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Time for some honesty
Lobotomist
Member EpicPosts: 5,981
I am great fan of Conan. Ever since i was a kid Conan was my favorite fantasy character.
Also i like Funcom. I think AO is a great game. As for AOC i am in a guild that prepares to make the largest RP guild in EU AOC. We are preparing for this for over a year. Including building site with extensive lore resources.
So belive me it comes not for malicious attempt when i say : " Funcom , it is time for some honesty "
We are 1.5 month from release. But all you shown us are few vids of bad quality , taken with handycam.
When ever some preview video comes up , it is full of old footage , unskinned models , shots of game with old interface. Last time we seen actual non staged ingame footage it was in time of last Gamespot preview. Over a year ago , and before the game was pulled. It is 1.5 month before release but we didnt see no videos that would make us go wow, no real good screenshots , no footage of cities , large player gatherings. Barely seen no mob except few barbarians. And to tell you the truth , what we did see looks glitchy.
And now you say there will be no open beta. (But people that preorder will be only ones that will get siege mammoths....perhaps a good reason to buy a "cat in the sack")
I can help but to represent this , as you are hiding something....
But not all is lost. There is nothing a gamer respect more than honesty.
Go out and say: "The game is not as ready as we wanted it to be. But we are working hard."
I would understand that. And i would buy a game and not feel suckered.
Thats all I wanted to say.
I hope I am horribly wrong , and the game is this shining jewel of pure joy we are all hoping it to be.
But Funcom is surely not giving us the impression they are very confident , so far.
Comments
I saw a couple of new videos on gametrailers.com recently?
None the less I'm also a bit worried, I hope this game will be as awesome as the hype has made me believe, but as it gets close to releasing I cant help but worry it will suck.
I feel the same as you do. It does seem that something is just not right here. A little honesty would go a long way if the game is not going to be polished at release.
I am not sure where you are getting the movies that you watch but there is plenty of gameplay videos not taken by a cam.
MMOs never come out completely done, this one wont either, so unless this is the first mmo that you are looking into this should not be news to you.
I hope I am horribly wrong
Yes you are.
Sinister Savant MMORPG Community
I have seen this topic debated alot here as of late on mmorpg. I will be buying the game,with or without a open beta. I got accepted into the beta program,before I could even download the beta,computer crashed and burned will be late feb. ( tax return money before I can build a new one). I was a beta tester for anarchy-online. They got there ass stomped on that launch,cant see them making same mistake. I have to wonder if them saying there will be no open beta is to generate even more buzz?.......OP will you message me your info on the guild you are creating or website link,always looking for a good guild. : )
I really hope, they don't have problems with old upgradet engine. There won't be any problems with server lag or game content, but with, how your comp will run it. Forget a smooth playing without ,at least, core 2 dual and 8800 Nvidia. At CES they run it at 20-40 FPS. ???? I played Quake2 with this numbers 10 years ago.(with Ge- force from Nvidia).
I don't know what to say about AoC. I'll buy it and tray it and after couple months decide, is it good enough to play it forward.
(if you saw sliding at CES presentation, you will see sliding at release date.)
I feel the same as you do. Funcom. pls give us more. we dont want to buy the game without a proper data on what we buy
If they can get 24 FPS in player populated cities, I will salute them.
24 FPS is TV/Film standard
But try running any game at 24 FPS ( and than try it with 30+FPS) and you will know that diference is apsolutely staggering.
24fps is widely considered as minimum FPS , and not good enough for playing action games
The human eye can see the difference between 30-40 FPS, GOOGLE it. IT's not really that debateable, its Medical. Some people have better visual accuety then others, but if they can get 40-50 FPS after customization I'll be UBER happy. I don't expect to be able to play the game on FULL Settings, because Im playing on a 4 year old Computer, but I'll buy a 8800GT befor it releases so that I can get some decent FPS out of it. Lets look back!!!
MOST of the Videos we see are from Computers with Core 2 Duo's and 7900 Nvidia Cards. Most Videos aren't even on the newest Beta build, and arn't customized and tweaked for proformance yet.
IF you can build a better computer then what your playing on for 500 bucks in parts off newegg, your computer is the problem.
Spend $1000 on Newegg and get yourself a Q6600, 8800GT 2GiG's of Ram, 10k 160Gig HD, a 750W PSU, and you'll have no problems playing AoC at High Settings, NOT Max, but It's a budget PC.
When i see such posts it reminds me of Vanguard times.
And when something reminds me of Vanguard ,
I start to worry ...
I have to agree with your concern Lobo.... the MMO industry has just been one burn after another for the last year or so (barring lotro of course.... after Turbine's ddo, they had to kick a little ass to stay alive imo). This latest move seems like a 'cat in the sack' offer like you say. Which is very depressing... because this title is very high on my list of purchases...
Yet, your 'call for honesty' is going to be a hard request to fill.
I mean, they got the customers pulling on one arm: give us a good product, we will push your product to friends, we will pay monthly if you just deliver
and on the other arm, you got the people paying the bills: we've given you an extra year already, we are going broke and need some revenue.
And they are in the middle. Not an easy place to be.
This game is on my purchase list aswell. And i probably will buy it - whatever happens.
But
I think that honesty can go long way. If they come out, explain the problems, and show a clear plan of further development. At least for one , i would say "At least they are honest"
I understand (and know) marketing people are afraid of such aproach. But holding back the facts , can potentially be far more damaging.
It's funny how three little words can cause such an uproar in the community.
NO OPEN BETA.
All of sudden people think Funcom is "trying to hide something..."
Btw, OP, since it's Jan. 13, and the game won't release before March 25, why do you keep saying 1.5 months? Did you flunk out of the third grade?
I will try this one (as well as WAR), but I will reiterate what I've said before. This is a business. They will lie, cheat, or steal (within the law of course
) to get the money from your pocket.
I've never really looked into it, but I sometimes wonder if some of these companies simply have the intention of getting the masses to buy the box, and then pay for one, maybe two months of game play. After that, they've recouped the money they've put into it, made a nice return on their investment, then could care less if the public continue to subscribe to their product.
Anyway, I don't believe ANY hype anymore. I just know what I would like to try. This one and WAR will be two that I will at least give a chance. However, if they don't break the current MMO rut that's out there, I will be cancelling in less than a month.
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/1905.html
There is a new gameplay movie and two interviews.
I'm really hoping Athelan will get on here or the official forums and clear all of this up.
He's been able to dispel worry in the past, so hopefully he can do it again.
I think you are right Lobotomist about the call for honesty. It may hurt the marketing in the short term, but long term it would add further reinforcement to the already positive community-developer relations.
If on the other hand, people feel deceived out of their $50-$90 they will lose some long term customers--and that is important in a subscription based game.
I'm in a great guild as well, so if nothing else I'm going to play the game just to hang out with them, but if Funcom doesn't deliver and people feel deceived for whatever reason--for years to come they will have forum 'terrorists' trolling everywhere denouncing the game.
I just get the feeling that the release date is going to be pushed, but that's all speculation.
Anyway, i'll let you all buy it and tell me about it before I spend more money =P
Hey I bought every MMO of 2007 so it's only fair!
[ Played ] 2Moons, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest, Everquest II, Guild Wars, HellGate: London, Lord of the Rings Online, Rappelz, RF Online, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Last Chaos
[ Playing ] Everquest II
[ Waiting ] Aion, Age of Conan
dont guys even think about having a absolute flawless diamond, theres no game in the world that doesnt have _any_ bug or glitch when its released... you'll be sorry if your waiting for perfection. "beta" phase will still be going after release.. many things gets fixed due time, like bugs and balance issues.. i myself can say for sure that i can handel few minor bugs without crying about it
This will be no different then every single other game relase.
1. Someone will make a long post here about how they are dissapointed.
2. Someone will swear that its nplayable 'couse of the new combat dynamics.
3. Someone will make a long post that explains how bad the game runs and looks in Dx9.
4. Someone will make a post about how its an unfinished game.
5. Few trolls will reach lvl cap in first week by playing it 5 days non-stop and then will complain about how they did it.
etc... etc...
The rest of us will smirk when reading these and will move on. When you have been playing these games for years you see the same garbage every time.
Sinister Savant MMORPG Community
But one thing forsure is those 5 points will come into play in posts here in 75days.
But one thing forsure is those 5 points will come into play in posts here in 75days.
Agreed.
Exactly this is another valid why AOC needs open beta.
Agreed ! open beta for great justice or i'll have to go get my flamesuit