Friday with Means - December 18th, 2009 - Busy day and Leet infestation

[AGPEcko]

Kind of very dissappointing FWM.

"Damn it is starting to look good...and the artists haven't really even started to poke it yet."
"This is a feature missing from the new engine and we are waiting on work from the Montreal office"
"Large playfields crash the conversion utility."
[talking about head models]"it will be great to have all 358 done over the next few months."

to top it off... not that any of us in the community are surprised...

"we clearly will not be seeing this hit the servers in 2009..."

This time next year Means...: "we clearly will not be seeing this hit the servers in 2010..." Fixed.

[DaviasI]

Sure, let's lose half the customers currently left playing on the hope there will be more new players with high end comps to make up for them.

Sure glad you don't make FC decisions, game WOULD be dead by now.:P

Actually its to compensate for people who look at the minimum specs and then buy computers that are less than the minimum specs and wonder why there experience is so bad.

Its not just this game its a lot of games. The only way to get these people to buy computers that are actually capable of showing the game in anywhere close to where the designers want is to convince these people that the min specs are higher than they actually are so when they go low budget on the computer they actually do hit something within the specs (its a psychology thing). Besides a new computer worthy of playing the AoC engine costs what...$600(if that) these days?

Min specs set too low impede game advancement to new players, lets face it the same guys who are playing on pc's that are below min specs now...5 years from now will be playing on pc that are below slightly tweaked min specs.

I can't recall the number of times I've had casual conversations about players and I've said "do you see 'X'" and they can't because they've turned off 90% of everything to get the game to a playable frame rate. And I shake my head sadly because I realize just how much of the immersiveness they are missing in the current engine...my goodness that means they will miss 99.99% of the game in the new engine...what are they looking at stick figures and stats?

Besides I didn't say high-end computers I said tweak the low end specs. So if it would normally take $300 in parts to bring your computer up to snuff to see 60% of the visual goodies, tell em it takes $400 and being thier contrary selves they will buy the $300 and go "see this is good enough!" See I've tricked them, if we told them it was
$300 they would have bought $200 and said the game sucked because they could only see 30%!

Run away? Puhlease. If there are any old players playing this game soley for its graphical excellence...I'd be surprised. The game has some nice picturesque spots but a graphical tour de force it is not...not by todays standards. However the massive graphical upgrade that seems to be coming has gotten new people intersted. The older fans of this game are hardcore and as much as some of them whine. It would take more than a new video card investment to make them run away...unless it would require a new top of the line video card. Lets face it a decent $120 video card is more than enough to upgrade any relatively modern system to AoC min standardards.

[Grim-One]

Which ones are still wrong? PICS!!!!

Some of the older shoulder pads. I didn't have access to any Nanomage or Opifex models who could wear shoulderpads for me on short notice. So some one else will have to fill in the loop holes.

Shoulderpads

On Solitus, Male : Me as the model.

Clan Shoulderpads for the Veracious (left shoulder needs to be tilted back, right side pulled back) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/2.jpg
Shoulderplates of Sabotage (slightly on the left side, hard notice if you got dark armor on) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/1.jpg
Bellum Badonis Shoulderpads / Conscientious Knight's Pauldron / Sworn Knight's Pauldron / Shoulderpads of Asteroid Calling (right shoulder needs to be pulled backwards) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/5.jpg / http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/3.jpg
Libra's Charming Assistant (left shoulder needs to be moved backward and tilted forward a bit) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/4.jpg


On Solitus, Female : Kaitoujeanne was the model.

Faithful Doctor Shoulderpad (tilt forward to much, left shoulder off the most) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould1.jpg
Leo's Mellow Gold Pad of Auto-Support (tilt forward way to much and clip into chest, left shoulder off the most) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould2.jpg
Clan Shoulderpads for the Veracious (tilted forward a bit to much, left shoulder to far back) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould3.jpg
Faithful Metaphysicist Shoulder Cover (tilted forward a bit to much, left should pushed back to far) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould4.jpg


On Atrox : Oujikage was the model.

Leo's Mellow Gold Pad of Auto-Support (tilts forward to much clips into chest, clip though left elbow) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj1.jpg
Libra's Charming Assistant (tilts forward to much clips into chest, both shoulders need to be pulled forward a bit) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj2.jpg
Shoulderplates of Sabotage (tilts forward a bit to much, right shoulder more so then left) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj3.jpg
Clan Shoulderpads for the Veracious (tilts forward to much, clips into left arm) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj4.jpg
Conscientious Knight's Pauldron / Sworn Knight's Pauldron / Shoulderpads of Asteroid Calling/ Bellum Badonis Shoulderpads (clips into chest, titled forward and angles down a bit) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...uldron-Top.jpg

Head
Not sure if this will even be a problem with the heads being change but none the less I have pics.

On Solitus, Male :

Head looks slightly to the left, just enough so that no helmet ever looks forward. http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/6.jpg

On Solitus, Female :

Fly Catcher's Specs (aligned to left to much) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea1.jpg
Mister Ash's Specs (Hadrulf's and Lucien's versions are fine) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea2.jpg
Experienced Aviator Sunglasses (aligned to left to much) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea3.jpg

[Reacon]

@Means

pix or it didn't happen.

[Phixalicious]

Besides a new computer worthy of playing the AoC engine costs what...$600(if that) these days?

Any DX9 enabled computer made within the last 5+ years can run the AoC engine. Like others, you confuse "AoC engine" with "AoC graphics", which are two entirely different things.

AO is not going to have the high resolution textures and such of AoC. The "minimum specs" of AoC currently are already far higher than what will be required to run AO and all its assets inside the new engine.

[Berinda]

On Solitus, Female :

Fly Catcher's Specs (aligned to left to much) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea1.jpg
Mister Ash's Specs (Hadrulf's and Lucien's versions are fine) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea2.jpg
Experienced Aviator Sunglasses (aligned to left to much) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea3.jpg

That's not a problem with solitus female heads in general - just the base mesh for that kind of face.

I even asked an ARK or GM at some point (forget how long ago it was) if they'd let my crat with the problem have free plastic surgery as it was obviously bugged and I had a good idea of what heads don't have the issue. Of course, I was denied.

[DaviasI]

Any DX9 enabled computer made within the last 5+ years can run the AoC engine. Like others, you confuse "AoC engine" with "AoC graphics", which are two entirely different things.

AO is not going to have the high resolution textures and such of AoC. The "minimum specs" of AoC currently are already far higher than what will be required to run AO and all its assets inside the new engine.

Since AO is only using the graphical part of the AoC engine, I'm obviously only referring to graphics part of the AoC engine. And I belive in my comment I refered to the 3rd engine redesign in next 8 years, so not this engine redesign, but since you have motivated me I will work vigorously to wake up and learn norwegian and in 5 years travel to Oslo to be the new head of FC and demand a brand new128-bit AO full engine redo that requires no less than a 3.0 ghz cpu, video cards with no less than 1.5 gb of ram, and the minimum texture size is 8192x8192 for the leets. So we can see everything in in disturbing detail on our awesome new 3D monitors.

And for those who still haven't figured it out because text is such a maddingly bland medium the entire paragraph starting with plz plz wasn't 100% serious because while it would be doable it would create a whine thread of massive proportions from the 6 guys who haven't updated thier computers since 1995 (and we've all see how loudly they whine).

[windcaster]

dude sorry but your logic is seriously flawed..

i dont know anyone building a computer BUILT around playing AO.. except maybe the hardcore players with 4+ accounts and playing them all at the same time.

those are way far and few between, the avg person out there is playing on some off the shelf sub 500 dollar dell, compaq, hp, etc interrogated to hell and back pc.. or what ever their parents have / or bought them.

seeing as AO has a hard enough time attracting and keeping people i think it's best to bow to the masses when it comes ot comp spec requirements.
thats where the biggest market is, the enthusiast pc gamer is not gonna be the best target market for AO, it's financial suicide.

now with that said.. a game need not be atom splitting power hungry to look good, there is a certain amount of efficiency of code in play here, you can brute force anything with enough power.. thats currently AO's problem it is so power hungery cause it is so dependent on the cpu for everything.

i am sure the new engine (assuming we ever get it *cough cough*) will look better and run better if for no other reason is it will be more efficient and also be offloading some of the burden onto todays video hardware.. which even on crappy integrated video will be an improvement.

thats personally what i look forward to more then anything.. better graphics are nice, but better performance is what will be really nice about it.

[sebquantic]

Didn't they gather system profiles from the launcher earlier this year to see what kind of average hardware the players are working with? If they posted the results, I can't remember what they were.

[Noxira]

Some of the older shoulder pads. I didn't have access to any Nanomage or Opifex models who could wear shoulderpads for me on short notice. So some one else will have to fill in the loop holes.

Shoulderpads

On Solitus, Male : Me as the model.

Clan Shoulderpads for the Veracious (left shoulder needs to be tilted back, right side pulled back) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/2.jpg
Shoulderplates of Sabotage (slightly on the left side, hard notice if you got dark armor on) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/1.jpg
Bellum Badonis Shoulderpads / Conscientious Knight's Pauldron / Sworn Knight's Pauldron / Shoulderpads of Asteroid Calling (right shoulder needs to be pulled backwards) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/5.jpg / http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/3.jpg
Libra's Charming Assistant (left shoulder needs to be moved backward and tilted forward a bit) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/4.jpg


On Solitus, Female : Kaitoujeanne was the model.

Faithful Doctor Shoulderpad (tilt forward to much, left shoulder off the most) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould1.jpg
Leo's Mellow Gold Pad of Auto-Support (tilt forward way to much and clip into chest, left shoulder off the most) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould2.jpg
Clan Shoulderpads for the Veracious (tilted forward a bit to much, left shoulder to far back) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould3.jpg
Faithful Metaphysicist Shoulder Cover (tilted forward a bit to much, left should pushed back to far) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould4.jpg


On Atrox : Oujikage was the model.

Leo's Mellow Gold Pad of Auto-Support (tilts forward to much clips into chest, clip though left elbow) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj1.jpg
Libra's Charming Assistant (tilts forward to much clips into chest, both shoulders need to be pulled forward a bit) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj2.jpg
Shoulderplates of Sabotage (tilts forward a bit to much, right shoulder more so then left) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj3.jpg
Clan Shoulderpads for the Veracious (tilts forward to much, clips into left arm) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj4.jpg
Conscientious Knight's Pauldron / Sworn Knight's Pauldron / Shoulderpads of Asteroid Calling/ Bellum Badonis Shoulderpads (clips into chest, titled forward and angles down a bit) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...uldron-Top.jpg

Head
Not sure if this will even be a problem with the heads being change but none the less I have pics.

On Solitus, Male :

Head looks slightly to the left, just enough so that no helmet ever looks forward. http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/6.jpg

On Solitus, Female :

Fly Catcher's Specs (aligned to left to much) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea1.jpg
Mister Ash's Specs (Hadrulf's and Lucien's versions are fine) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea2.jpg
Experienced Aviator Sunglasses (aligned to left to much) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea3.jpg

Great post.

Since this is very relevant, I'd like to necro-promote my thread from around a year back. Many of the backitem meshes, especially Ofabs, are completely borked and don't fit. Pleeeeease Means take a look at these while you're redoing the body models! Many of these are atrocious!

Seriously what the hell did the devs think when they left these in? That no one will notice? It just reeks of lazy lazy LAZY to me, seeing that many awfully ill-fitted items.

[IHaveHugeNick]

Speaking of requirements, ones oon official page had been last updated when Jesus was still walking on water.

Minimum
Windows 98/ME/2000 SP1+2/XP Pentium II 300 128MB RAM 2X CD-ROM drive DirectX 3D 8Mb video card DirectX compatible sound device 700MB free hard drive space Internet connection, 28.8K Modem

Recommended

Pentium II 450 256 Mb RAM 3D card with 32MB RAM, DirectX 8X CD-ROM drive 1GB free hard drive space Internet connection, 56K Modem

You need like 5 times that to get half decent framerate.

[Leileena]

Ugh, those glasses have annoyed me for so long, even though the other specs (Hadrulf/Lucien) do have the proper alignment.

Bump for fixing dodgy aligned items!

[erozc]

OH!, so you're the guy who nerfed my antleets.. nice going.
i thought someone else was killing them when i logged in today

i was doing a good job of keeping the population under control, the PW server should have been breathing easy :P

Quite epic

Speaking of requirements, ones oon official page had been last updated when Jesus was still walking on water.

You need like 5 times that to get half decent framerate.

Maybe not if you play on 640x480. But if anything, that part (minimum reqs) really shows AO's age.

[Berinda]

On the subject of Ofab backs, the crat back looks retarded. The design it's is pretty nice, but it needs to be redone with a piece around the neck, then separate shoulderpad pieces with the proper attractors. It looks fine standing still, but when a character runs or jumps their arms move through the part covering the shoulders.

[Ornaola]

Means, few questions if u can answer on next Friday please.

- with new engine, can we expect changes to lighting inside buildings/missions/caves etc.?

- not sure if u already confirmed, is it true that ur planing to replace most frequently used textures (walls, dirt, grass, roads...)?

- AO in current state is missing many controls customization options (hotkeys), would it be possible to update that as well? Many players are used to bind shortcuts to mouse or different buttons and not be stuck with 1,2,3,4....

thanks.

[Hacre]

Can we also have the Inferno smoke and heat shimmer back please. I hate Pinkferno.

[IHaveHugeNick]

Maybe not if you play on 640x480. But if anything, that part (minimum reqs) really shows AO's age.

I'd like to see it done. Would have to use Windows 98 i imagine. And a CRT monitor, cause 6480-480 on a modern 16:9 LCD would look "interesting".

Doesn't matter much , not like anyone really plays on PC that ancient, but it does take 2-3 year old decent gaming PC to play smoothly on a native resultion, and a 3-4 year old to play on lowest settings.

[Herkulease]

Some of the older shoulder pads. I didn't have access to any Nanomage or Opifex models who could wear shoulderpads for me on short notice. So some one else will have to fill in the loop holes.

Shoulderpads

On Solitus, Male : Me as the model.

Clan Shoulderpads for the Veracious (left shoulder needs to be tilted back, right side pulled back) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/2.jpg
Shoulderplates of Sabotage (slightly on the left side, hard notice if you got dark armor on) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/1.jpg
Bellum Badonis Shoulderpads / Conscientious Knight's Pauldron / Sworn Knight's Pauldron / Shoulderpads of Asteroid Calling (right shoulder needs to be pulled backwards) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/5.jpg / http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/3.jpg
Libra's Charming Assistant (left shoulder needs to be moved backward and tilted forward a bit) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/4.jpg


On Solitus, Female : Kaitoujeanne was the model.

Faithful Doctor Shoulderpad (tilt forward to much, left shoulder off the most) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould1.jpg
Leo's Mellow Gold Pad of Auto-Support (tilt forward way to much and clip into chest, left shoulder off the most) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould2.jpg
Clan Shoulderpads for the Veracious (tilted forward a bit to much, left shoulder to far back) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould3.jpg
Faithful Metaphysicist Shoulder Cover (tilted forward a bit to much, left should pushed back to far) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...kaishould4.jpg


On Atrox : Oujikage was the model.

Leo's Mellow Gold Pad of Auto-Support (tilts forward to much clips into chest, clip though left elbow) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj1.jpg
Libra's Charming Assistant (tilts forward to much clips into chest, both shoulders need to be pulled forward a bit) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj2.jpg
Shoulderplates of Sabotage (tilts forward a bit to much, right shoulder more so then left) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj3.jpg
Clan Shoulderpads for the Veracious (tilts forward to much, clips into left arm) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...law07/ouj4.jpg
Conscientious Knight's Pauldron / Sworn Knight's Pauldron / Shoulderpads of Asteroid Calling/ Bellum Badonis Shoulderpads (clips into chest, titled forward and angles down a bit) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...uldron-Top.jpg

Head
Not sure if this will even be a problem with the heads being change but none the less I have pics.

On Solitus, Male :

Head looks slightly to the left, just enough so that no helmet ever looks forward. http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...imclaw07/6.jpg

On Solitus, Female :

Fly Catcher's Specs (aligned to left to much) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea1.jpg
Mister Ash's Specs (Hadrulf's and Lucien's versions are fine) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea2.jpg
Experienced Aviator Sunglasses (aligned to left to much) http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...07/kaihea3.jpg

Great post!

[Mastablasta]

Lets face it a decent $120 video card is more than enough to upgrade any relatively modern system to AoC min standardards.

Yea, but people don't know anything about videocards that a 90$ Radeon 5750 will run AO's new engine fine is something that largely noone will know, because they went out and bought a 200$ 3770 that someone had kept in store 3 years after its discontinuation, and the logic was that the more expensive card was the better
Or something similar. I know people who work with hardware who bought a Geforce 8800GT last year

[Phixalicious]

Yea, but people don't know anything about videocards that a 90$ Radeon 5750 will run AO's new engine fine is something that largely noone will know, because they went out and bought a 200$ 3770 that someone had kept in store 3 years after its discontinuation, and the logic was that the more expensive card was the better
Or something similar. I know people who work with hardware who bought a Geforce 8800GT last year

Hell, I could run AoC reasonably well with my old 7600GS AGP card on medium settings. When that card burned up recently, I bought my current Radeon HD3650 AGP card for $70 and it runs it slightly better than the 7600GS did plus gives me DirectX 10.1 as a bonus. I should have bought the HD3850 since it's the strongest of the newer AGP cards, but I needed a card right away and just didn't have the extra $25 ( and the HD4650/4670 AGPs are worthless due to plain old bottlenecking and a real waste of money ).

And before you clown me, I only bought the AGP to keep my comp running 'til after the holidays are over and then I can hopefully do a complete rebuild.