Age of conan

[Azazel]

yes...i went from 40 fps to 20 fps...and the game crashes every half an hour

 

[CrackerJack]

yes...i went from 40 fps to 20 fps...and the game crashes every half an hour

on your 3870x2
wow that's crazy.

 

[Azazel]

yes it is...

game needs allot of fixing

 

[CrackerJack]

yes it is...

game needs allot of fixing

well atleast it's just a beta release. And not the actual game, then that would really suck!!!
i'm signing up for the beta, and see what i get.

 

[Azazel]

yeah three weeks better work there ass off

and gl with beta

 

[a111087]

I'm getting early access on 17th, so i'll be lvl 20 (hopefully and that would be the limit for early access) when everyone else gets their game

 

[erocker]

I never got an email back from them. Oh well, I'll still buy it, but I'll wait a few good months after it's released.

 

[a111087]

yes...i went from 40 fps to 20 fps...and the game crashes every half an hour

may be it also has something to do with card being ATi? thats why there are hot fixes after game releases

 

[flashstar]

The game looks great, but $15 a month seems like a lot for just 1 game + the initial cost.

 

[a111087]

The game looks great, but $15 a month seems like a lot for just 1 game + the initial cost.

agree, the game is better worth it

 

[NinkobEi]

Any update on performance? I hear there is hitching in AoC as well... major bugs? side-boobages? fill us in, chaps

 

[a111087]

i guess we can expect patch to be before early access begins (may 17) or around the release date (may ~22). of course after that there going to be more patches...

 

[ShadowXP]

The client that's used for the Open Beta is NOT the same as the Closed Beta is using, and it's not the same that has gone gold. The reason as to why the client is so unstable and why people see so poor performance is because it debugs in realtime. This is done to maximize the load on the servers, as you then have hordes of people sending massive amounts of data to them all the time. Funcom made a mistake when they didn't explicitly specify that the Open Beta is, in fact, a stresstest.

The closed-beta users have between 40 and 60% better performance in general.

What's strange is that some users in the Open Beta, both with ATI and nVidia-cards, are saying that they get between 50 and 60 fps even in Tortage, with all eyecandy turned on. Others, with the same cards and fairly same computers, hardly get 5. I'm inclined to believe that it's due to the debugger in combination with bad drivers or slow disk read/write-times (antivirus, for example).

 

[a111087]

yes, I also heard that, lets just hope that it is true
and hope the game goes easy on CPU power...

 

[Azazel]

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/ageofconan/beta/

FREE BETA KEYS. NO NEED TO SUB TO FILE PLANET

 

[NinkobEi]

ooer. thankes. seems like the server is jammed packed atm I cant even get through

 

[a111087]

yep, they say everyone gets error, need to try later

 

[Metal-Head]

400 minute wait on east coast servers. wooooooooow

Im going west coast.

 

[a111087]

so you actually got into, i can't get the code to show up, i get broken link to the image with the code or "invalid code"...
even age of conan does not worth 400 minutes wait in line...

 

[Metal-Head]

West coast server was 60 when I started.

I'm 64 now and its been 3 or so hours. lol

 

[a111087]

lol, just give up... and give your key to me

 

[Azazel]

lol, just give up... and give your key to me

you can get a free key from fileplanet.
they had a ton left over.
first come first serve
no need to sub

 

[a111087]

you can get a free key from fileplanet.
they had a ton left over.
first come first serve
no need to sub

... thats what we have been talking about here

 

[Azazel]

all key are gone

oh well

 

[newconroer]

Ouch new, those are some harsh words. dont get your hopes up though, every MMO from here til the end of time will have hardcore players on it as well as teenage annoying little bastards. best advice I can give you is use the ignore feature

Not when they shape and mold MMO communities, and/or whine enough to get developers to accomodate their flimsy desires.
=======================
EDIT
=======================
As of May 9th, the debug menu is available by pressing CTRL RIGHTSHIFT C
All features seem present as before.
You can continue to proceed with using the debugging suggestions in this post; and ignore the debug comments for May 8th, with the exception that 'Soft Shadows' is now replaced by a slider bar labeled 'Shadow Intensity' under the same Shadows section.
=======================
EDIT
=======================
As of May 8th, a new client patch was put forth for the closed Beta(not sure about open Beta). Because of this, many issues were addressed and some features are no longer available to the end user.

-Disregard anything concerning the debug menu, or features of the debug menu. They are no longer accessible.
-Load times and stuttering has been significantly reduced, although the debugger (not the debug menu) is still running during gameplay.
-Issues surrounding miscellaneous graphic anomalies have been partially addressed. Users may no longer see things like checkerboard textures and etc.
-Issues regarding broken quests, inaccurate skill/combo information, false-located quest objectives and etc. were also addressed, and many fixed.
-The suggested settings for 'maximum visuals with acceptable performance' is now a moot point. However the recommendations for the hardware needed to run this game are the same.
-Scores and ratings will stay as they are for now.

You can still use this to read about the game itself, and to get an idea of what it offers and/or doesn't offer.

=================
END OF UPDATE EDIT
=================



Anyways, on to the actual game.

Firstly, in regards to Shadow's comments. The current closed beta client is not the final client, nor is it the open beta client as the developers have stated. What they haven't stated is whether this is just one step backwards in terms of time, or a completely different client released to test 'other' things. As far as we know, the final client is A) Much much more stable and optimized and B) Running on the second version of their base engine "Cheetah," while this client is on the first model.

Performance, I doubt is 40-60% worse in the open, as the performance in closed is suggested to be only 60% that of final/retail, though I don't disagree that it might be worse than closed beta.


Having said that, I will give you my run down on the game:


Graphics and performance :

DX10 is not in this client

Bugs are apparent, though not that many. I would say they are more like anomalies. Currently there's a problem with textures (particulary ground) not turning or loading into high res versions until you are right on top of them. There's also some problems with the quality and placement of the shadows, and also the soft shadow shaders. A lot of users have faced checkerboard textures on distance landscaping, buildings and sometimes npc/characters.

There is a debug feature in the game, accessed by hitting CTRL~. For european keyboards, that would be CTRL and then the key to the left of your number 1 and just above the tab key(if not, try CTRL \ or CTRL /). From that main debug menu there is a feature called "Depth Pass." It's actual purpose is not detailed, though you can sometimes clearly see what it does and doesn't do, at least visually speaking. However, most players get a significant frames per second boost by disabling this feature; we're talking over 30fps at times. The drawback is

A) Tags (as in name, health bar, information) above npc/mobs dissapears - not big for me, I don't use them but...)
B) The yellow directional markers around your character dissapear in combat (again not big for me,..but)
C) You can no longer use soft shadows.

If you go into the Shadow section from that main debug menu, you'll have an "Enable Shadows" button at the top, and the "Soft Shadows" button a bit below. With Depth Pass on, disable Soft Shadows, and turn on Enable Shadows. You should see that the shadows become more identifyable, however look closely at textures, especially rocks. You should see some grainy-ness and 'mesh' like overlay. This could be a bug/anomalie in the client version, I am not sure. If you turn the Soft Shadows back on, that goes away, however there is a performance cost. The point of mentioning this, is that you cannot have soft or 'proper' looking shadows without having Depth Pass ON. Though Depth Pass + full Shadows and everything else maxed via the Video menu, will result in some pretty low frames.

If you are attempting this at 1900 or greater resolution, do make sure to set your pre-render frames setting in your graphics control panel (outside of the game) to at least 3, to reduce stuttering and input lag at the lower frames you'll be getting due to the shadows.

If you can stomach it, turn off Depth Pass. If you must have shadows and do not mind the slight anomalies mentioned above; enable shadows from the shadow debug menu but do not enable soft shadows.

There is a feature called "LOD factor" at the main debug menu. If you turn this up to level 4 (maximum), high resolution textures currently loaded, will stay loaded, as long as you are in viewing distance. This essentially forces them to stay rendered, if you're after the best image quality.

If you find yourself in a high altitude and notice that the world seems as if it's in a 'bubble,' or you cannot see far enough, even though your high res and low res is set to maximum in the general video options, try increasing the Farclipping setting, also found on the main debug page. I don't recommend anything over 600-1000 as that should be far enough. Also, turn it down to 20 or so when in a town or close quarters. It draws performance away and you see no difference.



Experience, skill points and feats:

Experience is gained in numbers, which you can see in your System tab after defeating any enemy. The main experience bar at the bottom can be hovered over to show the popup containing your current experience, and the total needed to progress to the next level. For those that live and die by the numbers, at least they can calculate how long it will take them to level up There's nothing special or new here in regards to gaining experience or 'leveling.' There's no twists or even apparent attempts to deviate from the norm.

Skill points are awarded from anything such as killing a mob, visiting a new location and/or completing a quest. When you open your attributes / journal panel, the amount you have is listed on the top of the window (top right). There will be four (maybe more later, or depending on class possibly?) attributes that you can increase with + or - clicks. You can increase or decrease them as you like, then confirm them. Once confirmed though, you can only increase. The system here doesn't seem too dynamic, and some of it's a bit restrictive. I.e. in some places in the game you can climb; be it ladders, ropes, trees etc. However depending on the area there is a skill requirement, much like EQ 1 had. If you try to climb and you cannot (and please for the love of God put your weapon away before climbing!), then check your system tab. It will say you cannot climb as you need more points, and oddly enough it actually tells you how many! This is when you would open the journal and increase your climbing accordingly.

Feats are much like Achievement Points or Talent Points found in other MMOs. Each level you get one Feat point, which you can spend by opening up your Feats panel. You will get two windows again, one left, one right. The one on the left revolves around your class, and the right one is general. They will have tabs to allow for the use of different skill 'trees.' You click and 'spend' them much like AA or Talent points as mentioned above.


Quests, npcs, voice over, maps etc.

There are quite a few bugged quests throughout the level ranges. I won't give their names here, the list would be too long, and I've admittedly forgotten half of them. Needless to say, be communicative with people in the global chat, and most likely someone will inform you. The one main thing in regards to quests that comes up more and more often is when you do large hunt and gather, like for say fourty crocodile skins. When you attempt to turn them in all at once, the quest bugs and you essentially fail to complete it. You can try to do them individually as a 'work around.' In some cases, that's not an option.

Quest objectives get auto-updated on your map as well as getting the 'summary' in your quest log window. To me the summary is enough. Part of questing is finding your objective, not just going straight there and getting it. MMOs are increasingly leaning towards a nanny-state, in that it basically tells you everything you need to know without having to do any research or using your brain, or heck, asking fellow adventurers for tips or advice. Remember the days of EQ when you had to ask other npcs beyond that of the quest npc, who which never mentions any other particular npc, just to see if they had ANY information that could help you. Frustrating at times, but you felt like a bloody detective when you figured it out! Sorry, none of that here so far. As mentioned above, just follow the "X"! Arr matey!


Throwing weapons do not work.

Voice over can sometimes be faint, low volume, high echo or reverberation, or muted. This might be fixed as of yesterday or today; with some players reporting in a small patch update and new working voice sounds.

Maps sometimes 'gray' out when during or after loading a new area or instance. This can be fixed sometimes by re - 'zoning,' or reloading the client (i.e. restart).

Icons on maps, particularly the "X" that marks your quest objective is sometimes misplaced and is not properly respresenting the location of the objective. Keep in mind, sometimes the map places the X at a zone line indicating you should go to that area. Also keep in mind that it may be underneath or above where the X is. I.e. you could be in town and see the X by the entrance to Archanian ruins, when in reality it's actually down in the Underhalls zone.



Controls and interface:

You can completely remap and customise your controls (thank God), in this client and the final release client. There is not an advanced feature (as you will see it's blank) as of yet, though there is speculation if that's intended. As of now I am not aware of a config file that can be directly edited to make control adjustments, i.e. if you wanted to do advanced mouse input mapping like in EverQuest 2, without raising a red flag by the patcher and have it persist to redownload the delta data. As it is, there's enough flexibility to please players.

The interface is typical MMO, with a compass at the top right, some icons at the edges and a main bar at the bottom. Most windows are able to moved, and some resized. The chat window has decent amounts of options for setting up basic filters, but basic only. It's not near as in depth as EverQuest 2 offers. On the plus side, it comes already set with multiple chat tabs, one of which is a "system" tab that shows you miscellaneous information, like experience gained, money looted, items looted, roll numbers, etc. I smiled to myself, as whenever I set up my chat windows in MMOs, I make a "system" tab for that exact purpose. My Lord, there's an MMO developer that thinks like me? Wow, we might just save the day yet!

The main hotkey bar unfortunatley cannot be manipulated. You can enable two extra hot bars, through one of the options given in the UI/interface setup in the game's options menu. As of yet, I've no idea how to map controls or key bindings to them. The main bar hotbutton slots are indicated as 'Action bar/button.' The 'Special Action bar' refers to the second main bar, which flips up when you hold or hit the coordinating key. I.e. If you hold CTRL+(whatever button) to access your 'Special bar/button' the main bar will rotate from it's current default bar at the bottom, to the Special action bar as long as you hold CTRL. When you let go it reverts back to the main. A nice feature in some ways, though a bit confusing at times. If you'd rather do it on a toggle on /off way, you can map a button(s) to select the actual bar bank which will show that Special Action bar all the time. I think you can cycle up to ten bars manually.

The 'extra' two hotbars mentioned above, enabled through the UI options, again seem not able to have keys mapped to them and do not act as either the Action or the Special Action bar under any circumstances.


Inventory and looting:

Looting is a-typical of modern MMOs. By default you have a NBG system. No apparent looting bugs seen so far.

Inventory is quite small, and as of now, you can purchase one satchel/pouch that gives you another four slots of space. Also note that when you have your inventory window open, you cannot have your skills/attributes window(s) open simultaneously, it's one or the other. This is apparently being addressed in the final client.


Combat, combat arts, skills and spells:

It's a bit hard at times to know whether or not something's working as intended, as quite a lot of the 'hover' info popups from mousing over skills, isn't always complete with data, and for that matter it might not be accurate data. Yet, most people are too busy trying to decapitate someone they don't care Go figure... There are some known 'broken' buffs
and skills that do not 'chain' appropriately. We expect they'll be addressed according to priority of concern (by whoever deems that ...hopefully not some corporate bozo who has no idea what's going on..).

It's based on a combo system, that's comprised of combat/spell arts and a three way directional, manual attack setup. These three attacks are labeled as "Upper Left" "Middle/Forward/Up" and "Upper Right." The objective is to initiate a combo by using a combat art or skill, then pressing the appropriate directional button or buttons (some combos or higher level skills require multiple directions/manual attacks), which automatically light up, in order to pull off the maneuver. It's definatley nice to have to 'try' if you want to call it that, as opposed to auto attacking. And no, there is absolutley no auto attack. If you stand there and don't fight, that's all you'll be doing..standing..until you die.

Combo/skills are awarded automatically upon completing a level; sometimes you may go a level without getting a new one. At this time there's no way to upgrade your combos. Unfortunatley, all the classes get basically the same combos up until about level 20. You do get class specific abilities, yet they don't come as often as the standard-shared ones. This leaves some people feeling like they are playing too much melee rather than ranged or casting or even stealth-assassin. You don't have to use the combos, though in a lot of situations you may need to in order to 'win,' or not die. The good thing about dealing with these combos early, is that it gets you familiar with the combat system and some much needed practice in, for when you start using more class specific abilities.

Yes, there are fatality moves of sorts. Currently the two most common are a side slashing beheading (which looks odd with a blunt weapon..you'd have to hit pretty hard to..ah nvm..) and a repeating downward slash/hacking across their head after they drop to their knees. Basically they died, and crumpled down. You aren't satisfied and go sadistic on them and keep digging your blade deeper and deeper even though they're already dead. Each time a fatality occurs, blood splotches splatter your screen. You can synthesize this splatter, by using the debug menu mentioned earlier, and click on the "Blood" button near the bottom of the list. BTW, stay away from the "Eat Memory" feature, it does what it says.

Bows and cross-bows are pretty nice, at least in the sense that you have to actually manually aim them. You shoot from over the shoulder with crosshairs. It's unfortunate you cannot shoot in full first person view but it's close. If you aren't over the shoulder when firing your arrows you will not see the crosshairs. This forces you to 'roll' your camera up to your character. It's not a big deal for myself as I play mainly in first person, though I can see it annoying some people who are backed off from the character a bit with the camera, and have to start fingering the crap out of their scroll wheel to get into view for the crosshairs. Hopefully they'll implement a control to toggle from third to first person view and vice versa.

The unfortunate thing about ranged weapons is that:

A) Where you shoot them, whether head, body or leg makes no difference to damage or response i.e. if shot in the leg you'd expect them to be hindered or 'snared.' Rather if you want to snare, you must use a snare combo ability which requires you to use it first, like the melee ability, then fire off another arrow based on the the button that lights up as your indication. It's not as dynamic as I hoped, and it's a bit silly when you're snare is up, and the mob is on top of you, and your spamming arrows; it's even more silly that you can choose between upper left, up and upper right. The only purpose they serve at that point, is to continue the use of ranged combos.

Though I find myself switching to melee at that point because

A) It's more effective, especially versus multiple mob encounters and groups and
B) It makes things more challenging, fun, interesting etc.


B)You cannot shoot while moving (well actually you can, and if it's directly in line/makes contact with the mob you may hear them grunt, but they do not take damage). You also will have a hell of a time hitting a moving target if they are not directly in line with your shot, i.e. walking towards or away from you. However, make no mistake, mobs can hit you fine with ranged weapons from good distance and at any angle, whether you are sprinting, straffing or both.





I'm sure I've missed some things, though hopefully this will give you some ideas, or maybe answer some questions you've had, or maybe even help increase your performance or enjoyment.

I am optimistic that the final client will be better, though I understand people's concerns that expecting us to believe this version and the final will be like night and day, is a bit hard to swallow, especially given the knowledge and experiences we've had and seen from past developers and their 'promises.'

I haven't discussed 'instancing' or zone/world 'feel,' i.e. how large it feels, how immersed you feel as a player, as I have purposely not travelled far, saving it for realease. However, all dungeons and all buildings you enter are instanced. This isn't uncommon for current MMOs, especially with ones like LOTRO. However LOTRO offers something this will not unfortunatley, and that is a seemless world (there is one spot and only one in LOTRO where the 'outdoor' world has a zone line, and it's at a spot least travelled or accessed by any player, so it works out well). In AOC, there are alot of zone lines. This isn't too hurtful in some players eyes, except that loading times seen so far are pretty atrocious, and can even cause repetitive crashing of the client. Again, let us hope it's optimized upon release.


Ratings:

From this client and thoughts from previous build versions:

Graphics 9. They are not next gen by any means, yet they do refine what we've expected from MMOs. EQ2 and LOTRO both previously offered up probably the best visuals we had seen, though only in certain departments (Lighting, Texture Resolution etc). The flora and grass is very thick in AOC, and with a good resolution and just 4AA, the textures are nice and smooth. Lighting is good, IF you can run with shadows on. Character models are exceptional, best I've seen to date, and look good enough to be in the most recent non-MMO DX10 titles. The Mrs. tells me her Ranger's legs are almost as good as her own. The characters look very appropriate for the theme as well, with some really good looking armor and animations.

Sound 7. There's too many unresolved issues at this time to rate it higher, however I have noticed that there's minute and subtle sounds that might be unintentional which is bad, or intentional which is good, though they don't really serve a purpose in that case. There isn't a nice ambience like LOTRO had, in certain zones that helped make it 'creepy,' or to set the tone/mood. Voice over is possibly still broken or damaged, and there's quite a few repetitive sound / sound usage whether it be from foot steps, or combat noises; basically they could do with some more diversity.

Gameplay 9. It's still an MMO, what can I say? Though it offers up something that none of the others ever have - a chance to really decide whether or not it's going to be YOU, or HIM taking the fall.

Learning Curve 8.5 For a-typical or carebear MMO players, this may take some time adjusting too, especially if you don't learn yourself a good and comfortable remapping of your keys/buttons. However, for FPS, or action/arcade players, this may come more naturally than one might think. In regards to finding your way around and reaching objectives, it's particularly easy, in fact too easy, and I'm hoping they take away most of the notifications that automatically pop up on your map.




System, hardware and settings recommendation.

For maximum visual quality while retaining suitable playing experiences, I recommend:

A) A proper file/folder placement defragmentation after you've installed AND updated the client. Ultimate Defrag will do this, it takes a bit of reading to figure out how to use it, though I have a guide around here somewhere I wrote. Hit me up if you would like to take a look at it.

B) An E6600 (or there abouts), with no less than a 640 8800 GTS (or ATI equivilant) and 2gigs 667 or 800mhz DDR2 RAM. While this is seemingly GPU bound, we should all know by now that one dragging component in a system can render the other ones significantly less effective. You can get by with a somewhat older C2D or X2 style chip, though I highly suggest not attempting it with a single core, especially if you're after quality imagery/visuals. The 640 GTS is about the lowest or oldest you want to go on single card solutions (I will not be discussing Crossfire or SLI). The 640 RAMDAC and the bus size does go quite a long ways with the texture requirements from this game, and the general capabilities of the card should be just enough (if overclocked a bit), to let you use most of the lighting and shadow goodies, with a moderatley high rendering distance and maximum LOD.

The game can use up to 1.5gigs of system RAM, and I suspect less with the final client. 3 or 4gigs will not help you here.

C)If you are scraping the bottom of the barrel in regards to the hardware suggestions I gave above, I recommend:

-Turn Depth Pass off
-Turn Shadows off: (please refer to the first section regarding Graphics to help remind you about how to disable all shadows in regards to using Depth Pass, as sometimes the shadows stay unless you reverse the order you turned things off)
-Keep FarClipping under 60 when in a town or instance
-AntiAliasing 4X - No more is needed at high resolutions
-Prerender your GPU to minimum 3 frames
-Windowed mode off
-Vsync off
-Particle rendering distance (both sliders) 38 or less


If you have an E6850 or newer, an 8800GT 1gb(or equivilant) or newer, you should be well capable of managing the 'full experience,' at any resolution with the final client, and possibly in most situations with the current client. You may notice some stuttering with this current client, however it's primarily a RAM and RAMDAC issue due to uncompressed textures.



Conclusion:

I only have one thing to say here. This game is evolutionary, yet not revolutionary. Take it with a grain of salt.