AoC is not ready

[stumben32]

FYI some basic specs on my Rig:
Athalon x2 4400
2 Gig Ram
Nvidia 8800GT
Sounblaster Xfi Platnium
2x 160 GIG wester Digital HD ( 1 I just installeD JUST FOR AOC!!)

Taking a few things into consideration; This is not the same build as the live version supposedly. They have been doing massive stress tests and debuggers are running so its taking a significant performance hit.

But this game has some crippling issues right now. DO NOT I repeat do NOT go and waste your money on a new machine to play this game. If you meet the recommended specs just want and see if the issues get ironed out.

From what I can gather from talking to people and hunting on the forums, the biggest problem with the game right now is Texture loading and these damn shader files. The amount of files and size of this game is overwhelming. IT seems like it then in turn has to load so many gosh-darn textures that
1) it takes for ever

2) This is the crippler - there are severe issues with "corrupt" shader files. Basically what happens is your screen looks like your Vcard is overheating, and once it happens its like the game is hosed. Unplayable.

Last night I literally would freeze for 20 seconds every 2 steps. Meanwhile my HD grinds like a madman.

After I installed the game I was appalled at what it did to my HD. Being a freshly installed HD with almost nothing on it.... how could my files be so fragmented? I defragged of course....

Long story short.... I Fear This is going to be a disasterous launch and a rough few months. Anarchy online all over again. Most of us who are interested probably already pre-ordered though - they sucked us right in.

For those of you that pre-ordered...well.... I will see you in launch. I will need a bottle of scotch for that one!


P.S. One good thing... the graphics are very nice... when it works

 

[Genx87]

Has there been an MMORPG that was ready on day one?
I have been part of two launches (UO and WoW) and neither worked correctly out of the gate. It usually takes 3-6 months to get things ironed out. Which is why I am going to wait 3-6 months after Warhammer is released before joining. I did this with DAOC and loved nearly every second of the game for the 3 years I played. Though i did love UO, I would probably drop it if they launched today the way they launched in 98. WoW got stale within the first 2 months.

 

[Bateluer]

They still have about 3 weeks before they launch, right? So, figure they need to have their gold disks ready for shipment before then. They can still work on the game during that time frame because people will need to connect to their servers to download the latest updates before playing.

A lot can happen in three weeks. Having said that though, I don't intend to ever preorder another MMO ever again.

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Has there been an MMORPG that was ready on day one?

LOTRO was like butter on day 1.

KT

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I have heard (from alt-ctrl-del) that they used an older version of the program to do the beta. For those interested--link. I could be wrong, as I haven't been following this game at all. Just figured this might be useful to someone.

 

[Scouzer]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: Genx87
Has there been an MMORPG that was ready on day one?

LOTRO was like butter on day 1.

KT

It had to be after Turbine launched an epic fail bomb with Asheron's Call 2

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: Scouzer

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: Genx87
Has there been an MMORPG that was ready on day one?

LOTRO was like butter on day 1.

KT

It had to be after Turbine launched an epic fail bomb with Asheron's Call 2

I enjoyed AC2.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Has there been an MMORPG that was ready on day one?
I have been part of two launches (UO and WoW) and neither worked correctly out of the gate. It usually takes 3-6 months to get things ironed out. Which is why I am going to wait 3-6 months after Warhammer is released before joining. I did this with DAOC and loved nearly every second of the game for the 3 years I played. Though i did love UO, I would probably drop it if they launched today the way they launched in 98. WoW got stale within the first 2 months.

I have been involved in several mmo launches. As far as launch goes, WoW was as close to perfect as you will get. I was also there for Funcom's launch of AO. Let's just say I'll wait a week or two before deciding whether to buy this one or not. It's a hard line to walk because you don't want everyone to wait and see on these because then no one buys it when they realize the servers are empty. At the same time, I don't want to buy a game that I fear will suck for two weeks. Tricky...

OP, I heard they patched over the weekend and it made dramatic improvements but have not had a chance to hop on yet to see for myself. Are these experiences you're reporting pre or post patch?

 

[Genx87]

WoW had a few bugs and the atrocious lag\queues for at least 1-2 months post launch.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
As far as launch goes, WoW was as close to perfect as you will get.

WoW failed the first check box on the list for a smooth launch, the ability to log in. The week long login queues from the lag trigger any memories? All of this was apparent in the stress test, but Blizzard decided to ignore the data and launch anyway.

 

[Maleficus]

It's an MMO, it will never be ready.

 

[VashHT]

AOC ran fine for me, as someone else said the patch from the weekend improved it a lot as well. That being said I didn't find it very exciting, waiting for warhammer online personally.

 

[Engraver]

Originally posted by: Modeps

Originally posted by: Scouzer

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: Genx87
Has there been an MMORPG that was ready on day one?

LOTRO was like butter on day 1.

KT

It had to be after Turbine launched an epic fail bomb with Asheron's Call 2

I enjoyed AC2.

It was fun diving off high places, other than that...

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: Engraver

Originally posted by: Modeps

Originally posted by: Scouzer

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: Genx87
Has there been an MMORPG that was ready on day one?

LOTRO was like butter on day 1.

KT

It had to be after Turbine launched an epic fail bomb with Asheron's Call 2

I enjoyed AC2.

It was fun diving off high places, other than that...

I remember liking it enough, but didn't play long due to none of my cohorts coming over as well. I went back to Dark Age of Camelot.

 

[manko]

I've been in a ton of betas over the years, but this is the first one that really hosed my system. My machine is a few years old, but I can play most games on medium or low settings. AOC was okay until I got to the city, then I couldn't do anything without crashing. One of the crashes corrupted my system configuration and I couldn't boot after that. I spent all day trying all sorts of methods with the Windows repair disk and open source utils trying to recover my machine. I did get my system back, but I don't dare play again. It's not worth the trouble.

It's too bad, I was actually looking forward to AOC and seriously considering playing when in went live, but now I wouldn't touch it for at least 6 months or so.

 

[Superrock]

I remember WoW launch being good dispite the long queue times to get into a server. I rememebr the server lines being pretty bad but it was a temporary problem they fixed within a few months and even compensated playtime when they were really bad.

I preordered AoC and fear the stability issues along the lines of Anarchy Online or SWG when they first came out.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
As far as launch goes, WoW was as close to perfect as you will get.

WoW failed the first check box on the list for a smooth launch, the ability to log in. The week long login queues from the lag trigger any memories? All of this was apparent in the stress test, but Blizzard decided to ignore the data and launch anyway.

Yeah you're right. I forgot all about that basically because it never really affected me. I think the longest queue I suffered was less than 5 minutes but usually non-existant. That may have been because I started off as a horde player.

But seriously, relative to any mmo I started at day 1 (prior to wow) the wow launch was superb IMHO. Anyone who suffered through AO will understand where I'm coming from. To be fair, I always liked how Funcom was open and honest about their issues at launch and they did compensate for lost time/playability issues.

 

[Scouzer]

Originally posted by: Modeps

Originally posted by: Scouzer

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: Genx87
Has there been an MMORPG that was ready on day one?

LOTRO was like butter on day 1.

KT

It had to be after Turbine launched an epic fail bomb with Asheron's Call 2

I enjoyed AC2.

So did I, but it was incredibly unfinished and bug ridden.

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Has there been an MMORPG that was ready on day one?
I have been part of two launches (UO and WoW) and neither worked correctly out of the gate. It usually takes 3-6 months to get things ironed out. Which is why I am going to wait 3-6 months after Warhammer is released before joining. I did this with DAOC and loved nearly every second of the game for the 3 years I played. Though i did love UO, I would probably drop it if they launched today the way they launched in 98. WoW got stale within the first 2 months.

Biggest issue WoW had was server lag because Blizzard only planed for a few thousand people to play the game and instead a got a million people. I don't consider that to be a major issue with a MMO launch IMHO. It wasn't like Vangaurd were the game was still in less thenbeta shape and incomplete in major areas.

LOTRO also had a really great launch with very little issues. DAOC I believe had a good launch.

 

[videogames101]

Guild Wars ran like butter from about the middle from the beta onwards. (It only got worse after it was released though, catering to the noobs....)

 

[Dumac]

EQ had a flawless launch and flawless expansion launches..

(lol)

 

[Gothgar]

yeah, kinda sad, I was looking forward to this a while back, though I have lost complete insterest in it since it was delayed a hundred fucking times, and yet still has bugs... wth

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Dumac
EQ had a flawless launch and flawless expansion launches..

(lol)

EQ2 had a flawless initial launch and flawless expansion launches. Can't say the same for EQ1 though.

 

[Dumac]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Dumac
EQ had a flawless launch and flawless expansion launches..

(lol)

EQ2 had a flawless initial launch and flawless expansion launches. Can't say the same for EQ1 though.

I didn't play EQ2, so I wouldn't know. I was just joking about all the rough times I've had with the EQ1 servers, as well as all the humorous sessions in the tech help chat room.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Has there been an MMORPG that was ready on day one?
I have been part of two launches (UO and WoW) and neither worked correctly out of the gate. It usually takes 3-6 months to get things ironed out. Which is why I am going to wait 3-6 months after Warhammer is released before joining. I did this with DAOC and loved nearly every second of the game for the 3 years I played. Though i did love UO, I would probably drop it if they launched today the way they launched in 98. WoW got stale within the first 2 months.

UO actually released in fall 1997 and given they were basically pioneers in MMORPG's the troubles they experienced at launch were probably inevitable. Despite all the problems I still have fond memories of the time I spent playing that game. I made friends with some folks in it that I still am in touch with 11 years later even though we have never met other than as toons in some MMORPG.

In general I like starting MMORPG's at launch despite the inevitable problems that are certain to pop up. It is kind of fun to start out at level 1 with an entire server full of players.