Case in point...Age of Conan Online. Look at all the instancing going on. Just like Guild Wars you got instances being shoved down your throat at every turn which takes away from the ONE WORLD ONE SERVER holy grail that was originally intended to begin with People, what happened? How did we come to this? You mean to tell me we STILL do not have the technology to get EVERYBODY on one server and one map? Of course we do not, can you imagine 15,000 people standing in front of one NPC asking for a quest??? So, to sum up...MMO is really a pipe dream. There never was a holy grail , never was the reality of everybody playing together on one server, ONE SERVER and EVERYONE there at SAME TIME No sorry, sadly it was all a pipe dream and we all are relegated to this....INSTANCING. MMO gaming is a joke and it always has been. I feel like I am a million miles away from the real game while i am leveling up in Tortage City, the noobie island. The immersion factor is NOT THERE. Where is everybody else? I would like to know people that are playing in the real game are near me somewhere. Where are they!!!!!!!!!!!!!??? To me this point is critical. Fun Com blew it with the newbie zone. My suggestion...STOP the game and reorganize the newbie zone so that it is on the same map as the real game, so we can run over and see high lvl players doing whatever. As it is now, there is no immersion into this supposedly huge game...only immersion i have received so far is being trapped inside a box
So go ahead and rationalize and tell me why everything is okay as it is, hehehe. Make excuses for Age of Conan..can't wait to read your replies Enjoy!
I won't make excuses for AoC, that game just fails. But its not a pipe dream. The classic (and good) MMOs didn't have instancing. Ultima Online, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot all had huge seamless worlds. Instancing is just a recent disease.
Disease huh? how did AoC fail exactly considering the current population base makes the 2nd largest US MMO to date it has more players than DAoC, EQ, AC or UO had in their peaks.
Case in point...Age of Conan Online. Look at all the instancing going on. Just like Guild Wars you got instances being shoved down your throat at every turn which takes away from the ONE WORLD ONE SERVER holy grail that was originally intended to begin with People, what happened? How did we come to this? You mean to tell me we STILL do not have the technology to get EVERYBODY on one server and one map? Of course we do not, can you imagine 15,000 people standing in front of one NPC asking for a quest??? So, to sum up...MMO is really a pipe dream. There never was a holy grail , never was the reality of everybody playing together on one server, ONE SERVER and EVERYONE there at SAME TIME No sorry, sadly it was all a pipe dream and we all are relegated to this....INSTANCING. MMO gaming is a joke and it always has been. I feel like I am a million miles away from the real game while i am leveling up in Tortage City, the noobie island. The immersion factor is NOT THERE. Where is everybody else? I would like to know people that are playing in the real game are near me somewhere. Where are they!!!!!!!!!!!!!??? To me this point is critical. Fun Com blew it with the newbie zone. My suggestion...STOP the game and reorganize the newbie zone so that it is on the same map as the real game, so we can run over and see high lvl players doing whatever. As it is now, there is no immersion into this supposedly huge game...only immersion i have received so far is being trapped inside a box
So go ahead and rationalize and tell me why everything is okay as it is, hehehe. Make excuses for Age of Conan..can't wait to read your replies Enjoy!
I won't make excuses for AoC, that game just fails. But its not a pipe dream. The classic (and good) MMOs didn't have instancing. Ultima Online, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot all had huge seamless worlds. Instancing is just a recent disease.
Disease huh? how did AoC fail exactly considering the current population base makes the 2nd largest US MMO to date it has more players than DAoC, EQ, AC or UO had in their peaks.
First off, I highly doubt that AoC has more subscribers right now than EQ did at its peak. Second off the game just released, Vanguard had more subscribers when the game first launched than AoC does now. There will be a mass fall off as people quit due to boredom, bugs, and generally not liking the game.
Instancing is a disease in the sense that whenever developers are faced with a problem, they throw instancing at it. Sure, its great technology, and even useful sometimes (story based quests where you need scripted encounters). But this is a slippery slope the developers go down that destroys the feel of a game. When the population of your world dissapears into instances, it ceases being an MMO. All the content is wasted because people just spend their time in the instances. When instances were added to DAoC I thought it was great at first until I went around all the old dungeons and old hunting spots and they were all empty. Everyone just got a group together and went into a randomly generated instance. It kills the MMO part of MMORPG and breaks social interaction. "But now people won't camp those mobs I wanna kill!" "Now no moron is going to train mobs by me and get me killed!" Those were all elements of the games that added frustration, but interaction between people. You used to be able to wander into a dungeon, run into trouble and get saved by another group that just happened to be there. Then you'd join up and go deeper together than you could alone. Can't do that in an instance. Can't have random people help you out.
People don't seem to want social interaction anymore. They just wanna run from quest hub to quest hub following the dotted lines to the monsters they need 5 heads of to bring back for exp.
Disease huh? how did AoC fail exactly considering the current population base makes the 2nd largest US MMO to date it has more players than DAoC, EQ, AC or UO had in their peaks.
First off, I highly doubt that AoC has more subscribers right now than EQ did at its peak. Second off the game just released, Vanguard had more subscribers when the game first launched than AoC does now. There will be a mass fall off as people quit due to boredom, bugs, and generally not liking the game.
Instancing is a disease in the sense that whenever developers are faced with a problem, they throw instancing at it. Sure, its great technology, and even useful sometimes (story based quests where you need scripted encounters). But this is a slippery slope the developers go down that destroys the feel of a game. When the population of your world dissapears into instances, it ceases being an MMO. All the content is wasted because people just spend their time in the instances. When instances were added to DAoC I thought it was great at first until I went around all the old dungeons and old hunting spots and they were all empty. Everyone just got a group together and went into a randomly generated instance. It kills the MMO part of MMORPG and breaks social interaction. "But now people won't camp those mobs I wanna kill!" "Now no moron is going to train mobs by me and get me killed!" Those were all elements of the games that added frustration, but interaction between people. You used to be able to wander into a dungeon, run into trouble and get saved by another group that just happened to be there. Then you'd join up and go deeper together than you could alone. Can't do that in an instance. Can't have random people help you out.
People don't seem to want social interaction anymore. They just wanna run from quest hub to quest hub following the dotted lines to the monsters they need 5 heads of to bring back for exp.
First off AoC sent 700K copies of the game to retailers. Retailers would not of purchased that many copies if they didn't believe they were going to sell them. They also sold all 110K copies of the CE. Vanguard never sold more copies then that and never had as many people playing. LOTRO would be the closest game to AoC for subscriber base in recent years.
Secondly there is a lot of misinformation about the instances and zones in Age of conan being put out by people that haven't left Tortage.
Once you leave the island the zones are huge. According to the producer Tortage is only 5% of the total land mass. So all of tortage and the zones there etc are 5% of the total game world.
According to the developers the Zones are 2-3 KM in length and Width. so they would be around 4 sq miles each for the bigger zones. Which from my experience is at least the 3 20-30 zones are that large.
So that right there is about 12 SQ miles so those three zones are about 2/3rs of Azeroth in shear landmass. Now I am sure the 30-80 zones will be atleast equal in size to the 20-30 zones for total land mass which would mean that Hyboria is around 75% the size of the Outlands and Azeroth combined.
Instances are not even noticable to be perfectly honest. I was in the 20-30 zone for the Aquilonians (I forget the name now) and there was about 30 people within viewing distance of me almost all the time. It didn't matter how far away I ran from them there were more people. I would guess there is roughly a 200-300 cap at the lowest on most instances.
The people talking about instances are using hearsay or are using the single player 1-20 aspect of the game and then trying to expand it. I am sorry but this game is nothing like World of Warcraft. It is nothing like Warhammer will be either. When you use better graphics you are going to need the ability to keep the population down in an area. But there is no reason to think it is down to a few people. They have already hown by their sieges that 100 people can be fighting in close combat in an area (basically 48 vs 48). Even with WoW's low end graphics they have trouble running that many people in an area. How many people did old world PVP when the server would be running like ass because of the 100+ people in an area. So WoW is not capable even with their low end graphics of supporting higher numbers in close combat. Heck their largest amount of people that they support in an area is AV and that is 80.
So in conclusion we have a world that is roughly equal to World of Warcraft's total worldsize that can support as many people fighting in a single area as World of Warcraft can.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Disease huh? how did AoC fail exactly considering the current population base makes the 2nd largest US MMO to date it has more players than DAoC, EQ, AC or UO had in their peaks.
First off, I highly doubt that AoC has more subscribers right now than EQ did at its peak. Second off the game just released, Vanguard had more subscribers when the game first launched than AoC does now. There will be a mass fall off as people quit due to boredom, bugs, and generally not liking the game.
I'd like to know where either of you get you numbers, since they never have been published officially almost every company other than WOW and NCSoft. (MMOGchart or whatever doesn't count)
The instancing is fine, its a bit much in the tutorial, and the night side storyline does make you feel a bit lonely, but once we get out of this tutorial I think our options are going to open up just fine. I know when I do an instance on the daylight I have no problem thinking I'm with other players considering I play on a PVP server and I have to battle like crazy just to survive.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Another example of a MMO capable of great graphics while still being instance free is the upcoming game Aion, from the creators of lineage2 and guildwars. The game uses the cryengine1 (which developed farcry, and Crysis uses cryengine2). It has KICK ASS graphics, yet again every player is in game are in a seamless world. Either way, people who say its impossible to have a seamless world in a game with top graphics = fail.
Another example of a MMO capable of great graphics while still being instance free is the upcoming game Aion, from the creators of lineage2 and guildwars. The game uses the cryengine1 (which developed farcry, and Crysis uses cryengine2). It has KICK ASS graphics, yet again every player is in game are in a seamless world. Either way, people who say its impossible to have a seamless world in a game with top graphics = fail.
Have you even played Aion? Everything I have seen and heard shows that the world will be zoned quite heavily and it doesn't compare to Age of Conan in level of detail for graphics.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Right now the community is split between the gamers that see an MMORPG as another game, similar to a single player game but with buddies, and the gamers that see MMOs as worlds to live in. It's a pity both types of games are in the same category, this leads to much confussion. We should call them MMOG (ames) and MMOW (orlds).
Right now the community is split between the gamers that see an MMORPG as another game, similar to a single player game but with buddies, and the gamers that see MMOs as worlds to live in. It's a pity both types of games are in the same category, this leads to much confussion. We should call them MMOG (ames) and MMOW (orlds).
There really isn't a difference though. Even games like World of Warcraft that are supposedly so seamless really aren't. You can't travel from one continent to another without zoning. You can't do a Dungeon without zoning. And each of those dungeons are seperate instances. WoW has the exact same world design they just knew that the vast majority of their players would be in a dungeon somewhere so that takes a lot of the load off the main areas.
I run into just as many people on Age of Conan while playing as I have on any game in my 12 years of playing Graphical MMOs (over the course of 38+ games). People seem to get upset over technical differences. I am sorry but I never play with more then 96 people at a single time and we already know that AoC can handle 96 people in a single area fighting (since that is the size of sieges).
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Another example of a MMO capable of great graphics while still being instance free is the upcoming game Aion, from the creators of lineage2 and guildwars. The game uses the cryengine1 (which developed farcry, and Crysis uses cryengine2). It has KICK ASS graphics, yet again every player is in game are in a seamless world. Either way, people who say its impossible to have a seamless world in a game with top graphics = fail.
Have you even played Aion? Everything I have seen and heard shows that the world will be zoned quite heavily and it doesn't compare to Age of Conan in level of detail for graphics.
Aion has zero enclosed instances. The two fractions are on 2 different lands, but when portals open up ALL players within the server will be free to teleport inbetween the 2 lands and PVP. Other areas like abyss are some what instanced because they are not connect to the rest of the world(i think), but it has no limit to how many players can be in there. Works a lot like DAOC's battlegrounds.
and on graphics, i agree that AoC uses superior graphic engine. But detail wise? I think aion has more. just check out the video for the armors.
Now if NCsoft is able to render all these detail textures times the number of players in a seamless world, thats pretty impressive graphical wise.
Its not really a suprise or anything, as i said earlier incase u didn't see, games like lineage 2 easily have up to 100+ people during regular everyday pvps, and anywhere from 200-500 during sieges... Ya the game doesn't have dx10 like AoC, but it has better graphics than 90% of the MMOs out there.
Disease huh? how did AoC fail exactly considering the current population base makes the 2nd largest US MMO to date it has more players than DAoC, EQ, AC or UO had in their peaks.
First off, I highly doubt that AoC has more subscribers right now than EQ did at its peak. Second off the game just released, Vanguard had more subscribers when the game first launched than AoC does now. There will be a mass fall off as people quit due to boredom, bugs, and generally not liking the game.
I'd like to know where either of you get you numbers, since they never have been published officially almost every company other than WOW and NCSoft. (MMOGchart or whatever doesn't count)
The instancing is fine, its a bit much in the tutorial, and the night side storyline does make you feel a bit lonely, but once we get out of this tutorial I think our options are going to open up just fine. I know when I do an instance on the daylight I have no problem thinking I'm with other players considering I play on a PVP server and I have to battle like crazy just to survive.
Non official numbers from couple days had US subscribers at 300k and total at 700k based on boxes sold and player trackers (xfire and so on).
Edit: Vanguard has no more 200k US players at max at its peak.
Disease huh? how did AoC fail exactly considering the current population base makes the 2nd largest US MMO to date it has more players than DAoC, EQ, AC or UO had in their peaks.
First off, I highly doubt that AoC has more subscribers right now than EQ did at its peak. Second off the game just released, Vanguard had more subscribers when the game first launched than AoC does now. There will be a mass fall off as people quit due to boredom, bugs, and generally not liking the game.
Instancing is a disease in the sense that whenever developers are faced with a problem, they throw instancing at it. Sure, its great technology, and even useful sometimes (story based quests where you need scripted encounters). But this is a slippery slope the developers go down that destroys the feel of a game. When the population of your world dissapears into instances, it ceases being an MMO. All the content is wasted because people just spend their time in the instances. When instances were added to DAoC I thought it was great at first until I went around all the old dungeons and old hunting spots and they were all empty. Everyone just got a group together and went into a randomly generated instance. It kills the MMO part of MMORPG and breaks social interaction. "But now people won't camp those mobs I wanna kill!" "Now no moron is going to train mobs by me and get me killed!" Those were all elements of the games that added frustration, but interaction between people. You used to be able to wander into a dungeon, run into trouble and get saved by another group that just happened to be there. Then you'd join up and go deeper together than you could alone. Can't do that in an instance. Can't have random people help you out.
People don't seem to want social interaction anymore. They just wanna run from quest hub to quest hub following the dotted lines to the monsters they need 5 heads of to bring back for exp.
First off AoC sent 700K copies of the game to retailers. Retailers would not of purchased that many copies if they didn't believe they were going to sell them. They also sold all 110K copies of the CE. Vanguard never sold more copies then that and never had as many people playing. LOTRO would be the closest game to AoC for subscriber base in recent years.
The fact that all the CE are sold out is a downright lie. I've heard form numerous friends that there are CE just sitting in their local game stores untouched. Sounds like just the kind of thing Funcom would overexagerate, like that did most of their game. 700k games to retailers DOES NOT mean that 700k copies are sold.
And do you honestly mean to tell me that everyone who bought their copy is going to play? If that was the case then Vanguard would be one of the most successful MMOs right now. There's going to be a mass falling out after a few months, the only reason this many copies was sold to begin with was because of the major major overhype (kudos to the marketing team I guess for convincing the sheep). The game will probably level off at 200k to 300k subscribers.
And you know why EQ didn't have these massive numbers, despite being the most popular MMO at the time? Because there weren't as many MMO gamers as there are today. WoW brought in a whole slew of new numbers, so almost every game from that point all will have increasing numbers, comparatively.
Disease huh? how did AoC fail exactly considering the current population base makes the 2nd largest US MMO to date it has more players than DAoC, EQ, AC or UO had in their peaks.
First off, I highly doubt that AoC has more subscribers right now than EQ did at its peak. Second off the game just released, Vanguard had more subscribers when the game first launched than AoC does now. There will be a mass fall off as people quit due to boredom, bugs, and generally not liking the game.
Instancing is a disease in the sense that whenever developers are faced with a problem, they throw instancing at it. Sure, its great technology, and even useful sometimes (story based quests where you need scripted encounters). But this is a slippery slope the developers go down that destroys the feel of a game. When the population of your world dissapears into instances, it ceases being an MMO. All the content is wasted because people just spend their time in the instances. When instances were added to DAoC I thought it was great at first until I went around all the old dungeons and old hunting spots and they were all empty. Everyone just got a group together and went into a randomly generated instance. It kills the MMO part of MMORPG and breaks social interaction. "But now people won't camp those mobs I wanna kill!" "Now no moron is going to train mobs by me and get me killed!" Those were all elements of the games that added frustration, but interaction between people. You used to be able to wander into a dungeon, run into trouble and get saved by another group that just happened to be there. Then you'd join up and go deeper together than you could alone. Can't do that in an instance. Can't have random people help you out.
People don't seem to want social interaction anymore. They just wanna run from quest hub to quest hub following the dotted lines to the monsters they need 5 heads of to bring back for exp.
First off AoC sent 700K copies of the game to retailers. Retailers would not of purchased that many copies if they didn't believe they were going to sell them. They also sold all 110K copies of the CE. Vanguard never sold more copies then that and never had as many people playing. LOTRO would be the closest game to AoC for subscriber base in recent years.
The fact that all the CE are sold out is a downright lie. I've heard form numerous friends that there are CE just sitting in their local game stores untouched. Sounds like just the kind of thing Funcom would overexagerate, like that did most of their game. 700k games to retailers DOES NOT mean that 700k copies are sold.
And do you honestly mean to tell me that everyone who bought their copy is going to play? If that was the case then Vanguard would be one of the most successful MMOs right now. There's going to be a mass falling out after a few months, the only reason this many copies was sold to begin with was because of the major major overhype (kudos to the marketing team I guess for convincing the sheep). The game will probably level off at 200k to 300k subscribers.
And you know why EQ didn't have these massive numbers, despite being the most popular MMO at the time? Because there weren't as many MMO gamers as there are today. WoW brought in a whole slew of new numbers, so almost every game from that point all will have increasing numbers, comparatively.
according to any data I could find Vanguard sold 242K copies of their box and had 130K subscribers at peak. That is a lot lower then the numbers that Age of Conan are looking at.
I used to be a manager at Best Buy and also had worked at Circuit city. Retailers would not purchase as many copies as they did unless they had a significant reason to. Meaning they had good pre-order numbers and had a very good reason to believe they could sell most of the boxes they purchased.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. For one, I am 33 and I can smuggle myself back ever since I came to my homelands to Tortage and I have even recruited rpers for my guild there. I see high levels battling Red Hand guards all the time in Tortage, myself included. The instances fill up with people, thats the point of them, if they get too full, its not a pleasant experience due to the graphics lush beauty and environement. I for one felt the opposite way you did about Tortage.. I felt as immersed as if I were playing Neverwinter Nights with all the story dialogue and choices in what I say and do I had. It's instanced because it needs to be, I agree I wish there were ships that went all the way yo Stygia that you can actually ride on, and roads directly to places, but maybe theyll open those roads and ships up later.
So far tihs has been the most immersive and fun game ive played.
You all making excuses for the MMO failure to deliver...in fact it was NEVER delivered. So over time.... we have accepted things as they are and they BLOW, ....Massively Blow You all RATIONALIZING
Your reaching for somthing to complain about.
AOC is a fantastic game. Its has issues, but they all do.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
Case in point...Age of Conan Online. Look at all the instancing going on. Just like Guild Wars you got instances being shoved down your throat at every turn which takes away from the ONE WORLD ONE SERVER holy grail that was originally intended to begin with People, what happened? How did we come to this? You mean to tell me we STILL do not have the technology to get EVERYBODY on one server and one map? Of course we do not, can you imagine 15,000 people standing in front of one NPC asking for a quest??? So, to sum up...MMO is really a pipe dream. There never was a holy grail , never was the reality of everybody playing together on one server, ONE SERVER and EVERYONE there at SAME TIME No sorry, sadly it was all a pipe dream and we all are relegated to this....INSTANCING. MMO gaming is a joke and it always has been. I feel like I am a million miles away from the real game while i am leveling up in Tortage City, the noobie island. The immersion factor is NOT THERE. Where is everybody else? I would like to know people that are playing in the real game are near me somewhere. Where are they!!!!!!!!!!!!!??? To me this point is critical. Fun Com blew it with the newbie zone. My suggestion...STOP the game and reorganize the newbie zone so that it is on the same map as the real game, so we can run over and see high lvl players doing whatever. As it is now, there is no immersion into this supposedly huge game...only immersion i have received so far is being trapped inside a box
So go ahead and rationalize and tell me why everything is okay as it is, hehehe. Make excuses for Age of Conan..can't wait to read your replies Enjoy!
Are you really crying about Tortage? The newbie area that was designed this way for a reason. I mean..really?
Lol, Eve Online, i knew you fans of that game would jump in here and comment. Answer me this Eve players....When was last time you actually saw your body and watched yourself walk around in the game and actually meet other players standing next to you? ROFL Because you DONT EXIST in the game! Only your ship does! Only way they can play that game on One Server, lol
Mention one (1) game that you exist in when you're playing it.
Right now the community is split between the gamers that see an MMORPG as another game, similar to a single player game but with buddies, and the gamers that see MMOs as worlds to live in. It's a pity both types of games are in the same category, this leads to much confussion. We should call them MMOG (ames) and MMOW (orlds).
Truth.
Imo we do lack some kind of common vocabulary for all those new types of games and gameplay..
Just look what happened with Guild Wars and whether it's a mmorpg or not.
Or "sandbox" or "theme park" or "theme ride" which apparently mean many different things to different people.
Lol, Eve Online, i knew you fans of that game would jump in here and comment. Answer me this Eve players....When was last time you actually saw your body and watched yourself walk around in the game and actually meet other players standing next to you? ROFL Because you DONT EXIST in the game! Only your ship does! Only way they can play that game on One Server, lol
Mention one (1) game that you exist in when you're playing it.
Walking avatars is very sooncoming to EVE. I've seen the engine and it looks stunning.
EVE has the most advanced computer infostructure of any MMO on the market to handle the mass amounts of people all on one server.
It is "instanced" in a way when you use jumpgates to goto another solor system, but it is designed to fit in the game.
Sometimes the mass loads of people do cause lag/desync but I would rather have any issue like this then have small limits like AOC 48 vs 48. 48 vs 48 in EVE is a smaller skirmish.
No MMO can handle unlimited player engagements in one area, but EVE does it better then any.
Just so you know, I actually like the ability to play with _anyone_ in Guild Wars. You have Guild Wars? Great, let's meet up together! It's as simple as that. None of this, "Oh, you're on that server? Well, we'll never play together. Have a nice life."
MMO servers are nothing more than very rigid instances. WoW has over 100 servers in the US, all of which are just an instance of one another. You pretty much have to make all of your friends in-game, because if you select among your real friends and people you meet up talking about the game in real life, chances are you can't play with them unless you abandon your 200+ hours invested to start on a new server.
Admitted, GW was rather dull because no one can join instances once they're created, but if that one bit can be fixed and it allows everyone to play together, I say allow it.
Which brings up an interesting question... How many servers does each particular rule set have? Because if instancing is used ala Guild Wars, and more than 1 is used, then it fails.
Comments
I won't make excuses for AoC, that game just fails. But its not a pipe dream. The classic (and good) MMOs didn't have instancing. Ultima Online, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot all had huge seamless worlds. Instancing is just a recent disease.
Disease huh? how did AoC fail exactly considering the current population base makes the 2nd largest US MMO to date it has more players than DAoC, EQ, AC or UO had in their peaks.
I won't make excuses for AoC, that game just fails. But its not a pipe dream. The classic (and good) MMOs didn't have instancing. Ultima Online, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot all had huge seamless worlds. Instancing is just a recent disease.
Disease huh? how did AoC fail exactly considering the current population base makes the 2nd largest US MMO to date it has more players than DAoC, EQ, AC or UO had in their peaks.
First off, I highly doubt that AoC has more subscribers right now than EQ did at its peak. Second off the game just released, Vanguard had more subscribers when the game first launched than AoC does now. There will be a mass fall off as people quit due to boredom, bugs, and generally not liking the game.Instancing is a disease in the sense that whenever developers are faced with a problem, they throw instancing at it. Sure, its great technology, and even useful sometimes (story based quests where you need scripted encounters). But this is a slippery slope the developers go down that destroys the feel of a game. When the population of your world dissapears into instances, it ceases being an MMO. All the content is wasted because people just spend their time in the instances. When instances were added to DAoC I thought it was great at first until I went around all the old dungeons and old hunting spots and they were all empty. Everyone just got a group together and went into a randomly generated instance. It kills the MMO part of MMORPG and breaks social interaction. "But now people won't camp those mobs I wanna kill!" "Now no moron is going to train mobs by me and get me killed!" Those were all elements of the games that added frustration, but interaction between people. You used to be able to wander into a dungeon, run into trouble and get saved by another group that just happened to be there. Then you'd join up and go deeper together than you could alone. Can't do that in an instance. Can't have random people help you out.
People don't seem to want social interaction anymore. They just wanna run from quest hub to quest hub following the dotted lines to the monsters they need 5 heads of to bring back for exp.
Darkfall Travelogues!
Instancing is a disease in the sense that whenever developers are faced with a problem, they throw instancing at it. Sure, its great technology, and even useful sometimes (story based quests where you need scripted encounters). But this is a slippery slope the developers go down that destroys the feel of a game. When the population of your world dissapears into instances, it ceases being an MMO. All the content is wasted because people just spend their time in the instances. When instances were added to DAoC I thought it was great at first until I went around all the old dungeons and old hunting spots and they were all empty. Everyone just got a group together and went into a randomly generated instance. It kills the MMO part of MMORPG and breaks social interaction. "But now people won't camp those mobs I wanna kill!" "Now no moron is going to train mobs by me and get me killed!" Those were all elements of the games that added frustration, but interaction between people. You used to be able to wander into a dungeon, run into trouble and get saved by another group that just happened to be there. Then you'd join up and go deeper together than you could alone. Can't do that in an instance. Can't have random people help you out.
People don't seem to want social interaction anymore. They just wanna run from quest hub to quest hub following the dotted lines to the monsters they need 5 heads of to bring back for exp.
First off AoC sent 700K copies of the game to retailers. Retailers would not of purchased that many copies if they didn't believe they were going to sell them. They also sold all 110K copies of the CE. Vanguard never sold more copies then that and never had as many people playing. LOTRO would be the closest game to AoC for subscriber base in recent years.Secondly there is a lot of misinformation about the instances and zones in Age of conan being put out by people that haven't left Tortage.
Once you leave the island the zones are huge. According to the producer Tortage is only 5% of the total land mass. So all of tortage and the zones there etc are 5% of the total game world.
According to the developers the Zones are 2-3 KM in length and Width. so they would be around 4 sq miles each for the bigger zones. Which from my experience is at least the 3 20-30 zones are that large.
So that right there is about 12 SQ miles so those three zones are about 2/3rs of Azeroth in shear landmass. Now I am sure the 30-80 zones will be atleast equal in size to the 20-30 zones for total land mass which would mean that Hyboria is around 75% the size of the Outlands and Azeroth combined.
Instances are not even noticable to be perfectly honest. I was in the 20-30 zone for the Aquilonians (I forget the name now) and there was about 30 people within viewing distance of me almost all the time. It didn't matter how far away I ran from them there were more people. I would guess there is roughly a 200-300 cap at the lowest on most instances.
The people talking about instances are using hearsay or are using the single player 1-20 aspect of the game and then trying to expand it. I am sorry but this game is nothing like World of Warcraft. It is nothing like Warhammer will be either. When you use better graphics you are going to need the ability to keep the population down in an area. But there is no reason to think it is down to a few people. They have already hown by their sieges that 100 people can be fighting in close combat in an area (basically 48 vs 48). Even with WoW's low end graphics they have trouble running that many people in an area. How many people did old world PVP when the server would be running like ass because of the 100+ people in an area. So WoW is not capable even with their low end graphics of supporting higher numbers in close combat. Heck their largest amount of people that they support in an area is AV and that is 80.
So in conclusion we have a world that is roughly equal to World of Warcraft's total worldsize that can support as many people fighting in a single area as World of Warcraft can.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
I'd like to know where either of you get you numbers, since they never have been published officially almost every company other than WOW and NCSoft. (MMOGchart or whatever doesn't count)
The instancing is fine, its a bit much in the tutorial, and the night side storyline does make you feel a bit lonely, but once we get out of this tutorial I think our options are going to open up just fine. I know when I do an instance on the daylight I have no problem thinking I'm with other players considering I play on a PVP server and I have to battle like crazy just to survive.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Another example of a MMO capable of great graphics while still being instance free is the upcoming game Aion, from the creators of lineage2 and guildwars. The game uses the cryengine1 (which developed farcry, and Crysis uses cryengine2). It has KICK ASS graphics, yet again every player is in game are in a seamless world. Either way, people who say its impossible to have a seamless world in a game with top graphics = fail.
Have you even played Aion? Everything I have seen and heard shows that the world will be zoned quite heavily and it doesn't compare to Age of Conan in level of detail for graphics.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Right now the community is split between the gamers that see an MMORPG as another game, similar to a single player game but with buddies, and the gamers that see MMOs as worlds to live in. It's a pity both types of games are in the same category, this leads to much confussion. We should call them MMOG (ames) and MMOW (orlds).
I run into just as many people on Age of Conan while playing as I have on any game in my 12 years of playing Graphical MMOs (over the course of 38+ games). People seem to get upset over technical differences. I am sorry but I never play with more then 96 people at a single time and we already know that AoC can handle 96 people in a single area fighting (since that is the size of sieges).
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Have you even played Aion? Everything I have seen and heard shows that the world will be zoned quite heavily and it doesn't compare to Age of Conan in level of detail for graphics.
Go check out the video for yourself.
http://aion.plaync.co.kr/event/080514_family3rd/fanart/Article?articleID=32
Aion has zero enclosed instances. The two fractions are on 2 different lands, but when portals open up ALL players within the server will be free to teleport inbetween the 2 lands and PVP. Other areas like abyss are some what instanced because they are not connect to the rest of the world(i think), but it has no limit to how many players can be in there. Works a lot like DAOC's battlegrounds.
and on graphics, i agree that AoC uses superior graphic engine. But detail wise? I think aion has more. just check out the video for the armors.
Now if NCsoft is able to render all these detail textures times the number of players in a seamless world, thats pretty impressive graphical wise.
Its not really a suprise or anything, as i said earlier incase u didn't see, games like lineage 2 easily have up to 100+ people during regular everyday pvps, and anywhere from 200-500 during sieges... Ya the game doesn't have dx10 like AoC, but it has better graphics than 90% of the MMOs out there.
MMO RPGs is just fine as a definition. Why we need a segregation such as this?
I'd like to know where either of you get you numbers, since they never have been published officially almost every company other than WOW and NCSoft. (MMOGchart or whatever doesn't count)
The instancing is fine, its a bit much in the tutorial, and the night side storyline does make you feel a bit lonely, but once we get out of this tutorial I think our options are going to open up just fine. I know when I do an instance on the daylight I have no problem thinking I'm with other players considering I play on a PVP server and I have to battle like crazy just to survive.
Non official numbers from couple days had US subscribers at 300k and total at 700k based on boxes sold and player trackers (xfire and so on).
Edit: Vanguard has no more 200k US players at max at its peak.
Instancing is a disease in the sense that whenever developers are faced with a problem, they throw instancing at it. Sure, its great technology, and even useful sometimes (story based quests where you need scripted encounters). But this is a slippery slope the developers go down that destroys the feel of a game. When the population of your world dissapears into instances, it ceases being an MMO. All the content is wasted because people just spend their time in the instances. When instances were added to DAoC I thought it was great at first until I went around all the old dungeons and old hunting spots and they were all empty. Everyone just got a group together and went into a randomly generated instance. It kills the MMO part of MMORPG and breaks social interaction. "But now people won't camp those mobs I wanna kill!" "Now no moron is going to train mobs by me and get me killed!" Those were all elements of the games that added frustration, but interaction between people. You used to be able to wander into a dungeon, run into trouble and get saved by another group that just happened to be there. Then you'd join up and go deeper together than you could alone. Can't do that in an instance. Can't have random people help you out.
People don't seem to want social interaction anymore. They just wanna run from quest hub to quest hub following the dotted lines to the monsters they need 5 heads of to bring back for exp.
First off AoC sent 700K copies of the game to retailers. Retailers would not of purchased that many copies if they didn't believe they were going to sell them. They also sold all 110K copies of the CE. Vanguard never sold more copies then that and never had as many people playing. LOTRO would be the closest game to AoC for subscriber base in recent years.The fact that all the CE are sold out is a downright lie. I've heard form numerous friends that there are CE just sitting in their local game stores untouched. Sounds like just the kind of thing Funcom would overexagerate, like that did most of their game. 700k games to retailers DOES NOT mean that 700k copies are sold.
And do you honestly mean to tell me that everyone who bought their copy is going to play? If that was the case then Vanguard would be one of the most successful MMOs right now. There's going to be a mass falling out after a few months, the only reason this many copies was sold to begin with was because of the major major overhype (kudos to the marketing team I guess for convincing the sheep). The game will probably level off at 200k to 300k subscribers.
And you know why EQ didn't have these massive numbers, despite being the most popular MMO at the time? Because there weren't as many MMO gamers as there are today. WoW brought in a whole slew of new numbers, so almost every game from that point all will have increasing numbers, comparatively.
Darkfall Travelogues!
Instancing is a disease in the sense that whenever developers are faced with a problem, they throw instancing at it. Sure, its great technology, and even useful sometimes (story based quests where you need scripted encounters). But this is a slippery slope the developers go down that destroys the feel of a game. When the population of your world dissapears into instances, it ceases being an MMO. All the content is wasted because people just spend their time in the instances. When instances were added to DAoC I thought it was great at first until I went around all the old dungeons and old hunting spots and they were all empty. Everyone just got a group together and went into a randomly generated instance. It kills the MMO part of MMORPG and breaks social interaction. "But now people won't camp those mobs I wanna kill!" "Now no moron is going to train mobs by me and get me killed!" Those were all elements of the games that added frustration, but interaction between people. You used to be able to wander into a dungeon, run into trouble and get saved by another group that just happened to be there. Then you'd join up and go deeper together than you could alone. Can't do that in an instance. Can't have random people help you out.
People don't seem to want social interaction anymore. They just wanna run from quest hub to quest hub following the dotted lines to the monsters they need 5 heads of to bring back for exp.
First off AoC sent 700K copies of the game to retailers. Retailers would not of purchased that many copies if they didn't believe they were going to sell them. They also sold all 110K copies of the CE. Vanguard never sold more copies then that and never had as many people playing. LOTRO would be the closest game to AoC for subscriber base in recent years.The fact that all the CE are sold out is a downright lie. I've heard form numerous friends that there are CE just sitting in their local game stores untouched. Sounds like just the kind of thing Funcom would overexagerate, like that did most of their game. 700k games to retailers DOES NOT mean that 700k copies are sold.
And do you honestly mean to tell me that everyone who bought their copy is going to play? If that was the case then Vanguard would be one of the most successful MMOs right now. There's going to be a mass falling out after a few months, the only reason this many copies was sold to begin with was because of the major major overhype (kudos to the marketing team I guess for convincing the sheep). The game will probably level off at 200k to 300k subscribers.
And you know why EQ didn't have these massive numbers, despite being the most popular MMO at the time? Because there weren't as many MMO gamers as there are today. WoW brought in a whole slew of new numbers, so almost every game from that point all will have increasing numbers, comparatively.
according to any data I could find Vanguard sold 242K copies of their box and had 130K subscribers at peak. That is a lot lower then the numbers that Age of Conan are looking at.
I used to be a manager at Best Buy and also had worked at Circuit city. Retailers would not purchase as many copies as they did unless they had a significant reason to. Meaning they had good pre-order numbers and had a very good reason to believe they could sell most of the boxes they purchased.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. For one, I am 33 and I can smuggle myself back ever since I came to my homelands to Tortage and I have even recruited rpers for my guild there. I see high levels battling Red Hand guards all the time in Tortage, myself included. The instances fill up with people, thats the point of them, if they get too full, its not a pleasant experience due to the graphics lush beauty and environement. I for one felt the opposite way you did about Tortage.. I felt as immersed as if I were playing Neverwinter Nights with all the story dialogue and choices in what I say and do I had. It's instanced because it needs to be, I agree I wish there were ships that went all the way yo Stygia that you can actually ride on, and roads directly to places, but maybe theyll open those roads and ships up later.
So far tihs has been the most immersive and fun game ive played.
------------------------------
'Cry Havoc, and Let Loose the Dogs of WARRRRR!!!'
Your reaching for somthing to complain about.
AOC is a fantastic game. Its has issues, but they all do.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Are you really crying about Tortage? The newbie area that was designed this way for a reason. I mean..really?
Mention one (1) game that you exist in when you're playing it.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Just a thought, but we could say that AoC is a fantastic MMOGame, but not really a MMOWorld. And this is not a bad thing, just a different beast.
Truth.
Imo we do lack some kind of common vocabulary for all those new types of games and gameplay..
Just look what happened with Guild Wars and whether it's a mmorpg or not.
Or "sandbox" or "theme park" or "theme ride" which apparently mean many different things to different people.
Endless source of confusion and flame..
Mention one (1) game that you exist in when you're playing it.
Walking avatars is very sooncoming to EVE. I've seen the engine and it looks stunning.EVE has the most advanced computer infostructure of any MMO on the market to handle the mass amounts of people all on one server.
It is "instanced" in a way when you use jumpgates to goto another solor system, but it is designed to fit in the game.
Sometimes the mass loads of people do cause lag/desync but I would rather have any issue like this then have small limits like AOC 48 vs 48. 48 vs 48 in EVE is a smaller skirmish.
No MMO can handle unlimited player engagements in one area, but EVE does it better then any.
SHOHADAKU
Just so you know, I actually like the ability to play with _anyone_ in Guild Wars. You have Guild Wars? Great, let's meet up together! It's as simple as that. None of this, "Oh, you're on that server? Well, we'll never play together. Have a nice life."
MMO servers are nothing more than very rigid instances. WoW has over 100 servers in the US, all of which are just an instance of one another. You pretty much have to make all of your friends in-game, because if you select among your real friends and people you meet up talking about the game in real life, chances are you can't play with them unless you abandon your 200+ hours invested to start on a new server.
Admitted, GW was rather dull because no one can join instances once they're created, but if that one bit can be fixed and it allows everyone to play together, I say allow it.
Which brings up an interesting question... How many servers does each particular rule set have? Because if instancing is used ala Guild Wars, and more than 1 is used, then it fails.