"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
AoC is a set of instances, no open world, is level based, no skills, has shitty combat, PvP is level based, no territory for clans to fight over, no meaningful guild warfare.
The game has turned around for sure. It started when they finally got rid of thier old game director and put in the new guy. It's a pity they didn't use him from the start. Under his watch the game has really jumped in quality.
It's like others have said Funcom burned the majority of it's possible user base at launch and the majority of those gamers do not feel like giving them a second chance,which is totally their right and no one really hs the right to tell thme they have to change their mind.
Rise of The Godslayer finally got AoC to th epoint wher eit's deleivering on the promises on the original box and that AoC was hyping all the way till the game actually launched,I mena go and find an original box and read the bullet points of supposed game features.So to a lot of those burned customers it's like asking thme to pay extra for stuff they sohuld of had 2 years ago.
Couple that with the fact Funcom has given no reason for those peop[el who paid at launch to return financially.It costs twice as much to re-activate an old acocunt thna it does to start a new one with Rise of the godslayer...and that's not including those palyers already having paid full price for the original game.
It's great that AoC has improved and that you guys are enjoying it but peopel have valid reasons for not wanting to play it again or jsut have moved on or back to other games and have no desire to play AoC.
AOC hasn't been repolished, it's been reinvented. It's like an entirely different game.
Oh? Did they get rid of instancing?
If not then it's not an entirely different game, it's a polished turd.
People got really confused between an "instance" and the zone & zone spawns when population cap was met. There is not much "instancing" once out of Tortage IMO. Dungeons/ Raids are instanced for the most part but that is about it. The new zones for the expac are very large as well.
You may be one of those people who is confusing the difference because it is distinct.
AOC hasn't been repolished, it's been reinvented. It's like an entirely different game.
Let's not fall into the trap of fanboism.
What has really changed regarding AoC from the start 2 years ago:
- stability and bugs: a lot of the bugs and other stability issues that plagued AoC have been resolved, and AoC overall plays smoothly now. Not fully 100% bug and lag free, I'm guessing 1 in 10-15 persons still has stability problems 1 way or another, but the game can play solid on high settings on a medium PC. Mine is 2 years old, not the best CPU or graphics card even back then, but I can play smoothly on DX10 high settings.
- launch process improved: a LOT better than the launch 2 years ago, RotGS showed they have learnt from it. The most annoying launch bugs and crashes that were still present were resolved for the majority within the 1st 2 weeks.
- leveling content: no leveling gaps anymore, was resolved with adding 2 new zones during the last 2 years.
- Khitai changes: actually Khitai shows best how the world of AoC can be, with huge explorable and beautiful zones, no loading times, and inventive dungeons that are a breath of fresh air with the new gameplay mechanics involved in them. I'm hoping to see a evolution of that in TSW.
- AA: the alternate advancement instead of a level cap raise is I think a master stroke, and something other companies should implement too.
- PvP: a number of classes and skills have been revamped, the PvP has been restructured, but it is lagging behind the PvE changes. The changes to the new PvP grounds, Bori, are very much needed, as well as the Towers update.
So overall I wouldn't say it is a complete reinvention, but certainly a progression and a sign that they're on the right track, looking at the changes that have been made the last 2 years and especially with Khitai that showed a number of interesting changes.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
AOC hasn't been repolished, it's been reinvented. It's like an entirely different game.
Oh? Did they get rid of instancing?
If not then it's not an entirely different game, it's a polished turd.
People got really confused between an "instance" and the zone & zone spawns when population cap was met. There is not much "instancing" once out of Tortage IMO. Dungeons/ Raids are instanced for the most part but that is about it. The new zones for the expac are very large as well.
You may be one of those people who is confusing the difference because it is distinct.
For me there is virtually no difference. If I have to wait for loading screens often in a game, or I have to ask my friends what instance number they are in for a zone, I'm outta there. I'm fine with instanced dungeons and story arch quests, but that's about it. Constantly being jerked out of immersion for loading screens is just a game killer for me. Semantics really don't matter here.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
That's another thing that gets my kudos. I didn't know the guy before, but I rate Craig Morrison among the best game directors around, he has turned AoC course around, isn't just all promises and no deeds, but also tries to be fair and open as far as possible with the community, and even keeps his cool and answering questions even if he gets a lot of unjustified rants and disrespect thrown his way.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Most locations, with the exception of resource zones, have only two instances, normal and epic. No more searching for your friends. Yes, in the past there was heavy instancing, not anymore.
You can also purchase items that instantly zone you to your raid location with vet points. No more being jerked out of immersion in ROTGS.
It's great that AoC has improved and that you guys are enjoying it but peopel have valid reasons for not wanting to play it again or jsut have moved on or back to other games and have no desire to play AoC.
I totally understand.
They should've launched the game as it is today, but they missed their shot.
I can only hope they learnt their hard lessons to do better with the TSW launch, the RotGS launch is a good sign for that though.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I thought it was pretty and all but the mo-cap stuff just killed 'something' for me. I'd be in the middle of a combo with my barbarian and take all sorts of hits, but I'd still be rolling through with the scripted animation. A little bit more reaction in something other than the finishing moves would be nice.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Yeah well, these guys never learn.They should have learned their lesson with the shitty Anarchy Online launch but didn't..2 horrible, screwed up launches in spite of the fact they had fairly extensive beta testing and a fairly vocal community of beta testers that pointed out problems.
AOC is like DarkFall.... it's fun till you realize it's combat then combat followed by combat and more combat. A lot of ppl in my humble opinion are looking at MMOs as an online world to live in, but more and more we get "games" and not "worlds". AOC fits this profile, unfortunately.
Yeah well, these guys never learn.They should have learned their lesson with the shitty Anarchy Online launch but didn't..2 horrible, screwed up launches in spite of the fact they had fairly extensive beta testing and a fairly vocal community of beta testers that pointed out problems.
Funcom gets no third chance from me.
That's true too. I didn't play AO until it was deemed 'fixed' years later. Then the AoC beta testing community was.. Well on par with Champions Online's beta community and that was really disappointing too. You had the devs trying to defend their poor decisions rather than really fix anything. Even reporting a bug someone in the company somewhere would act like you just slapped them in the face.
I think even if they fix it now that you reminded me of that, I'll pass.
Oi, this generation of MMOs is a .5
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
It's great that AoC has improved and that you guys are enjoying it but peopel have valid reasons for not wanting to play it again or jsut have moved on or back to other games and have no desire to play AoC.
I totally understand.
They should've launched the game as it is today, but they missed their shot.
I can only hope they learnt their hard lessons to do better with the TSW launch, the RotGS launch is a good sign for that though.
I agree they should of delayed launch for about 6 months and had a full dev team get the game to a state closer to how it is now.
As to TSW it has a good premise os let's hope third time's a charm for Funcom because if they blow this one too they don't have antoher Ragnar Tournquist on who's name they can garner good will.
My point is AOC didn't miss it's shot. Word of mouth will increase the player base, I'm convinced of it.
Look at Eve Online.
You may be right but Eve didn't not burn almost 1 million people at launch and gain a huge bad rep.Eve started small and niche and grew it audience from there.So it's not the saem thing at all.
My point is AOC didn't miss it's shot. Word of mouth will increase the player base, I'm convinced of it.
Look at Eve Online.
i think the exact opposite. we have more people leaving the guild than ever because of the xpac grind. and we are already discussing as a guild on if there is another game we want to leave for. the xpac grind is freakin insane. about 220 rare trophies and like 1200 moa for one freakin weapon is joke. anybody with a job and any life outside of sitting in a basement and playing all day will never be able to get this within a year. and that is just for 1 epic for 1 toon. or lets say you do pillars every other day on godslayer mode then it will take you almost 400 days to get your chest or helm not both.
AOC is like DarkFall.... it's fun till you realize it's combat then combat followed by combat and more combat. A lot of ppl in my humble opinion are looking at MMOs as an online world to live in, but more and more we get "games" and not "worlds". AOC fits this profile, unfortunately.
Show me one mmo not named Second Life that isn't about combat? Every single mmo out there is all about the combat.
I for one couldn't stand the lag. Not the graphic lag, but the network lag. Any zone that had more than 30 (sometimes even less) starts to lag. 80% lag time at prime time on EU servers.
There are servers that doesn't have this issue, but they are empty, even after the merge.
I was pretty excited about AoC expansion also, even pre-ordered the Digital Collectors edition (and bought it), but the lag was excruciating still.
That's why I'm not playing AoC, in before someone saying "I play 24/7 and I don't lag LOL", well, I do, and its not a local issue.
Comments
I'm not sure if I agree with this 100%. WAR supports your claim. So does CO, Vanguard, etc...
But when the NES released it was a total flop, and then became one of the best selling devices of all time.
All I'm saying is that rarely in the videogame industry something can start out as a flop and totally bounce back.
Take Eve Online for example.
Troll.
I dislike the classes.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Guess your right.
If people don't want to try it out, they're missing out, not me.
See you on Wiccana
AoC is a set of instances, no open world, is level based, no skills, has shitty combat, PvP is level based, no territory for clans to fight over, no meaningful guild warfare.
Oh it has tits and ass though.
The game has turned around for sure. It started when they finally got rid of thier old game director and put in the new guy. It's a pity they didn't use him from the start. Under his watch the game has really jumped in quality.
It's like others have said Funcom burned the majority of it's possible user base at launch and the majority of those gamers do not feel like giving them a second chance,which is totally their right and no one really hs the right to tell thme they have to change their mind.
Rise of The Godslayer finally got AoC to th epoint wher eit's deleivering on the promises on the original box and that AoC was hyping all the way till the game actually launched,I mena go and find an original box and read the bullet points of supposed game features.So to a lot of those burned customers it's like asking thme to pay extra for stuff they sohuld of had 2 years ago.
Couple that with the fact Funcom has given no reason for those peop[el who paid at launch to return financially.It costs twice as much to re-activate an old acocunt thna it does to start a new one with Rise of the godslayer...and that's not including those palyers already having paid full price for the original game.
It's great that AoC has improved and that you guys are enjoying it but peopel have valid reasons for not wanting to play it again or jsut have moved on or back to other games and have no desire to play AoC.
People got really confused between an "instance" and the zone & zone spawns when population cap was met. There is not much "instancing" once out of Tortage IMO. Dungeons/ Raids are instanced for the most part but that is about it. The new zones for the expac are very large as well.
You may be one of those people who is confusing the difference because it is distinct.
Let's not fall into the trap of fanboism.
What has really changed regarding AoC from the start 2 years ago:
- stability and bugs: a lot of the bugs and other stability issues that plagued AoC have been resolved, and AoC overall plays smoothly now. Not fully 100% bug and lag free, I'm guessing 1 in 10-15 persons still has stability problems 1 way or another, but the game can play solid on high settings on a medium PC. Mine is 2 years old, not the best CPU or graphics card even back then, but I can play smoothly on DX10 high settings.
- launch process improved: a LOT better than the launch 2 years ago, RotGS showed they have learnt from it. The most annoying launch bugs and crashes that were still present were resolved for the majority within the 1st 2 weeks.
- leveling content: no leveling gaps anymore, was resolved with adding 2 new zones during the last 2 years.
- Khitai changes: actually Khitai shows best how the world of AoC can be, with huge explorable and beautiful zones, no loading times, and inventive dungeons that are a breath of fresh air with the new gameplay mechanics involved in them. I'm hoping to see a evolution of that in TSW.
- AA: the alternate advancement instead of a level cap raise is I think a master stroke, and something other companies should implement too.
- PvP: a number of classes and skills have been revamped, the PvP has been restructured, but it is lagging behind the PvE changes. The changes to the new PvP grounds, Bori, are very much needed, as well as the Towers update.
So overall I wouldn't say it is a complete reinvention, but certainly a progression and a sign that they're on the right track, looking at the changes that have been made the last 2 years and especially with Khitai that showed a number of interesting changes.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
For me there is virtually no difference. If I have to wait for loading screens often in a game, or I have to ask my friends what instance number they are in for a zone, I'm outta there. I'm fine with instanced dungeons and story arch quests, but that's about it. Constantly being jerked out of immersion for loading screens is just a game killer for me. Semantics really don't matter here.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Craig Morrison has done a great job. That's why I'm playing AOC. The first lead developer really screwed Funcom.
That's another thing that gets my kudos. I didn't know the guy before, but I rate Craig Morrison among the best game directors around, he has turned AoC course around, isn't just all promises and no deeds, but also tries to be fair and open as far as possible with the community, and even keeps his cool and answering questions even if he gets a lot of unjustified rants and disrespect thrown his way.
Not many can follow him in that.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Most locations, with the exception of resource zones, have only two instances, normal and epic. No more searching for your friends. Yes, in the past there was heavy instancing, not anymore.
You can also purchase items that instantly zone you to your raid location with vet points. No more being jerked out of immersion in ROTGS.
I totally understand.
They should've launched the game as it is today, but they missed their shot.
I can only hope they learnt their hard lessons to do better with the TSW launch, the RotGS launch is a good sign for that though.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
My point is AOC didn't miss it's shot. Word of mouth will increase the player base, I'm convinced of it.
Look at Eve Online.
How about the animation?
I thought it was pretty and all but the mo-cap stuff just killed 'something' for me. I'd be in the middle of a combo with my barbarian and take all sorts of hits, but I'd still be rolling through with the scripted animation. A little bit more reaction in something other than the finishing moves would be nice.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Yeah well, these guys never learn.They should have learned their lesson with the shitty Anarchy Online launch but didn't..2 horrible, screwed up launches in spite of the fact they had fairly extensive beta testing and a fairly vocal community of beta testers that pointed out problems.
Funcom gets no third chance from me.
AOC is like DarkFall.... it's fun till you realize it's combat then combat followed by combat and more combat. A lot of ppl in my humble opinion are looking at MMOs as an online world to live in, but more and more we get "games" and not "worlds". AOC fits this profile, unfortunately.
That's true too. I didn't play AO until it was deemed 'fixed' years later. Then the AoC beta testing community was.. Well on par with Champions Online's beta community and that was really disappointing too. You had the devs trying to defend their poor decisions rather than really fix anything. Even reporting a bug someone in the company somewhere would act like you just slapped them in the face.
I think even if they fix it now that you reminded me of that, I'll pass.
Oi, this generation of MMOs is a .5
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
I agree they should of delayed launch for about 6 months and had a full dev team get the game to a state closer to how it is now.
As to TSW it has a good premise os let's hope third time's a charm for Funcom because if they blow this one too they don't have antoher Ragnar Tournquist on who's name they can garner good will.
You may be right but Eve didn't not burn almost 1 million people at launch and gain a huge bad rep.Eve started small and niche and grew it audience from there.So it's not the saem thing at all.
i think the exact opposite. we have more people leaving the guild than ever because of the xpac grind. and we are already discussing as a guild on if there is another game we want to leave for. the xpac grind is freakin insane. about 220 rare trophies and like 1200 moa for one freakin weapon is joke. anybody with a job and any life outside of sitting in a basement and playing all day will never be able to get this within a year. and that is just for 1 epic for 1 toon. or lets say you do pillars every other day on godslayer mode then it will take you almost 400 days to get your chest or helm not both.
This. If you don't make a good first impression nowadays, you're toast.
Show me one mmo not named Second Life that isn't about combat? Every single mmo out there is all about the combat.
I for one couldn't stand the lag. Not the graphic lag, but the network lag. Any zone that had more than 30 (sometimes even less) starts to lag. 80% lag time at prime time on EU servers.
There are servers that doesn't have this issue, but they are empty, even after the merge.
I was pretty excited about AoC expansion also, even pre-ordered the Digital Collectors edition (and bought it), but the lag was excruciating still.
That's why I'm not playing AoC, in before someone saying "I play 24/7 and I don't lag LOL", well, I do, and its not a local issue.