Massively^™

Totally agree this should have been an opportunity for them to put the best foot forward..

Perhaps they are intentionally setting us up with low expectations?

Can anyone say Vanguard 2 :)

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Given Funcoms previous history and claims of a "magic patch" for Anarchy online, and the resultant disaster that followed, and also the current unreadiness in a product that has gone gold already I personally think this article is doing a disservice to readers of the site by not being more critical and asking hard questions.
At the very least given the quality evidenced you should be telling your readers to hold off for a month and see what people who actually buy it say.
I love MMO's but the only way were gonna stop getting unready product released is if unready product releases flop as they should.

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Wow, that's idiotically stupid of them. People can and will still cancel pre-orders over this sort of thing. If the game's actually better behind closed doors, why make it worse than it is?

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I wonder if the closed beta has garnered better opinions due to higher system requirements...

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I got to say, not a wise decision using an older client. Hoping this week open beta testers will get some patch love. The memory leaks, stuttering, and having to lower settings to play has put a bad taste in my mouth about this game.

Bad move Funcom, sorry.

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Oh and love the bug report screenshot!!!

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Coming from someone with both a open and closed beta account:

Old client? Hahahahahaha if you buy that, you're a sucker.

Welcome to the new Vanguard, gentlemen.

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I know many people who are in the closed beta. Let's just say that I've cancelled my pre-order for the game and leave it at that.

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The closed beta client WAS better, until Funcom patched the closed client with the buggy open beta code to diagnose the problem. They patched the closed again yesterday, claiming that the crashes were fixed. They were not.

Both clients have the same stuttering, aggravating gameplay.

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I forgot to mention, I can play the open beta just FINE on low settings, although load times are horrendous.

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I'm in closed beta. The game runs very well for me. 90% of the problems the open beta testers are reporting I've not experienced in the last 2 months. I get a CTD every now and then, but for the most part frame rates are good, loading times between zones are 5-15 seonds on average (60 seconds if I'm entering zone for first time).

AoC is just a beautiful game. Unfortunately you need a pretty cutting edge PC to run it with all the bells and whistles. I am running AoC on a C2D e6600, 3 GB RAM, 8800GT, Vista Ultimate. But I also run it on an AMD 3500+, 2 GB ram, 6800GT just fine, but on low settings. Personally, I love the game and think it adds enough new elements to the MMORPG genre that it will succeed. I love the active (rather than passive) combat. The classes are all interesting and fun. Spell effects are incredible. Environmental graphics are unmatched in the genre. Climbing is a great addition (although DDO does this). NPC for the most part have great voice acting and their own personalities. It really makes for a great game. I'm not sure why so many people are having major issues with the client, but AoC is entirely playable for me (not to say that there are not bugs and more optimization that needs to be addressed).

Buyer here, hands down.

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Yes, I am in closed beta too, and the game runs ALMOST smoothly. There are still some bugs to fix, and it may not be a very smooth release, but I don't think it will be like AO again.

Someone else said it, they patched the CBT with a more buggy version than before, and I get the impression they work with 2 different versions to correct the game, that's weird :)

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I've got guildmates in the close and open beta. What I've gotten from them is the same thing that I assumed when the AoC official forums get carpet bombed with complaints: the game is not done, it will not be done, but what's there is a Hell of a lot of fun.

I feel bad for those having issues and I *completely* understand why a lot of people would want to stay away from AoC at least for a few months while the dust settles but I don't care. I am Jones'ing for something that isn't Lineage 2 so I am willing to pay for a game that isn't ready for primetime. What bothers me though is the idea that Funcom might not be on the level about how bad it is. Sure, all of the people in my guild say that the beta rocks and that they only get disconnected about 2 times every 3-5 hours but that's only 20-30 people. What about everyone else?

Meh, I already made my mind up a few weeks ago so I guess it doesn't matter. I wanted something new, warts and all. It doesn't matter. See you on the 17th. =- )

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Every single beta I can think of has always trotted out some line similar to this though "don't worry we have the super secret release client that will fix all the problems you see". It has always been shown to be total and utter BS. If this was remotely true the would seed a working version and get into everyone's hands medially. It has been the case in every MMO what you see is what you get in late beta + maybe one patch for launch day and couple emergency patches though out the first month as fire rains down around.
The fan boys will buy the line every single time but you have more then a 5 minute MMO memory this story should sound pretty dam familiar.

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I think the good thing to walk away from this with is that everyone seems to agree - AoC is a neat game with a very innovative style, but we all wish we could run it as smoothly as some people report they're running it.

I have a 2.4 quad-core Intel processor, 2 GB ram, a nVidia 8500 GT, and I can only get 17 frames a second on the low settings of AoC. I crash out every 14 seconds, and the load times are enough for me to go and eat a sandwich. But, of the little gameplay I got to try out, I was enjoying it and I wish I could play more. It's good to see someone in the MMO genre trying something new.

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i am in open beta and having a fine time. though this game is like every other mmo i have little to complain about. framerate is only 29 at max graphics (93 at low) but i can live with that. next to no stuttering except the 5 to 10 seconds when transitioning and then thats not everytime.

no crashes, no blues, but the ocassional disconnect from server message, not a big deal. nothing new in this game that you havent seen in any mmo since kings quest 10 or whatever that first multiplayer was. though the graphics are a bit nicer than a few i have seen.

a few quests have looped on me requiring a restart of the game, but reported. i really think all that is needed are folks that know how to set there machines up or spend the money needed to run this monster, it def has steep reqs to run properly, and so far it is, with the occasional hiccup.

of course the kids that cant put the needed bucks into a decent comp will be the biggest gaffers in these threads.

for the record though, i wont be touching this game for 6 months (grin, i know better)

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Closed beta. Suspect they must have patched the buggy open beta code the day I tried it out, because that first time was horrific. Load times easily took 3-5 minutes per screen, stuttering graphics - framerates bounced from 30fps down to 2-7fps and richocheted back and forth in under a minute. I got the black screen bug, and nearly crashed to desktop once. Only after some herculean effort on my computer's part, did it manage to get the client running again.

Have no clue what Funcom was thinking, inflicting that on an unsuspecting Open Beta public.

One day later, new patch went back out to the Closed servers, and stability has restored itself. At least for me. No crashes. Load time between screens has gotten to sane, if not ideal, levels.

Small zones load in a jiffy, under 5 seconds. The big clunker, Tortage - Day, loads the very first time in maybe 1-2 minutes, and it seems cached after that, because rezones take less time, 5-15 seconds. Can still be improved, but not "omg, do not buy this game" horrible.

Graphics are still stuttering now and then. It seems to stall for 1-3 seconds when loading a new texture or animation here and there, but mostly stays at a passable, playable 40ish fps on medium settings for me, using a ATI 1950XT card.

AoC could still use some optimization for sure. The question is whether they'll get enough fixes out in time for their launch to make enough people happy enough to wait for the remaining stuff. If not for stability issues, it's quite a decent game.

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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 !

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