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Neutral Test AOC PVP beta weekend - very very very long
AOCtester
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 431
Hi guys. My friend asked me to put together a short text about my experience of the Gamespot PVP weekend of AOC. I will try to be as thoroug and to the point as possible.
Strong Points of the game.
Graphics. 9
Game simply looks really nice. It creates great atmosphere moving through the junle. I ran it in all graphics settings and for me with 5.4 rated PC - it worked perfectly.
Animations. 9
Animations are very well done. They are fluent and responsive and fatality moves look great. THey become abit repetitive tho - specially the caster animations. Alot of diffrent casting classes are using the same animations. Running animations feel abit stiff tho and jumping looks unnatural to say the least. But overall very good job.
Controls. 8
Controls are responsive and you see your character respond with almost no delay. Combat controls get abit of time getting use to. Using the 1,2,3,4, buttons is a good option for melee classes instead of using the mouse to click. Instead the mouse is used to move character around (hold both mouse buttons). This takes some time to get used to and has some basic flaws. Casters can pretty much use the same mouse clicking system as other games have.
Best part about this game is the running feature. When holding down the shift key you run twice as fast as you normally would. It costs you stamina so you can't keep that speed up forever. And since stamina is used in many of the melee abilites it also means you have to think ahead and dont go into fights exausted. And casters that use mana will need the stamina when running away from mobs when they feel outnumbered 
Gampeplay. 8
Funcom has talked alot that the funfactor of the game needs to be high. For the short PVE part that this weekend gave, then Id say the fun is there. At leas the short term one slashing mobs down.
NPC interaction 7
Starting are had good dialogs while talking to NPC that you were helping out. It added abit to the game hearing them talk to you. But after running through the starting area few diffrent times it became annoying and you just skipped to listen to it.
Weak points.
Performance. 2
Even tho the game is still in beta it had ovbious problems in handeling the hectic gameplay of PVP battles. Lowering the quality of the graphics helped abit but with over 5.0 raited pc you dont expect to have to go down to minimum to enjoy the game. There were several diffrent features that became notable in terms of performance.
a) Lag.
Qute a few times I had big lag spikes going up to red (10k ms) This seemed to be server internet connection and happend to often to my liking. PVP was ofc effected by this alot.
b) FPS.
Normal frames per second in the starting area with high settings and 2xAA was around 50 fps if standing still. Normal fluctuation was about 25-45 while moving. Not bad. But.. then came the bad part. The game quite frequently had long glitches - sending your fps all the way down to 2-3 fps and stoping completlee. This happened quite often when I looked behind my character but also while running fast forward for some time. This effected the PVP experience quite abit.
c) Game crashing.
THis was my biggest dissapointment. Game crashed way to often for my liking. It was affecting other players that I was talking but maybe not to the extend that I had. After few loading screens I had the chance of client freezing or just crashing to desktop. When trying to figure out why this was happening - I noticed that the game was using huge amount of Memory and it kept rising to about 1.6k causing the game to crash on the next loading screen. Most likely reason for that is very worring. Memory leak - Im almost afraid to mention this word cause it can be really hard to prevent but I could see no other reason. If current game has some memory leaks then Funcom will have torrid time fixing that in just one month. It could be a feature this game will have to live with alot longer. And that simply can't work in MMO game.
d) Bugs.
Ofc I ran into quite a few bugs while playing. Even the first NPC quest you did had the girl standing in locked position after you freed her. You would think that this could easily be fixed before beta event such as this. Gamed also buged up few times in terms of shadows when switching between diffrent settings - for example minimum to maximum. Then the shadows didn't follow your movements.
Few bugs noticed while in PVP were visual like the shadow bugs and walls not showing correct colours and even loosing all textures. Few times I fell thought the floors and got stuck. Still some work needed on the PVP mamps.
Class balance 3
Class balance was almost none existant in the game. While going throught the starting area I soon found out that melee was quite balanced while the casting classes were kinda one shotting everything at the start but then started to struggle big time towards the end on higher lvl mobs. When going into PVP at lvl 20 you figured out really fast what classes were dominating and who were dead all the time. I would have thought Funcom would have done more in balancing this basic when it comes to showing off their PVP system. But then - it was only lvl 20 and few games can provide perfect balance through all the content.
Class fun factor balance 2
Most melee classes were fun to play. Some more than others to. The high dmg classes (barbarian, assasin, ranger) gave alot of pleasure going around butchering pretty much everyone. At the same time it became more of a nightmare trying to play the magic classes - not to mention the "healing" classes that had almost no role and very few features to keep themselfs alive.
Loading screens 1
After you died in PVE or PVP you got teleported back to certain spawning points. The problem with this system is that every time this happened a loading screen popped up and when you were playing the more vulnarable classes it very often lead to you seeing more of those loading screens than actually enjoying the game. Loading screens are drag in every game but in PVP it is just horrible. Every time I see a loading screen it takes me from the game and gives me the chance to quit. High frustration lvl long term and not fun.
Mob Combat AI 2
First 5-6 lvls I played in starting area provided few mobs that I was hoping would be giving me some insight into how advanced the AI of the game would be. I was really dissapointed. The shielding system on the mobs worked to a degree but then only for melees. Considering this game is much more than slashing It became another boring factor for the casters - ending up as you felt kinda silly standing there - casting some spells on mobs that were hitting you. In other words - plain boring.
But worst part of the AI was the movement of the mobs. There were obiously some pathing problems that will probably be looked into. But the most unrealistic and just stupid part in PVE was that the Mobs moved in diffrent speed towards you. For example when you hit a mob that was sitting around a fire with 2 other mobs - just one came running towards you right away. While the other two desided to take 2 seconds standing up and then slooowly walking towards you while you were killing the first one. If there ever was a bad AI - then this was it. Very dissapointing since Funcom was talking about the AI beeing the strong part of the game.
User interface 5
Many parts of the user interface are good. Others are not. The positioning of the action panel and the lifesigns of player and target are good. But there were some really annoying factors that ruined the gameplay abit. For example you alwasy had tooltips showing up when you moved mouse over action button. That tooltip was huge and usually went over the lifesign of the mob you were killing. I tried multiple times to remove this feature from the action bar - but simply couldn't. Not without it affecting all other tooltips witch then become annoyingly slow. Group/team UI was very very bad. It showed up as tiny tiny bars in top left hand corner. Worst part tho was the Mob lifesigns in PVE. I desided to remove those from everything but the target. But then I could not see what the other mobs that were attacking me at the same time had much life. You would think this was easy feature to implement. Some parts of the UI are great - Others just plain bad. Needs alot of utilization to become usefull for diffrent classes.
What this weekend did not provide
Overall I had quite a fun playing this weekend. We have to remember this is beta and not perfect - but next month is going to be crucual for this game. It seems obvious that the game will be launching in May. And to me it seems to be launching without beeing as smooth as maybe we should be expecting now from game developers. I was just playing 5 lvls of PVE and there were alot of problems I could see. PVP was ok but not something I would pay for. The game was not performing well enough to make the PVP feel really enjoyable and considering this game is supposed to provide big scale PVP in open world - I simply can not see how that will be doable at this stage. Don't be surprised if things like PVP sieging will not be working at all for the first year (or ever) based on this performance.
This weekend also gave just a sneak peak into PVE content. But what I saw made me feel dissapointed. AI is poor. Classes are very unbalanced. It might look good but graphics did hinter the gameplay rather than support it. There are still many lvls of PVE content to be revealed but based on this and the limit of PVE content showed in open beta coming up - I would say that Funcom is not keen to show off to much of it. And sadly I feel that at this point its probably because higher lvl content isn't to any standard to be shown to public or to be talked about in open forums.
After reading the interview with the leading developer of the game on Gamespot - I simply got the feeling that the game is far from finished. He talked about that some content in the game wasn't even in beta yet. Like spellweaving, siege pvp and Dx10 support. And he was talking about those features beeing kept away from the testers so they would have something to enjoy when game released. I just can't belive that. That dev simply isn't telling the truth. Considering the state of the casting classes in the game I just can't belive that any game developer will be releasing a game without thesting the combat system for half of the classes ingame. DX10 support just can't be in if its not in beta from start. I don't know what has been tested last months if diffrent spec computers with diffrent graphics cards have not been fully tested out when it comes to new feature like DX10.
But in terms of massive PVP siegeing. I can almost guaranty you that will not be working when game releases. And based on the PVP weekend I would very much doubt that this game can ever provide a fluent gameplay for massive armies of players. The servers can't manage it and the PCs defently wont manage it. But whats then to play in this MMO game ? Considering that all this weekend did not provide any PVE grouping features I have to say it doesn't have much to be exiting about. I hope the raiding content for endgame lvl will be good cause it might end up as the only viable endgame content of the game.
Overall I see some potentials with this game. But at this stage I wouldn't pay for playing it. And after the experience this weekend and considering just one month to release and all the content Funcom has promised but just showing off so tiny porportion of it - I very much doubt I am ready to pay for playing this one at release.
My conclution
I chancelled my Pre-order and Im gonna wait 2-3 months to see if this game can deliver. Im not supporting any company that is releasing half finished product. And then it doesn't matter if that company is in the gaming industry or any other.
I thank Gamespot and Funcom the chance to test the game for them - and at the same time give me the chance to valuade the game and how far it is into development.
Thx
Comments
A fair evaluation from your perspective.
The main issues you have had don't worry me too much personally tbh... As long as the Border Kingdoms go in for 'free' then I am not too hassled about them being in for the first month or so. By then our guild will have learned a lot about building towns, levelled up a bit, seen the world somewhat, and got our teamwork down in order to defend our territory. The probable truth is that few guilds will be a position to build battle keeps before this time anyhow, and it's looking like these will be the main thing that will make BK PvP fun.
I am also confident that my PC can run this game, so thats not an issue for me really. As for the servers not handling the loads and giving lag from their end... Well, I guess once they have had 50,000 peeps stomping all over them they will be optimising this and it will be far better then the beta you played. Thats the point of betas after all
Loading screens after death? Well... tbh from what I have seen they last for seconds, not minutes. I am putting the annoyance coming from them at this point down to people being p*ssed that they died rather then the length of time they had to actually stare at them
As for bugs.. yeah, I accept there will be a certain amount of these at launch. I would be naive if I didnt.
I am also sure they have learnt a lot about class balance from the latest tests and these will be tweaked as it all moves along. I have developed a thick skin towards nerfs over the years
The main point you raised for me personally is that the game is fun. To me, thats what it is all about.
I have heard that the build used was 2 months old though? Is that true?
You seem to be the only person who didn't like PvE.
Performance (game crashes, lag) was always gona be an issue, moreso because it was an old client, and a stress test, but it looks like u have been very unlucky with those, as very few reviews had performance ruining their experience.
Bugs: Again it is normal to have bugs, even at release, but there are no gamebreaking bugs.
Class balance is still ongoing in many MMOs. It was to be expected.
Loading screens are probably the only real concers, though not that much a concern. These will ofc be reduced, no questions there.
A fair review, though most of ur bad points are to be expected.
You ever heard of spellcheck?
coming from a guy that cant spell hammer correctly.
Sooner or Later
nice post and i'd say very accurate as well.
You do realize they invited over 10,000 people to play on a single server right? It shouldn't be surprising that there would be some lag. Also you should be realizing that the build that was played this weekend is an older build running on the Cheetah 1 graphics engine. The Cheetah 2 engine is the release version which has been patched in beta and performs substantially better. Judging the release build by what you may have experienced this weekend will not paint an accurate picture in regards to the games performance issues.
TwitchTV Partnered Streamer
MMORPG.com Spotlight Blog Writer
Co-Leader of Inquisition
Youtube Channel
heh 10,000?
Whats the standard server capacity gonna be? 3,000 or so?
I am tired of hearing about the client we played on was old. If you come to buy a new car or a house does the agent show you a 2006 car or a 20 year old home, no, it is what it is.
While your analogy may be true, it is also useless because it does not change the fact that we were playing the older build.
TwitchTV Partnered Streamer
MMORPG.com Spotlight Blog Writer
Co-Leader of Inquisition
Youtube Channel
there is no secret build or miracle patch. what you played is just like it going to be on release since the game went gold today. however you can bet there will be patching on release day to further optimize the game and what not.
Erm... ok, you have confused me somewhat.
The fact, as shown above, is that the build was old, so at the time of thest it wasnt in a launch state. If it was they wouldnt be testing. I know it dosent suit your PoV to look at it that way, but it's worth thinking about.
On the house analogy... Up to this point AoC has more been like buying a new build home, where all you originally bought into was a blueprint and a plot of land. At this time the walls are up, the roof up, the windows in, and most of the utilities laid... Some of the electrics, plumbing, and decorating are now being tidied, adjusted, and finished.... It isnt ready to move into just yet, but soon it will be. As it goes on maintenance and improvements will be made for sure, but it will be a good home nonetheless.
A MMORPG is never 'is what it is'.
SOome how I knew from the title that you where going to go this way in your review. I disagree with you on alot of thing. I didnt experience hardly anylag at all, which I will admit I have a nice system. The servers to me seemed perfectly fine, and the only crash i recieved was when i exited the game, for some reason it would throw up an error report.
As far as class balance, I think you need to learn to play more classes. I truely enjoyed 2 of the healing classes, that being the Bear Shamen and Tempest of Set. It took me awhile to get a hang of the heals, and thats just because it not the same as other games, they dont make me feel like the only thing I can do is heal. TOS has very nice dmg so im not sure why you say they where lacking. As far as casters go, I didnt see a proble there either. I had no intention of playing a caster at release but after playing the necro I think it will have a top spot on my alt list. Yes as a caster you cannot go toe to toe with a meele, but thats the way it should be. I didnt have a problem at all with staying at range of them, its easy if your playing as a team and not trying to solo your way around in the pvp area. No matter which class I played, and that was all of them, I had a desent amount of kills, and Ihad no problem living.
I will admit you must play the class for more then ten minutes, to get a fell for them and which spells to do, and how to work the feats, but after the investment you would see a whole diffrent game. Im not saying you need to "learn How TO Play" but it might help you. I sorry I just didnt see the lack of balance as you do, except for the ranger bug.
Im not saying the game is perfect, I think it needs and will get a little bit of optamazation. I believe this game is more skill based ( mostly wiht meele) then most other games, and its going to take people awhile to getting used to the fact that there is no auto attack or sheep, freeze, stun shot, root, cyclone, or the million other types of long stuns.
I really had a blast playing this weekend, with all that eye candy and new gameplay how couldnt you.
there is no secret build or miracle patch. what you played is just like it going to be on release since the game went gold today. however you can bet there will be patching on release day to further optimize the game and what not.
There is no 'miracle' patch?
Yet they will patch on launch day you think?
I am also curious to see the computer specs that the OP was running on. Performance issues vary drastically depending on the power of your rig. I didn't see him mention anywhere how much RAM he has or his video card. Is he trying this on a 6800 or an 8800 or a 9800? If he running at the minimum requirements his conclusions won't hold much water.
TwitchTV Partnered Streamer
MMORPG.com Spotlight Blog Writer
Co-Leader of Inquisition
Youtube Channel
there is no secret build or miracle patch. what you played is just like it going to be on release since the game went gold today. however you can bet there will be patching on release day to further optimize the game and what not.
There is no 'miracle' patch?
Yet they will patch on launch day you think?
Well if the game went gold already, I think once people see the full game they will be very very dissapointed. Abit like buying the vanguard box and after playing you really find out the doomsayers were right.
I will not buy AOC until some times after the break point.
Yes, break point - The time when 1st complementary month ends , and the people that purchased game at launch - decide is it worth the subscription.
Only than the truth will be obvious
coming from a guy that cant spell hammer correctly.
Sounds like fun
Tabula Rasa was also fun at first...
I don't speak english, so this is a pass to me. Hope theres "subs" to read what these guys say.
Also, I read faster than people talk, so is anoying to ear NPC's.
We can always go back to 1024x768... , and disable shadows, etc. I guest.
Hugh.. hope are finne tunning this.
Big HUGH,,.. this could be texture swapping. Really bad news.
Memory leaks could be easy to fix, If the dev's have enough brain to have a system to log queries. Even Quake1 have one of these systems..
Hugh.. PvP people could be really picky about these errors... Imagine glichs on the stealth system
Hope this is fixed, but not overdone. I hate playing a nice class, and getting totally nerfed.
Humm...
Hell.. texture loading again :P
Good AI is undistinguible from Natural Stupidity
Games with high-soloability could be boring.
Seriously people, this game has gone GOLD, now you will now see how bad the ACTUAL game is and not the tech test pvp weekend they had, there is no miracle internal version of the game. This game will deliver on Vanguard proportions, so much for next gen mmo. There is absolutely nothing next gen about this game whatsoever.
I am glad you gave both the positives and the negatives. Anyone that can't give both is not someone I trust to provide a fair review. However you might rethink your scores. You go from 9s and 8s to 2s, which seems a bit low. When I read a review in a game magazine, anything under 7 is usually a complete and total piece of crap not even worth a dollar. I know we are talking an average here, but 2s and 3s from some of the gameplay components seems unrealistic.
Beta was played on a 2month old client, and even if it was played on the actual client they have 1month to improve some stuff. If this game launches tomorrow, It will be NOWHERE near VG launch. The question isnt if this game is going to flop, It's wether it will be acceptable, good, or excellent.
Beta was played on a 2month old client, and even if it was played on the actual client they have 1month to improve some stuff. If this game launches tomorrow, It will be NOWHERE near VG launch. The question isnt if this game is going to flop, It's wether it will be acceptable, good, or excellent.
Here is a newsflash beta is played on the actual version and I mean general not setup Tect test which is was the same as the pvp weekend. There is nothing they can change and improve now till rlease, bacuse you know why? ITS GONE GOLD.
Tell me about MMO that after it went gold that didn't have any improvements what so ever.
Also yes as someone already said PvP beta client was 2 months old AND it was a stripped down client. You an expect it to be perfect and as far as we know GB client is much more stable and bug free.
coming from a guy that cant spell hammer correctly.
Are you really THAT stupid?