I'm tired of quoting and correcting, so i'll just say this.
Sucks that you didnt like it. I'm 100% into it now that i found a community and the OOC channels are starting to pop off like WoW trade chat.
Game rocks.
"Sometimes, things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. People are basically good. Honor, courage, virtue mean everything. Power and money, money and power mean nothing. Good always triumphs over evil. Love, True Love Never Dies." Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
LOTRO's graphics are nothing special in directX 9 mode. Most people compare AoC directX 9 with LOTRO directX 10. They see that AoC is a tad better than LOTRO and say "what's he point?"
Do you understand the point now? Doesn't it make you wonder how exactly AoC will look when the directX 10 actually arrives?
there is one thing that AoC is doing that no other game (save EVE) is going and without instancing it would not work and that is the collision detection it is using for Players. This is a highly CPU intensive process to detect collision on constantly moving targets, it is bad enough to have to do this cull for NPCs, where you can determine the maximum number of moving targets in any one area (either through spawn control or leashing) but a different matter entirely when it comes to players. Thus you use instancing to manage that number to ensure that the heavy collision detection code doesn't bog the game down too much. With out this, they probably could of gone for the fake wow/vanguard seemeless world concept, but it would of also eliminated alot of the game play designed for the game. It is a trade off. Am I thrilled with the number of instances? No, but that doesn't mean I don't think they made the right choice for the game and I full expect that once the average computer system increases, that we will see an increase in the number of people who can be in a particular instance, but they didn't want to cut out 90% (stat pulled out of ass) their potential subscribers because they would have to require a E8400+ with SLI'd PCIe2.0 video cards to play the game
Sorry CoX did it, yes they have instanced zones and missions but they do not have clones of zones.
kakarotrage , did you really have to quote his entire post? you come down on him for his opinion then turn around and waste resources and other people's time. Seriously man.
there is one thing that AoC is doing that no other game (save EVE) is going and without instancing it would not work and that is the collision detection it is using for Players. This is a highly CPU intensive process to detect collision on constantly moving targets, it is bad enough to have to do this cull for NPCs, where you can determine the maximum number of moving targets in any one area (either through spawn control or leashing) but a different matter entirely when it comes to players. Thus you use instancing to manage that number to ensure that the heavy collision detection code doesn't bog the game down too much. With out this, they probably could of gone for the fake wow/vanguard seemeless world concept, but it would of also eliminated alot of the game play designed for the game. It is a trade off. Am I thrilled with the number of instances? No, but that doesn't mean I don't think they made the right choice for the game and I full expect that once the average computer system increases, that we will see an increase in the number of people who can be in a particular instance, but they didn't want to cut out 90% (stat pulled out of ass) their potential subscribers because they would have to require a E8400+ with SLI'd PCIe2.0 video cards to play the game
Sorry CoX did it, yes they have instanced zones and missions but they do not have clones of zones.
I can remember back to the early days where it wasn't uncommon to have 2 Atlas Parks, I also remember a PvP event where Sirens Call was up to instance 7.
Well the AoC release has taught me one thing. A bunch of people who think they know how MMOs work have never even looked into much less played EQ2.
EQ2 has come a long way. The game today is not the same it was after release. People have to give any game the chance to grow. EQ2 has a lot of fluff and DEVs nowadays do underestimate the power of good!! fluff. But to defend them i want to say that it is probably 2-5 times more expensive to create a game. EQ2 or WoW would cost a lot more nowadays to produce.
For some MMORPG players, this instancing system is really a turn off.
GW and DDO use per party instancing to fully control player enviroment. Thus, meeting other players is only possible in cities. WoW, LotRO and Vanguard use hidden zoning, giving you a really good impresion of seamless world. running into other players is possible almost everywhere. AoC is same as TR in this respect. It is zoned with loading between zones, but will also parallel instance any zone if its deemed crowded.
I noticed this in TR beta for myself ... I really prefer games that give illusion of seamles world. It's a personal choice. So it's ok to post about it, as some of us have preferences this way. As long as posts are kept factual and objective that is.
ILLUSION?! So, for instance in WoW, when I'm standing in Ashenvale and looking player who stand in The Barrens and talking with him is just an ILLUSION? Asking my self, what would be then when it will be real thing, more intense colors, better sound, pink elephants,..?!
I understand the OP's concerns .. and agree with them, accept ... many areas are really small .... if you are questing there, it only takes 2 other players and you will be fighting eachother over mobs to kill.
Damn ... in ancient SWG, you would find hundreds of people in the most popular cities, on huge open planets. If ya needed mobs or kills for a mission, they were spawned for you, or you could find the mobs over half the planet. Ok, the graphisc sucked .... but still ...
If i had the choice, i would choose bigger areas/ more peeps over graphics anytime.
this was also one of the core reasons i cancelled after less than 10 days played. this and tons of bugs, exploits, and just general lack of polish makes it clear they spent too much money on generating HYPE& developing for more sales on consoles, and not enough on creating good GAMEPLAY.
In other words, you had too high expectations and were ruined for you and the way the game played was not to your liking. Very valid reasons to quit a subscription (not that you need me to afirm that). Not valid enough to pronounce doom and gloom on the future of AoC. Not just yet anyway.
You know, people might enjoy the game more if they just played it rather than bitching and moaning about instances, which in most cases are 'limited zones,' and not 'intsances.' The actual number of real instances (aka just for you or your group) is fairly low.
So you can't stand in an Ironforge equivalent with 2,500 people in an auction house with slide-show. killer lag? This is a bad thing? And does anyone remember the 45-60 minute queues just to log into WoW? You don't see that in AoC, do you?
Every zone I've been in up to level 35 has had enough people, at least for my needs. It's not like your playing in an empty world (like current SWG).
It's a really good game, but it's not what I would personally consider an mmorpg. Instancing the main player meeting and interraction locations such as cities is not what mmorpgs are about.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
wow hearing people compare it to GW in a negative way is really having the opposite effect on me. I loved Guild Wars so now I might have to go out and buy this one ...In fact I think I will.
Failure. I group constantly, and don't have an issue with not being able to find other members in my zone. We also have had a guild meeting...no problems at all.
You can right-click anyone in your group and summon them to your instance. But most of the time that's not even needed, since when you enter a zone, you are placed in the same instance as your group members. WRONG! The Zoning and party interface/functionality is completely bugged at the moment: The summon party member does not work. You do not automatically join the same instance if you are grouped. The Zone select window does not always show which instance the group leader is in (random bug). You can loose your party window (still beeing able to chat in party channel) after changing the zone. You can get bugged so you can not invite or get invited after zoning while in party. Re-logging does not help, you are somehow bugged on the server. A logout for 20-30 minutes fixes the bug. Now, I find it Ironic that this post, bitching about zone replication, is on the same page as a post bitching about performance. No zone duplication would = slideshow for all. Dynamic content loading?? Go in-game and turn your distance sliders all the way down. Now run around a bit. Notice the chop? This is your machine struggling to load things as they come into view. The graphics of AoC are simply too intensive to dynamically load everything. Dynamic content loading, especially textures is bugged beyond belief. Some high quality textures get loaded even if very far awawy, some never get loaded or take up to 10 seconds to load if you standing next to an Object/Building/NPC. They have a generic blurry texture and look just ugly. Performance, even with heavy instancing is still total crap. Don't tell me it is my PC, i have a very good gaming PC: Q6600@2.7GHz, 2GB 1033 RAM, 1 TB WD SATA Raid 0 (185 MB/sec average, 270 MB/sec burst), eVGA 8800 GT Superclocked.
"Give players systems and tools instead of rails and rules"
Age of Conan is truly a great game if you got a pc that can handle it. If you don't I understand that people complain. But that one does not have the computer power is not FC's not FC's foult. When it comes to the instance type of managing players I got one question: What do you think would happen if you had WoW type instancing in the AoC cities considering gfx and all?
Bottom line: If you got a great pc then this is an awesome game.
If your PC suck, its time for an upgrade.
ps: The fact that i like the game does not make me a fanboy.
only reason I am posting here is because I see alot of people mentioning that collision detection requires alot of power from the servers, and that it is difficult to do in games with lots of people let alone creatures...etc. I saw a few people mention EQ1 had Collision detection, well so did Asheron's Call and the thing with AC was that in a few dungeons(not instanced by the way) you could go into them and get swarmed by 30-50 even more creatures in some cases, I name the olthoi hord nests as an example. in some cases you got surrounded and couldn't move you had to fight your way out. Characters were the same way go to the marketplace when it was real busy and you had 100+ people easy in there at any one time + the bots selling there wares. You had to run around all of these people. Lets see that was 10 years ago, are people no saying computing power has gone down?? I myself won't play AOC I was dissapointed right from beta. i won't get into why but the biggest thing was the instancing, and that is all i will say.
I don't think you are able to call AoC an MMO if it technically doesn't have a seamless world environment. Instead, AoC has thousands upon thousands of small instances for its environment.
Well...its not really environment, its called a 'zone'
Boobies and blood and shiny do not make a good MMO. For everything that is holy quit listing to kiddies that like graphics. You HAVE to tone it down for an MMO. it's just not possible at this time to do Vanguard or AOC high res if you are not on a LAN. So just stop already. It's a stupid argument shut your hole.
They took the MASSIVE out of the game for god's sake. It's guild wars with a subscription, bugs and loading screens!!!!!! Massive Fail.
HhusskCity of Heroes CorrespondentMemberPosts: 219
Originally posted by Battlekruse
I don't think you are able to call AoC an MMO if it technically doesn't have a seamless world environment. Instead, AoC has thousands upon thousands of small instances for its environment.
Well...its not really environment, its called a 'zone'
I have barely played Neverwinter Nights, but I had read that GMs could, in theory, build their instances of the world and connect their portals to the instances of other GM - created content.
So, if I were able to create some small map instances, and had a bunch of friends each host one, and then connect each of the instances....would this also be an MMO?
----------------------------- Blog -Transcendent''s Tomb - Reviews, Polls, and tortured opinions from the minions of MMORPGS
I don't think you are able to call AoC an MMO if it technically doesn't have a seamless world environment. Instead, AoC has thousands upon thousands of small instances for its environment.
Well...its not really environment, its called a 'zone'
I have barely played Neverwinter Nights, but I had read that GMs could, in theory, build their instances of the world and connect their portals to the instances of other GM - created content.
So, if I were able to create some small map instances, and had a bunch of friends each host one, and then connect each of the instances....would this also be an MMO?
Placing players into instaced version of the same city and putting a cap on the number of players makes it no longer Massive.
Creating a "Night" version of the city removes the multiplayer.
Therefore not MMO... okay it's online... but i'm not sure why.
Let me preface this review by stating the following:
2. I am desperate to find a "WoW" killer
AoC uses a "guild wars" type of instancing system... so much so that one can argue that this game is not in fact a true MMO. So you have picked a server that say supports 2-3000 players (estimated). Now unlike WoW or CoH/V or most MMOs if 1000 players go to any one city you are all not in fact in that city together, you are in one of upwards of 15-20 "instances" of that city or quest area even though you are all on the same server.
What this means is that you are really only playing with 5-10% of the actual server at any one time. This obviously completely ruins PvP. Want to get revenge for a gank? Too Bad! The ganker can switch instances and you are left with A) doing nothing or spending the next 30 minutes instance hopping just hoping to catch the offender.
This is completely unacceptable and it baffles me why this decision was made. Performance? Perhaps in 1998, but in 2008 this could not have been a performance issue when all other mainstream MMOs can and do handle > 2500 players per server without this type and level of server instancing.
See I guess that's the complete problem right there.
AoC isn't the game for me.. but neither will the next game "you" post in the forum of. Its not about good/bad or any universal comment.. they just won't have what I would want.
So a WoW killer? Um why would that be what you are looking for? I already don't understand your post when I got to that point.
The only perspective I could have is..
1) You love WoW and want something better.
or
2) you despise WoW and want something to kill it.
I'm not sure how either of those would be logical events to label on upcoming games.
When you went into your ramble about instancing..
Personally I don't think there is enough instancing. Mostly because I want to not ever have to interact with a certain type of person. Most of those are people who are either complaining about instances or constantly talking about WoW in the general chat of every MMO they play. (or chuck norris.. either way).
Two things that would make me reconsider my "cancel" of AoC would be..
1) Have the /ignore feature work on the account id. So that I don't have to ignore every alt of the idiot I've already ignored. Have the ignore "list" apply to all of my characters so I don't have to ignore everyon again on my alt. Right now /ignore is one of the best features of the game.. and this would only make it better.
2) When I find people I actually want to play with.. Allow us to have our own group or raid instance. This will allow us to completely ignore the idiots we already have on chat ignore.
This is only a semi serious response.. but I would in fact see those two options as adding a great positive to the game from my point of view.
*serious reply*
With the direction taken in this games development.. aka small zones that are more like paths to various destinations (rather than "wide open world"). If the game was not instanced.. getting anything done would be even more irritating than it is now.
This actually reminds me a LOT of lotro at release.. one of the worst communities I've ever seen. Of course that "worst" part will be gone soon(tm) just like in lotro.. it still doesn't change what one sees at release (and that is why my /ignore upgrade idea is something I've really wanted in my "free play" time).
Comments
I'm tired of quoting and correcting, so i'll just say this.
Sucks that you didnt like it. I'm 100% into it now that i found a community and the OOC channels are starting to pop off like WoW trade chat.
Game rocks.
"Sometimes, things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. People are basically good. Honor, courage, virtue mean everything. Power and money, money and power mean nothing. Good always triumphs over evil. Love, True Love Never Dies."
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
To Sarcazmo:
LOTRO's graphics are nothing special in directX 9 mode. Most people compare AoC directX 9 with LOTRO directX 10. They see that AoC is a tad better than LOTRO and say "what's he point?"
Do you understand the point now? Doesn't it make you wonder how exactly AoC will look when the directX 10 actually arrives?
Sorry CoX did it, yes they have instanced zones and missions but they do not have clones of zones.
kakarotrage , did you really have to quote his entire post? you come down on him for his opinion then turn around and waste resources and other people's time. Seriously man.
A tiny mind is a tidy mind...
Sorry CoX did it, yes they have instanced zones and missions but they do not have clones of zones.
I can remember back to the early days where it wasn't uncommon to have 2 Atlas Parks, I also remember a PvP event where Sirens Call was up to instance 7.
Well the AoC release has taught me one thing. A bunch of people who think they know how MMOs work have never even looked into much less played EQ2.
ILLUSION?! So, for instance in WoW, when I'm standing in Ashenvale and looking player who stand in The Barrens and talking with him is just an ILLUSION? Asking my self, what would be then when it will be real thing, more intense colors, better sound, pink elephants,..?!
---
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
I understand the OP's concerns .. and agree with them, accept ... many areas are really small .... if you are questing there, it only takes 2 other players and you will be fighting eachother over mobs to kill.
Damn ... in ancient SWG, you would find hundreds of people in the most popular cities, on huge open planets. If ya needed mobs or kills for a mission, they were spawned for you, or you could find the mobs over half the planet. Ok, the graphisc sucked .... but still ...
If i had the choice, i would choose bigger areas/ more peeps over graphics anytime.
this was also one of the core reasons i cancelled after less than 10 days played. this and tons of bugs, exploits, and just general lack of polish makes it clear they spent too much money on generating HYPE & developing for more sales on consoles, and not enough on creating good GAMEPLAY.
In other words, you had too high expectations and were ruined for you and the way the game played was not to your liking. Very valid reasons to quit a subscription (not that you need me to afirm that). Not valid enough to pronounce doom and gloom on the future of AoC. Not just yet anyway.
Wait till WAR comes out. I'm going to laugh so hard at all the people thinking WAR will save them.
The Brave Do Not Fear The Grave
You know, people might enjoy the game more if they just played it rather than bitching and moaning about instances, which in most cases are 'limited zones,' and not 'intsances.' The actual number of real instances (aka just for you or your group) is fairly low.
So you can't stand in an Ironforge equivalent with 2,500 people in an auction house with slide-show. killer lag? This is a bad thing? And does anyone remember the 45-60 minute queues just to log into WoW? You don't see that in AoC, do you?
Every zone I've been in up to level 35 has had enough people, at least for my needs. It's not like your playing in an empty world (like current SWG).
Agree with the OP.
It's a really good game, but it's not what I would personally consider an mmorpg. Instancing the main player meeting and interraction locations such as cities is not what mmorpgs are about.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
wow hearing people compare it to GW in a negative way is really having the opposite effect on me. I loved Guild Wars so now I might have to go out and buy this one
...In fact I think I will.
Age of Conan is truly a great game if you got a pc that can handle it. If you don't I understand that people complain. But that one does not have the computer power is not FC's not FC's foult. When it comes to the instance type of managing players I got one question: What do you think would happen if you had WoW type instancing in the AoC cities considering gfx and all?
Bottom line: If you got a great pc then this is an awesome game.
If your PC suck, its time for an upgrade.
ps: The fact that i like the game does not make me a fanboy.
Cross Posted from the VN boards.
http://vnboards.ign.com/age_of_conan_general_board/b22995/107468653/p1/?125
Good show.
only reason I am posting here is because I see alot of people mentioning that collision detection requires alot of power from the servers, and that it is difficult to do in games with lots of people let alone creatures...etc. I saw a few people mention EQ1 had Collision detection, well so did Asheron's Call and the thing with AC was that in a few dungeons(not instanced by the way) you could go into them and get swarmed by 30-50 even more creatures in some cases, I name the olthoi hord nests as an example. in some cases you got surrounded and couldn't move you had to fight your way out. Characters were the same way go to the marketplace when it was real busy and you had 100+ people easy in there at any one time + the bots selling there wares. You had to run around all of these people. Lets see that was 10 years ago, are people no saying computing power has gone down?? I myself won't play AOC I was dissapointed right from beta. i won't get into why but the biggest thing was the instancing, and that is all i will say.
I don't think you are able to call AoC an MMO if it technically doesn't have a seamless world environment. Instead, AoC has thousands upon thousands of small instances for its environment.
Well...its not really environment, its called a 'zone'
Boobies and blood and shiny do not make a good MMO. For everything that is holy quit listing to kiddies that like graphics. You HAVE to tone it down for an MMO. it's just not possible at this time to do Vanguard or AOC high res if you are not on a LAN. So just stop already. It's a stupid argument shut your hole.
They took the MASSIVE out of the game for god's sake. It's guild wars with a subscription, bugs and loading screens!!!!!! Massive Fail.
So, if I were able to create some small map instances, and had a bunch of friends each host one, and then connect each of the instances....would this also be an MMO?
-----------------------------
Blog -Transcendent''s Tomb - Reviews, Polls, and tortured opinions from the minions of MMORPGS
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Hhussk
So, if I were able to create some small map instances, and had a bunch of friends each host one, and then connect each of the instances....would this also be an MMO?
Placing players into instaced version of the same city and putting a cap on the number of players makes it no longer Massive.
Creating a "Night" version of the city removes the multiplayer.
Therefore not MMO... okay it's online... but i'm not sure why.
See I guess that's the complete problem right there.
AoC isn't the game for me.. but neither will the next game "you" post in the forum of. Its not about good/bad or any universal comment.. they just won't have what I would want.
So a WoW killer? Um why would that be what you are looking for? I already don't understand your post when I got to that point.
The only perspective I could have is..
1) You love WoW and want something better.
or
2) you despise WoW and want something to kill it.
I'm not sure how either of those would be logical events to label on upcoming games.
When you went into your ramble about instancing..
Personally I don't think there is enough instancing. Mostly because I want to not ever have to interact with a certain type of person. Most of those are people who are either complaining about instances or constantly talking about WoW in the general chat of every MMO they play. (or chuck norris.. either way).
Two things that would make me reconsider my "cancel" of AoC would be..
1) Have the /ignore feature work on the account id. So that I don't have to ignore every alt of the idiot I've already ignored. Have the ignore "list" apply to all of my characters so I don't have to ignore everyon again on my alt. Right now /ignore is one of the best features of the game.. and this would only make it better.
2) When I find people I actually want to play with.. Allow us to have our own group or raid instance. This will allow us to completely ignore the idiots we already have on chat ignore.
This is only a semi serious response.. but I would in fact see those two options as adding a great positive to the game from my point of view.
*serious reply*
With the direction taken in this games development.. aka small zones that are more like paths to various destinations (rather than "wide open world"). If the game was not instanced.. getting anything done would be even more irritating than it is now.
This actually reminds me a LOT of lotro at release.. one of the worst communities I've ever seen. Of course that "worst" part will be gone soon(tm) just like in lotro.. it still doesn't change what one sees at release (and that is why my /ignore upgrade idea is something I've really wanted in my "free play" time).