Age of conan, Open beta: May 1st 2008.

[Venkman]

Something unexpected has happened over the last few hours.

The game has gotten much smoother. The load times are down dramatically and crashes have become much less common.

Whatever they did seems to have converted the client from whatever folks were playing during the PvP weekend to the client I've been playing on for a month or so (admittedly very on-and-off). There's also that caching thing described earlier to consider, but I'm inclined to actually believe in the "magic client to fix all problems" here because it was such a huge difference between what I was playing and what folks were reporting from that weekend.

[Count Nerfedalot]

I remember reading about how players would eventually repopulate and build towns and such but I had two big problems with that:

1. The entire world felt like a graveyard with no hubs of activity.

2. I suspected the "rebuilding the world" aspect was just some tacked-on backstory to cover for the fact that they wanted to push the game out quickly with minimal features. "We created a shitty incomplete game" doesn't sound as good as "we left out towns and NPCs on purpose as part of our master plan!"

Actually, it really was part of their brilliant master plan, as well as being a cover for the fact they didn't want to invest the resources to provide NPCs.  One of the leading game design theories back then was that NPCs were actually bad for immersion and whatnot.  Players supposedly would provide a much more realistic and immersive society than NPCs.  Especially given the crude vending-machines or fixed-location menu-based response tree of NPC "AI" at the time (think EQ1).  The number of ways this particular game theory is utter horseshit is almost infinite, but just for giggles allow me to point out a few of the electric pink elephants crowding that particular room.

Exhibit A:   SWG was also designed with this theory in mind, and started with only a few NPCs in the world which were then actually supposed to be removed from the world once the player population grew sufficiently to provide the adequate backdrop of a bustling living city.  Heh, they actually ended up adding a few more NPCs here and there during beta just to make the cities seem a little less like the ghost towns they were, again with the intent to remove them later.  Remember the crowds and bustling activity going on in the backgrounds of (most) city scenes in the movies?  Remember the tumbleweeds and shutters-banging-in-the-wind feeling of 99% of the city spaces 99% of the time in the game?  Which made a more realistic and immersive backdrop for playing out stories of a few exceptional people rising up from the masses to do extraordinary things?

Exhibit B:  CoH took the opposite approach and filled its city spaces with normal people (NPCs) doing normal things (walking, standing, talking, arguing, mugging, running, driving, honking in traffic, painting graffiti, etc).  The world seemed like a place that existed whether the players were there or not, yet the players were able to enter that world as heroes and do heroic things, and (briefly) make the world a better place.   And the common people reacted accordingly, running away from fights, thanking/praising the players for rescues, etc.  Never mind game mechanics, technical issues or whatever, which city environment seemed more realistic/immersive and at the same time was more fun to interact with (or ignore at will)?  The mostly empty SWG cities or the NEVER empty CoH cities?

Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of everything is crap."  This is probably too charitable an estimate of the value of "player-generated content".  It applies when judging the value of a player-made dungeon or quest.  And it also applies when evaluating the ability of players "doing their thing" in a game world to provide a fun and sustainable world backdrop by themselves for all the other players in the game.  If the only "people" in the world are players, with no NPCs, then at least 90% of a player's interactions with other "people" will be in that crap category, be it asshats, sociopaths, weirdos, farmers, deaf-mute soloers, or whatever.  Is that what you want 90% of your game's impression to be based on?  That last question is hyperbole, I know.  There are lots of other factors that will go into someone's impression of a game, but you get my point, I hope.

The Count's NPC Postulate: If you wish to create a realistic MMO game-world, NPC's are not only useful but almost mandatory for filling all the roles a world needs but which players aren't interested in filling. (Apparently, moisture farmer and cafeteria cook are roles players are willing to fill, but there must still many others - like maybe mucking stables or lubing mechs or changing hospital bedpans or something?)

The Count's NPC Corollary: The key to making a game world more realistic, meaningful, and immersive, is NOT to eliminate the obviously artificial NPCs in favor of an all-player world, but to add more, and more meaningful, NPCs to the world, giving the players an ever larger and richer background of ordinary people against which their extraordinary deeds are shown even more extaorindarily. (Or something.  I'm still working on refining that one down to something more pithy.  )

Cynic's Perspective: The whole idea of eliminating NPCs in favor of purely player occupied MMO game worlds seems to boil down to one of two cases: starry-eyed ivory-tower theoreticians-which-refuse-to-be-bothered-by-facts (yes, I'm looking at you, Raph  ); or lazy, short-sighted, or under-funded devs seeking an excuse to cut an expensive component out of their schedule.  Note I'm being specific about MMO game worlds here, because there are other situations where having no NPC's may be workable, such as non-game worlds (eg Second Life), and non-worldy games (fps, sports, etc).

[Tale]

I read the pink bit about the elephants.

[Cadaverine]

I really, really want to like the game.  Unfortunately, the fact that it seems to eat through my 2gb of ram in about 30-45 mins is really putting a damper on my ability to give two shits about this one.  Which is a shame, because I like the feel of the world, and the combat mechanics.  However, given the shitfest of lag, and lurching about that I get when I leave an instanced area, I shudder to think what the world pvp will be like.   

[Threash]

I really, really want to like the game.  Unfortunately, the fact that it seems to eat through my 2gb of ram in about 30-45 mins is really putting a damper on my ability to give two shits about this one.  Which is a shame, because I like the feel of the world, and the combat mechanics.  However, given the shitfest of lag, and lurching about that I get when I leave an instanced area, I shudder to think what the world pvp will be like.   

Same here, ive been waiting forever to get into the beta and now that im finally in i can barely stand to play.  I REALLY like the game but i just cant play something that lags and stutters and crashes.

[Rasix]

Why is this taking 10 fucking minutes to log into the game for the first time.    Reading content...

edit: and now a blank screen with a mouse pointer and music.  Viva Funcom 

[Threash]

Why is this taking 10 fucking minutes to log into the game for the first time.    Reading content...

The first five times i tried to log in i ended up shutting it down cause i thought it had stopped responding, eventually i just let it run and got in after about ten minutes.

[Signe]

I read the pink bit about the elephants.

Because it was in pink, right?  Me too.

[Signe]

Yikes.  I just logged in again and suddenly I'm stalling all over the place, even in an instance, and sometimes I get a black screen with huge bananas on it.  WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME???

[ShenMolo]

While it has improved for me, there are still numerous crashes and occasional long loading times.

Maybe after spending Thursday night and Friday banging my head against the monitor, I'm imagining an improved game.

EDIT:
I have also been setting my Shaders to 2.0, setting AgeofConan.exe priority to HIGH via the task manager, resetting my Processor Affinity to a single Core, and some of the other voodoo currently being pitched on the various forums.

[Tarami]

While it has improved for me, there are still numerous crashes and occasional long loading times.

Maybe after spending Thursday night and Friday banging my head against the monitor, I'm imagining an improved game.

EDIT:
I have also been setting my Shaders to 2.0, setting AgeofConan.exe priority to HIGH via the task manager, resetting my Processor Affinity to a single Core, and some of the other voodoo currently being pitched on the various forums.

While going witch-doc, try running Windows Media Player in the background. It tunes the timeslicing of certain media APIs which makes some games load and play faster. Ol' tricksiness.

[Signe]

No, ShenMolo, people in chat and on the forums are reporting improvement, too.  I think I just suddenly got buggy.  Probably God punishing for coming out of the reality TV closet.  I deserve it.  I'm a wee bit worried about the bananas.    

[tmp]

edit: and now a blank screen with a mouse pointer and music.  Viva Funcom 

I hear this bug can be fixed by switching to window mode and then back to full screen, or the other way around. Some of this stuff is  indeed.

[Signe]

This game launches in sixteen days.   

[Soukyan]

This game launches in sixteen days.   

Gold.

[Rasix]

WTF is with all of the freezes and 5-10 minutes to load a zone.  It seems like it's all system performance too.  I haven't really noticed any latency (or people for that matter).

[Evildrider]

WTF is with all of the freezes and 5-10 minutes to load a zone.  It seems like it's all system performance too.  I haven't really noticed any latency (or people for that matter).

I lost connection like 5 times in a 20 minute span.. got tired of it, and just logged out.  Not sure what is up with that.

[Simond]

If people really want to see nipples, they know about this internet thing, right?

Or, you know, a mirror.

[Lantyssa]

Looking at one's own isn't as fun.

[Der Helm]

Yikes.  I just logged in again and suddenly I'm stalling all over the place, even in an instance, and sometimes I get a black screen with huge bananas on it.  WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME???

[schild]

[Signe]

Remember to detach your bananas.  They last way longer that way.  Also, peel from the bottom to avoid strings.

[Lantyssa]

Would have been funnier with a period, Schild.  It needs to be deadpanned.

[schild]

Would have been funnier with a period, Schild.  It needs to be deadpanned.

I agree.

Or rather, i would, if the original had one.

However:

Bananas. Perfect for Orange Juice.

[UnSub]

and sometimes I get a black screen with huge bananas on it. 

Merusk sees nipples everywhere. You see bananas. It takes all kinds.

[Signe]

I only see bananas when they're there.  Merusk sees nipples when they aren't there! 

So there.

[Draegan]

Played around a little today, being in the general beta.  Logging into one of the night instances, underhill? the game took 15 minutes to load and then 10 minutes to load the textures.   

However the rest of the game runs fine.  There are monumental memory leaks everywhere. 

However if you can get rid of the leaks and the "stuttering" then this game will be very very fun.

[sam, an eggplant]

Yep that's the general consensus, the game itself is pretty good, but it's lacking massive amounts of polish. Another 6 months and it could have been amazing. But then it would be competing with WAR and the WOW expansion pack, so who knows.

[Aez]

All aboard?

[Signe]

Even though I think the game itself is good fun, I agree with Aez.  This launch is going to be bad bad bad.  I can't wait.  I'll be there, rubbernecking.

[Threash]

Even though I think the game itself is good fun, I agree with Aez.  This launch is going to be bad bad bad.  I can't wait.  I'll be there, rubbernecking.

Ditto, a good game having an irrepairably shitty launch pisses me off a whole lot more than some pos like vanguard failing.

[Morfiend]

What happened to Grunk? He should be here telling everyone that they are crazy and there is no way this game could do anything wrong.

[Signe]

I miss Grunk. 

[sam, an eggplant]

A light that burns twice as bright burns half as long-- and you have burned so very, very, brightly, Grunk.

[Signe]

A light that burns twice as bright burns half as long-- and you have burned so very, very, brightly, Grunk.

We miss your face around here, Grunk!