Friday with(out) Means - March 18th, 2011: Pretty Pictures Of Stuff

[Pomidor]

What content? 8 years old Pande or 6 years old APF's sectors? The last high end content was Collector (year ago and 1 team only) and everyone knows it's epic fail. 1 instance per year with crappy mechanic or no action after initial week rush just isn't enough. The game dieing with no progress at all.

FunCom and playerbase are only focusing on one: New items! Yay!

Lets do another instance, another boss, another grind. They forgot to add gameplay!. Regular gameplay based on AO history. Instead of such things (get that, get this - I remind, that currently, geting 220/30/70+ most important items is freaking TIMETAKEING, counted in months) ther is nothing to do:

- No Tower wars (towers give low adventages compared to effort to get them)
- No TeamMissions on RK, which could attract high end players to earn money/fight OT/help those below 200
- No questline involwing RK life/story
- Also, there is none RP for those who want to stand in line with Clan/OT as guards on frontline
- Lack of Tradeskill involwing sides (i.e: special endgame armor made exact for Clan/OT/Neutrals)

So, basicly, player which gets all, has no target to play, eccept to either: do some BS PVP/Gankfest or Showoff in crowded place (and on forums) or start new toon.

This is one of main reasons i didnged only 2 chars to 220: there is lots of stuff to get w/o purpose, since sitting in uber gear or repetadly do same instance just to gearup friends is uterly boring (not, that I dont like help, but then after all, they will sit bored as me - whats the point?) and my both toons are gimped beyond any measures. Cause such approach of FC (SL grind/Xan grind) I decided to play only on low/mid, where I can get actually much more fun in any field.

And there is one thing I would like to say: Alien Invasion Expaniosn pack should be named (now, not back then, when it came up) Phatz Invasion for Wankers...
I mean, FC wanted to make Cities exclusive for org, where players indeed need to focus on their defance, where CRU was important to have, to get another AI raid going, and geting to ship required some effort. Now, Aliens dont show up randomly (is 1% chance?), if they do, noone will care if they wipe out CRU, since they are no threat to city status at all. Aliens in city are always merry time, no metter what. Soloing general is easy to most players on almost all lvls and I see that main reason for building AI exp.pack. was drowen into wrong dirrection.

Summing up lack of gameplay bounded to AO story (and geting NEW stuff has nothing to do with story) is nothing good: if you think I am wrong, just take a look at playerbase: either are those who have everything and just do PVP, and cassual help others who need items. So both play. Rest will just log off and come back only (as was stated in this topic ealier) when new items will show up. So the whole idea of attracting ppl leads to get only oldies (not much, each time new items get into live dimmension) and will make new ones terrified, when it comes to measure how much stuff is to get to be "decent"...

Imagine yourself choosing game to play (any game with title XYZ, rpg Gendre). You have 2 choices:
1. You will be YXZ man, who is fighting with hordes of enemy to prowe you are right, to help BlaBla to win and prevail!
2. You will need to kill millions of monsters to get skills to kill another millions monster to get gear you want, to be able to sit in it till end of electricity.

Which one will you chose?



basicly, AO is described in second...

[Otansaanpas]

Endgame needs more things to do. BS pvp is boring, towerwars only happen at low lvls, so really, we need stuff at high levels because everything is about low level twinks for people with far too much money. Those of us who spent years and years grinding our ass off to get ultimate gear just sit there collecting dust with nothing to do with our fancy characters but try and get +2 to some skill by equipping alpha symbs.

im afraid new that when new content comes, its an instance the size of my bedroom and there is 1 boss and it can be done with 2 players in ~10 minutes and has no lockout timer... meaning it takes 3 hours max until everyone has their loot.

Collector is nice instance what comes to the length of it.
and minibosses are cool (if they have loot).

[lainbr]

1. You will be YXZ man, who is fighting with hordes of enemy to prowe you are right, to help BlaBla to win and prevail!
2. You will need to kill millions of monsters to get skills to kill another millions monster to get gear you want, to be able to sit in it till end of electricity.

basicly, AO is described in second...

All MMO I saw so far falls in second. But you got a point.

[Morbidity]

After over 2.5 years, seeing those images just makes me depressed. I was seriously expecting something a little better than that. Missing render features from the previewer generated images aside...

[Obtena]

You're expectations are just way to high then. Lipstick on a pig .. is still a pig.

[Phantom]

You're expectations are just way to high then.

This. Personally, aside from the amount of time it's taking, I've been nothing but pleased with what's coming out of the new engine project. I honestly didn't expect us to be getting any new assets aside from the character heads and bodies, so the fact that they are going in and reworking buildings now is a very pleasant surprise.

It's a wonder what good textures, shadows, lighting, and bumpmapping can do. Just take a look at Rift - the character models and (some) NPCs are beyond what we should expect from AO these days, but a great deal of the buildings and scenery are just as polygonal, if not moreso in some cases, as AO's. It's all the work of the engine that makes it look as great as it does.

[Pomidor]

Means, Kintaii and players... I wrote vast topic about few ideas to the game. You can read it here: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=588508

I focused on some RPG aspects, involving conflict - fundamental to AO.

[Otansaanpas]

After over 2.5 years, seeing those images just makes me depressed. I was seriously expecting something a little better than that. Missing render features from the previewer generated images aside...

if you get screenhot of crysis building in 3dmax with 1 light its not going to look much different.
once there is proper lightning and surrounding content it will feel completely different.

[Wrangeline]

To me, the new heads, bodies, trees, objects and textures were an added bonus when it came to the new engine. The main thing I care about is lighting and shadows. I think lighting and shadows will make 80% of the impact of how the game feels once the new engine is out. New water is 10% and new textures and 3d models is 10%

[nitr0]

Now with all the obvious time and effort into creating new textures and revamping old ones, what are the chances of the new engine being vaporware or Means/Devs lying to us?.... let me ask Calculeet to do the numbers, a minute please....

Uh huh... really?

Ok my Calculeet just told me, and I quote: "Slim to none". There are your odds ladies and gentlemen. It's coming, this year, not so sure on odds for Q1 beta, but Calculeet has fallen asleep and not gonna wake him up, he is cranky when someone interrupts his nap.

that absolutely makes no sense... even tho it is nice to see "something", that something can be done by one person in a week - it's not even a video, just rendered elements.

if i take a picture of my house and spend an hour in blender i can tell u "this is how houses in ao will look like now"... and that's proof for what?

[Mastablasta]

To me, the new heads, bodies, trees, objects and textures were an added bonus when it came to the new engine. The main thing I care about is lighting and shadows. I think lighting and shadows will make 80% of the impact of how the game feels once the new engine is out. New water is 10% and new textures and 3d models is 10%

Also viewdistance. New engine allows you to see like the entire zone if you go to a high spot. Of the demo we saw in Oslo this was what I found to be the coolest part. The lighting and shadows combined with the really, really long viewdistance gave a really nice impact. Perhaps the greatest, which is something we haven't seen yet in any videos or pictures released.

that absolutely makes no sense... even tho it is nice to see "something", that something can be done by one person in a week - it's not even a video, just rendered elements.

if i take a picture of my house and spend an hour in blender i can tell u "this is how houses in ao will look like now"... and that's proof for what?

You are of course right, a healthy bit of scepticism is what we need here, because after all, these could just be pictures of things from 12 years ago when they were making the original resources, and these were the high quality meshes used to base textures and lightmaps on.

[Wrangeline]

Also viewdistance. New engine allows you to see like the entire zone if you go to a high spot. Of the demo we saw in Oslo this was what I found to be the coolest part. The lighting and shadows combined with the really, really long viewdistance gave a really nice impact. Perhaps the greatest, which is something we haven't seen yet in any videos or pictures released.

Ah yes, true. Viewdistance is going to make a cool difference in AO as well (if this increased view distance involves being able to see people and mobs as well, though just landscape is good too I guess.)

[Mastablasta]

Ah yes, true. Viewdistance is going to make a cool difference in AO as well (if this increased view distance involves being able to see people and mobs as well, though just landscape is good too I guess.)

Dunno how it will affect AO, but in AoC the viewdistance of characters and such is significantly higher. Maybe we can have that too? Let's hope but of course this is also some serverside stuff, so ... we'll have to see I guess

[Wrangeline]

Dunno how it will affect AO, but in AoC the viewdistance of characters and such is significantly higher. Maybe we can have that too? Let's hope but of course this is also some serverside stuff, so ... we'll have to see I guess

Yeah, one of the things I noticed about AoC's graphics when I played it, was that NPC's and such could be seen from very far away, which was nice.

[Tazalanche]

Personally, I don't care as much for "the pretties", as getting a game with graphics that will run smoothly & correctly on systems made in the last 5 years.

[cube]

Hahaha, omg grilled cheeeze!

[If6was9]

PSO called. They said they wanted their weapons and art style back.

I've never heard of PSO. No one whose opinion I respect would refer to some obscure thing by initials, unless it's only initials, and expect anyone else to know what they're talking about.

[Gamma]

After all those years THIS is all?

You can't be serious Kintaii & Means... Should have rather fix all those things that are doable (i know that many things just can't get shaped out, due the crap code of the game) and actually bring new content instead of working on THIS for all those years...

Don't get me wrong, i love the game, still, in it's rather bad state - but let's face it serious - even i will try new games soon when they go live. Many already got hooked up in WoW, Rift, EvE Online or whatever, but those games are just not my thing. I've tried em, yes.
People mainly play this game because of it's great character skilling (and even there it's bugged since release - speaking of riposte etc) and the so called "twinking-ability". Me too.
I follow, excuse my words, that "new engine" - craptalk for several years now. It's not even funny anymore. Not even worth to get pissed, sad or just curious about "news". I just don't care about that anymore. Since YEARS. It's useless.

You fail at bringing in new content. You fail at fixing PvP or give all those peeps who do it at least SEVERAL different possibilities to enjoi PvP. You fail at PvM, regarding on the balance (what also brings us back to the first point - no new content). And all you come up with are "monthly documents"? You fail at implenting actually quests that make fun - even worse, you bring quests into the game that require that even low level players have to run SEVERAL TIMES from one end of the zone to the other end. Bringing in frustrating questlines, that aren't hard at all - just a major timesink of boredom is a fail. You fail at giving new players an enjoiable experience at start, instead they get walls of text and a utterly bad credit income at start on heavily inflated servers. You are still the most expensive online game out there, regarding on the (normal) monthly fee (not speaking of 1 year subscription).

You succeed in 1 thing. Keeping those Servers running till all we leftovers that actually play twink #246194619 up leave for another game that suits us.

I wish i could think different. Maybe just because i still love the game in some points, but after all those years? Nah thanks Kintai & Means.
Talk whatever you like, post whatever you like. Just talk won't do it anymore for me. There was enough of this nonsense the past years.

Just Sad.
Oya

[excuse the grammar, english isn#t my native language ^^ but i guess you 'll get my point]

[Mastablasta]

After all those years THIS is all?

You can't be serious Kintaii & Means... Should have rather fix all those things that are doable (i know that many things just can't get shaped out, due the crap code of the game) and actually bring new content instead of working on THIS for all those years...

Talk whatever you like, post whatever you like. Just talk won't do it anymore for me. There was enough of this nonsense the past years.

[excuse the grammar, english isn#t my native language ^^ but i guess you 'll get my point]

I don't think, despite taking poor sentence construction into consideration, that anyone gets your point. What is your point? You're disappointed with what, exactly? All those years of no new content? There's been loads of content in the last two years. So why would you say that there's been no new content? You get a few preview pictures, a few % of the number of completed resources, and you complain about them for what reason exactly?
Posting about what's being worked upon and that it's getting closer to release and with visual representations of the things that are about ready to go into the beta client, that's not relevant and won't do it for you? What will do it for you then? No news at all till suddenly one day things launch?
I don't think bad grammar is what made your post incomprehensible.

[Phargus]

In somewhat related news, Duke Nukem Forever has been delayed till June 10th. It's on bitches!