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Nixon
23-02-06, 23:49
Well.. Where could i start.. Hm,

I loved the game when the retail came out, there wasn't anything that could compete with it.
The storyline is quite fine, tho honestly said i never was too interested in that kind of stuff.
The graphics was quite good and the bugs didn't bug me that much back then. The atmosphere
was the 'thing' that kept me playing even 10 hours per day sometimes.

The same 'thing' is in the game still but not nearly as deep as before. Big factors of it is missing
along the many lost players and the rough sides of the game start bothering even more.

First of all when i reactivated my account about a week ago i thought there would be less bugs
and the game would have 'evo'lved to the state of a retail game and not the beta stage where
it had been at the times when there was actually people around.

I was dissapointed, seriously, but not suprised at all. The game looks the same, many models
have been updated, some towards worse and some well improved but the weird thing is that
the engine is alot heavier with such a small visual change.

I couldn't believe my eyes when NC2 had my system crawling on it's knees when i strolled
through the swamp sectors with all the 2d sprites. (amd 64 3k+, r9800xt, 1gbddr) The worst
thing was that you can't even remove them from options anymore.

The game stability is pretty much the same as always before for me. Fatal runtime errors occur
every now and then, basically more than in any game that I've played in the last i dont know
how many years. Alt-tabbing in wastelands crashes the client.

The 'last nail in the coffin' in my book is the lack of players in Neocron. It's a fact that not even
the most enthusiastic NC fanboi can't deny, there isn't enough players in this game to call it a
MMORPG. It's more like a MORPG. It has been going this way for a long time and the downhill
probably won't stop unless the developers do more than one miracle. I'd picture the game as a
slowly sinking ship with people trying to sling the water back with too small buckets.

To Reakktor i'd say you've done a great job building something like this and i really hope you got
some other project under work already for the MMO gaming community while you keep patching
NC to try and keep it alive until you can move on.

I myself will keep playing casually and do stuff with my ingame buddies until i don't feel like it
anymore. The payment is not a factor that would keep me from hanging around from time to time.

--

ps. Do note that these are my views pointed out as objectively as i can. I have no grudge for
anything, just simply sharing my thoughts with other players.

pss. This ain't a "nc will die now" post either, saying such is quite light-minded as the game
can keep on and up for years and such things have been said before many, many times.

Hell-demon
23-02-06, 23:53
Very good points and analogies


A+

cRazy-
24-02-06, 00:09
[ edited ]

Hell-demon
24-02-06, 00:15
[ edited due to sexyness ]

cRazy-
24-02-06, 00:29
[ edited ]

Nixon
24-02-06, 00:32
Because of rerolling i havent been able to try out the current end-game pvp
much at all this time, tho i've heard the class balance ain't working currently.
I suppose it's more towards the monk-o-cron as ever before.

Maybe I'll get my tanks strength capped soon enough and find out by meself.

My fourth str capped tank.. I'm mad..

Nidhogg
24-02-06, 00:35
cRazy-, next time you want to shoot the breeze with someone about MSN, do it by PM.

Speaking personally, NC2 is a lot more stable and about a hundred times faster than NC1 ever was. I think most people would say that NC2 was faster but it's true that some people do find that it crawls and I don't think there's any good explanation for that.

To address the second post, there's not a single analogy in there. :p

N

/edit - ok, a hundred times faster is an exageration. The point is that for most people the engine is much faster, even out in the wastes with full vegetation.

Hell-demon
24-02-06, 00:38
Yeah I reroll alot too :(


Mostly little things like character models is what makes me reroll 8|

Apocalypsox
24-02-06, 00:43
Well for most people bugs have reduced a bloody huge amount. some people get them more. but the thing i say is that NC would be just another game if it didnt have fatals.
it gives the game something others dont- a random element of OMFG AM I GOING TO FATAL AT AN OP WAR AND GET ASSPOUNDED? its just that little bit of randomness that makes it interesting.

Tratos
24-02-06, 00:56
I get alot less FREs in Neocron 2 then i did in NC1 and i can get up to 70 FPS in the swamps with mid veg distance and full detail, if i crank up the veg distance that drops to about 40.

Which is alot better than 7 :)

In regards to models although the quality of the newer player models are alot better theres a few characterising skins i do miss and would love to see make a high res come back such as the spy suit and the funky green combat jacket spys had too :) The wastelands do look alot better now as do some areas of the city which had higher res textures applied (Outzone 6 looks very nice now ;)) but i think even they could be better, the rest of city zones need the make over too aswell to be honest to give better continuity.

Alot of systems deffinetly need re-doing or even just finishing to make the game more feature rich as thats one thing i feel it isnt very and as for population - i'd deffinetly like to see that go up.

Neocron may have some people but it deffinetly is alot less than we used to have around when you'd see Saturn make 500.

Terayon
24-02-06, 00:57
Its weird becouse i never fatal anymore. Like 2 times a month so far. And i can run around anywhere with good fps and for the most part a worse system then yours, and in the watelands with full vegitation.

I still have other problems with nc2. Balance and the server/netcode issues mostly. I think kk should take the guy off of FRE's and try to optimize this server stuff so we can actualy see people where they are, and have it updated like 10 times a second atleast.

Nixon
24-02-06, 01:02
"FRE - Working as intended - adds excitement to PvP"

To be honest I never had vegetation on in NC1 due to slower machine.. If i tried
my comp would cry and melt on the floor if i didn't turn them off in 10 seconds.

Still it's amazing how much such effect affects the framerate.. Or then again it
ain't.. It's just LOADS of sprites on top of eachother, more than most systems
can handle without going to crawl-mode. For such things there still should be
an option to turn them off and leave it for the players who have high-end rig.
Problem would ofcourse be that other side would gain quite an advantage
there but it's better than forcing players to keep it on.

Perhaps a thing to keep an eye on for the devs while working on updates..

Nidhogg
24-02-06, 01:51
The reason why vegetation was fixed on was because the engine was upgraded to cope with it. Seriously, most people run much faster in the wastes with full vegetation than they did in NC1 with no vegetation.

N

Mr Kot
24-02-06, 01:59
The reason why vegetation was fixed on was because the engine was upgraded to cope with it. Seriously, most people run much faster in the wastes with full vegetation than they did in NC1 with no vegetation.

Nnot to mention that it removes the advantage that players "in the know" had over those who had their vegetation turned on by default/choice ;)

DIS
24-02-06, 01:59
The reason why vegetation was fixed on was because the engine was upgraded to cope with it. Seriously, most people run much faster in the wastes with full vegetation than they did in NC1 with no vegetation.

N

Very true, since the Evo patch my FPS has increased in Op's (large scale OP wars to say 40fps) and the swamp areas I am hitting 60+...

IMO KK need to fix the synchs, netcode and sort the rest of those annoying fatals when more than 3 people enter a zone at the same time etc...

Kame
24-02-06, 02:33
A lot of small things added up together make for a rather unpolished finished product.

Small things, yet, that seem so small that it feels like they shouldve been taken care of ages ago.(FRE chance seem to go up when u trade/use terms, trade bugs, local bugs,unsuccessful logins - missing inv. gogo,ingame mail spam)

And big things, like sync bugs (randomly syncing to another area of the game anyone ?) and net lag (mellee tank ?)

A lot of ppl feel like they couldve kept on playing for another year with the old gun models, but without these bugs.
Ading new content didnt help make the community feel its input was totaly disregarded.

Rob01m
24-02-06, 02:33
cRazy-, next time you want to shoot the breeze with someone about MSN, do it by PM.

Speaking personally, NC2 is a lot more stable and about a hundred times faster than NC1 ever was. I think most people would say that NC2 was faster but it's true that some people do find that it crawls and I don't think there's any good explanation for that.

To address the second post, there's not a single analogy in there. :p

N

/edit - ok, a hundred times faster is an exageration. The point is that for most people the engine is much faster, even out in the wastes with full vegetation.

I definately agree. I started up again recently and was surprised with the changes in stability. I remember before, I had some issues with vegetation and frame rates went anywhere from 10 - 300. I have V-Sync enabled these days, so no more 300 ;) , but even in the mc5 starter area with the vegetation on fully I was getting a solid 85 FPS (85hz is my refresh rate). That didn't dip at all that I noticed.

I haven't had a fatal runtime error yet, although I notice there seems to be a memory leak - or something similar at least. ALT-TAB seems to work fine as long as you click the tab instead of cycling.

Definately some nice improvements for stability. :D