Age of Conan

Cannot wait for the 30 days free game time to run out, so all the pubescent whining little kids pack up and leave, really is starting to **** me off.
 
Been having a blast on this since release, the only annoying problem I have had with it so far which im wondering whether was down to high server load at the time is that going into somewhere crowded like old tarantia, the NPCS / players can take 10 seconds or so to appear, I turn my back on them and they disappear, so have to wait again.

Game runs great though, playing on the highest settings 1680x1050 and it runs 40+ in zones 20-30 in large cities, may turn shadows down to low/medium as I read that gives a big boost to fps, other than that, looks great, runs smooth no complaints in that dept.
 
Baxtor said:
Cannot wait for the 30 days free game time to run out, so all the pubescent whining little kids pack up and leave, really is starting to **** me off.
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Sadly thats increasingly becoming the norm for online play these days, as you rightly say though usually they leave once they have to start paying monthly
 
Whats the graphics of AoC compaired to EQ2?

I know EQ2 was pretty much ground breaking for its time and you'd still have trouble running it on the highest graphic settings, even with an 8800GT.
 
Tombstone said:
Although WoW is by no means the game for me, what you are saying there is totally different.

The 3 big instances you are referring to, I assume you are meaning the 3 continents. Each area in each continent is in no way acting like an instance in itself.
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Each zone on each continent is acting like its own zone/instance with an area of crossover in which you are between both, minus the load screen. Once you move through that crossover area the area you just left on longer exist on you client and the server drops you from that zone/instance. There is no load screen because its all done on the fly but when you cross over you are still zoning in and out.

Tombstone said:
If my friend John and I are both in the barrens, I can see John (providing we are close enough of course). I do not have the situation where I can be stood right next to the same building as John, but not be able to see him because he is in another instance. If I stand on the border of Westfall looking into the next area, I can see John approaching in the next area.
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Yes your right there is only one multiple of a zone/instance but that is still what it is. The differnce is that rather than a server die due to load AoC makes many multilpes of a zone. Wow servers don't do that so they die when the load gets to high. Apples and oranges.


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Warcraft 10 millions players of which you will only every play with 5000 of them.
 
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Tombstone said:
Whoa there tiger, why not get off your high horse.

Instancing in MMOs is a very personal taste thing, some people dont mind it, others hate it.

As for your dodging, sidesteping and so forth, AC did all that in a non instanced world, in 1999. So yes, it can be done with thousands of people in the same area without latencies skyrocketing exponentially. (and in AC you could dodge arrows and spells by sidesteping/dodging too)

Why not just accept that some people dont mind MMOs with instancing (like the people who still today play DDO and CoH), whilst others really dont like instancing at all (like the people still playing UO and Daoc), instead of getting all worked up and capitalising stuff.

Its far too early at this stage to say whether AoC will be a success or whether it will be a failure, only time will tell on that. We do know that they have 400,000 accounts at the moment (although a poll this week on whether or not people would stay after the free month showed that 53% were not sure they would or definately wouldnt), perhaps AoC will grow and be an immense success, perhaps people will reach level 80 in a few weeks and decide that theres nothing really to do (a la DDO) who knows, at this stage nobody knows. All we can do is wait and see, and see if people are still raving about AoC in December.
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Hehe, sorry, didn't mean to sound like a rabid fanboi, I certainly don't "like" instancing for the sake of it, I just realise it's there for a technical reason and it's not a design decision. I haven't played AC, though I was still on 33.6kbps back then so I doubt *I* could dodge arrows by sidestepping if I were playing it! :p It's simply inevitable that, the greater the number of players connected to a server simultaneously, the greater the latency - hence back in '99 when I launched up Quake III and looked for a game of TDM or CTF every server I'd see would give me unplayable pings of 300+, whereas if I looked for Rocket Arena games (1v1 or 2v2) I could, with luck, coax my crappy connection into getting a <200 ping.

Good coding can help with this, as must have been the case in AC from what you describe, but there are limits. Hence if you have a non-instanced world like WoW with hundreds of players simultaneously connected to each zone, latencies will be higher than in a game like Guild Wars, where everything is instanced and the most you'd ever get in a PvP match would be 48 players (and that was back when it was first released when you had an 8v8v8v8v8v8 map in Tombs). The average latency dictates the style of the gameplay, which is much faster-paced in GW than in WoW - in the latter 3-5" activation times for skills are common, whereas in GW they are rare, most skills activating in 1-2". Many interrupt skills in GW had a casting time of 0.25", and skilled players were expected to be able to interrupt spells with 0.75" cast times - something I could never do!:eek: Assuming a reaction time of 0.25" (which is faster than average, but that's what a skilled mesmer in GW would have), a ping of 50ms or less would be necessary for people to be able to reliably get those interrupts to work (and damn me did they ever, they were my bane as a monk!:)), something which would not be easily achievable in a world with as many simultaneous users as WoW's. I had a guy in my guild who played a monk back in the days when spike teams were rampant, and he did well even though he was on a dial-up connection IN POLAND! I don't think he could've done that in any other online game tbh!

I'd love it if one day everyone had fantastic low-latency broadband so that developers could build massive, detailed worlds without worrying about overpopulation causing lag, but until that day everyone has to compromise - Blizzard compromised by making the gameplay slower so everyones' connection could keep up, Funcom compromised by making Conan instanced so you don't have ridiculous numbers of people all in the same area. Personally, I'll take the faster, more actiony gameplay over the increased "immersiveness", because the latter tends to go out the window as soon as I see someone called IPWNZU bunnyhop past me shouting "LOLZ!!!1" anyway! :p

And, btw, it's not a high horse, it's a mammoth!:D
 
bushmins said:
Whats the graphics of AoC compaired to EQ2?

I know EQ2 was pretty much ground breaking for its time and you'd still have trouble running it on the highest graphic settings, even with an 8800GT.
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I'd like to know this also. EQ2 on almost-max settings still looks stunning and runs reasonably well. From the screenshots posted so far AOC doesn't look much better yet suffers from the same issues EQ2 did when it was new (ie runs like a dog).

Not that it really mattes, EQ2 is practically dead now as everyones left to play AOC :p
 
Orcish-Horde said:
Each zone on each continent is acting like its own zone/instance with an area of crossover in which you are between both, minus the load screen. Once you move through that crossover area the area you just left on longer exist on you client and the server drops you from that zone/instance. There is no load screen because its all done on the fly but when you cross over you are still zoning in and out.
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Thats zoning, not instancing.

A zone in an MMO is any individual area, sometimes moving from that area to another area requires a loading screen, sometimes not. Depends upon how the game is written, however there exists only one singular version of the zone.

An instance in an MMO is any individual area, which is replicated multiple times, so that not everyone is in the same version of the area.

That is the fundamental difference between a zone and an instance.

WoW does not have instanced areas (dungeons excepted), it does have zones. Zones do not equal instances. Its a common misconception that people get confused with what the difference is between a zone and an instance. Whichever way you cut it, the zones in AoC are instanced and the ones in WoW are not. Not unless of course you're going to define every individual server as an instance.
 
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manveruppd said:
I haven't played AC, though I was still on 33.6kbps back then so I doubt *I* could dodge arrows by sidestepping if I were playing it! :p
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Hehehe..I remember those days , when I started on UO in 1997 I was on 33.6kps internet too, used to cost me 300-400 pound a month on the bill with the amount I played :D
 
dbmzk1 said:
I'd like to know this also. EQ2 on almost-max settings still looks stunning and runs reasonably well. From the screenshots posted so far AOC doesn't look much better yet suffers from the same issues EQ2 did when it was new (ie runs like a dog).

Not that it really mattes, EQ2 is practically dead now as everyones left to play AOC :p
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Looks a lot better than EQ2 imho. The view distance and detail in certian area's in amazing plus very well and often used bumpmapping. Screenshots don't really do it justice.

ps. where can i upload 1920x1200 images - imageshak can't handle them :/
 
Vtec9k said:
Looks a lot better than EQ2 imho. The view distance and detail in certian area's in amazing plus very well and often used bumpmapping. Screenshots don't really do it justice.

ps. where can i upload 1920x1200 images - imageshak can't handle them :/
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Yeh I noticed how great the bumpmapping was, especially inside dungeons/crypts etc.
 
dbmzk1 said:
Not that it really mattes, EQ2 is practically dead now as everyones left to play AOC :p
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I install the EQ2 demo every now and again and its definatally never dead. Infact i installed it over last night and have playing on a few servers i can see that the community is still thriving. It seem since the last time i played the trial you can now do a lot more than 'trial of the isle'.

It still seems to run very slow.
 
Found some nice pics on xtreme forums on maximum settings.
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Tombstone said:
A zone in an MMO is any individual area, sometimes moving from that area to another area requires a loading screen, sometimes not. Depends upon how the game is written, however there exists only one singular version of the zone.

An instance in an MMO is any individual area, which is replicated multiple times, so that not everyone is in the same version of the area.

That is the fundamental difference between a zone and an instance.

WoW does not have instanced areas (dungeons excepted), it does have zones. Zones do not equal instances. Its a common misconception that people get confused with what the difference is between a zone and an instance. Whichever way you cut it, the zones in AoC are instanced and the ones in WoW are not. Not unless of course you're going to define every individual server as an instance.
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Exactly correct, except the term "instance" tends to confuse people: the zones in AoC are not instanced in the same way as instances in WoW, DDO or GW: there, each instance is created specifically for you and your party, and you won't run into anyone else while wandering around in it. In AoC you'll run into loads of random people while wandering around in such a zone, and you'll have people leaving and entering the "instance" all the time while you're there. The only difference is that if the number of people entering exceeds a certain amount the game creates a duplicate instance of that zone. The zone is still persistent, there's just two copies of it. If your friends are in the other instance, you can jump between them and join them, whereas in most other MMOs where instancing is employed the instances are all closed: nobody besides you and your party can enter them.

In short, this IS a persistent world where you'll adventure with other people, you're not all segregated into closed instances as soon as you leave town - the only difference is that the number of people in each area is regulated, which from my perspective is all advantages, as you have fewer people to compete with the same mob spawns with, and it keeps latencies down. (There's nothing more ridiculous than queueing for a quest boss!:rolleyes: )

The way it works is more reminiscent of the different "districts" of the outposts in GW rather than the explorable instances: more copies are created as needed dynamically, and only after a certain number of players is exceeded, but the outpost itself is persistent - ie. there's always at least 1 copy of it, it's not created specifically for you.
 
Sigh, bought my copy from a supermarket and it ended up with only disc one in the frigging box, cant wait tho till tommorrow so been downloading the 15 gigs remaining on the resource database Lol..

Lets hope Conan Answers my prayers to end game raiding evolution, on from EQ.

EQ2 was a failure, WoW doesnt do itself any justice at the moment with only raiding to do at level 80 (no aa grind fests for alternate abilities) so I am hoping something, just something is different in Conan in the end game..........Just hope its not another rehash and Funcom are re-inventing the wheel...
 
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