Full focus was put on creating a preview video in the middle of October and has been there since. Once the focus was put on producing something to be seen externally, with that kind of attention to detail that we know critical individuals will have, we began to see small but significant rendering issues we were not happy with.
Fixing these issues has been far from trivial and has resulted in more than a few complete re-writes. In some cases we have run in to some limitations of the engine we were not particularly happy with and have been working with the engine team to resolve these issues.
Many of these changes have also resulted in what would have been a complete rebuild of the entire client...which for the conversion processing of 400+ old AO playfields represents approximately 400+ hours of exporting/conversion. We all want a closed beta running as soon as possible but we are not really wanting to run that process before we are dead certain we will not have to run it again. It also goes without saying that we all want this out as soon as possible, but with years already invested in this undertaking we just aren't willing to deliver something we are not happy with.
If there is a positive note in the delays associated with getting the code aspect of this change up and running it is that it has given the artists much more time to upgrade assets to be there for the day it goes live.
Our goal is to have a closed Beta running this year. This is still an aggressive target at this point and it is hard to determine whether we will make it or not at this point as a great deal of this work is still "innovation" and "creative" in nature.
Yeah this engine upgrade is bordering on absolutely ridiculous. Would have been something that would have pumped new life into the game when it was expected back in 2008...now...yeah it will look better but for the time spent and what people expect these days it will not only have to be 100% bug free but its going to need flawless combat and animations ect.
I almost think that at this point in 2012 that starting the game from scratch would have taken just as long and might have resulted in a superior effect.
Yeah this engine upgrade is bordering on absolutely ridiculous. Would have been something that would have pumped new life into the game when it was expected back in 2008...now...yeah it will look better but for the time spent and what people expect these days it will not only have to be 100% bug free but its going to need flawless combat and animations ect.
I almost think that at this point in 2012 that starting the game from scratch would have taken just as long and might have resulted in a superior effect.
Given the horrors they inflicted on us with the original launch of Anarchy Online (one of the WORST in MMO history), I shudder to think what the second launch would be like. Hopefully, they have gained enough experience with their other games, to avoid that... But this is Funcom...
When they update the engine... I will sub to this game..
Yea so would I! My fingers are itching to reactivate NOW but I gotta say it's probably not worth a monthly sub at this time. Been watching some "Let's play Anarchy Online" vids on youtube and omg... the memories.
I have been watching the progress of Ao for a while now and I even tried it a few months back. I am a massive fan of sandbox games. I used to play SWG back in 2003 and EVE-online which I still have an active account, both of those games good or bad brought out updates and EVE still does constantly.
Looking at the AO website there seems to be a huge lack of any meaningful updates over the past years, apart from money making expansions of course. My biggest concern is why it has taken all these years to improve the graphics and fix major bugs which I have noticed people asking for ?. It seems to me they gave up on it and just left a skeleton crew to keep the servers running and little else.
One day I will find another sandbox game to call home, untill then I will remain a game hopper.
In the time they've been porting the game to an existing engine that they made, they could have and have made other full games. And, they've been collecting subs and running a cash store that entire time with little to no other real development other than a new GMS, some very small raids with complete rehashed graphics, and some new items that are basically just number changes or for the cash shop. Saying they are milking the game for all it's worth is the understatement of the decade IMO. And, best of all, they get offended about it when paying customers call them out on it.
It might have been sort of nice if they completed the graphics upgrade in a reasonable time. But honestly, anyone left still playing and paying wasn't doing it for the graphics. Graphics that will still be horribly outdated if they ever release.
They should have made an AO2 if they wanted to continue with that game. It would have been easier, faster, and less headache to make a new game than to keep hacking away at a horribly coded and commented/documented game that AO is and has come to be after years of quick fixes and hack jobs with poor documenting. They are still finding mechanics that don't work and never worked the way they were intended. Usually when trying to add on to existing systems or make changes in them.
Las time I logged in everyone and their mother was flying around with Ganimedes Personal Jetpack I remember reading somewhere some of the devs telling they are trying to make the traveling more fun for lowbies. I guess free jetpack was their answer.
In the time they've been porting the game to an existing engine that they made, they could have and have made other full games. And, they've been collecting subs and running a cash store that entire time with little to no other real development other than a new GMS, some very small raids with complete rehashed graphics, and some new items that are basically just number changes or for the cash shop. Saying they are milking the game for all it's worth is the understatement of the decade IMO. And, best of all, they get offended about it when paying customers call them out on it.
It might have been sort of nice if they completed the graphics upgrade in a reasonable time. But honestly, anyone left still playing and paying wasn't doing it for the graphics. Graphics that will still be horribly outdated if they ever release.
They should have made an AO2 if they wanted to continue with that game. It would have been easier, faster, and less headache to make a new game than to keep hacking away at a horribly coded and commented/documented game that AO is and has come to be after years of quick fixes and hack jobs with poor documenting. They are still finding mechanics that don't work and never worked the way they were intended. Usually when trying to add on to existing systems or make changes in them.
They did...they made TSW.
Theres literally like 13 people in canada in charge with porting the game over, that is why it has and is taking so long. Monumental task and small skeleton crew doing it...remember they have to reskin the world and all the items...few games have as much world and even fewer games have as many items as AO did.
In the time they've been porting the game to an existing engine that they made, they could have and have made other full games. And, they've been collecting subs and running a cash store that entire time with little to no other real development other than a new GMS, some very small raids with complete rehashed graphics, and some new items that are basically just number changes or for the cash shop. Saying they are milking the game for all it's worth is the understatement of the decade IMO. And, best of all, they get offended about it when paying customers call them out on it.
It might have been sort of nice if they completed the graphics upgrade in a reasonable time. But honestly, anyone left still playing and paying wasn't doing it for the graphics. Graphics that will still be horribly outdated if they ever release.
They should have made an AO2 if they wanted to continue with that game. It would have been easier, faster, and less headache to make a new game than to keep hacking away at a horribly coded and commented/documented game that AO is and has come to be after years of quick fixes and hack jobs with poor documenting. They are still finding mechanics that don't work and never worked the way they were intended. Usually when trying to add on to existing systems or make changes in them.
They did...they made TSW.
Theres literally like 13 people in canada in charge with porting the game over, that is why it has and is taking so long. Monumental task and small skeleton crew doing it...remember they have to reskin the world and all the items...few games have as much world and even fewer games have as many items as AO did.
Exactly. If they had real intent, they'd put the manpower in it to get it done. Instead, it's taken an eternity and still not finished. Doing so puts everything else for the game on hold and continues to frustrate any remaining players. And, the end product will be just a little better looking and nothing else. They'll still have new content to make and the rebalance/new nanos thing to do. Basically, at their current pace, it won't happen before they shut it down or get bought out and AO shut down for budget cuts or to work on a new game.
Anyone still playing AO and actually paying for it was not doing so for the graphics. The new graphics will not be mind blowing or deserving of much more than a meh by the time they launch. While nice, it won't keep people interested for long when it's not why they finally quit. Honestly, I would hazard a guess to say it will also bring a drop in performance and launch with plenty of bugs inherent to the mess of code the game is. AO is low priority and it shows.
[edit] While the game does have tons of items, a lot of them are completely useless to everyone including froobs. Reskinning them to look pretty just makes them social tab items. Look, I played the games for years and I quit long ago. I played it for the complexity/character depth and the community. Graphics were never a draw point. Newer graphics that aren't really new and will come at a hefty performance hit doesn't even register a blip to me. FUncom drove me away for a myriad of other reasons that no graphics upgrade even touches. [/edit]
Originally posted by adeptuz Las time I logged in everyone and their mother was flying around with Ganimedes Personal Jetpack I remember reading somewhere some of the devs telling they are trying to make the traveling more fun for lowbies. I guess free jetpack was their answer.
Was that another aniversary item? Probably a reskin of a backpack with onequip of a renamed version of quantum wings.
Originally posted by adeptuz Las time I logged in everyone and their mother was flying around with Ganimedes Personal Jetpack I remember reading somewhere some of the devs telling they are trying to make the traveling more fun for lowbies. I guess free jetpack was their answer.
Was that another aniversary item? Probably a reskin of a backpack with onequip of a renamed version of quantum wings.
I think they were selling that same jetpack in their Item shop and decided to give it away eventually. I just found it funny when I realised all the players were suddenly flying around with the jetpack. If that's Funcoms way to make traveling as a lowbie less painful... it was an easy call. RK was mostly deserted already after SL and now all remaining players are just flying around making the world feel even more deserted. Don't get me wrong, I loved the game really loved it. All that metagaming, twinking and number crunching. I even loved the game after SL and AI, it was after LE when I left the game. It's just sad to see how many wrong decisions Funcom made with AO.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the game really loved it. All that metagaming, twinking and number crunching. I even loved the game after SL and AI, it was after LE when I left the game. It's just sad to see how many wrong decisions Funcom made with AO.
Indeed. Indeed. And they are still making those mistakes. Though, I was not a fan of what they did to the game with SL mechanics and settings both.
FC now hope the community will have a beta client in early 2013.
The developers are good at milking money out of people and not much else. FC should never have hired people from the community to develop AO, they horribly worthless at their job. Anyone who want to dispute that fact can just look up on the list of promises we've had since 2007 and tell me how many were met.
This whole thing is starting to remind me of that Guns'n Roses album we were all waiting for... still remains to be seen if Funcom delivers the goods. I sure hope so because AO was one of the absolutely best MMO's I ever played (after they got the house in order after launch).
Comments
Hi,
here are 2 engine preview clips from the 10th Anniversary Party in Montreal
Anarchy Online Engine Preview 1 - 10th Aniversary Montreal
Anarchy Online Engine Preview 2 - 10th Aniversary Montreal
Hope you like it
Eony
Nice to finally see the engine in action and not just that couple minute preview everyone's been watching for so long. Got an ETA?
Unfortunately there is no ETA
Only this ......
Engine time estimate?
Full focus was put on creating a preview video in the middle of October and has been there since. Once the focus was put on producing something to be seen externally, with that kind of attention to detail that we know critical individuals will have, we began to see small but significant rendering issues we were not happy with.
Fixing these issues has been far from trivial and has resulted in more than a few complete re-writes. In some cases we have run in to some limitations of the engine we were not particularly happy with and have been working with the engine team to resolve these issues.
Many of these changes have also resulted in what would have been a complete rebuild of the entire client...which for the conversion processing of 400+ old AO playfields represents approximately 400+ hours of exporting/conversion. We all want a closed beta running as soon as possible but we are not really wanting to run that process before we are dead certain we will not have to run it again. It also goes without saying that we all want this out as soon as possible, but with years already invested in this undertaking we just aren't willing to deliver something we are not happy with.
If there is a positive note in the delays associated with getting the code aspect of this change up and running it is that it has given the artists much more time to upgrade assets to be there for the day it goes live.
Our goal is to have a closed Beta running this year. This is still an aggressive target at this point and it is hard to determine whether we will make it or not at this point as a great deal of this work is still "innovation" and "creative" in nature.
To found in this thread Answers from FWM November 11th, 2011 Questions
Eony
EEony
Hi there,
The first Official Video of the Progress and look of the new Engine
Hope you like it !!!!
Eo
No news?
Yeah this engine upgrade is bordering on absolutely ridiculous. Would have been something that would have pumped new life into the game when it was expected back in 2008...now...yeah it will look better but for the time spent and what people expect these days it will not only have to be 100% bug free but its going to need flawless combat and animations ect.
I almost think that at this point in 2012 that starting the game from scratch would have taken just as long and might have resulted in a superior effect.
The characters still look like ass.
When they update the engine... I will sub to this game..
Them pricks need hurry up and get this thing going.
Given the horrors they inflicted on us with the original launch of Anarchy Online (one of the WORST in MMO history), I shudder to think what the second launch would be like. Hopefully, they have gained enough experience with their other games, to avoid that... But this is Funcom...
Yea so would I! My fingers are itching to reactivate NOW but I gotta say it's probably not worth a monthly sub at this time. Been watching some "Let's play Anarchy Online" vids on youtube and omg... the memories.
I have been watching the progress of Ao for a while now and I even tried it a few months back. I am a massive fan of sandbox games. I used to play SWG back in 2003 and EVE-online which I still have an active account, both of those games good or bad brought out updates and EVE still does constantly.
Looking at the AO website there seems to be a huge lack of any meaningful updates over the past years, apart from money making expansions of course. My biggest concern is why it has taken all these years to improve the graphics and fix major bugs which I have noticed people asking for ?. It seems to me they gave up on it and just left a skeleton crew to keep the servers running and little else.
One day I will find another sandbox game to call home, untill then I will remain a game hopper.
I look at it this way...
In the time they've been porting the game to an existing engine that they made, they could have and have made other full games. And, they've been collecting subs and running a cash store that entire time with little to no other real development other than a new GMS, some very small raids with complete rehashed graphics, and some new items that are basically just number changes or for the cash shop. Saying they are milking the game for all it's worth is the understatement of the decade IMO. And, best of all, they get offended about it when paying customers call them out on it.
It might have been sort of nice if they completed the graphics upgrade in a reasonable time. But honestly, anyone left still playing and paying wasn't doing it for the graphics. Graphics that will still be horribly outdated if they ever release.
They should have made an AO2 if they wanted to continue with that game. It would have been easier, faster, and less headache to make a new game than to keep hacking away at a horribly coded and commented/documented game that AO is and has come to be after years of quick fixes and hack jobs with poor documenting. They are still finding mechanics that don't work and never worked the way they were intended. Usually when trying to add on to existing systems or make changes in them.
They did...they made TSW.
Theres literally like 13 people in canada in charge with porting the game over, that is why it has and is taking so long. Monumental task and small skeleton crew doing it...remember they have to reskin the world and all the items...few games have as much world and even fewer games have as many items as AO did.
Exactly. If they had real intent, they'd put the manpower in it to get it done. Instead, it's taken an eternity and still not finished. Doing so puts everything else for the game on hold and continues to frustrate any remaining players. And, the end product will be just a little better looking and nothing else. They'll still have new content to make and the rebalance/new nanos thing to do. Basically, at their current pace, it won't happen before they shut it down or get bought out and AO shut down for budget cuts or to work on a new game.
Anyone still playing AO and actually paying for it was not doing so for the graphics. The new graphics will not be mind blowing or deserving of much more than a meh by the time they launch. While nice, it won't keep people interested for long when it's not why they finally quit. Honestly, I would hazard a guess to say it will also bring a drop in performance and launch with plenty of bugs inherent to the mess of code the game is. AO is low priority and it shows.
[edit] While the game does have tons of items, a lot of them are completely useless to everyone including froobs. Reskinning them to look pretty just makes them social tab items. Look, I played the games for years and I quit long ago. I played it for the complexity/character depth and the community. Graphics were never a draw point. Newer graphics that aren't really new and will come at a hefty performance hit doesn't even register a blip to me. FUncom drove me away for a myriad of other reasons that no graphics upgrade even touches. [/edit]
Was that another aniversary item? Probably a reskin of a backpack with onequip of a renamed version of quantum wings.
I think they were selling that same jetpack in their Item shop and decided to give it away eventually. I just found it funny when I realised all the players were suddenly flying around with the jetpack. If that's Funcoms way to make traveling as a lowbie less painful... it was an easy call. RK was mostly deserted already after SL and now all remaining players are just flying around making the world feel even more deserted. Don't get me wrong, I loved the game really loved it. All that metagaming, twinking and number crunching. I even loved the game after SL and AI, it was after LE when I left the game. It's just sad to see how many wrong decisions Funcom made with AO.
Indeed. Indeed. And they are still making those mistakes. Though, I was not a fan of what they did to the game with SL mechanics and settings both.
FC now hope the community will have a beta client in early 2013.
The developers are good at milking money out of people and not much else. FC should never have hired people from the community to develop AO, they horribly worthless at their job. Anyone who want to dispute that fact can just look up on the list of promises we've had since 2007 and tell me how many were met.
Sack the fools and close the game down.
Ad astra per astrada
No. "Good" politicians are MUCH better at covering their tracks, than Funcom has ever been. ^^
Played AO for years.
Too bad, so sad, love bread.
Move on ppl. Nothing more to see here.