPar]

I thought the first thing everyone did in AO is rebuild their newly formatted HDD.

[Ratman_tf]

I thought the first thing everyone did in AO is rebuild their newly formatted HDD.

 

[K9]

lolwut? First thing I do with new chars (when I played AO) was set full agg.

Past level 50 or so there's really no reason to be full agg FWIW. I don't think I moved off full def except for odd situations in 2 years or so :o

:Sorry for going offtopic:

[Phred]

I thought the first thing everyone did in AO is rebuild their newly formatted HDD.

Only if they were silly enough to subscribe in the first 6 months.

[Signe]

I was afraid to play AO after it tried to stab me in the face with my computer.  I might give AoC a try, but only after I'm sure everyone I know has survived.

[stray]

Technically, AO was the first MMO I ever bought and played. I liked the name. Before that, I was just looking over the shoulder of my friend playing AO. UO -- [edit] Late edit.

That was late 2003, early 2004-ish when I played it. Enough time to get their shit together. And it did run well, I guess. It just sucked. Also, when I started seeing high level characters, I was completely demoralized.

[Hoax]

Post WoW new MMO resentment?

AoC if it isn't broken might be pretty damn cool, the chance of it not being broken is pretty fucking slim.

[Slayerik]

I wouldn't go so far as to say AO sucked. It had some drawbacks but it did many things well, and I may be sounding like a broken record.

Atmosphere is being underrated here. How many virtual worlds do you go into and think....'this doesn't really feel alive.' AO was not like that, the game's graphics and music were excellent (at that time compared to other MMOs).

If AoC can reproduce atmosphere with some fun and good PVP, my Eve guy will be doing some long trains for months. If they try to suck Wow's cock like so many other recent MMOs...I'll make it about a month I imagine.

[Slayerik]

http://pc.ign.com/articles/853/853174p2.html

Back on topic (kinda), a quicky review of some of the city building and mounted combat info.

[Xuri]

GDC08 Presentation - Rather lengthy presentation showing plenty of gameplay, including a short dungeon crawl, some mounted combat, city-building and battlekeeps.

EDIT: Oopsy, city-building wasn't in there. That was shown in another video from january or some such.

[tazelbain]

If you're a member of one of the eight or nine best guilds on the server, your city is entered into PvP eligibility, which means others can attack, break apart structures, and if they manage to smash your keep, can take over. After a keep is destroyed, there should be enough resources lying around so the conquerors can at least build a keep of their own, so they don't have to wander around scouring for resources to merely claim ownership.

Seems like a strange distinction.  I would guess you could still camp a city even if it isn't attackable.

[Lantyssa]

GDC08 Presentation - Rather lengthy presentation showing plenty of gameplay, including a short dungeon crawl, some mounted combat, city-building and battlekeeps.

I like!

[NiX]

GDC08 Presentation

WHY DOES HE HAVE TO SAY "UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" SO FUCKING MUCH!?

[Draegan]

Because English is probably his 4th language.  However it was extremely annoying and someone else should of done the presentation.

[Aez]

"UHHHHHHH"

The stealth system is SO hackable.

"UHHHHHHH"

[tmp]

edit: removed the original comment about performance; turns out it was the movie viewer apparently acting up, with it back to normal the game itself seems to move ok. 

[Engels]

I don't know about the rest of the game, but the character facial customization was very nifty, as was the horse back animation. Best I've seen so far. Seemed to lack the sluggish feel Vanguard had. I know, I know, VG.exe, but shut up.

[Slayerik]

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=58241

Kinda lame, but go pray or something.

[Mrbloodworth]

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=58241

Kinda lame, but go pray or something.

Good hype machine.

[Threash]

This game seems to similar to shadowbane its starting to worry me.

Strength: Gives you a damage bonus for melee attacks and also increases the attack rating for certain weapons.
Dexterity: Gives you a bonus to your defense rating and increases the attack rating for certain weapons.
Constitution: Determines the amount of health and stamina your character has.
Intelligence: Determines the amount of mana your character has, and increases magic rating for mages.
Wisdom: Determines the amount of mana your character has, and increases the magic rating for priests.

That could have been copy/pasted from the sb site as far as i can tell.  Yeah, yeah str makes you hit harder and int gives you mana works for every game, but the wording is damn near the same.  Attack rating vs defense rating, health and stamina, etc, it all sounds very shadowbanish.

[Aez]

This game seems to similar to shadowbane its starting to worry me.

Strength: Gives you a damage bonus for melee attacks and also increases the attack rating for certain weapons.
Dexterity: Gives you a bonus to your defense rating and increases the attack rating for certain weapons.
Constitution: Determines the amount of health and stamina your character has.
Intelligence: Determines the amount of mana your character has, and increases magic rating for mages.
Wisdom: Determines the amount of mana your character has, and increases the magic rating for priests.

That could have been copy/pasted from the sb site as far as i can tell.  Yeah, yeah str makes you hit harder and int gives you mana works for every game, but the wording is damn near the same.  Attack rating vs defense rating, health and stamina, etc, it all sounds very shadowbanish.

You never played [D&D], so I'm going to cut you some slack. Trust me. Just turn around and walk away. - credit goes to Tycho.

[Threash]

Bleh ive played pretty much everything under the sun, including dnd long before i got online not to mention practically every single mmo and the first thing i thought when i read that was "that sounds exactly like sb".  The sb combat system was the best thing about that game, or the only good thing about it i guess, so this is actually a good thing in my book.

[Velorath]

Bleh ive played pretty much everything under the sun, including dnd long before i got online not to mention practically every single mmo and the first thing i thought when i read that was "that sounds exactly like sb". 

Are you forgetting the green text or something?

[Falwell]

GDC08 Presentation

WHY DOES HE HAVE TO SAY "UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" SO FUCKING MUCH!?

It's a common occurrence in their presentations. I'm not sure if it's the language barrier, computer geeks being gunshy in front of a camera, hard liquor, or a combination of these but it is distracting as hell when viewing their material.

[Velorath]

AOC system requirements:

Minimum Specifications:

OS: Windows Vista/XP
Processor: 3GHz Pentium IV
RAM: 1GB RAM
Video Card: Shader Model 2.0 and 128MB RAM: NVIDIA GeForce 5800 or ATI 9800

Recommended Specifications:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz (E6600) or better
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 or better
RAM: 2GB or more

[Falwell]

AOC system requirements:

Minimum Specifications:

OS: Windows Vista/XP
Processor: 3GHz Pentium IV
RAM: 1GB RAM
Video Card: Shader Model 2.0 and 128MB RAM: NVIDIA GeForce 5800 or ATI 9800

Recommended Specifications:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz (E6600) or better
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 or better
RAM: 2GB or more

So much for those "Similar to Oblivion" system requirements. Their minimum is Oblivion's recommended.

I hate to say it, but those steep requirements may have just insured that AoC bombs.

[K9]

What were Vanguard's requirements again?

[Falwell]

Vanguard's were...

System Requirements
Windows 2000/XP
2.4gig Intel processor or 2400+ or higher model AMD processor
512Mb ram
100% DirectX 9.0c compatible computer
100% DirectX compatible keyboard or input device
Vertex and Pixel shader 2.0 compatible hardware with 128mb of texture memory
100% DirectX compatible sound card
56k+ internet connection
16x speed dvd rom
20 gigabytes hard drive space

Recommended Specifications
Windows 2000/XP/Vista
3.0 gig Intel processor or 3500+ or higher model AMD processor
2 Gb ram
Vertex and Pixel shader 2.0 compatible hardware with 256mb of texture memory
DirectSound compatible audio hardware
Broadband internet connection
16x speed dvd rom
20 gigabytes hard drive space

This is sure to be a completely different scenario than Vanguard however.

[Merusk]

Now is when the compare those to the Steam system survey and laugh, right?  I'm 'old' and don't upgrade my PC every three years and my vid card every 18 months anymore so I'm not up on what's the latest and greatest these days.

[Baldrake]

When AoC releases in 2010, those requirements will appear quite modest.