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Shade19
Member Posts: 18
I'm thinking of buying this game even with all the negative feedback; basically I want to give it a try and see for myself if it's worth it. People have been saying the pve is great, pvp is coming with a patch due soon, but the only thing im afraid of is the excessive loading screens that people complain about. I mean, how bad are these laoding screens and how often am I faced with them? Do you still feel immersed in the world or is it every 5 minutes a load?
Also, any good PVP servers that someone can recommend would be cool.
Thanks!
Comments
AoC is heavily instanced that's for sure. Sometimes you get a loading screen every 30 minutes, other times it can be every 2-3 minutes. It really depends on what you are doing. It's a good time to go get some more coffee but bad for immersion.
My personal favorite is the bar on noob island. You need to run in and out many times and every time you do, you get a loading screen. That was really painful and really killed immersion for me.
If loading screens are a big thing for you then I would definitely NOT recommend AoC. Though personally I think the game has much bigger issues than loading screens.
Yeah theres a lot of loading screens. my computer passes em pretty quick so it doesnt bother me. but if your rig is old then it'll take you a year. Pvp is great in the game, but of course ganking is everywhere because the consequence system isnt in yet.
if your going to play the only good pvp server left is Cimmeria
That particular one is is less than 2 seconds for me, did ruin anything.
I will add though the first time you load up anywhere it will be less time there after.
For me it's a minute. But then again I don't have a high end rig.
For me it's a minute. But then again I don't have a high end rig.
4 seconds on a bare bone laptop too I have
large Zone loads are 20 seconds ish on that laptop on main PC 8-10 seconds.
That particular one is is less than 2 seconds for me, did ruin anything.
I will add though the first time you load up anywhere it will be less time there after.
The loading screen with quote/tip of the day and loading bar is an odd choice and rather disjointed for immersion in an MMO. It screams 'XboX was here'
That choice came to me as a huge surprise from a company that previously handled changing zones/instances by using hollywood movie type visuals like freeze to disolve than fade in on the other side ala Anarchy Online. A far more stylish and camoflaged way of dealing with those mechanics.
I gave wrong info on my last comment. I was talking about large zone loading which does take about a 45 sec to a minute on my comp. Smaller zones, like houses are maybe about 15-20 sec.
But like I said, my comp sucks.
Loading screens was one of the things that ruined it for me. I didn't personally have all the bugs that all the rest complained about (this was at launch and I never really got that far mind you), but the loading screens and the arrows (yeah, I know it sounds odd) showing me where to go. I just felt like more of a "find the xp...after you load the next zone" game
edited for clarity
It's a proven historical fact that beer saved humankind.
In response to the OP:
My PC:
Windows XP -- 4gigs ram -- 8800GT 512mb vid card -- 3g dual core processor
I'll try to give you a quick runthrough to give an idea of what to expect. I'll also list the general loading times from my machine.
Once you create character, you load onto a beach/jungle. You're in this area for about 10-20 minutes before you zone into Tortage(the starter town. This load takes me about 10 secs.
You are in tortage til about lvl 20, give or take a few levels. Tortage has a few lowbie zones that run off of it such as Ach. Ruins, White Sands, the volcano, and Underhalls. Loading into these zones takes me 5-15 seconds. There are also quest related places such as small houses, shops, the Inn, etc. These never take me more than 3-4 seconds. The reason these are instanced is because they are tied directly to quests. For example, in the underhalls there is a quest to speak to a man in a prison cell. Before you can enter his cell you must find a key. Once you have key you can "zone" into his cell. The load is short, but necessary. If it wasnt its own little instance, then one person could get a key and open the door and others could follow him inside, effectively skipping part of the quest.
Out of the entire game, Tortage is the zone where you will encounter the most frequent zoning, but as i've said, the loads dont take long and many people tend to blow them out of proportion. They arent that big of a deal, imo.
After Tortage, I would estimate that the amount of zoning is cut down by about 70%. Each new "area" is its own zone and requires a loading screen. These take me 10-25 seconds to zone into. Each zone in AoC after Tortage is bigger than the Barrens, Plaguelands, or STV in World of Warcraft (except for maybe the Noble District). The zones are huge and highly detailed. You will likely be awed at Conalls Valley, Field of the Dead, and Thunder River. Most zones also have little instances within them that have associated quests. However, once you pass tortage, it is nothing to go a few hours without needing to zone or load, unless a quest takes you into an instance. Just recently, i spent about 4 days of 3 hour play sessions in the level 50-60 zone without having to "zone" one time. I also spent about 11 hours soloing quests in the 60-70 zone. Like i said, after tortage, its really not too bad. And even in tortage, while zoning is frequent, its not "unreasonable" load times. People may try to tell you different, but you will find out for yourself shortly if you start playing the game.
Hope this helped a bit. Sorry for the long-windedness
Thanks for all the great responses guys, really appreciate it!
Let me make it clear once and for all. The maps themselves are huge areas. Conall Valley takes you from level 25 to 35 (or more) and all that time you could run around in just one area if you'd like. No instancing. I have same experience in other areas like Field of the dead and Eigopal Mountains. I could stay in one zone for a week. These are huge maps with no instancing. What I guess people are thinking about when they say there are zoning/instancing than normal, could be when you are in the bigger cities like tarantia. The local taverns are instanced as well as the cellar underneath it or perhaps the dungeon behind it. If you want to shuffle a lot back and forth it's naturally going to be a bit of zoning which by the way take like 5-10 sec for me. I just have to admit, I can't really see this as a problem, but then again thats just my opinion. To sum up, the last thing to be worried about is zoning/instancing. It will be more interesting for you to see if you like the completely different combat system, the new characters, the nonelf world etc... Good luck.
So basicly if the zoning instance wasnt there then you would be able to unlock the door and let other people into the cell? So.....ermmm.....it would be realistic then. Thank god the cell is an instance! I mean who wants their games to be realistic?
Mind you in general I have never been too bothered with instances in online games anyway. People whine about them because apparently it ruins the immersion they get by being in a big wide open world.......a big wide open world that never changes and is full of roaming monsters that never die, have no intelligence and such bad eye-sight that they can only see you if you walk within a few meters of them. Damn those instances! If it wasnt for them then it would be like living in a real world!
Let me make it clear once and for all. The maps themselves are huge areas. Conall Valley takes you from level 25 to 35 (or more) and all that time you could run around in just one area if you'd like. No instancing. I have same experience in other areas like Field of the dead and Eigopal Mountains. I could stay in one zone for a week. These are huge maps with no instancing. What I guess people are thinking about when they say there are zoning/instancing than normal, could be when you are in the bigger cities like tarantia. The local taverns are instanced as well as the cellar underneath it or perhaps the dungeon behind it. If you want to shuffle a lot back and forth it's naturally going to be a bit of zoning which by the way take like 10-30 sec for me. I just have to admit, I can't really see this as a problem, but then again thats just my opinion. To sum up, the last thing to be worried about is zoning/instancing. It will be more interesting for you to see if you like the completely different combat system, the new characters, the nonelf world etc... Good luck.
Some zones are big, some are small. I wouldn't call any of them "huge". Worst place is Tortage where you get a loading screen every 2 minutes.
Um.. completely different combat system? What is that? You mean that boring directional button smashing attacks? Yeah, really revolutionary..
I feel the same way. I just don't understand the importance of immersion. Do these people want to escape reality or what?
What I hate about loading screens is not immersion, it't the waiting.
Let me make it clear once and for all. The maps themselves are huge areas. Conall Valley takes you from level 25 to 35 (or more) and all that time you could run around in just one area if you'd like. No instancing. I have same experience in other areas like Field of the dead and Eigopal Mountains. I could stay in one zone for a week. These are huge maps with no instancing. What I guess people are thinking about when they say there are zoning/instancing than normal, could be when you are in the bigger cities like tarantia. The local taverns are instanced as well as the cellar underneath it or perhaps the dungeon behind it. If you want to shuffle a lot back and forth it's naturally going to be a bit of zoning which by the way take like 10-30 sec for me. I just have to admit, I can't really see this as a problem, but then again thats just my opinion. To sum up, the last thing to be worried about is zoning/instancing. It will be more interesting for you to see if you like the completely different combat system, the new characters, the nonelf world etc... Good luck.
Some zones are big, some are small. I wouldn't call any of them "huge". Worst place is Tortage where you get a loading screen every 2 minutes.
Um.. completely different combat system? What is that? You mean that boring directional button smashing attacks? Yeah, really revolutionary..
Its different than most MMO's, he didn't call it revolutionary. It is however engaging IMO, at least compared to most. It's also not an attempt at a shooter type system like NGE or tabula Rasa. It actually feels pretty fluid to me, and amplifies what's possible for melee combat in an MMO ( active evading and blocking are nice additions as well). It may not be your cup of tea I'm fully aware of this.
I prefer their method to any other I've tried aside from pre-cu SWG. Which nothing has come close to IMO. I will just never understand how anyone who prefers the old style of combat, would call what's in AOC boring. I've always thought of most MMO play as pretty much snooze play, you don't have to do much most of it's automated. That's not the case at all in AOC. You have to be active the whole time, you snooze you lose. One of the better aspects in the game IMO.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I was just correcting the othe posters "..completely different.." which implies it's something revolutionary. It's not. Different? Yes. Completely different? No. For example if you play a demonologits, it's very similar to to other MMO's.
I still don't get it why they changed the old combo system, which sounded much better, to this new one which is too easy and sucks? Anyone know the reason?
One player in AoC forums had this idea of an improved combo system which sounded amazing. I forgot the name but he has it in his signature. I FC could implement that I would be back in a heartbeat. But I guess it would be too big a task.
That particular one is is less than 2 seconds for me, did ruin anything.
I will add though the first time you load up anywhere it will be less time there after.
The inn in tortage was the worst decision they made for tortage imo, I don't see how anyone couldn't find it an immersion killer.
Get a quest to enter the inn, <LOAD SCREEN> talk to someone inn the inn which turns it to night <LOAD SCREEN> take the quest, exit the inn <LOAD SCREEN> run across the city to get to the whitesands zone, 30sec run, click the boat <LOAD SCREEN> do the quest which is kill something like 6 mobs, run back to the boat <LOAD SCREEN> run back through the city to the inn <LOAD SCREEN> hand in the quest, talk to someone to make it day, <LOAD SCREEN> take a quest, leave the inn <LOAD SCREEN>
you've done one quest that took 10 secs to enter the inn, and one kill quest involving 2 mins of killing and you've done 8 load screens. It's incredably immersion killing, once you hit level 20 and leave tortage then load screens are way way less frequent, but the early game is absolutly packed with them.
One of the quest areas in tortage is broken up into small areas where you have to click the door to move between them, there is almost no load time at all but it completly ruins pvp in this area, you fight someone, they click the door, you click the door, one of you appears faster than the other, you rengage the fight, they start to lose again, they click the door, you click the door. This can go on for ever with no one winning, it's horrible.
I'd bet the number of load screens by the time you hit level 20 is in the triple figures (not including what I just described with the fast door loading) and getting to level 20 is fast. Instanceing was by far the biggest immersion killer in age of conan.
Get yourself a fast hardisc, 10 rpm
That helps in any game. To me the loading doesnt feel that much longer than in WoW, but they might be more frequent.
Overall they don't bother me.
It's the frequency not the length, there is very few load's in WoW. If you do every quest in tortage I bet you do 200 loads and end up about level 22. Get to that level in WoW and you wouldn't have zoned once unless you did the late teens group dungeon.
First, this is a worst case scenario and probably happens about 4 times in tortage. Most of the time you have several quests for one area, so you zone in and spend 15-90 minutes completing the quests there before heading back to town. Second, the total loading time in the example above (with 8 load screens)would be less maybe 20 seconds. While it can get annoying, its not enough to detract from the game. Third, each character gets a "hearthstone" called the Path of Azura. This takes you back to the inn. You can use this every 30 minutes. You never really NEED it in tortage, so i personally tend to use it in situatiuon like the above and cut my 8 loading screens down to 4.
EQ1 was the most immersive game I've ever played and it was filled with loading screens. WoW was very unimmersive and it had barely any. I may just be an odd one out, but loading screens don't effect my immersion - at all.
blessings,
MMO migrant.
First, this is a worst case scenario and probably happens about 4 times in tortage. Most of the time you have several quests for one area, so you zone in and spend 15-90 minutes completing the quests there before heading back to town. Second, the total loading time in the example above (with 8 load screens)would be less maybe 20 seconds. While it can get annoying, its not enough to detract from the game. Third, each character gets a "hearthstone" called the Path of Azura. This takes you back to the inn. You can use this every 30 minutes. You never really NEED it in tortage, so i personally tend to use it in situatiuon like the above and cut my 8 loading screens down to 4.
It was one of the worst case scenarios but it's still the case that in the what 12 hours say it takes you to do tortage you will do a couple of hundred loads. Later on in the game it's no where near such a big deal, it feels kinda weird having a wall around nearly every zone with a door to go through or an npc to talk too but you get to play for a significant ammount of time without needing to zone so no worrys, that isn't the case in tortage at all.
I don't understand your use of the hearth stone, it would cut out 1 load screen not 4, do the quest, hit your hearth <loadscreen> back at the inn, thats instead of zoneing back into tortage then zoning into the inn, still worth doing because it saves the run through the town.
It does detract from the game and it does spoil immersion, it's not serious enough to stop tortage being fun, tortage is still the most polished and most fun part of the game but the ammount of loads there is horrible, for the first 20 levels aoc has more loads than I've experienced in any other game I've ever played probably by an order of magnetiude too, the fact the op started a thread to ask about it means its obviously something that matters to him.
I don't know how anyone on a pvp server can honestly say the zones don't affect the game, they had a massive impact on many fights pre 25 especially in the underhalls.
First, this is a worst case scenario and probably happens about 4 times in tortage. Most of the time you have several quests for one area, so you zone in and spend 15-90 minutes completing the quests there before heading back to town. Second, the total loading time in the example above (with 8 load screens)would be less maybe 20 seconds. While it can get annoying, its not enough to detract from the game. Third, each character gets a "hearthstone" called the Path of Azura. This takes you back to the inn. You can use this every 30 minutes. You never really NEED it in tortage, so i personally tend to use it in situatiuon like the above and cut my 8 loading screens down to 4.
It was one of the worst case scenarios but it's still the case that in the what 12 hours say it takes you to do tortage you will do a couple of hundred loads. Later on in the game it's no where near such a big deal, it feels kinda weird having a wall around nearly every zone with a door to go through or an npc to talk too but you get to play for a significant ammount of time without needing to zone so no worrys, that isn't the case in tortage at all.
I don't understand your use of the hearth stone, it would cut out 1 load screen not 4, do the quest, hit your hearth <loadscreen> back at the inn, thats instead of zoneing back into tortage then zoning into the inn, still worth doing because it saves the run through the town.
It does detract from the game and it does spoil immersion, it's not serious enough to stop tortage being fun, tortage is still the most polished and most fun part of the game but the ammount of loads there is horrible, for the first 20 levels aoc has more loads than I've experienced in any other game I've ever played probably by an order of magnetiude too, the fact the op started a thread to ask about it means its obviously something that matters to him.
I don't know how anyone on a pvp server can honestly say the zones don't affect the game, they had a massive impact on many fights pre 25 especially in the underhalls.
Go through Conall Calley, Field of the dead and Poitan and say this again. These are huge maps, which all are areas in between mountains. Mountains you can climb to a certain extent (and ohh my god the view is spectacular in sunset), but still not traverse. Also it take as much as 30 min to run from Conarch Village to the Northern Ymir Warcamp so I most definitely don't feel boxed inn or anoyed with loading?? Then again if you have just tested Tortage you might think there is too much loading screens as you have to run in and out of that tavern a lot, but naaa... This was absolutely no issue for me at all.
First, this is a worst case scenario and probably happens about 4 times in tortage. Most of the time you have several quests for one area, so you zone in and spend 15-90 minutes completing the quests there before heading back to town. Second, the total loading time in the example above (with 8 load screens)would be less maybe 20 seconds. While it can get annoying, its not enough to detract from the game. Third, each character gets a "hearthstone" called the Path of Azura. This takes you back to the inn. You can use this every 30 minutes. You never really NEED it in tortage, so i personally tend to use it in situatiuon like the above and cut my 8 loading screens down to 4.
It was one of the worst case scenarios but it's still the case that in the what 12 hours say it takes you to do tortage you will do a couple of hundred loads. Later on in the game it's no where near such a big deal, it feels kinda weird having a wall around nearly every zone with a door to go through or an npc to talk too but you get to play for a significant ammount of time without needing to zone so no worrys, that isn't the case in tortage at all.
I don't understand your use of the hearth stone, it would cut out 1 load screen not 4, do the quest, hit your hearth <loadscreen> back at the inn, thats instead of zoneing back into tortage then zoning into the inn, still worth doing because it saves the run through the town.
It does detract from the game and it does spoil immersion, it's not serious enough to stop tortage being fun, tortage is still the most polished and most fun part of the game but the ammount of loads there is horrible, for the first 20 levels aoc has more loads than I've experienced in any other game I've ever played probably by an order of magnetiude too, the fact the op started a thread to ask about it means its obviously something that matters to him.
I don't know how anyone on a pvp server can honestly say the zones don't affect the game, they had a massive impact on many fights pre 25 especially in the underhalls.
Go through Conall Calley, Field of the dead and Poitan and say this again. These are huge maps, which all are areas in between mountains. Mountains you can climb to a certain extent (and ohh my god the view is spectacular in sunset), but still not traverse. Also it take as much as 30 min to run from Conarch Village to the Northern Ymir Warcamp so I most definitely don't feel boxed inn or anoyed with loading?? Then again if you have just tested Tortage you might think there is too much loading screens as you have to run in and out of that tavern a lot, but naaa... This was absolutely no issue for me at all.
Since you obviously didn't read my post properly I'll just copy and paste a chunk of it here again for you.
"Later on in the game it's no where near such a big deal, it feels kinda weird having a wall around nearly every zone with a door to go through or an npc to talk too but you get to play for a significant ammount of time without needing to zone so no worrys, that isn't the case in tortage at all."
I said multiple times in this thread that pre level 20 is where the game is stacked full of loads and after that while not fully ideal it's not a big deal.
What do you expect in a newbie zone? Lots of pvp and massive quest?
Ofcourse there will be lots of loadscreens and cinematics for new players. If you are a pro player and start a new alt char you probably knew how to leave tortage without doing any night quests and leaving the zone early. So its not a big deal at all.