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What game engine will AoC use,should we be concerned.
Sickpup
Member Posts: 382
AoC has a good license,decent puplisher,okay developer,and strong backer(microsoft).It also has the potential to be a very deep and awesome pvp game.My only concern is the game engine itself.Doe's anyone has the scoop on what thier using.Is it in house or licensed ,whats the name of it.Is it working ok.Any info would be appreciated.
Comments
All canceled. Waiting on Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning.
The DreamWorld graphics engine was developed by Funcom circa 2000. Other computer games powered by DreamWorld technology include Anarchy Online and its various expansion packs. When Funcom began developing Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, the Norwegian company reviewed its existing technology base and decided to focus on the further evolution of their proprietary DreamWorld engine as opposed to licensing a third-party engine like many online RPG companies do. As such, Funcom began to retool their engine with the overall design, pipeline and implementation process was taken into account. In light of these changes, the DreamWorld engine has been rebuilt for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures with new features, special effects and optimizations.
For information regarding engine details, visit this article --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Conan
(Thanks Falconer from the AoC forums for this info)
That Funcom is using a retooled version of the engine they used for Anarchy Online, should we be be concerned? Yes - Freaked out? No. I would hope they are applying what they have learned over the past 6 years and that AoC comes off polished and professional. But two things give me pause, AO still, to this day, has some really wacky graphical shit going on. (You can play the basic game for free and see what I mean.) And second, why the push to DX10? By the Holidays when this game is due to be released Vista and DX10 still wont be a large share of the market - why kiss Microsoft's ass? Hummm.
They have to do the DX9 code path anyway, why are they diluting their resources doing both? I'm just curious why they feel that doing a DX10 version now, is so important. To most of us it will just be a bullet point of no significant value. Even if I have a DX10 compliant video card, there is no chance I'll have Vista. So again, I have to ask, why kiss Microsoft's ass?
It has nothing to do with kissing Microsoft's ass, as you put it. Apparently by your logic, DX9 is good enough. So when DX10 becomes widely usable and other newer games start arriving taking it into account, AoC can still be sitting there with DX9 because it was stupid to be ahead of the game.
DX10 compatibility is just that. People with DX9 cards or those who don't want Vista can still play with no drawbacks, and those with DX10 cards and Vista can enjoy their mild eye candy boost and feel leet. Everybody is covered, and AoC is ready for whatever comes it's way technologically, instead of being held back by built in limits. I believe they learned from the being stuck with DX7 while everything else had DX9 with AO. It shows they have learned from past mistakes, as well as they are looking into the future.
You can be concerned about the engine all you want... Concern yourself to death if you want. You will only feel real silly when you actually see it. People let games like Vanguard and DnL pass, screaming "Awesome graphixxx!!" about that amateur junk... then pretend to be concerned about AoC? Its impossible to have faith in humanity, there are people in it.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
Okay the last two posts were totally uninformative and pointless,but I'm not expecting 100% helpfull,substantive replies like the previous 6 were.But even six out of eight is excellent sign.
anyways ,obvioulsly since microscam has thier xbox dx10 capable(yet they say it cant be done on XP) I'm sure thier assisting and have a vested interest in AoC in order to further thier console escapades.Since DX10 is supposedly part of the os unlike 9 and earlier.So microsoft will soon have a monoply on the gaming graphics standard.This is kind of a different topic,but It will be interesting to see what plays out.Being the only DX10 video card maker atm,Nvidia was in the microscam camp on this one.Also ATI gets bought by amd who has lost thier top spot as a game chip to Intel,and have nothing but bargin bin cards compaired to Nvidia,that being the case I don't forsee another grphics api otw,were gonna be stuck buying new boards that can run ddr2 for vista,and handle 8gb ram in 4 slots in the near future to run a bloated OS,just for DX10.
In any case, glad I could help, if at all.
Well as far as vista and ram,It eats 700mb at idle if you run 2gb of ram.With vent,and other small aps in the backround figure 800mb.leaves me 1.2gb for games.Iv'e got games now that can eat more than that.And my comp was built with ddr400 512mb dual channel sticks.The slots are full, and to upgrade would require 4 dual channel 1gb ddr400,which are selling at legacy premiums.and then my board would be totally maxed.Or for less money i could get a new board and put a pair of 2gb dc ram ddr2.by near future I mean 2-3 years ill go to 8gb.well ill be lucky if i can wait that long,prolly 2 years max.because they will make ddr2 legacy before you know it.I'm not god,well thats what my doctor says,but im sure others are in this upgrade situation.
Anandtech.com ran tests on Vista with todays games and 4gb of ram vs 2gb increased performance 15-35%.Some who have read it told me if you stick with the bare basic vista,and tune it a lil.It's not to bad.
Not picking on you,but me saying we will need more ram in the future is definately not up there with nostrdomus,or the davinci code.Ten years ago 128mb of ram was da goods.
Heck, I read an article that microsoft is bashing taiwan for increasing the ram capacity on thier mainboards too slow,lol.
I'll buy 1 gig of ram cos now I have only 512. I'm just concerned that my gfx-card won't be enough, it's FX5600. I don't mind running AoC in lowest possible settings.
"I actually cook my meat with nothing but my burning hatred for vegetables"
Could not have said it better myself.
In AOC PVP will be a major factor and for anyone that has every played AO and participated in LARGE SCALE PVP battles you know that that Game Engine could not handle anything large scale and in one area.
Now I haven't played AO in ages but when I did everyone (and I mean everyone friend and foe alike) would complain about the lag when too many people( 20 or more) showed up. I highly doubt that has changed, just like I doubt that this engine (however upgraded it is now) will be able to handle large scale PVP.
I think AOC dropped the ball big time by choosing to use that inhouse engine of theirs, but time will tell I guess.
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
I am praying this mmo engine works,this is my hopefull game Ill be playing for 5 plus years.So I am pro conan.The dev obviously is talking about the solo portion of the game.or very low density multiplayer zone.Im focusing on can this enginge handle 16v16,100vs 100 and such that a non-instanced attack on a base or resource area will produce.So far the only engine I know that can do this is gamebryo.which is what daoc used(1.5ver) and WAR is gonna use (2.2ver) for the love of god I hope microsoft sends some advisors to the client end almost borderline anti-trust type access to the xp/vista kernal to make this work.I hope I am not running around looking like an armoured Karman Maranda as A Knight of BS for 5 years.
Should you be concerned about performance? Of course you should, that's just plain common sense. Trust that the Devs share that same concern w/o doubt. What I like about Funcom is that they appear to be targetting the high end systems. This is very good for the folks out there that simply want a gorgeous game to play. Hopefully the game will support hundreds of players onscreen. I'm positive WAR will nail that part down but not so sure about AoC. However, AoC is clearly superior graphically and is extremely innovative so my hope is that they do indeed balance their game for large battles. It all depends on how much they decide to focus on that aspect. PErsonally I do not think its their highest priority really- when I see their films I see a lot of PvE content and an amazing effort to create a gorgeous world for players to interact with. When it comes down to it- MMO Devs do pick areas to focus their efforts on it wil all boil down to their vision of PvP.
But in regards to having a great engine that runs great for the "majority" of players I am fairly sure they will nail this.
The best vote of confidence is fairly hopeful.I'm on dial-up atm in the sticks of fla. can't even hit over 24000bps.So It's brutal to do research and get links atm for you fellow gamers,so kinda bear with me if my facts and figures are a lil rough.(btw I reemed my mom to get high speed,otw soon).
Xbox360 and only xbox360(one guess who makes it),has a program/or update(not sure on details of if its sofware or firmware) but it has some funny name that allows it to run dx10 only games.Now would the quality be nearly as good as a top end gaming rig running DX10 I would hope not.Anyways its retarded to even try.You need so much proprietary accessories,plus a real monitor,you wouldn't be to far from a decent gaming rig money wise at that point.
The fact that microscam has usurped what was intended as an open api(with the blessing of Nvidia) warrants a class action lawsuit imo.They claim they built dx10 as an integral part vista and can't offer it to XP.(there are rumors that in an emergency they might do it in xp sp3).However, in a miricole up there with the parting of the red sea.They figured out a way to get it to work on x-box 360.
It looks like the new allie to the axis of power is nvidia.used to just be called wintel,need to combine all 3 names now.Ok you notice I'm very passionate about the DX10 scandal.Im willing to bet in all reality DX9 hasnt even been maxed out,and that few would run max settings in a pvp game anyways.
Back to the main topic,has a game company in recent time built a sucessfull in house pvp engine?
I know alot of the engine developers are larger than the mmo companies themselves.I shall remain cautiously optimistic.
1. They will have to eventually do it anyway, why not now while they have the budget?
2. A portion of the gaming public is already running Vista, the capability to leverage the graphics engine improvements in DX10 is a selling point for the game.
3. Even though not many are running Vista, it will be a sizable beta population. By the time Vista has gained mainstream acceptance their DX10 engine will be stable for the masses. I'll be running it in less than a month when I upgrade my hardware, as a lot of others will be. By release it will be lot more people.
4. They can turn around and revamp AO with the engine they develop for Conan, killing two birds with one stone:
a. much needed improvements for AO
b. make AO vista ready
At a very small cost to the AO business.
Funcom is developing for DX10 because it's good business strategy and will make their games better. I can think of no better reasons. It has much more to do with giving their customers more and preparing for the future, than kissing microsoft's ass.
CCP is also developing for DX10 right now. Check out the eve-online developer blogs. Any games developer with any sense is at least tooling up for it.
-Viz
SOE=crap
All their games use the same crappy engine. Wooden combat, unrealistic movement, and stupid combat animations. I know I've played them all. It's scary how much alike their games are. It's just different models and skins on the same game.
Where Sony has it going on is the social, content, graphics department. Some of us want more than eye candy and an expensive social network
We can play the sims for that crap. Combat is an afterthought in their games. They need to shove the NGE and start over from scratch.
Fion $1700 ,can get you a comp that can spank,if you know how to build it.The specs im bashing are when people are praying thier 5 year old vid card can handle it,ive got a 9800 ati in my scrap box,maybe I should donate it.If you go thru a re-seller you can still do ok ,just have to take a few hits here and there.But Fion please remember most of us r using 17-19" lcd's and not being able to drop to 10x7 res w/o the awful pixel interpolation.does cause lcd user's a lil premium on thier graphics requirement's.but we basically aggree on everthing now,so i will start another thread to rekindle r disagreements.
I must admit the maturity level of this forum is top-notch(cept me,the bad apple
) I feel a player base of unparaleled excelence.Since there is nothing we can do about how the engine turns out (well I increased my sedatives) lets forget it and move on to more positive(me,positive,eww) aspecs that we have been deprived from an mmo since,well.Only game I can think of that was close was shadowbane,but it was a letdown.Pre-toa daoc may have been the closest.
$$$$$$$$$$
Beans and cornbread!
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
With the exception of #4*, all answers I'd considered and would expect from a developer or more likely, their management. I thought developers would be more resistant to Microsoft's Vista efforts, but apparently Funcom and others are quite happy to help transition Windows Gaming from open-platform to proprietary. Consolitis has finally spread to the PC space. When Bioware succumbed, I should have seen the writing on the wall. Well I still have a few years yet, XP wont obsolesce overnight. When it does I can always drink the KoolAid, but I'll surely switch to a company I hate less than Microsoft, either Sony or Nintendo will do nicely.
* With regards to #4, Funcom can fix Anarchy Online or let it hang, I doubt it will make much difference.