Age of Conan

Clipped this from the AOC forums

Sounds rather good, can't wait to see the video...

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/08...oks-stunning/1

Age of Conan DirectX 10 content looks stunning
Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 28th August 2008

We've had a sneak peek at the final Age of Conan DirectX 10 content and it looks like it's going to be worth the delay.

We were lucky enough to grab a first look at the final DirectX 10 implementation for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures yesterday and when you consider that the game is an MMO, the level of visual fidelity is stunning.

I haven’t had chance to go hands-on with AoC’s DirectX 10 mode yet – the video only made its way out of Funcom for the first time on Monday night, but Funcom said that it plans to release the video for all to see in the next few days.

I pushed to post the video ahead of the planned unveiling but Funcom wants to make some final tweaks—including adding developer commentary—before allowing it to be distributed onto the ‘net. I was also asked not to post photographs either, so we’ll have to wait for the video to be made available before you can see it for yourselves.

However, we can reveal that Funcom has created its own custom physics engine using CUDA, which enables some pretty stunning wind and water effects. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the water in Age of Conan looks almost as good as the water in Crysis with the quality set to very high; the shore blends with the environment and the waves move in a realistic manner.

What’s more, Funcom has done some pretty incredible work underwater – god rays are now present and they interact with the way the water surface is moving, resulting in some great lighting effects on show when you look at the sky from under the water.

The best example of the wind effects came when the character started casting spells while in the middle of a field – the grass around him rippled and moved in a way similar to how grass moves when a helicopter is taking off or landing.

HDR lighting also looks great and there are some great soft lighting effects around the edge of buildings, railings and foliage – light softens the edges of objects in a pretty realistic manner. Ambient parallax occlusion mapping also makes its way into the game too, and again it adds another level of immersion into the game.

I haven’t played much of Age of Conan so far, but some of the graphical and physics effects I’ve seen in the DirectX 10 features video make me want to sink a good amount of time into the game. There have been many videos of earlier versions of the engine running DirectX 10 mode, but the video I saw looked a hell of a lot more polished than any previous demos I’d looked at. There’s no release date confirmed for the DirectX 10 patch yet, but I don’t think it’ll be too far away based on what I’ve seen.
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The last paragraph made me chuckle. Maybe after the private viewing someone from FC broke out the magical AA "free drinks" CC and amazed everyone with their kindness?

Link to the thread where the fanboys go nuts when someone suggests that just maybe they should be concentrating on other things.

Someone suggests he would bitch if everything else was in place but DX10 was missing but they fail to see thats an issue related to the misleading statements before launch. At this point they really DO need to concentrate on the meat and potatoes and not the flashy garnish.

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=162146

Problem is it isn't DX10 in a live environment and based on FC performance thus far there is no way to say when it'll come out. AND crom knows how long it'll take to iron out all the bugs and gameplay problems AFTER they release it.

Yeah, they'll SAY they are aiming for a release at a given date but FC hasn't earned the trust to believe it'll be anywhere near that date.

It kinda reminds me of a former job.

I worked for an ISP who also dabbled in other ventures.

When ever those ventures weren't performing - in whatever manner - the boss, quite irate, would call a meeting and demand answers about why there wasn't more business coming in and what had to be done to fix it.

The people, who had no clue how to turn it around immediately went with:

"Well I think if the website were re-designed and looked better..."

One website, in particular, was redesigned 4 times... Once via out-sourcing to an outside design firm. The business never took off.

Why? Because the business itself sucked and the best looking website in the world wasn't going to change anyone's mind.

Seems to be a remote parallel in approach between that job and FC witih AoC:
"If it's not performing or otherwise lacking... make it look prettier"

The difference is... in my case, the story had a quasi-happy ending. Someone finally had the balls to stand up one day and say, in a nutshell "It's not doing well because it sucks and no one is interested in it"... and proceeded to explain why.

He asked the others (who'd recommended the re-designs) if they agreed. They sheepishly did.

He gave the person who spoke up a raise... he fired the others who'd been blowing smoke and wasting more of his money in the process.

Originally posted by WSIMike

It kinda reminds me of a former job.

I worked for an ISP who also dabbled in other ventures.

When ever those ventures weren't performing - in whatever manner - the boss, quite irate, would call a meeting and demand answers about why there wasn't more business coming in and what had to be done to fix it.

The people, who had no clue how to turn it around immediately went with:

"Well I think if the website were re-designed and looked better..."

One website, in particular, was redesigned 4 times... Once via out-sourcing to an outside design firm. The business never took off.

Why? Because the business itself sucked and the best looking website in the world wasn't going to change anyone's mind.

Seems to be a remote parallel in approach between that job and FC witih AoC:
"If it's not performing or otherwise lacking... make it look prettier"

The difference is... in my case, the story had a quasi-happy ending. Someone finally had the balls to stand up one day and say, in a nutshell "It's not doing well because it sucks and no one is interested in it"... and proceeded to explain why.

He asked the others (who'd recommended the re-designs) if they agreed. They sheepishly did.

He gave the person who spoke up a raise... he fired the others who'd been blowing smoke and wasting more of his money in the process.

Great story. I give credit to the head man for  being an exception to the norm in business. Most peoples egos are far to large to do something like that even though it would turn many bad ideas around.

Originally posted by Imjin

We've had a sneak peek at the final Age of Conan DirectX 10 content

this statement alone tells me Funcom simply does not get it whatsoever.

Like putting lipstick on a pig.

Originally posted by Bladeinhand

Like putting lipstick on a pig.

lol

Funcom still doesn't get.  Gameplay > graphics, always, yet they continue to push for graphics.  You can have the greatest graphics ever, but if your game plays like crap and 95% of your people are crashing twice a night or can't play at all because of bugs, wtf is the point of the DX10 graphics?  I hope they enjoy the fact they'll keep their 50,000 graphix nut gamers happy with DX10 while their 1,000,000 customers that went on to WAR or back to WoW enjoy games that can actually be played.

Again, I can't believe they didn't learn anything from Vanguard:SOH.

Originally posted by Enigma

Originally posted by Imjin

We've had a sneak peek at the final Age of Conan DirectX 10 content

 

this statement alone tells me Funcom simply does not get it whatsoever.

Unless I misunderstood the author is not from Funcom, no? Or do you mean the fact that Funcom only gave the author a sneak peak as opposed to a thorough viewing?

Anyhow, I would really love to see the Conan world with DX10 enabled. It looked fantastic in DX9 and I can only imagine it will be superb in DX10. Unfortunately though i think my pride will prevent that from happening. Having been lied to and imo mistreated by Funcom I cannot bring myself to consider resubbing to AoC. I simply hate Funcom too much. The thought of giving them money makes me nauseous.