Age of Conan Hits the 1 Million Mark

And they say pc gaming is dead. But in reality if you just make a nice game that appeals to everyone without bad DRM people will buy it!

Yes but I think it also reflects the type of games mainstream PC gamers these days prefer to play. Space Opera's had their time in sun so did Click and Point adventure games, MMO's are just another evolution of a popular genre.

I love the game, honestly. It is quite fun if you have a small group to play with.

I can't wait to see how crazy StarCraft II's launch is  

+1, I cant wait for that game.

Best,

3Ball

This game is a mess. I've NEVER seen a game released with so many technical problems. I don't just mean crashing or the usual things that happen when 1 million people play a PC game on 1 million different PC configurations.

I'm talking about texture popping, stretched or tiled textures, completely WRONG textures in areas.. (my fav is the small patch of stone texture in the middle of a desert instead of the sand texture it was suppose to be.)

Also, the models are often HORRIBLE... There are seams everywhere... On environments, characters, everything... I can tell you exactly how it happened too... They're using a method to make models for games that is modular where you make smaller parts for things that you know your going to need a lot of. That way you can make many different variations. Its sort of like lego for modeling. Instead of making a whole building, you make a wall. That way you can put the buildings together in different ways when you place it in the game.

This is a good way to do it but the problem is that you have to pay extra attention to how the models all fit together to make sure that you doing end up with either bad seams or Z-buffering problems (flickering texture/models). They obviously through a lot of stuff together in a hurry to get the game out and now its a mess...  

I don't really blame the artists, I can tell you pretty much what happened...

The investors said, "Thats enough time, release the game so we can start making our money back..."

Funcom said, "No, the game is not ready, we need more time!"

The investors said, "To bad, we've put enough money into this game, release it now and fix it as you go while we're pulling in the money."

Sadly, the people who control the bulk of the money usually have the last word in this sort of argument....  

You just described every game launch ever that wasn't from Blizzard or Valve and those launches are always plagued with delays.

I'd hardly call the game a mess. A few friends and I are playing it. We've had maybe a handful of crashes between us. Lag doesn't seem to be an issue unlike the constant problems I've had with nearly every other multiplayer game launch.

I've installed it on two comps and it ran great on both. One was a socket 939 AGP system with WinXP, and the other is a fairly high end Vista 64 machine. I've seen no technical problems to warrant calling the game a mess and aside from the occasional less than stellar graphics I've had nothing but positive experiences.

The graphics issues you've mentioned are definitely present. If you want some really bad ones take a swim next time your in Khopshef(sp?) provence. It looks awful considering how good the water looks in other parts of the game. I'm pretty sure this area had some serious time crunch. It has some absolutely horrendous plants as well.

However, the game looks very good in general. It certainly has some visual flaws, but for an MMO it's easily the best looking one I've seen. The gameplay is pretty standard MMO fair, but I would still say it is the best MMORPG out since WoW at least in the low-mid levels. They are releasing very frequent patches to address issues, so the game at least appears to be well supported from the technical side.

I don't know what people were expecting, but I don't understand why everyone is coming down on this game so hard. I mean it's a good MMO. They are obviously terribly difficult to make as 99.9% of them out there are complete freaking garbage. In the world of MMOs this game stands out as a shining star in my book.

Yes every game has its issues but this game has more in the graphical department then most. BUT it also has fewer issues in other areas. I think it comes down to looking very unpolished and rushed.

What really makes me sad is the fact that people have gotten so used to games being released before they are ready that we've not only come to expect it, we are suprised when it doesn't happen...

EDIT: It doesn't sound like you have an ATI card. Their cards have having big issues running AoC. Most people like myself are stuck getting 10-17fps no matter what settings they pick. ATI says they've checked out the drivers and its a problem on Funcom's end. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happends.

The AGP system was running an ATI card and I didn't notice any serious issues. It certainly runs better on the newer Nvidia machine, but the new machine is leaps and bounds beyond the old in every way. I can't say I've compared a comparable video card from ATI and Nvidia on performance in the same machine.



I guess it's a matter of opinion, but I'll take some less than optimal graphics over just about any other technical problems I can think of.



I agree with you here. However, it's an inevitable turn of events. The price of making even a crappy game has risen to unreasonable levels since our requirements as consumers have become unreasonable. (EDIT:This should probably read the requirements necessary to please consumers have become unreasonable) So now as a game developer you have to rely even more on someone else's money.

The person with the money rarely cares about the industry they are investing in as long as it stays profitable. With that you get mediocre products and decisions that are driven by profits at the expense of the end users satisfaction. This is probably why I've been let down quite a bit by nearly all of my last 10 or 15 video game purchases. Though within their peer groups they've been pretty good games.