Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Dx10 coming Q3 at the earliest, 700'000 boxes shipped, 111'000 collector editions sold out.
BigMango
Member UncommonPosts: 1,821
www.videogamer.com/news/19-05-2008-8332.html
The new, enhanced DX10 version will be premiered at Games Convention in Leipzig in August 2008. A special preview will be unveiled this summer at Nvidia's NVISION event in San Jose, California, August 25 - 27, 2008.
Looks like dx10 will only be coming Q3 / end of this year.
Do you guys remember open beta? This was what? 2 weeks ago? Funcom confirmed dx10 would be in at launch. It wasn't even in closed beta. They said they wanted to keep "surprises" for launch. So people went out and purchased dx10 cards (and vista and a new rig?).
This, just after the early access fiasco are some very shady marketing tactics. I thought Funcom was better than the lousy VG Sigil team, I was wrong. Just shows how to make big bucks hyping a game.
Well, at least the game is good. The question is, what else have they been hiding from us?
Edit: here is an interesting today press release. The 111'000 collector edition boxes are sold out, 700'000 boxes are shipped to retailers for launch:
Age of Conan Collector’s Edition Sold Out!
Durham, USA – May 19, 2008 – Funcom is proud to announce that the Collector’s Edition of Age of Conan is now completely sold out in all markets. The exclusive edition was announced in January, and has since topped retail charts at numerous retailers. In some markets, the Collector’s Edition has been sold out for weeks, and as a result additional boxes were made. These are also sold out, and the total print run stands at 111.000 units. Lucky customers may still find some copies on retail shelves, but no re-orders are available.
Additional retail figures for the standard edition of Age of Conan are also highly impressive. In total, Funcom is shipping around 700.000 copies of Age of Conan on day one. This impressive figure for a PC game is powered by equally impressive pre-order numbers. As a result of the tremendous interest and recent order increase, Funcom has not been able to fulfill all orders of Age of Conan in several markets due to current server capacity limitations. Extra orders of servers are now in place to facilitate for handling of more customers.
“Everyone in Funcom is delighted and humbled with the historical pre-order numbers for Age of Conan. If the information we have is correct, they represent the highest pre-order number for any global launch of an original PC game, ever, including the original World of Warcraft launch,” said Morten Larssen, Funcom’s VP of Sales & Marketing.
More than one million unique visitors visited the Age of Conan websites last week, and as a result of the great interest in the game, Funcom's early access offer was swiftly oversubscribed. The three day early access program was a limited offer reserved for pre-order customers. While Funcom scaled the servers above anticipation, player demand surpassed expectations. As the Early Access servers launched last night, the servers and game held up exceptionally well. As the game launches properly later this week, Funcom expects additional large numbers of customers to enter the game.
All the positive signals are naturally not equal to eventual success, but early indications from the press points out that the game boasts unique qualities. The very first review for the game gives it a 9 out of 10 score from Game Reactor, the Nordic regions largest gaming magazine.
While Funcom is thrilled with the early success of Age of Conan, and proud of the game launching this week, the company regrets to inform gamers that the DirectX 10 version of the game will not ship with the initial launch. As Microsoft’s DirectX 10 is undoubtedly the future of PC gaming, Funcom has decided to ship only the DirectX 9 version at launch, giving the team more time to focus on building a DirectX 10 version worthy of Microsoft’s great vision for the future of PC gaming. This postponement will let Funcom include even more features in the DirectX 10 version of Age of Conan than originally planned.
The DirectX 10 version will be premiered at the German Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, August 20 – 24, 2008. A special preview showing off the advanced graphics made possible by DirectX 10 technology will be unveiled this summer at nVidia’s NVISION event in San Jose, California, August 25 – 27, 2008.
Age of Conan launches 20th of May in North America / Oceania and 23rd of May in Europe. More information about the game can be found on www.ageofconan.com
http://conanvault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=41393
Edit 2: for those who missed it, here's an interview with game director Gaute Godager himself, this was just 1 month ago.
"The game is on schedule for launch the 20th of May as we speak. We polish, remove annoyances, and optimize. Finally the client is approaching the target rendering performance, and it certainly is looking smooth. We are working hard on the features we haven't shown off in beta, features we have held back on purpose to have some new revelations at launch. Among these are spellweaving, massive PVP, and DirectX 10 [graphics]. In addition to this, the classes are getting their final overhauls before launch. We are doing some balance focused only on PVP now, something I prefer doing after the PVE aspects have been more or less stabilized."
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/ageofconanhyborianadventures/news.html?sid=6189548&print=1
Comments
I'm amazed at how well everything looks using DX9.
This whole DX9 vs. DX10 thing has been pretty confusing to me. In game, my settings say DX10, but after reading the article, I'm assuming that I'm actually using DX9? Based on the fact that the game was supposed to release with DX10, I upgraded to Vista since I already had a 8800 GTX. No biggie, I would have upgraded anyway eventually, but it is kind of disappointing to hear that we don't have DX10 currently.
I'm just hoping FC dont try charging one and all for the DX10 version when it's ready.
Nothing game-breaking about this.
The important thing as you said is that the game is quality.
The dx setting is in the options, but it doesn't do anything. Yes you are on dx9 even with the dx10 option selected.
2 days ago Funcom support has also confirmed this:
after it was not on beta it was very obvious for me that it won't be in game at launch.
releasing with directx10 without having it in beta would mean releasing with a completly untested game engine. the max testing the direct x10 engine could have gotten would be some inhouse testing, but that usually cannot cover the wide array of possible problems with different system setups.
SO thats the answer to those people constantly saying that release client is completely different from beta client. As we can see now its not a completely new miracle build, its based on open beta client with debugging turned off and only got about 1 week more work after open beta (in which funcom probably worked 24/7 to make it as smooth as possible).
Anyway direct x10 was no selling point for this game for me, so it doesn't matter at all for me if its in or not, i only was getting so annoyed by these fanboys that kept posting about a completely different miracle client that has direct x10 and much better performance. (they fixed the big zoning problems and maybe slightly improved fps but there was no miracle fps gain)
_____________________________
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.
i was in closed beta so i cold see them working on client, and fixing one bug, breaking things and fixing again. first open beta build was a bad build, but it was not completely outdated as closed beta had same troubles at that time (just to a bit lesser amount cause there were less palyers there).and they kept working on that client till early access started with at least 1 closed beta patch per day. (so open beta was the state of the client at that time which they broke before).
I have updated the original post with a press release. The missing dx10 is confirmed, the 111'000 collector edition boxes are sold out, and 700'000 boxes are shipped to retailers for launch.
After the early access fiasco it's a good way to hide the missing dx10 feature in a positive press release.
Expect to see a big increase number at launch. I expect around 500-700k at launch. After first 30 days it begins to decrease and stays at a steady 300-500 k. Just a prediction but that's likely gonna happen.
Lotro sold around 500K + boxes and now is atm. around 230 k subscribers which is pretty nice for turbine.
-----------------------------------------------------------
the old days, the days of gold.
representer of euhporium, shade/amity , high member of the council.
played
UO,M59,EVE,L2,AC,GW,WOW,LOTRO,SWG pre cu/nge,COH/COV, VG,TR,L1, POTBS,Neocron 1 and 2, DAOC pre TOA and age of conan
playing: EVE ONLINE
Waiting for Earthrise, FE, bioware mmo, guild wars 2, DFO , mortal online , the chronicles of spellborn
good job on selling all collectors edition boxes, i personally did not think it was adding any real bonus value for me so only boght normal version.
will be interesting to see how fast the 700k boxes sell. if they sell 500k+ during first month it will be a very successsfull launch.
Looks like Q3 / end of this year.
Do you guys remember open beta? This was what? 2 weeks ago? Funcom confirmed dx10 would be in at launch, so people went out and purchased dx10 cards (and vista and a new rig?).
http://conanvault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=41393
And said people will still have DX10 cards and Vista in Q3, so this is no major issue. Said people will also enjoy the upgrade overall, despite lack of DX10 support from AoC...........RIGHT NOW........
Yes yes conspiracy, they stole our money and they eat children
Actually, many said people who did not need to upgrade are screwed. Nvidia is releasing the next generation of gfx card within the next 2 months. This also means huge price drops for the current cards.
What Funcom said made many people purchase systems (gfx cards, vista, complete rigs) they can't use / don't need today. When they will finally use them they will have lost several hundreds bucks, or find themselves with an obsolete system compared to what will be available for the same price.
Point people are missing is.. What you were told and what you got. like epic siege battles.
Yes. The game is still good, but Funcom has lied to us on many points.
Out of curiousity, did someone at Funcom actually confirm that dx10 would be in at launch? Link?
Fools and their money...Actually, many said people who did not need to upgrade are screwed.
If Funcom had stated that;
in order to play you MUST have a DX10 card and Vista
then yes I would share your opinion, this is not the case. But yes some people will have made decisions based on "facts" from Funcom.
Those who may have rushed out and bought DX10 cards for big bucks would have been "shafted" in 2 months anyway, given that the next gen cards would still have been released, regardless of what Funcom has done.
The time between funcom saying dx10 would be in and the time saying it'd be q3 is probably well within most people's return window.
Yes during the couple months and even weeks before the launch there were interviews and forums posts by Funcom.
What early access fiasco?
One EU server was capped within one hour from opening of EA, they added 2 PVP servers. Doesn't seem like a fiasco to me.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Actually, many said people who did not need to upgrade are screwed. Nvidia is releasing the next generation of gfx card within the next 2 months. This also means huge price drops for the current cards.
What Funcom said made many people purchase systems (gfx cards, vista, complete rigs) they can't use / don't need today. When they will finally use them they will have lost several hundreds bucks, or find themselves with an obsolete system compared to what will be available for the same price.
when people were asking here on this forums about gfx card upgrades i allways kept telling them don't upgrade now wait till june/july when ati and nvidia release the new cards. no use buying a card now if you can probably get a better card for same money in 2 months. (or same card for less money)
This forum would make for a great study. As long as people get the carrot, that's all that matters to them.
I know it was suppossed to be an orange carrot, but blue is ok,. I know it was suppossed to be cooked, but as long as I get to taste it right now, I'll eat it uncooked.
I dont care that you told me it was orange and cooked, just as long as I can get it now.
What early access fiasco?
One EU server was capped within one hour from opening of EA, they added 2 PVP servers. Doesn't seem like a fiasco to me.
i think the fiasco is more the chaos about not letting all people with preorder keys into early access. they should have better announced it that its limited to a fixed number of players and that preordering will not automatically mean you get early access.
No, I'm talking about the thousands of people who have preordered being told they would have early access for 5$ (and some others weren't even told they would have to pay 5$) only to find out they were screwed. Thousands of people preordered and were left out in the cold. There have been 100's of threads about that.
edit: exactly quaiky.
They didn't lie... maybe misjudged... they thought they could acheive a goal and didn't... you're telling me this has never happened to you?
Yes I agree.
But you can't tell me that 1 or 2 weeks ago they didn't know the feature was not ready? They were telling us "It will be in at launch, we don't want to put it into the beta now, we wan't to keep some "surprises" for launch.
And now they are talking about a world premiere as an August 25 "preview"
As end of August will be a preview, will it be ready for Christmas?
And what about the early access, what about the sieges, etc..?