I don't know when people are going to learn that all MMORPGs are basically the same. They were fun to play around with when UO and EverQuest were just starting out, but I don't even want to think about MMORPGs anymore. All of the current ones bore the living shit out of me, and they expect me to pay $15 a month? Considering that I've never been helped by a GM in either UO or EverQuest, they're lucky I was paying them $10. I hope the genre collapses under its onw self-indulgent weight.

I have loaded up and played.. My system recommended graphics level is "low" hehe but im still very impressed even at at that detail. Im comparing to EQ and the Original AC of course. They obsolutly have made great advances in the looks dept. I do agree with some of the previous posters, the spell effects seem to be VERY lackluster.. however I understand part of that maybe due to my graphic setting, but even so, some spells i dont even see ANY graphic for.

At first glance, the game seems to lack direction and motivation. But I had gone from lvl 1 to lvl 20 during training. Yes this gave me instace access to higher spells/skills but I run for a bit longer then an hour and still found no challenge. Even in the Lost Wish Vault, maybe a total of 10 monsters to fight, all lvl 5-7 blah.. I did play again last night, tried a new race/skill set and found i went from level 1 to level 2 and the game became ALOT more interesting!! challenging. I think the new magic system is MUCH better then the old game too. I will still keep my eye on EQ2, WoW, and Horizons though as possible champions the the upcoming MMORPG wave.

It's really ironic to me that people are complaining about the beta and how they won't try the game again until it goes demo or gets released. The beta isn't for you to enjoy: it's for the team to get crucial data and implement changes based on your input and the output of the program. It is -not- a demo, intended to sell you on the game. Therefore, don't go and quit playing the beta: if you do, you're pretty much assuring that your (possibly valuable) input will not make it into the final product, and the final product could be much worse because of it.

Me sighs at the fools complaining about a BETA - I'll type it again B E T A server being down.

As for the game - I have to say some of the reasons why you guys might be thinking the game is flat is that the initial locations around the where you drop into the game after training are sooooo dull. But if you are prepared to explore - get several quests all at once and go on a grand tour of the island doing them all, your breath does get taken away many times by scenery and monsters - especially now every is level 20+ the more dramatic places and creatures are accessible.

But there still needs to be a lot more - one simple example is the magic animations ..... mostly they are duller than piss!

Overall I think its a lot more of a chilled adventure vibe than other mmorpgs and getting a spliff or two inside you 1st definitely helps enhance the game

Yup, according to a post I just read elsewhere, looks like they gave everybody a boost up to level 20. Interesting.

I agree at present it's not much fun. I have no idea when they plan to release but I'm hoping its a good few months away. Serious work needs to be done on combat feedback sounds and animations. It hardly seems like you're hitting anything when you damage an opponent with a melee weapon, other than the visual "-12" type of points rating. But when a MOB hits you, your head flies back and you sorta spit blood for a second.

Something weird, but my guy's level went from 1 to 20 instead of 1 to 2.. at first i thought it was just a visual glitch, like maybe it was 2.0 and i couldn't see the dot, but i noticed that the amount of skill points needed to my next level, compared to how many i was getting for killing mosquitos, was vastly different. I dunno if they did a character bump or If i just had too much to drink, but it'd take 2,000 dead red mosquitos to get me up another level. Very strange.

Naturally this is all probably posted on some official beta board i should be reading, but laziness is defeatist in many ways.

Played a little more today, and realized I'm basically forcing myself to continue playing... yes, I know the game is beta, and thats probably why its not really fun to play much, thing I is I can't really see this game becoming fun unless another 6-8 months of work goes into it. at best I think I'm doing a good job of being a person to test the server limits

After reading your post, I gave the game a whirl again and it actually worked. The update took a ridiculously long period of time (twenty-plus minutes) to download, but at least it was something.

I played for a bit, but I quickly lost interest. For starters, the game would stutter every few seconds; I presume that this was a connection issue as I would jump around a bit and it was the same result regardless of the quality selection I used.

I could not really get into the game, though. I felt too much like a poor sap just hobbling along and attacking things for the heck of it. I do not doubt that the game has its charm, but it just came off really flat. I will think about giving it another whirl once the are closer to release and release a demo, presuming they do.

Edit: To clarify, I do have the high-detail file installed.

Not really amazed by the graphics, but not knowing what the (relative) standard is,
Ray

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This comment was edited on Oct 1, 04:40.

Well, the authentication servers finally seemed to have been be running again. I logged in, let the game download the snowy plain patch, (real annoying cause you can't use the net while the patch downloads) made my avatar, and got underwhelmed... Unfortunatly, the game only looks so-so compared to the screenies, probably because I don't have that psychotically large high-detail patch.

I'm debating downloading it, but since my bandwidth is limited, I'll have to play some more lo-rez AC2 tommorow to make the call.

This comment was edited on Oct 1, 03:32.

First off, I am still trying to get the freaking %)authentication to go through, much less downloading the update or even playing the demo. Anyway, take what I have to say with a grain of salt. Or maybe just a salt lick.

It would really depend on how much of the original file is music, level data, game code, etc. Compare something that is 320x240 in size versus something that is 640x480 in size. Although the numbers only seem to have "doubled" when we look at and process them, the 320x240-sized texture is only one-quarter the physical size of the 640x480-sized texture. Yeah, this is an extremely rough example, but it gives you an idea of how the size can balloon like that.

Also, it depends on what is in the "Very High Detail File." Depending on how they have the game created, there may be separate models/animations/what have you for the extra detail. Additional to having significantly larger textures, it could have its own separate set or sections of game data.

Going to give it another whirl after current downloads finish,
Ray

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Edit: Sorry, this got attached to the wrong post.
This comment was edited on Sep 30, 15:57.

I actually managed to get passed the "snow scene" as it's download rate went from 0.03k/sec to 60k/sec sometime around midnight. Got into the game and finished the training quest just before 1:00am. Work comes early in the morning.

I have to say i'm not impressed with the graphics thus far, other than the water. I was going to download the high-res textures, but the game lags a bit as it is on my Geforce 4 ti4200 128mb, not to mention the Apalling fact that the textures is a 681mb download, much larger than the beta itself. I mean wtf?

And it just keeps getting worse..lol No problem getting past the authorization now. But the launcher just sits there with a dumbfounded look on it's screen when I use my Login/Pass..lmao

Unstable is an understatement. There weren't even this many problems in AC1 Beta. It's the Zone, plain and simple. MS really needs to rethink their gaming portal. It's been horrid since AC1 went live. Oh and yes I do realise that the beta servers are probably quite a ways away from the Zone servers, since that's how AC1 was setup as well.

Hmm...after everything last night, I have been unable to authenticate, too.

Oh well, I think that I will uninstall and maybe try later if/when they release a working public demo. Well, that or just wait for Star Wars.

Thinking that it is the largest game folder on my computer at the moment,
Ray

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#31

I think they're just unstable. They were working earlier.

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Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds...

-Bhagavad Gita

Is anyone else having problems logging in? I get to the "please wait while the Asheron's Call authentication servers are being contacted.."

Then it hangs there for a while and it says "there were problems connecting to the authentication server" and the launcher quits...

*sigh*

This comment was edited on Sep 30, 02:25.

The game keeps crashing on me. *sigh* And no, I don't have the beta nVidia drivers. The probability of a crash seem to go up exponentially when certain AI models are in my FOV. Like that stupid green wasp. And I can't even create a human character. I don't know what's at the human starting point, but it makes me crash right away.

are the slots full yet?

I got the patch today at about 64 k/s. You just put the high detail file in the Asheron's Call 2.0 directory and then select Very High detail from the configuration screen when loading the game.