AOC - General Information

[Gilgamel]

I hate Comcast. I just got home to start the patcher and I went from 600kb/s at the start down to 50 or so. Fucking torrent throttlers. Shit better be done by the 17th is all I know.

Heard some people saying approximately 5 days played for any experienced mmo player to get to 80, that sounds awfully short. Can anyone confirm that?

Also the trend nowadays seems to be toward 30 minute encounters that are nothing but a chore after the second time doing them. Why can't we have fights like Trakanon or the other early EQ mobs where you and the mob both blow your wads in the first minute and only one is left standing. These fights where everything comes down to long term sustainability and learning the script are annoying as hell.

[Twobit Whore]

Minimize the downloader and cap your upload to 25.

[spronk]

Originally Posted by ajiatus

Question: Does AoC have any scripted dungeons on par with WoW or LOTRO (i.e., feels like a scripted mini-movie)? Or is it more like EQ2?

There are around 16 instances total, 8 solo 8 group (there are more group "areas", where elite mobs hang out, but its outside FFA areas). The instances in AoC are pretty bad, pretty much straight up tank'n'spank. Some people here will love them maybe, they tend to be huge areas with sparsely populated trash. Just the bosses are extremely retarded, many are bugged to not even hit back, the ones that do work are 99% tank'n'spank, or really just nuke and dies in like 15-30 secs. There used to be a "heroic mode" (more XP, better loot) for the solo and group instances, but I believe that got taken out. There is usually 1-2 quests attached to each instance, pretty basic stuff (fetch X, kill Y).

The instances have had many bugs, the most common is that player1 is in one instance and player2 is in another (split instancing). This has pretty much prevented most beta testers from ever actually completing an instance without GM help. Its also pretty common for mobs not to spawn at all. I've run many of the instances with whacky groups (all DPS, no healers/tanks) and just steamrolled the places, absolutely no challenge whatsoever in any of them. The loot was not in place, the trash was dropping only coin or crap and the bosses were only dropping overland loot.

The idea is that endgame loot is achieved via raiding, crafting, or PVP (there are no endgame 6 man instances to get comparable loot, no strat/scholo/ubrs/etc). Sadly raid loot, crafting endgame loot, nor PVP endgame loot is in the game yet. From what a few guildies who have run the endgame raids as part of the raiding guild test team tell me, the endgame raids are a joke and less complex than Molten Core.

Oh, 5 days /played to 80 is at the low end of the spectrum (assuming no hacking), you can do it but you'd have to know exactly where to go for all the quests - ie a AoC beta tester who has hit 80. 7 days /played is more likely for the average MMO player, and 10 days for a relatively new MMO player. That is with 0 grouping and all solo, the times will be slightly faster if you group up.

You do get XP for killing people in PVP (not just PVP xp, you get PVE xp... no idea why) so theoretically you could level to 80 just by playing capture the skull (WSG) over and over and over. Get a flat amount per kill which diminishes after 10 kills I think, so you could just stealth hide AFK for a few hours to "level up" (lol)

[krinkled]

Originally Posted by Gilgamel

Heard some people saying approximately 5 days played for any experienced mmo player to get to 80, that sounds awfully short. Can anyone confirm that?

I would say 4-10 days /played depending on if you were in closed beta or not and whether or not you are just racing.

If you are new to the game and take your time for other things (crafting etc) I would say it will be about 7-8 days, which is about the same as WoW.

[Twobit Whore]

WoW at launch was considerably more than 7-8 days.

Today Guate said in some conference that the target was about 10 days /played or 250 hours of gameplay. That's closer to Wow at launch. I'm sure in some months once you have money and help twinking and knowledge that it will drop down to 4 or 5 just like WoW did over time.

[krinkled]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

WoW at launch was considerably more than 7-8 days.

Today Guate said in some conference that the target was about 10 days /played or 250 hours of gameplay. That's closer to Wow at launch. I'm sure in some months once you have money and help twinking and knowledge that it will drop down to 4 or 5 just like WoW did over time.

Agreed. New players could very well take 10 days. I think it will only take me about 6 because I have done a large chunk already and know where to go etc.

[Korioni]

I love being a slow leveler. The first character you level up is always the best part of an MMO. It's nice not knowing every intricacy about the game. Fuck, guys at work still talk to me about WoW, and after having not played it for at least 6 months I can still give them advice on any class's specs or leveling grounds or raiding strats. It'll be nice to do something new.

[LexarkT11]

So my game finished downloading today after about 2 days, and upon reaching 100% i got some "blah blah exe doesnt exist" error and apparently nothing downloaded was saved and its back to 0%???

WTF

How is this even possible??
Download 18gigs of stuff and then it just poofs at the end???

[Hatorade]

Originally Posted by LexarkT11

So my game finished downloading today after about 2 days, and upon reaching 100% i got some "blah blah exe doesnt exist" error and apparently nothing downloaded was saved and its back to 0%???

WTF

How is this even possible??
Download 18gigs of stuff and then it just poofs at the end???

that is complete shit and I hope I don't encounter the same problem...did you search for it on your HD?

[krinkled]

Originally Posted by LexarkT11

So my game finished downloading today after about 2 days, and upon reaching 100% i got some "blah blah exe doesnt exist" error and apparently nothing downloaded was saved and its back to 0%???

WTF

How is this even possible??
Download 18gigs of stuff and then it just poofs at the end???

wow that sucks. you are sure the files arent saved somewhere on your hardrive?

ive got 2 clients installed atm and its eating up 50GB of space between live and beta. will be happy to free that up.

[Elerion]

What exactly do you get from the preplay download? Is it like closed beta:
An install exe and several large data files, ready to be installed somewhere at your leisure?

Or is it like you are actually downloading the installed client?

I'm asking because I want to know if I can set the downloader to download to an external disk, then install it to my raptor disk later, or if I have to make room on the raptor disk before I start the download.

[ajiatus]

Originally Posted by spronk

There are around 16 instances total, 8 solo 8 group (there are more group "areas", where elite mobs hang out, but its outside FFA areas). The instances in AoC are pretty bad, pretty much straight up tank'n'spank. Some people here will love them maybe, they tend to be huge areas with sparsely populated trash. Just the bosses are extremely retarded, many are bugged to not even hit back, the ones that do work are 99% tank'n'spank, or really just nuke and dies in like 15-30 secs. There used to be a "heroic mode" (more XP, better loot) for the solo and group instances, but I believe that got taken out. There is usually 1-2 quests attached to each instance, pretty basic stuff (fetch X, kill Y).

The instances have had many bugs, the most common is that player1 is in one instance and player2 is in another (split instancing). This has pretty much prevented most beta testers from ever actually completing an instance without GM help. Its also pretty common for mobs not to spawn at all. I've run many of the instances with whacky groups (all DPS, no healers/tanks) and just steamrolled the places, absolutely no challenge whatsoever in any of them. The loot was not in place, the trash was dropping only coin or crap and the bosses were only dropping overland loot.

The idea is that endgame loot is achieved via raiding, crafting, or PVP (there are no endgame 6 man instances to get comparable loot, no strat/scholo/ubrs/etc). Sadly raid loot, crafting endgame loot, nor PVP endgame loot is in the game yet. From what a few guildies who have run the endgame raids as part of the raiding guild test team tell me, the endgame raids are a joke and less complex than Molten Core.

Oh, 5 days /played to 80 is at the low end of the spectrum (assuming no hacking), you can do it but you'd have to know exactly where to go for all the quests - ie a AoC beta tester who has hit 80. 7 days /played is more likely for the average MMO player, and 10 days for a relatively new MMO player. That is with 0 grouping and all solo, the times will be slightly faster if you group up.

You do get XP for killing people in PVP (not just PVP xp, you get PVE xp... no idea why) so theoretically you could level to 80 just by playing capture the skull (WSG) over and over and over. Get a flat amount per kill which diminishes after 10 kills I think, so you could just stealth hide AFK for a few hours to "level up" (lol)

Thanks for the answer Spronk. Just for clarification, besides the combat mechanics (which as you have explained are fairly basic) I was actually more interested to know whether parts of the instances are like a mini-movie, with scripted events like in WoW, LOTRO, TR, etc.. I am not talking about the combat scripts, I am talking more about the little touches that add immersion and that unfold as you play the instance -- you know, the little things that suddenly an NPC or a boss will say before the showdown, the little touches that add immersion and atmosphere...

[Hasto]

Originally Posted by LexarkT11

So my game finished downloading today after about 2 days, and upon reaching 100% i got some "blah blah exe doesnt exist" error and apparently nothing downloaded was saved and its back to 0%???

WTF

How is this even possible??
Download 18gigs of stuff and then it just poofs at the end???

Just to verify something, are you running on Vista per chance? If so you need to run as administrator for the files to save to whatever path you are designating. This has happened to about 6 people I know and I had them all do the same thing to solve the issue. It is also a common issue with Vista in general.

[TwiNCannoN]

Originally Posted by Elerion

What exactly do you get from the preplay download? Is it like closed beta:
An install exe and several large data files, ready to be installed somewhere at your leisure?

Or is it like you are actually downloading the installed client?

I'm asking because I want to know if I can set the downloader to download to an external disk, then install it to my raptor disk later, or if I have to make room on the raptor disk before I start the download.

It's an installer broken down into .dat files that don't seem to be larger than ~900mb individually.

I d/led it to my W: and installed to C: so yeah if that's what you're looking to do, definitely can.

[Elerion]

Great, thanks. Lets see how fast this baby runs.