AoC beta: a tale of two clients

I told this already a thousand times on this game.

How in God's name can you make a game with Oblivion graphics as an MMO.
This can NOT be done, no matter which grafix cards you are using.

The bottleneck is the hard disk and data transfer rate (which didn't change an inch in the last decade). Even in Oblivion you needed to wait for screenloads if you took your horse on a ride. Let alone that 200 players are doing the same in the same location...

Add to this the "real time combat" system and the servers will go crazy in coordinating all this trash. (combat results anyone ...).

So I guess it's over and out for Conan even before it began.

You know there IS a reason why some choose for cartoon grafix in online games... (Team Fortress anyone ?).

i was well up for the IGN Open Beta, spent hours forcing myself to stay awake to get a key (being in the UK, i was 7 hours different on time zones).

got a key - really happy.
downloaded the client (albeit very slowly) and installed it - really happy.
logged in - still really happy.
messed about with the character designer - quite impressed.
crashed - not happy.
reloaded and relogged in, one shotted everything as a Set priest kinda person with that lightning spell - slightly peeved. stuff shouldn't be this easy.
crashed - hmm
reloaded, 10 minute loading times, completed all quests up to the point where i needed to get into that city, but then have been unable to move due to FPS issues, lag, crashes, falling off cliffs cos of the lag - very very annoyed at the game now as it's pants even at low graphics settings.

since that point, i've logged off and have not loaded the game again. as first impressions go, it's been so bad that i wont be shelling out money to purchase a subscription to a MMO provided by a company that wont even release the latest client to their stress testers.

sorry FunCom - i thought this might be the MMO to drag me away from WoW. the MMO that would prevail where LotRO and EVE failed. the MMO that would make me look at WoW and think "hah, i was chained to this for 2 years ?!" but all i have been left with after an hour or so is a bad taste in my mouth that has practically decimated all faith i had.

you only have to read some of the comments coming from the big names in the MMO blogosphere to realise that FunCom has made a quite considerable school boy error !

I remember hearing the same story of the "magic patch" from the fanbois back in the day with Anarchy online when I was in that beta. It was bs, and a epically disastrous launch. By now people should know better then to really expect anything more from this or really any MMO launch, unfortunately this is just the way this "industry" has come to do things. I learned years ago not to buy a MMO game at its launch, it won't be truly good for months yet. It's the money-men in charge saying "it's good enough" start shipping. Until people demand better with their check books things won't change.

Here's what I can see they would do this.

They got the client to a certain point and decided "This is the open beta client" and so froze it and put it out for release. The closed beta client is of course newer because that's their testing ground for patches. Sure, the newer patches on the closed beta client have helped performance etc, but they may have also introduced unknown bugs and game stoppers that would simply ruin the Open Beta.

Basically closed beta is a testing ground, open is a more static experience, unfortunately the newer patches have helped a lot, or they didn't choose a very good point to go static with the open beta client.

I'll also shoot down the rumor that it's earlier than the PvP client. In both the tech and PvP betas, the chick in chains at the start had black hair. In both the open and current closed beta, she has white hair, so they are both newer clients.

My guild has many in both the open and closed beta. I'm told that closed beta is much better than open. I'm in open beta and I must say it needs a lot of work but the core of the game is there and I'm all for this title doing well. Using an older beta client for OB was a big mistake and I'm sure they will pay the price with less sales.

The game itself runs very well for me. 1280x1024 2xAA and all graphic settings turned on and maxed out. I average 35-40 fps during combat and 63+ fps while roaming around.
In dungeons though I get a very bad stuttering/lockup effect that usually happens every 20 seconds and last about 20 seconds. This is unplayable for me so I have been staying away from dungeons in the open beta.

my specs: C2D @ 3.2GHz, 4GB DDR2, and 8800GT 512mb on Vista Ultimate 64 bit.

Closed Beta is MUCH better than Open, as long as you have a good system to play it on. The massive loading times and 2fps issues are bugs and not how it should, or does, play on a good system. Simple facts, not fan boy delusions.

Safe to say, Funcom still has work to do on the client. It still
has bugs that hurt performance and a few fairly major crashing issues. It's also fair to say if you expect to run it on full settings (like you do in WoW) and don't have a spanky brand new system you are going to be disappointed.

For me the game runs quite well at nearly full settings (25-30+ fps, not brilliant but very playable). Loading times cant be called fast, but are tolerable (10-30secs for a new zone loading). The worst issue for me is the client hanging once in a while when new textures are loaded in. It maybe for only a second or two, but its something they need to fix before launch and that's exactly what they are doing!

Simply put... Its not finished, they are still patching and yes it really is still beta, no matter how open to the general public it may be. I'm sure Launcn will be painful, but I believe it will all come good in the end.