Anniversary Gathering Photo and Video Links

[raw_fox]

Yet it was good enough to show people that went all the way to Canada to see it?

If it's good enough to show in person, it's good enough to show in a video.

Something just ain't right.

Funcom has a structural change in progress for years already.
That includes the Funcom accountsystem, the ingameshop, the f2p of Conan as well as the new TSW.
AO, Conan and TSW should share the same engine, Funcom's own engine for Funcom's own games.

AoC is the plattform of their choice, to give this very own engine 1. compatibility to their other games, 2. develop it even to the peak of the awesomeness and 3. get it on their games to reduce maintainance.

AO is on their shedule, i have no doubt on that.
The task itself is still crazy, but whoever works with such things like nerf tables from the ancient and bugs after some billions of IDs, well ... crazy.

Over that, development changed the last 20 years dramatical.
We went from spaghetti over functions to nowadays actual classes.
That includes the servertechnics aswell ^^

Its just patience, what we need.
It will come.

Soon™

[Siahanor]

Funcom has a structural change in progress for years already.
That includes the Funcom accountsystem, the ingameshop, the f2p of Conan as well as the new TSW.
AO, Conan and TSW should share the same engine, Funcom's own engine for Funcom's own games.

AoC is the plattform of their choice, to give this very own engine 1. compatibility to their other games, 2. develop it even to the peak of the awesomeness and 3. get it on their games to reduce maintainance.

AO is on their shedule, i have no doubt on that.
The task itself is still crazy, but whoever works with such things like nerf tables from the ancient and bugs after some billions of IDs, well ... crazy.

Over that, development changed the last 20 years dramatical.
We went from spaghetti over functions to nowadays actual classes.
That includes the servertechnics aswell ^^

Its just patience, what we need.
It will come.

Soon™

Perhaps, but none of that has anything to do with making a video.

[Dummy]

AO is on their shedule, i have no doubt on that.

Yes, I think so too.
Though it is a bit like the roulette. The roulette is impossible to predict or make a system for, because it is only one system that fits and the roulette invents it as it go.
The new engine behave much the same way, it invents its own schedule as it go.

[raw_fox]

Perhaps, but none of that has anything to do with making a video.

it sure has.
marketing relays directly on the right timing of informations.

[Igri00]

it sure has.
marketing relays directly on the right timing of information.

...and the existence of a video does not make any difference to the release date of the engine. I could however, make the release date further away as the resources required to make the video would be the same people who are programming the engine.

Funcom also can not simply screen capture 5 minutes of a guy walking around and stick it on YouTube and say, "Hey, here is what the new engine looks like." because they know full well that the video would need to be "produced", so that is highlights features, avoided non-features, looks interesting and new. Failing to produce a video effects very few people, producing a crappy boring video may effect thousands of peoples decision to return to AO, or not return, when the new engine is released.

Plus, the engine is about in the same spot is was last time a video was released, so it would be somewhat redundant to start with.

Letting users film it and putting that on the Internet does exactly what needed to be done. It does not require a production quality video and allows users to see what is being done. The two minute video that was put out is exactly what we saw, minus 4 minutes of the same thing.

[quieter456]

Funcom also can not simply screen capture 5 minutes of a guy walking around and stick it on YouTube and say, "Hey, here is what the new engine looks like." because they know full well that the video would need to be "produced", so that is highlights features, avoided non-features, looks interesting and new. Failing to produce a video effects very few people, producing a crappy boring video may effect thousands of peoples decision to return to AO, or not return, when the new engine is released.

Plus, the engine is about in the same spot is was last time a video was released, so it would be somewhat redundant to start with.

You are saying that 5 minutes of random footage would not show anything worth seeing, and the engine is in the same spot as when the last video was released? Considering the first, last, and only footage ever released was a 17 second clip of a character walking through a field of grass, and that was 19 months ago, that's even sadder than most of us imagine the situation to be.

[Tazalanche]

the resources required to make the video would be the same people who are programming the engine.

I guess you missed Mean's announcement on May 13th about getting an intern that was going to make the new engine preview video to prevent a situation like you described.

Next week another intern will be joining the team, "Cube" on these forums. I'm sure most of you have seen his AO videos before..but here they are again for those who somehow missed out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYvIQ0ri5Kg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmSB6f3_lo0

It will be great to get him here. I can't wait to see what he puts together for the preview of the new engine.

[Hanavald]

.. may effect thousands of peoples decision

Somehow i doubt there are thousands out there, waiting eagerly to play the game currently played by hundreds.

[Igri00]

I guess you missed Mean's announcement on May 13th about getting an intern that was going to make the new engine preview video to prevent a situation like you described.

Well, so I'm guessing that the intern failed then or they are trying to get the grass back in so that they have something to make a video of!

You are saying that 5 minutes of random footage would not show anything worth seeing, and the engine is in the same spot as when the last video was released? Considering the first, last, and only footage ever released was a 17 second clip of a character walking through a field of grass, and that was 19 months ago, that's even sadder than most of us imagine the situation to be.

It is still just going to be a guy walking... did you see the video? Maybe you missed it. It isn't going to be any different than the video the player shot in Montreal.

[-Klod-]

Can't wait to see a video of guy walking.

[Siahanor]

Can't wait to see a video of guy walking.

I hear next year we get to see the same guy /sit.

[Hanavald]

As long as he does the moonwalk, i'll be fine.

[Igri00]

I hear next year we get to see the same guy /sit.

There are some limitations to the way they showed the video though. The system is a design system so it is one specific area (zone). It isn't possible to zone to a new zone, so all of the stuff has to be in the same zone.

We did see some things that were new, that have not been seen on any video yet.

1. Water reflections, specifically a nice sunrise.
2. Waves, that were rather large, perhaps 3 feet.
3. More trees, I think we saw the trees, but Bor had more than it had before in the prior video. A comment was made that a specific tree had just been added.
4. Much better lighting effects. (Light bar, floaty light)
5. Better textures on the walls, the toon stood right up against a wall to see the details.
6. Less perfectly even ground.
7. Engine was FAST on a development machine.


Things we saw that didn't work:

1. Water depth was not set correctly in the zone, so the reflections were a few feet under the water and the toon swam under water, while swimming on top of it. (as odd as that sounds)
2. No working grass in the zone, all of the grass had to be replaced, and that wasn't done yet.
3. Some reflections weren't right yet.

Things we didn't see:

1. More than one toon at a time. The examples were limited to one toon in an empty bor, no other toons or NPCs.

[Cogline]

Sounds as if at least *some* progress has been made. If they do e zoning demo without rubber banding I'll probably faint/squeal like an over excited Japanese schoolgirl.

[Igri00]

Sounds as if at least *some* progress has been made. If they do e zoning demo without rubber banding I'll probably faint/squeal like an over excited Japanese schoolgirl.

Unfortunately, the demo/dev machine doesn't do zoning. They said it takes a long time, I got the impression like an hour or more to load a zone into the machine.

[Tazalanche]

Unfortunately, the demo/dev machine doesn't do zoning. They said it takes a long time, I got the impression like an hour or more to load a zone into the machine.

That makes me wonder what the machine's specs are...

[Kintaii]

Unfortunately, the demo/dev machine doesn't do zoning. They said it takes a long time, I got the impression like an hour or more to load a zone into the machine.

Not quite. Basically, the other zones aren't *available* for loading yet - A few are, but *every* playfield in AO will have to be converted to work with the new engine (not a small task), and at the moment the majority aren't. Borealis is one of our testbed playfields, though, and thus why it was shown. =)

[Siahanor]

Not quite. Basically, the other zones aren't *available* for loading yet - A few are, but *every* playfield in AO will have to be converted to work with the new engine (not a small task), and at the moment the majority aren't. Borealis is one of our testbed playfields, though, and thus why it was shown. =)

Gief dev machine specs nao!!

[Cogline]

By The Goddess Summers! My apartment's in a test bed! I demand to be transfered to a proper bed! Or a work-in-progress bed at the very least!

[yomuerdame]

Gief dev machine specs nao!!

I asked for them during the demo and they wouldn't tell me. Means and Parsed basically alluded that it is quite the beast, though... So I'm guessing at least 4 multi-core processors and 16GB of RAM, 15k SATA drives, etc... smarter than the average bear.