Yes.. but that's obvious, isn't it? :D We all know it's not good enough.
To fix this is going to require actual development time for launcher code nobody likely understands.
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Yes.. but that's obvious, isn't it? :D We all know it's not good enough.
To fix this is going to require actual development time for launcher code nobody likely understands.
I haven't spent more than a few min testing it yet, but is the Steam version actually the old engine?
All this waiting would be for nothing if that's the case.
Been away from AO for 2 years ago and saw a tweet that Anarchy Online was now on steam and was pretty surprised that I hadn't received any sort of e-mail.
I went to the Steam page and am sorta wondering why none of the expansion trailers are listed on the game's store page.
Anyway.. has this brought additional people to the game so far?
Short answer, yes but not in any great numbers yet. Conan Exiles has had (FOR FC, mind you) a huge success with its launch and, IMO, kicked loose 3 seconds of dev time (when they need 3 WEEKS) for a soft AO launch so they can find out about things like "Hey, Steam only showing 1 minute played???" etc and fix them for a real launch.
Dammit it's like receiving a sample of meth in the mail. New char it already level 25.
Kind of a problem that it doesn't tick time up except for a split second :p probably because it's tied to the wrong executable.
I've done a little trouble shooting. It is tied to the correct exe. The issue is the AnarchyOnline.exe when called by anything other than the launcher is missing 3 parameters which in turn spawns the Anarchy.exe aka the AO Launcher. The AO Launcher (Anarchy.exe) passes a few parameters to the AnarchyOnline.exe when it runs it.. However the new instance of AnarchyOnline.exe is not being tracked by Steam.
I am assuming Steam keeps track of the process Id of the app they run. Any new instances are not tracked.
I have figured out (with help from Tom Sawyer who worked on this with me - PocketRush!) the parameters required to launch the AnarchyOnline.exe from the Steam Play button, which indeed shows play time. I have 117 minutes of play time as of this writing. They are added as Launch Options in the Anarchy Online properties.
I would post the parameters for others to use but I would rather they fix the issue first. I also don't want to get in trouble if they don't want this info public. These parameters cause the launcher to be skipped which will bypass patching. A quick workaround is to start Anarchy.exe manually when you need to patch.
If they are OK with me posting the workaround, I will post the parameters. PM me or reply here.
The real fix would involve Steam tracking all instances of AnarchyOnline.exe if the exe is run from the Steam AO folder. They should also track Anarchy.exe so they can tell that the launcher is running.
Optionaly keep the original AnarchyOnline.exe instance running while the launcher is running. Only closing it if patching is required. But you would have to run it from the Steam play button after patching unless the above method is used.
I'm not 100% sure if Steam will allow for that though. I suspect they do because they keep track of other games being run directly from other shortcuts or running the exe from the directory.
Simple fix from Steam Discussions.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/396280...8092246437520/
Worked for me, 29 minutes already.
Here is another post: http://steamcommunity.com/app/396280...8092246437520/
Well it seems the cat is out of the bag. I didn't realize he posted in the Steam forums. He didn't realize that might be an issue for Funcom. He hasn't played AO in years, this might actually get him back!
Either way, remember to check for patches manually.
So bizarre! In any case guys, most of the marketing for AO as arum said, it's done by us, the community. There is quite a lot of noise over on reddit about it, and a number of 'high profile' gaming sites and bloggers are writing about its rebirth and posting "let's play" vids, including Kotaku (who claims he was an ARK, haha oldskewl, but no toons over 200!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw6Wt0DRVNM
Also, the reddit crowd have posted a link to the steamapp api which monitors the progress, however they do think its broken somewhat: http://steamcharts.com/app/396280 - apparently it is not linking correctly, and it is only counting/monitoring the AnarchyOnline.exe launch. I don't know if Steam even updates my status to say "Playing Anarchy Online" and that's all the marketing I need to tell my hundreds of steam friends BAM! AO is Still Alive! and make a dream come true for this little enfo. So it's all still a bit wonky.
BTW the "anarchy online subreddit" discord is over at: https://discord.gg/rcRVzV6 for anyone else interested :)
Anyway, time will tell. hopefully they fix the steam integration a little :`(
rabble rabble rabble
tl;dr: how about patching the exploits before bringing in an influx of new players? Too late now I guess but goddamn, stupid.
Well, it works for counting, but it was a bit messy.
Setting that manually avoids the EULA screen. Which I'm all for. Except ... there's no way to access resolution settings.
So, if you need to change (or like me, fix issues with) resolution ... remove that parameter from the Steam properties. Then get your resolution working. Then add it back in.
Off-topic
Sadly I'm realizing I can't play fullscreen borderless in the old engine. I've been running new engine at 2560x1600. Old won't load higher than 2048 wide or whatever that was.
So ... crash ... or play small window.
FC ... fix the dang new engine. It works. Except when it crashes. That's a bit too often. And usually when doing nothing but standing there.
Yeah, except I wanted to install from Steam to have an Old Engine installed that wouldn't crash ... for those times when I can't afford to crash :/
I'll just use the lower resolution when it's important to be super stable (holding an instance for instance).
Sometimes it has it advantage that I'm still on full HD and not 4k. No problems there :D
But yeah sometimes you just need the old Version. Learned that again this weekend the hard way :D
I noticed this, cause I was just playing around.
I'm getting slightly better FPS using AO through steam... All settings the same, same machine. nothing special (except for steam using the work around for the time recording).
AO run normally.
1366x768, 16/32 color, compressed textures. Bounces between 22 and 25 FPS (Windowed Borderless)
https://postimg.org/image/rlpo97x8r/
AO through Steam, using the same as above. Bounces between 26 and 29 FPS (Windowed Borderless)
https://postimg.org/image/891auuo9f/
I thought it was my imagination, that's why they're both standing in the same spot looking in the same direction.
My laptop isn't all that powerful, AMD A6-7310 with a Radeon R4 (It's the AMD APU, not discrete), 8GB RAM. Running Windows 10 Home 64bit.
BTW both clients in the screenshots were logged on at the same time..
The Steam release appears to have just about doubled the amount of new characters being created every day.
Source: https://rubi-ka.net/statistics "New characters" were in the 50s, now over 110 per day.
Until Valve/FC/whoever is the responsible party can sort out Steam losing the AO process so ti can properly register playing time without having to faff about with workarounds, AO isn't going to be generating representative Steam numbers. They're shooting themselves in the foot if they don't seek to address this.