All Posts by Fion

I can see that being a real pain in the ass. Hopefully Funcom see's that the issue is a big one and gets to fixing it asap.

Now that I think of it, it's happened to me. But I don't play on a PvP server so it's far less a major issue.

Originally posted by Chainmail

 

I love this game and am having a ton of fun in it so far. But the OP has a point.

The UI is the suck. You can't move many of the boxes around. You can't even resize the chat box horizontally or change the text colors that I can find.  For a game in development for 5 years and with many mmos out that have great UIs to learn from, you would think that Funcom would have put more effort into it.

You can change the size horizontally. Move to the corner edge and drag :)

But yea, not the greatest UI. I like the over all design aestethically. But again Funcom certainly isn't known for having great UI's lol. But it will improve with both player suggests and yea, mods :)

Originally posted by Mickslick

Long time lurker, first time poster.  I've played many Mmorpg's, couldn't pass this one up.  It looks beautiful, but for five years in development I just can't believe the following:

1) Every race and class starts in the same tutorial / starter area -What????  Talk about lack of variety and a huge dissensentive to play alt's let alone how myoptic and simplistic this makes the lore.

2) You can't bind your stinking mouse keys.  I know, I know I can go buy a mouse with it's own programmable software, but with this budget they could'nt add this little very handy feature that is found in virtually any other game of mediocre and above development.

3) The user Interface - Wow, talk about lack of customization and limitations -  Again how much money and time didt they put into this?

I know there is a ton of other things to consider - good and bad, but these very upfront glaring elements are just kind of unbelievable

Thanks for letting me have a little rant

1: Yep.. been that way for years now. Where you been? Only been dozens and dozens and dozens of videos, previews, interviews, that talked about the first part of the game being Tortage. Funcom has stated they want to add more but they wanted that first part so tailored they settled on one starting area at release.

2: I don't really see this as an issue. It's not really that difficult to learn to use 1, 2 and 3. ;) Why they did it I don't fully understand but I'll trust in their wisdom I spose.

3: Well to tell you the truth. Funcom has never been known for their UI's lol. AO's was so convoluted and overly complicated and myopic it drove more then a few folks away from the game. Though the game itself was grand and players got used to it. But still, AO's is a massive improvement and the UI isn't even a 'make it and forget it' thing in an MMOG. It will improve with player suggestions etc.

But seriously, if these are your biggest gripes, doesn't seem to be that much trouble to me ;)

Epic bosses drop multiple green items often. But I think the 'epic' title is there more to give groups something to do.

I personally think it's genius. Instead of worrying about group friendly players whine that theres no group content. And solo friendly players whine because theres no solo content. You offer them both the same content with their choice of solo or group oriented mobs. :)

Originally posted by vesavius

 

It just seems to me that now all the trolls, haters, and shills (where have the majority gone now btw?)

They left in sorrow and bitterness at AoC's booming success and popularity and rave early impressions despite all the work and time they put into trying to make it fail.

On to the next MMOG to troll, hate and shill - WAR. (*cough* well the ones that weren't WAR fanbois to begin with*cough*)

Originally posted by catch21.9

I see a lot of people asking if its "fun" or "hip," and all the replies I see are along the lines of "it gets super awesome after Tortage" or "it makes your brain poop rainbows after 20!" But heres the thing, shouldn't a game be fun from the get-go? Grinds are A-OK with me, but from the start of the game!?! Come on. All I want to know if the game is fun from the moment I pick it up, does it have that "holy hell" factor that makes you want to come back? I'm still on the fence about buying this, and until some reasonably intelligent person gives their reasonable opinion, I think I might just stick to playing with my penis and waiting for Call of Duty 5. Just kidding, fuck Call of Duty 5.

It's not that we are saying it isn't fun until after level 20, just that the first 20 levels are very different then the last 60. I think 'most' people enjoy Tortage, but not everyone. And it's just better to make folks aware that Tortage is very different then the rest of the game then let folks like the noob above, try the game for a few hours and feel they dislike the instanced and zoned feel and leave.

Note that for those that don't really enjoy it, you don't HAVE to do it. You just need to get to level 13 or so and talk to your 'trainer' and if your cought up on Destiny Quests they can send you off to the mainland if you like.

So yea, you might love Tortage. I really enjoyed it and a lot of people do. But not everyone. So better notified then sorry.

IMHO Funcom needs to set up another 1-20 zone that's one big zone like the rest of the games zones with little instancing and open buildings you can enter without zoning like the rest of the game, and just populate it with a loose storyline and tuns of quests and let folks choose which to do when they make a character. They have said they want to make a 2nd starting zone, but no real details on when, how and what. But I suspect this is the reason.

accidental double post.. sorry.

heres my suggestions

1: If you have a computer thats mid-range gaming system. IE low end duel core or better. 2g of ram or better, late 7series nvidia, or a 8800GT or something, it'll run pretty nicely. If you have lower then these, you'll want to upgrade first.

2: Understand that the 1-20 game is quite different from the rest of the game. It's fairly small, it's pretty heavily instanced, lots of load times (though all very very short on a decent system.) After that it opens up a great deal.

If you meet the system requirements (admittedly reasonably high) and you don't mind lots of zones and instances early on, theres a 90% chance that you'll really enjoy the game.

Oh.. almost forgot

WARNING: DO NOT APPROACH THE GAME LIKE IT'S WOW!

AGAIN: DON'T PLAY THE GAME LIKE YOU WOULD WOW!

Sorry for the caps, but really. It's a totally different ball game then WoW. It has it's own flow and timing and if you let yourself get used to it and learn the combat system especially, you'll find the hours flying bye. :D

PvP servers are, as expected, extremely childish. The forums are full of folks having trouble or just trolling, as expected.

My server, Wiccana a PvE server and Unofficial RP Server, has a fantastic community. Even during prime time it's very adult, very hopeful and fun. One of the few MMOGs were I didn't immediately want to turn off the global channel lol.

Originally posted by observer

It's an ok game, but it's got the typical installation, crashing, bugs, server crashes, downtime, etc.   Personally, i should've waited a couple of weeks or a month for it to stabilize.  I keep crashing out of game which is no fun.

So i vote NO at this time.

Um, not a single server has crashed since launch. It has bugs, and most the folks having crash issues are do to trouble on their end, not Funcoms.

But I can see not having fun if your crashing all the time. For me (and everyone in my guild,) the game is rock solid and very enjoyable. The 1-20 game is rather unusual but if you don't enjoy it, stick it out and it opens up into a much more broad game. I personally found the hand crafted 1-20 game to be quite enjoy able. Though I think they could have done with less instancing and zoning, though I can understand why they didn't.

Originally posted by Hoobley

I remember Jason Stone posting something along the lines of;

 

THERE ARE NO FACTIONS IN AOC

THERE ARE NO FACTIONS IN AOC

THERE ARE NO FACTIONS IN AOC

 

oh look, factions in AoC?!

There are no factions. However there ARE Cultures. :)

In Culture PvP you can still group with, guild with and play with anyone, any time no matter their guild, culture, race, etc, etc.

However, it is an open PvP server (meaning, completely 100% open PvP outside of the cities.) The only difference is, you can only kill members of other cultures then yourself. Aquilonian, Stygian and Cimmerian.

Hense the term Culture PvP. It's certainly not Faction based 'elves vs orcs' bland garbage. But it's a cool twist on a PvP server.

One cool twist. Unlike regular and PvP servers, where you cant attack group mates or guild members. In this you can attack ANYONE, so long as they aren't of your culture. So that means chopping down guild members if you so wish lol. For this reason 'single culture' guilds are likely to pop up.

Melee fatalities are relatively random but there are things you can do to increase your chance of getting one.

1: The killing blow on a mob should be with a combo.

2: That combo's 'end' hit should be against an unshielded side on the target. IE if the targets shields are 3 up, any combo that ends on left or right has a chance of getting a fatality.

3: If the above two prerequisites are fulfilled you then have a base 10% chance of getting a fatality. Chance can be raised by feats and some gear.

Fatalities are great. They are tied to your combos as well, so each combo has it's own fatality (though some, especially in earlier levels, might share the same one.) SO each time you get a new combo (not the next iteration of a previous one.) Do the above so you can see what it's fatality is :)

Originally posted by TrueWarrior1

Originally posted by Fion

Quit your bitching people. The game just came out. Yesterday was flawless accept for Lachiesh Plains. So they are fixing that (and likely any other issues that cropped up.)

 

Are you all freakin MMOG newbs or something? Don't you remember WoW at this point? Whole server groups down for hours and hours, huge delays, having to wait in a line to log in.

and these are the people i am talkin about. So  we see ur standards are low for games... wat about women or maybe men wat ever u like?

English man, english. Not wow-lish.

My standards aren't low. They are actually reasonably high for games. But I'm also someone who knows what to expect with a new release. And that is [b]downtime[/b]. AoC's launch as been practically flawless as it is, save a little extra downtime.

But hey, be happy it wasn't down for primetime this time.

But of course I know that some of you will never be happy. Your far to spoiled for that.

They do. Field of the Dead is just the most well known about.

Check the world map in game (hit m, and it's behind the map of the zone your in,) to see all the zones in the game.

You bet your arse lol.

Quit your bitching people. The game just came out. Yesterday was flawless accept for Lachiesh Plains. So they are fixing that (and likely any other issues that cropped up.)

Are you all freakin MMOG newbs or something? Don't you remember WoW at this point? Whole server groups down for hours and hours, huge delays, having to wait in a line to log in.

Originally posted by Enigma

Originally posted by curiindi

Go necros! :)

necros are horrible in this game. Bear Shamans really shine post 20

See that just shows how skill oriented the classes are. Even the mages. I know folks who think Necro's suck. But I've leveled a necro in beta to the mid 30's and they are pure ownage, seriously. You get so many pets and you just run over enemies, especially with some of the nice feats that buff your pets.

Clearly to each their own in this case. But I personally think it's wonderful that one class is awesome to one person, and terrible to the next. It keeps things more balanced.

FYI, this games classes. They take skill to play well. I was able to take 2 mobs my level (in the Vulcano) without to much trouble on my Bear Shaman because I took the time to learn how to play the class.

Get your buffs up, make sure your heals are up before you enter combat. Get the mobs on you, line them up so that you hit both with each swing, then your heals abilities (tied with early feats,) will proc and if your quick about it, and keep those heals up, you can take them.

Certainly the BS is a hard class to play 1-20 (many classes have their difficult points. But the game as whole is far more difficult then the likes of WoW. Compared to AoC, WoW truelly is 'easy mode.'

But yea, get past 20 and they start kickin but, get past 30 and they OWN. It's the pay off for the hard early levels.

The landscapes are very large and bordered by mountains, same with the 'resource & gathering zones' where you'll build your player cities.

However, their specific layout and look DOES differ based on their location. Just like the 3 different 'resource & gathering zones' per server there are 3 different Boarder Kingdom zones. One for each country. Cimmeria, Aquilonia, Stygia.

The Cimmerian ones are snowy and mountainous and harsh.

The Aquilonian ones are tranquil and grassy (and soaked in blood buahahaha)

The Stygian ones are rocky desert with strong winds and harsh wildlife.

Note that the closed feel and lot of zoning takes place almost exclusively in the 1-20 'newbie experience' that is Tortage. Beyond that you have to zone between areas, but each area is very large and almost all buildings can be entered without zoning 'into' them.

I think the initial area is so zone based and instanciated because it has to hold how ever many folks are going to be packed into it. Especially at release (with numbers like 700k boxes sold on day 1,) the zone would be to packed to go with an open, non-instanced fashion.