New Age of Conan Beta: Open to everyone

[CptStern]

hurry get your key before they're gone
:

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/ageofconan/beta/

[Shakermaker]

Yay, even more lag.

/sarcasm

[CptStern]

it's an older build ..the closed beta has a newer build and it's nowhere as laggy

[jimbo118]

Yay, even more lag.

/sarcasm

GET BACK TO WORK!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx5p_wv_izo

FOOL!

[Krynn72]

lol, New Age Conan. That would be a sweet game.

[Eejit]

With, like, healing crystals and homeopathic medicine?

[TwwIX]

What a waste this was downloading it.
The game is ridden with technical issues.People with all kinds of setups are having crashes,lock ups and frame rate issues with the game.Loading from zone to zone tends to take several minutes.
It's poorly optimized and feels very unpolished.On top of that, their community service is non existent.
I had high hopes for this game but now i have changed my mind.I don't understand why these MMO developers rush their unfinished games.Look what happened to Vanguard.I guess they will never learn.

[Eejit]

Debugger. Uncompressed textures. Not the most recent build. Stress testing the servers.

How dare they do such things in a beta?

[Mutley]

Anyone other than the Stern like to give an opinion on what this game is actually like? :P

[Thandurin]

Debugger. Uncompressed textures. Not the most recent build. Stress testing the servers.

How dare they do such things in a beta?

Why would they stress test with a older, buggier build? Are they assuming that somewhere along the line they will stop caring about performance and release unstable patches so they are preparing for the server load appropriately?

[Shakermaker]

Anyone other than the Stern like to give an opinion on what this game is actually like? :P

The short version: Fun combat, great graphics, very good sound, but the current (supposedly older) build doesn't run very well. Check Eejit's post for the reason for this. What I didn't experience yet was an open world like for example WoW. So you have to go through quite a lot of loading screens. This is also due to the fact that the first 20 levels were originally designed as singleplayer portion of the game, so maybe there's more sprawling, free to explore gameworld after the ouverture of the game.

[Anthraxxx]

Why would they stress test with a older, buggier build? Are they assuming that somewhere along the line they will stop caring about performance and release unstable patches so they are preparing for the server load appropriately?
Perhaps they wanted to stress test their network load. It doesn't matter what version of the game is running, as long as their network can handle it.

Is it just me, or am I not as hyped up for this games as I should be? It looks like a lot of fun, but i'm just not sure about it. *waiting for warhammer*

Either way. as long as it isn't WoW.

[CptStern]

...but isnt warhammer pretty much like wow?

[Shakermaker]

...but isnt warhammer pretty much like wow?

The art style is. The gameplay supposedly isn't.

[CptStern]

well I havent played warhammer and I havent followed news on the game in over a year ..but I swear some of the comments I do remember are that it doesnt deviate too much from the WoW mold

[Agent.M]

Anyone other than the Stern like to give an opinion on what this game is actually like? :P

Im in the closed beta and it needs a shit ton of work still...lag,glitches,bugs,crashes galore! If they don't improve and make some major changes by release I'm passing on this and waiting on Warhammer.

[Krynn72]

What a waste this was downloading it.
The game is ridden with technical issues.People with all kinds of setups are having crashes,lock ups and frame rate issues with the game.Loading from zone to zone tends to take several minutes.
It's poorly optimized and feels very unpolished.On top of that, their community service is non existent.
I had high hopes for this game but now i have changed my mind.I don't understand why these MMO developers rush their unfinished games.Look what happened to Vanguard.I guess they will never learn.

I love how people like you dont understand the difference between a beta test and a demo/trial. The purpose of a Beta test is so that they can find out all these problems and fix them before they release the game. What you just described in their post is exactly the kind of results that are expected and wanted in a beta test.

[Nid Banikeri]

The continued story that I've heard with AOC beta is "wait for the miracle build". Well, with 15-20 odd days left until launch, I find this hard to believe anymore. Besides, they would have to test that miracle build aswell.

I think people just need to accept this game is going to be very unpolished and unfinished at release, and stop calling anybody that admits that doomers.

[CptStern]

I dont know what build you guys have been playing but I've leveled at least 5 characters to level 20 and beyond ..if it ran like total ass I wouldnt have played for as long as I did, regardless of the IP

even after playing it since nov2007 I will purchase this game at launch

[Loke]

2 days left on my download... -_-

Anywhere else I can get the client from?

[Rico]

I played the gamespot PvP weekend beta.

I was vaguely interested before I go into the beta, and decided to give it a shot since it looked promising.

I got hooked on it and the game was amazingly fun, even though it was just the arenas and a small portion of the Single Player.

A lot of of the bad rap you guys are hearing about this game stems from the Open Beta people. The developers have stated that the Open Beta build is actually older than the PvP beta build.

In the PvP beta build I played the game with 16QAA, high detail everything, minus some view distance and no shadows. The reason I turned off shadows was because at the moment they were causing some FPS slowdown and they were corrupted for me.

The game ran smooth as butter on my 8800GT on 1440x900 with those settings, on my aging AMD 64 3700+

So don't listen to people on Open Beta too much about performance issues. The version I played didn't have too many bugs (for a beta) and ran a lot better than the reports I am hearing. The version I played was more up to date than the current Open Beta.

Oh and the combat kicks ass, and the fatalities rule.

Seriously, skip over the Open Beta if you must, but definitely try this game come release at the very least. If you got bored of WoW, or are simply tired of carebear MMOs, give this thing a shot.

I'm an AoC convert after the PvP Beta. I even Preordered it after playing it... I have never preordered a game in my life until now.

[CptStern]

2 days left on my download... -_-

Anywhere else I can get the client from?

yes ..I dont know where but there is ..my guess is torrent sites

[TCfromBN]

Your Request did not go through. Please refresh your data.

Uh.... Huh?

[Rico]

Keep refreshing that page. Eventually you'll get it.

[WhiteZero]

So when is Beta all over?
I'm watching my DL of the 12GB client trickel down from FP at like 150- 500KBps (when I can usualy max out at 1.2MBps) :(

[Thandurin]

No luck on getting a key. Either says the request didnt go through or is stuck loading, gonna have to try tomorrow morning or something when there is less activity.

[Eejit]

Keep trying, took me a while.

Alternatively you can have use of my key once I'm done, won't play too much.

[Thandurin]

Keep trying, took me a while.

Alternatively you can have use of my key once I'm done, won't play too much.
Just got the key after 20 minutes of refreshing. Downloading it with bittorrent.

[Rico]

Which torrent are you using thandurin?

[Qonfused]

I've been in the closed beta since, oh, January and... I just don't know. Maybe I lost the MMO itch. Maybe I just don't have enough time anymore. Maybe the hype got to me. Maybe I'm just out of it. But I just can't get into AoC. Even after all these months, I just cannot force myself to play, which is quite bad for any game if you need to force yourself to play. I just... don't know.

[Rico]

*mugs Qonfused for his closed beta key*

[TwwIX]

I love how people like you dont understand the difference between a beta test and a demo/trial. The purpose of a Beta test is so that they can find out all these problems and fix them before they release the game. What you just described in their post is exactly the kind of results that are expected and wanted in a beta test.

The game has gone gold and the game will be released on the 20th.
These problems have been present since closed beta, which i have managed to get in to months ago.Ever heard of first impressions?Why do you think the over hyped Vanguard failed?
So, yeah...

[Thandurin]

http://www.torrentreactor.net/torrents/1820039/Age-of-Conan-Fileplanet-Open-Beta
this is the torrent i'm using if anyone wants to try it. I'm still downloading and wont know if it works till tomorrow when it should be done.

[CptStern]

The game has gone gold and the game will be released on the 20th.
These problems have been present since closed beta, which i have managed to get in to months ago.Ever heard of first impressions?Why do you think the over hyped Vanguard failed?
So, yeah...

the current beta is not the gold version of the game ..the gold version has all of the assessts including hi rez textures and game content that's missing from the closed beta ..I've played Vanguard pre-release ..this doesnt compare to that games problems ..the only issue atm is performance but that changes from build to build ..currently I have next to no lag, the last build was almost unplayable, the very next day (the next build) I was getting on average 40fps ..and this is with bug reporting software running in the background during the day when tortage was full of players

[Kyorisu]

Why the hell would you run an open beta on an old build? That defeats the purpose of having a beta in the first place. You know when you use the latest build to try and find what kinks remaining after killing all the ones from previous builds. May as well be called "buggy preview version"

"We promise it'll work when you give us money"

[CptStern]

Why the hell would you run an open beta on an old build? That defeats the purpose of having a beta in the first place. You know when you use the latest build to try and find what kinks remaining after killing all the ones from previous builds. May as well be called "buggy preview version"

"We promise it'll work when you give us money"

to stress test servers in the noob area ..probably to see what release day will be like ..it doesnt matter what build they use

[Iliketobenaked]

When I start the game my screen is black but I can see the mouse and hear the music.

[baka-raven]

my girlfriend had the same problem.. Use the SimpleConfig.exe file and set it to Windowed mode. Should fix it :)

[Iliketobenaked]

thanks man I,l try that in a sec.

[Lucid]

Damn I'm too late.

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/ageofconan/beta/images/closed_hdr2.jpg

DAMN YOU SCHOOL AND WORK, DAMN YOU TO HADES!

[Eejit]

PM me for an unused open beta key.

In return I'll be wanting some nice screenies or video of the closing event ;)

[Nabobalis]

PM me for an unused open beta key.

In return I'll be wanting some nice screenies or video of the closing event ;)

Tempting, lol. Whens this closing event?

[Eejit]

11th. If you get a character to lvl 13 in time it'll be boosted to lvl 20 on the 10th, get a bunch of money for gear, all zones will be unlocked and all servers will become FFA PvP. I suspect there may be other surprises from GMs too.

[Nabobalis]

Hmm, No chance on my end of that. Not sure if I should pre-order this game or wait for reviews and have a look at Warhammer. ~HMMM??!!!

[Rico]

For those people who are worried because they've been hearing about bad performance in Open Beta:

Funcom released a patch for Closed Beta yesterday. A lot of Closed Beta testers are calling it a "miracle patch", due to the fact that it fixes a lot of the performance problems, stuttering, and long loading problems the game had. They also report some improvements to lighting, as well as fog.

Some CB testers are reporting getting over 100 FPS in Tortage. Compare that to the maximum 60 FPS people have been getting in Open Beta (those with killer rigs)

I myself have a modest PC at the moment. Here are My specs:

AMD64 3700+ 2.4ghz
2GB DDR 2100 RAM
Evga 8800GT 512MB
300GB SATA HD

I updated my card's drivers to the new Nvidia 175.63 Beta drivers(get them from Guru3d.com) and got a noticeable FPS boost.

My current performance in tortage night: 40 FPS average, med-high settings, character shadows, no bloom.

I have heard reports of the closed beta patch increasing FPS by about 20 or 40... hopefully they'll roll that out to us today.

[CptStern]

I can confirm this, fixed most of my performance issues ..getting a steady 40-50fps on a similiar set up to Rico (except an x2 4200 + 3G of ram)

[TwwIX]

Yes, they finally bothered to fix the performance issues. The occasional memory leaks are still present though.

[CptStern]

not for me they're not

[Nabobalis]

Sounds good. I've preordered it again :P. But I'm also looking at Warhammer online too. Shame I wont be playing tihs much at uni :( Stupid internet

[DEATH eVADER]

I finally managed to download and install AoC last night. Had a bash for about 30 minutes before going to bed. Came to it after work today to only find that the beta had already finished. F*CK!!

[Eejit]

Yeah I played a bit yesterday and this morning, I'm definitely buying it.
Still unsure of what class to roll though ;)

[Nabobalis]

Yeah I played a bit yesterday and this morning, I'm definitely buying it.
Still unsure of what class to roll though ;)

What classes you played? I like the look of an assassin.

Whats the monthly cost? I can buy a 60 day game card for ?20 quid. So it 10 quid a month?

[Eejit]

What classes you played? I like the look of an assassin.

Whats the monthly cost? I can buy a 60 day game card for ?20 quid. So it 10 quid a month?

Something like that.

I'm trying to choose between Bear Shaman, Conqueror and HoX.
Assassin is somewhat fun, but I find it kinda one-dimensional. No real depth to it.

I think I'll probably go for BS actually, it looks like it has the best-designed feat trees out of the ones I'm considering.

[Lucid]

So anyone with GFX cards that are older than 8800s playing?

[Eejit]

Lots of people.

It's definitely playable with a decent geforce 7, a top geforce 6 is about the cutoff line for playable performance from what I've heard.
Having more than 1 gig of ram seems to be quite important.

[Lucid]

Well, that's cool.

The client's way too big for me to dl, so I'll wait for a smaller one... if one comes out.

[Eejit]

Well the open beta finished today anyhow.

[Eejit]

Here are a couple of new videos from Funcom's big launch thing in Oslo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8yMNmhChOY - spellweaving
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfeGIoHUd7U - siege
http://files.filefront.com/aocliveoslo+0001wmv/;10218593;/fileinfo.html - whole bunch of stuff including some raiding.

[CptStern]

Well the open beta finished today anyhow.

but not the closed beta :)

[Eejit]

but not the closed beta :)

Yeah lots of stuff happening I see, the patch notes are getting leaked all over the place this close to launch.

I'll be starting the early access the day after my exams finish. It was meant to be!


Check out the spellweaving video though, iirc it's not in closed beta, saving it for launch.

[CptStern]

ya lots of stuff isnt in the closed beta ...also I forgot to pre-order so wont be in early access ..hopefully they'll keep the beta open till launch day

[VictimOfScience]

Man, sucks about the DX10 though. This makes no sense to me after they couldn't stop talking about it MONTHS AND MONTHS ago. :hmph:
Funcom officially confirmed that the DirectX 10 version of the company's MMORPG Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures won't ship during the initial launch. The launch takes place this week (starting tomorrow, to be exact - with the European launch following on May 23).

"The DirectX 10 version will be premiered at the German Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, August 20 ? 24, 2008. A special preview showing off the advanced graphics made possible by DirectX 10 technology will be unveiled this summer at nVidia?s NVISION event in San Jose, California, August 25 ? 27, 2008."
Source. (http://www.actiontrip.com/rei/comments_news.phtml?id=051908_6)

[Iliketobenaked]

I wanna see some reviews before I spend money.