Gambit7

I've been browsing around certain reputable gaming sites I frequent looking for initial impressions on AoC so far... believe you me, I browse a LOT of gaming sites.

So what was the impression of the game? Welp, they're calling it unequivocably the best MMO since WoW. And for those WoW-burnouts or disenfranchised, the obvious alternative. This impression is coming from sites that are usually EXTREMELY angst-ridden and very cynical about games and MMOs in particular.

Obviously, these reviews are slowly trickling in and the major sites like Gamespy dont have any up yet (which I think is a great sign). Release is tomorrow and I'd expect pretty thorough reviews tomorrow night though. Some of what I've gleaned is actually from gaming forums.

The "Miracle Patch" obviously helped out the game alot. To those that are unaware about the Miracle Patch; basically Open Beta was a presentation of a flawed game (albeit a good one) that wasnt quite ready for release. Come the "end of beta" PvP Event (and a bevy of HUGE patches) everything changed... framerates tripled, shaders were upgraded, placeholders were filled, and on and on and on. The MMO "Miracle Patch" was said to be a myth (to date, there have been NO Miracle Patches for a newly released MMO), but Funcom pulled it off.

In doing-so I expect AoC will receive wicked good reviews and fully expect people to be making mad dashes to the gamestore to pick up this title once they realize what they're missing. Is it a WoW-killer?? I (and apparently others) think it COULD'VE been if the System Requirements werent so steep. WoW's playerbase is largely on antiquated gaming rigs, whereas AoC's players are scrambling for upgrades. That being considered, if you've got the right rig AoC by comparison is overall a better game at release then WoW was (at least for me). Unlike Tabula Rasa (which petered out), all indications are that this trend will hold up through the higher levels. We shall see what endgame brings. WoW is an unbelievable juggernaut in those regards.

So, post up any interesting reviews (good or bad) you find here if you'd like. I'll add some as they come in.

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TheFatKidDeath

I just had a feeling this game was going to kick ass even back when I first read about it in late '05 and eventually in person at E3 '06. Finally, an MMO that was gritty, raw, violent and didn't have a damn elf or dwarf running around in a multi colored clown suit all while riding a white flying tiger.

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Jusb

I'm all for rah! rah-ing a new game but you guys need to slow down. It isn't even officially released yet. Time will tell. I have high hopes though - I hope it is as successful as BF2 and WoW around here. I can't deal with another FFOW.

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Turbinator

and best thing about it is , it wont fade like bf2 vanilla did

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SmokingTarpan

As always, a word of caution. :P While initial reviews are great, people have only been playing for 3 days (technically only about 2, actually, considering downtime) and have barely seen the game. I'd say no "real" reviews will be out for another month at least. Don't get me wrong, I'm personally giving two thumbs up so far from what I've experienced, but that could change the moment I leave Old Tarantia.

This is the one thing so far that really annoys me. I built a new computer back in Dec/Jan specifically for AoC:

Intel Dual-Core 3.0GHz processor
2GB RAM
8800GT 512Mb
Win XP

I should be able to play on high video settings no problem. However, that's not the case. On medium settings, I get between 50-80fps depending on where I am. For this example, we'll say Old Tarantia, where I get ~60fps. If I switch to high settings, I drop to ~12fps and the game becomes unplayable; and this is in an empty part of the city! Hell, just turning on 8xQ anti-aliasing drops me down to 40fps. I'm of the opinion that the game is not yet properly optomized (and yes, I have the newest drivers for my card, I had to update to run the beta).

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[squadl]
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Gambit7

A good benchmark for performance is running Unreal Tournament 3 and watching your FPS. The Unreal Engine in that game is the most highly optimized of any of the "next-gen" game engines out there. If you get similar results, then you know it's your system. I'd say you could use Crysis, but the Crysis engine isnt as stable IMO.

I'm running a similar (well, not really) rig to yours, except I OCed my CPU to 3.2 (from 2.4) and I'm running an 8800GTX on Vista, and I've got two virtual (3 physical) drives (one raided for games) the other runs the OS and pagefile. Vista handles the pagefile and RAM better IMO, which is why I think it's better assuming you've got the spare HDDs. If your system is more "vanilla" then of course XP is the way to go simply because it draws less resources.

Try OCing your proc, buying more ram, and separating your game from the drive your OS is on. If your're using XP, manually set the pagefile to the OS drive. If you buy more RAM you can tell the game to use some of that RAM for your GPU also. (dunno if that helps though)

Another Vista trick is using a FlashDrive to "augment" the RAM. The throughput on a flashdrive is quicker then a raid array. This helps immensely with loading textures/meshes... something AoC has too much of. It's basically a quicker pagefile. Some folk even mount their entire game on these drives.

anyways, off topic..

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RedTalon

Like an external? Or do they have internal ones now?

Real_CaGeD

Is it just me, or are the graphics better than the assassin creed hype?

peardog

Sorry, but I didn't see that. Assassins Creed was/is beautiful..and the cities were alive.. I can only hope that the AoC cities come alive like AC....
Of Course Apples and Oranges..

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Twisted_Firestarter

Damnit Gambit! I was all set not to try the game! Don't get me excited about it again.

One thing I have considered about my criticisms is that since I haven't played any MMO in years, but I have played several great single player RPGs--Oblivion being one--my expectations were for a single player RPG. So, things like cut-scenes which everyone was oohing and aahing about didn't impress me at all. I expected it. Perhaps my expectations were unreasonable for an MMO?

On the other hand, there was a lot of crashing over and over and over again, so that somewhat dampened my enthusiasm too.

Hmm...argh, now I'm considering heading down to the store and picking up a copy.

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Gambit7

Buy my Collector's Edition... I'll give you a discount: $99.99+shipping

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SmokingTarpan

I'd jump on this deal, Twisted. It was previously listed for hundreds of dollars, but with the discount, it's only 90-some plush shipping and handling!

That's a lot of work just to get a game to run smoothly on high settings on a system that's above the required specs (for the record, I take the "recommended" specs on games to be the actul "required" specs these days). I won't OC my processor because, honestly, there's no need to OC hardware these days unless you're trying to save a ton of money.

I used to run multiple HDD's, but I when I built this computer I went with a single drive and have seen zero negative difference in any of my games or programs. So is there any true performance advantage to doing this? I used to think so, but not anymore. I am considering buying more RAM (2x2GB patriot RAM is only $100 on newegg), but I know that WinXP only will recognize 3.5 out of 4GB. I'm also not convinced that will help exceedingly much with anything outside of load time. Later tonight I'll run the system profiler in the background and alt+tab out of the game to see exactly how much RAM was being used, as well as how choked my processor is.

I'm hoping that things just need further optimization from the developers, and it's not something like I need to upgrade to Vista or build a brand new $2k computer to replace this one that I just built 5 months ago.

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[squadl]
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Red

I might even get it and I dont like MMO. (I wasted 1.5 month of real life time one year in school way back on muds and promised myself not to play online games again. But I just love Conan and they way Funcom did it seem to be excellent. After seeing and reading a lot about this game, I think this game is the perfect game to complement WoW. Its like the grown-up WoW.

Gambit7

Don't kid yourself though. The game DOES have some rough spots, as did WoW when it released (WoW was actually rougher IMO). Matter of fact, AoC has some of the same issues... the bank is broken, the trading system is borked a bit, there's a missing PvP element, and the UI is weak in areas. Not to mention the DX10 client is missing and there's quite a bit of clipping graphically right now.

I've seen many stronger releases then AoC's - like LotrO, TR, and CoH. But those games were lacking that certain "feeling" that you know will keep players at their computers all day and night. They had plenty of polish, but just not the same level of game design.

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Twisted_Firestarter

There is no DX10 client? Seriously?

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