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2 patches a week - I am impressed with this game
-Zeno-
Member CommonPosts: 1,298
The developers are trying to squeeze out 2 patches a week now. I am highly impressed. Solid launch (for a high end graphics game) and a solid game.
Why do I think this is a solid game? I upgraded to a new system, thinking I was stable because I had everything right, I started playing AOC. I crashed once every 1 or 2 hours of gameplay. I started getting mad and blaming the game. Then, decided to install UT2k4 to play because I was aggravated at AoC. Patched it, and tried to play. Crashed within 2 min. Installed Prime95, failed on the first test. So, with 1 bad memory timing causing my whole system to be unstable, AoC lasted longer than ANY other application, even Firefox started crashing on launch.
Now everything is fine and AoC plays great. Also, I had played AoC on my old system ( Rad x800 XT, AMD 64 3000 overclocked, 2 gigs of ram) with pretty horrible framerates. Switching to this new system was like playing a new game, again.
New system 3DMark06 = 11944
Old system 3DMark06 = ~4000
Now the balance issues and broken spells/skills, thats another story. With 2 patches a week, I am sure they will get the balance issues and broken spells/skills fixed. Every game has issues like this at startup, I remember the DAoC launch, it was a solid launch, with little endgame and "archers" one shotting people. Shadowbane launch... I won't go there... 
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Comments
A solid game doesnt need 2 patches a week..a really incomplete buggy one needs...
So the game's solid when promised content and key content isn't in yet? That's one way to define solid I guess.. Well at least they promised they'll fix everything, just keep paying a month or two more
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QFT. Fortunately for FC there is a legion of idiot kids out there willing to pay FC to literally finish off the 6 months of beta the game needed to become release quality.
not to mention they have been losing subscribers hand over fist so they are really desperate to try to regain some credibility atm.
A solid company will patch as many time as it needs to. To ensure a smooth game and a happy populace. You may not like the fact that they are patching 2 times a week, I however, am impressed that they will go the extra yard to do so
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
I am angry about this too, but you honestly couldn't expect everything to be in if you've ever been around for more than a couple launches. Almost every AAA MMORPG that has come out in the past 2 years has done this, if not to a worse extent. Even LOTRO was similar in the fact that they promised things that weren't in release, but is still considered one of the smoothest launches around, and the content was eventually added. AoC has a lot of things that it did promise at launch that are not there, but so did a large arsenal of other game releases, so it's somewhat unfair to judge the game by that scenario. It's like calling a baby stupid in it's first month when it still doesn't know how to walk or talk when the parents claim it to be Mozart. You'll think the parents are a little self-indulgent but it's not fair to call the baby an idiot when you can't properly analyze it... well, close, anyway, sort of hard to compare a game to a baby. You get what I'm trying to say, I hope.
Still, it isn't a good thing. Like I said, it pisses me off too. MMORPG companies have been somehow thinking lately it is alright to give us half-finished games. Granted, the consuming gaming populas has let this slide for a while now, but it's getting more and more repugnant and more drastic. I'll defend Funcom in the fact that with this case they didn't have much of a choice. Right now they're in competition with WAR, in a sense. They would have been doomed if they released it at the same time. It is not that WAR will be a better game, all people have different tastes, but in the fact that WAR is a much more system friendly game. AoC would be judged unfairly because it would undoubtedly have a much smaller population of players and a much smaller gaming population than it can make now with an early release. In all honesty, AoC is doomed either way. People will compare this with WARs release. Many will not take into account that WAR gained 6 extra months to produce and fix errors, and simply look at statistics. WAR will overwin the gaming community, unless AoC fixes everything they promised and more before it's release (and that's hopeful wishing).
Still, they'll hopefully be able to keep a large enough community (the final player numbers will probably be next to if not slightly higher than LOTRO's) to have the game be enjoyable... but I wouldn't be surprised if WAR steals the bait with at least half a mil.
Oh this game is definitely improving by leaps and bounds with each patch. I didnt see one blue drop from random mobs the whole first week.. now? About every hour or so something blue suprises me in a chest and they just added purple rares this patch. Stats now work as intended, and they just continue to amaze me with how swiftly they take action.
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'Cry Havoc, and Let Loose the Dogs of WARRRRR!!!'
I agree we are not getting our money or time worth from these game makers.....i really think we should regulate it.....really if you buy a new car it comes with 4 tires and a working motor.....we dont have to take it back to the dealer every month for a "patch"........anyway we need a UL type outfit or something......i get tired of getting ripped....
Solid doesn't mean incomplete or broken. Below is a screenshot I took last night. For some reason textures were missing from the landscape, items all around the map were flashing off and on, and my face disappeared so that you could only see the back of my head. Here is a pic of missing textures of this very solid game.
Don't forget the 100,000 mile warranty and a FREE tank of gas!
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? ~Ernest Gaines
Solid doesn't mean incomplete or broken. Below is a screenshot I took last night. For some reason textures were missing from the landscape, items all around the map were flashing off and on, and my face disappeared so that you could only see the back of my head. Here is a pic of missing textures of this very solid game.
What are your specs? and graphics card? This has never happened to me or any of my friends.
Maybe if you took 5mins off your busy schedule to check the tech forums you might find a solution for it.
Solid doesn't mean incomplete or broken. Below is a screenshot I took last night. For some reason textures were missing from the landscape, items all around the map were flashing off and on, and my face disappeared so that you could only see the back of my head. Here is a pic of missing textures of this very solid game.
What are your specs? and graphics card? This has never happened to me or any of my friends.
Maybe if you took 5mins off your busy schedule to check the tech forums you might find a solution for it.
To the one whit that issue, i had that happening to me now twice but i saw that it was casued when i alt+tab when loading, for some reason a more techie person then me could explain. So if i just let it load as usual it never happens and i can say it happend for that very reason cuz i made it on purpose after those 3 times that happend accidentaly.
All i had to do after this happend was either re/zone or relog
I've never ran across this kind of issue in game either.
I've experienced the grey minimap on occasion but that only lasted a couple minutes.
As far as the game goes I am happy with the two patches a week. Although they aren't fixing what I'd like to see fixed they seem to be 'working their way up the ladder".
I currently have a 63 Priest of Mitra on a PvE server (Hanuman) and right now you can't get a PvP minigame if your life depended on it. I'm sure this will change when people hit max level and start alts or w/e.
The Grindage issue people talk...err complain about isn't that bad. If you don't train your way to the quest mobs and train right back to the turn in you won't hit the brick walls like alot of people. There are two spots right now that people seem to have trouble with 37-39 and 56-60. I personally didn't hit the first wall but did find myself grinding out some repeatable quests around lvl 57. They have already announced another mid to high 50's zone coming soon (summer) and for the people who are at 37-39 should try to run Sanctum of the Burning Souls instance. It's the first true 6 man instance. It's a fun zone and you'll get some good loot and xp. They also did a complete revamp of the Treasury of the Ancients zone 38ish which imo should cover the people having problems with the first "xp brick wall".
My main let down in the game right now is the guild cities. I am a GM and we have built our entire T1 city (aside from some wall sections) and just today got our trader in the tradepost. I still can't set up guild taxes though (yet another petition sent). Also they need to add a bit more coin to the lower levels 1-45. Most of the people will not get a mount (which is fixed btw and is a nice speed increase) until lvl 53ish without grinding for money. Personally I didn't worry about the mount until I was 60 because travel isn't really that bad in this game. Back on the topic of money...once you hit lvl 60 the silver starts to flow like water.
So to sum it up would I recommend this game? Absolutely. I'm not a fanboi as a matter of fact I'm pretty upset with the game atm but I would still recommend people give it a shot. The music is just great!!! The graphics are good even on low settings. The combat system is new and involved which is why some may not like it. Characters are being tweeked twice a week (it's a new game there is gonna be balancing out for a while).
Pointers for new players. Enjoy the first 20 levels on Tortage and don't be discouraged by the instancing. I understand why they set up instancing and you will too when you enter the Underhalls (I think this is the name) and you are running around along with 5 other people looking for respawns for your quests. Ignore the doomsday posts in reguards to classes. Pick whe suits you. Right now Assassins are the favorite class to hate but I know quite a few Assassins that are loving their toons and do some crazy dps. I'm not saying they don't have their problems because they surely do but so do the other classes. You learn to adapt and adjust your playstyle.
Don't let these forums steer you away. The internet seems to bring out the worst in people as I'm sure you know.
I agree with the OP.
After playing the first generation MMORPGs I can say that Conan's visuals, its audio, and its combat are light years from games like Asheron's Call.
Folks need to remember to ramp down their expectations to include a few things. 1. Devs are human. 2. Any game will have bugs. Its just the way things work in today's game development environment. 3. Players need to take more game breaks. it will make it easy to wait for patches in a realistic time period.
Is Conan perfect? Nope.
Is it pretty impressive compared to other MMORPGs that were only 1 month old?
Hell yeah.
Solid = stable game. With bad memory timings, the game actually ran. People who are crashing every hour or even within 10 min of playing the game, it may be their system, and not the game itself.
Every game has its troubles at release, and instead of making people wait 6 months, maybe a year more, to release the game, they caved in to
YOU
and released the game.
Now everyone is griping about how it is not finished, and now that they are pushing 2 patches a week, they are TRYING to balance and fix it.
This is a high end game, their minimum specs are higher than 80% of computer users out there, so expect hundreds of people to complain about how the game is running. If they have a high end computer, and are crashing, like I was, they need to find out what is causing the instability, like I did.
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Sorry, but your way of thinking just don't cut it. All of you that expect this type of stuff from a developer is the main reason that these companies release half finished games. They know all to well that they can get away with finishing the game on the subs dime.
FC has had 5 yrs., let me say that again, 5 yrs. to release a complete game with very few bugs and it being in a very polished state. Instead of them worrying so much on getting the right look for the females tits and ass, they should have been working on all the things that are stated that's in the game on the gamebox and shouldn't have to be patched in.
Quantity does not equal Quality. So far, they've tripled the number of crashes I get during a play session. They've caused about a 10 frame hit to performance. They've completely trashed Villa Verde, getting a whopping 6 fps when I can step outside and get 50.
So yes, Kudos to developers that can rush bug-ridden, untested bug fixes out 2 times a week in exchange for money. Perhaps they should have done this during beta, although we'll never know if they did since they won't remove the NDA ever so people considering buying the game don't get scared by just how much of the crap not working today was reported 6 months ago.
they're busy bees... it will make up for many bugs and make lots of people happy
There is a SEVERE memory leak that has WORSTENED with the continued patches. On launching, before I start zoning all over the place (which I'd avoid, but the game forces you to zone CONSTANTLY) the game chews up around 700MB of memory all to itself. 5+ zone changes and it's topping 1.5GB. Invariably it crashes as it approaches the 2GB mark. Keep in mind, I can run ANY OTHER GAME I own at max settings, as I do with AoC, without any errors. Let me run through the list:
LotRO
WoW
Bioshock
Orange Box
Crysis
ET:QW
Mass Effect
Assasin's Creed
Hmmm, you're right. It must be my computer, I just got lucky on all those other games. Stop being a fanboy and recognize the problems with the game. Hell, read the letter from the developer put out last week. THEY know there's problems with the game. You denying it and telling everyone else it's our imagination is kind of, well, stupid since even Funcom sees the issues. That's why we're getting 2 patches/week.
There is a SEVERE memory leak that has WORSTENED with the continued patches. On launching, before I start zoning all over the place (which I'd avoid, but the game forces you to zone CONSTANTLY) the game chews up around 700MB of memory all to itself. 5+ zone changes and it's topping 1.5GB. Invariably it crashes as it approaches the 2GB mark. Keep in mind, I can run ANY OTHER GAME I own at max settings, as I do with AoC, without any errors. Let me run through the list:
LotRO
WoW
Bioshock
Orange Box
Crysis
ET:QW
Mass Effect
Assasin's Creed
Hmmm, you're right. It must be my computer, I just got lucky on all those other games. Stop being a fanboy and recognize the problems with the game. Hell, read the letter from the developer put out last week. THEY know there's problems with the game. You denying it and telling everyone else it's our imagination is kind of, well, stupid since even Funcom sees the issues. That's why we're getting 2 patches/week.
omg the level of stupidity if someone doesn't encounter problems it's something wrong with them liking a game... go eat an onion.
I agree and it shows they are serious about making the game as good as it can be. I have never seen any other mmo have 2 patches a week and even state very early on major content to be released and at specific time lines.
I do wonder if people have any idea the complexity behind a game like this. All this moaning about paying a company for a bad or incomplete product. It will never be complete and it will never be free of issues just like any other MMO. Besides its not just limited to this industry. Every system we implemented in our company has launched with bugs, major issues and plenty of crashes. Do we still pay the developers? Of course because like any live project we know it will launch badly and it takes time for it to become solid. If anyone expects any MMO to launch with everything it promised, high performing, bug free and supporting low end rigs then you might as well go and buy a console because it isnt ever going to happen in this industry or any other.
omg the level of stupidity if someone doesn't encounter problems it's something wrong with them liking a game... go eat an onion.
You're calling me stupid and it's very clear you didn't read anything I had to say? I never said I didn't like the game. I enjoy the game more than I really thought I would. Does that change the bugs IN the game? Nope. I was simply pointing out that FC has admitted to the bugs people complain about. It's not in our head. It's there. It's why we're getting 2 patches a week. However, with them turning around patches that quickly it's VERY realistic to question quality control as every patch, while fixing some things, breaks others. The QC is very weak when it comes to patches at the moment.
Will I renew my sub? At this rate, no. And not because I dislike the game. Because the only way I can make my voice, as a consumer, heard is to not renew my subscription so I'm not paying for beta testing. Please think before you post next time though, as it stands you make me feel like I'm sitting at the short-bus stop making fun of kids as they get off. Way too easy. Then again, someone thinks funnylumpy is a good name so perhaps that explains it all.
Would you be happy to buy a single player RPG (none online) that needs to be patched 2 days per week for 2-3 months before you get the content you were buying in the first place ?
Ask yourself - What did I buy out of the box ?
still looks tons better than WoW though.
Dear Game Developers,
Nerf Rock.
Paper is fine though.
Regards,
Scissors.
Its not the same product AOCtester. You can't compare the two. One has thousands of players running around in a dynamic world and AoC has collide which is unique in MMO's so not only do you have 10's of thousands of people running around randomly you can have 2 players in two different countries and the game has to work out when you both collide and communicate it in time so it appears real. Now multiply that by 1000 times every minute.
Single player game is static and has one dynamic character.....you. Its not a living world, it doesnt evolve and you control 100% of the decision making process. Its like comparing a paper plane against a boeing 747 and asking why the boeing has more issues.
Give me another MMO that ran straight out of the box and needed no patches then I might see your point.
So you compare a mmorpg which is supposed to provide 250 hours of playtime at launch with a solo rpg game than is supposed to provide 20/40 hours of playtime?
Please do not compare what cannot be compared ...
Let me try to sum it up:
- console game: only one hardware setup, make it very easy to test as there are no hardware related issues
- standalone game: provide 20/40 hours of content, but has hardware related issues, can be annoying to test and bug at release are expeted (most game have 3/4 patch in the first 3 months ...)
- multiplayer game: provide 0/20 hous of content, has hardware related issues and networking issues as well (many patch expected, like 7/10 most of the time)
- mmorpg: 250+ hours of content, multiplayer with high load (50 players in same zone at minimum, I agree AoC is really low on the Massive there ... but they will probably improve it ... at least I hope so) ==> expect a stupid amount of patch and balance issues
I didn't tested AoC yet, my system spec is too bad (only laptop atm) ... but I beta tested and played something like 15/20 mmorpgs (can't even remember them all lol).
The only game that was impressive at release was WoW, seriously, the open beta was like a game launch quality. But then that's Blizzard strategy (and it proven itself to be efficient). Like everyone I'd like to see it more often but it's not really realistic (sadly).
Wow beta had like 20 servers running if I remember right, with all the support and gamemaster team s required .. very impressive ... but it costs a load of money and not all compagny can spend it.
Still take note that PvP in WoW has been horrible/useless/complete failure for monthSSS after release. Battleground came in something like 6/8 month later if I remember right (sry was a long time ago).
While AoC has big problem there ... it seems to be much more promising ... big pvp content is there but "only" bugged. Also they obviously have plan to make it even better (where WoW was mysterious for a long time about it and came out with battleground ... lol)
[EDITED]
One addition (next post made me thing about it ...) .... WoW is a paper plane compared to AoC (which is a Boieng 747) ... AoC is much much more complex ... collision, fight system, graphics, pvp content, guild city, ... most of it is not in WoW even after 3 years
[/EDITED]
For FC defense, I think they seriously underestimated the amount of players that would buy the game ... it probably broken their first 2 weeks of planned patchs. And I happily grant them a "2 week delay" in comparaison to other mmorpg launch status
Additionally they meet huge issues with newly released graphic cards ... which I rarely seen ... I'm sure ATI and whatelse are working close with FC to resolve it asap
Just one last bit (or two):
- a mmorpg usually get better after 1/2 month(s) of patch ... at every launch everyone say it's going to take 6 months, but really 1/2 is enough to solve most issues. And as said above, you will ALWAYS have bugSSS in mmorpg
- 2 patch a week? never seen that ... very impressive
I hope to get a buddy pass ... so I can check if my laptop can handle that mess
Note: I'm far from saying the game is perfect, but from an external point of view, it doesn't seems so bad compared to previous mmorpg launch. Get used to it and either:
- Take a break and try again in 2 months (I know you feel spoiled but you should have knew it could/would happen ... mmorpg are well know to be broken at launch ... sry to say
)
- Have fun with whatever you can in game and show to FC how you believe in them (and from what I can see, they probably worth it ... 2 patchs a week ... they probably never sleep lol)
edit: see [EDITED][/EDITED]