GridStream Productions

Most anybody who knows me knows that I'm always more in tune with the little things involved with a new patch or expansion that might not always get noticed by the average player. Of course, that often comes at the expense of noticing a lot of the significant stuff, that I later have to be told about and say something to the effect of "oh DUH, I've been doing it the hard way all this time!"

Anyway, the little things involved in the LE patch, noticed with a couple alt missions today...

1. Character animations seem a bit smoother yet more pronounced - headbob is WAY more pronounced, and your character shifts around while standing still, which jostles the camera about a little bit. A bit disorienting at first, but I'm getting used to it, and it's a pretty neat effect, gives a bit more of an immersive feel to the environment.

2. If you enter the game with sound off, turning it on will not take effect until you zone. Once it's been on at least once in the session, though, it'll be instant toggle again.

3. Footsteps are back! They've cranked the volume up on footsteps again. I REALLY liked that feature, and I'm very happy it's back again.

4. On relation to that last note, it seems that the sound effects have been more normalized. Now I can now turn volume up to easily hear the background ambience without eardrum explosion at every attack & grunt sound.

5. Character vocal reactions to being hit seem to either have more channels now, or otherwise just reworked in the code. During fights, you'll hear an "ouch grunt" every single time a hit is scored on either side. Until this point, it was kind of random and didn't happen every hit. Just noticed as well, my burst shot causes them to ouch-grunt in the same automatic fashion, pretty humorous. (this might have been from an earlier patch and I hadn't noticed til now)

6. Don't know exactly where or how this one happened, but I noticed that I no longer need my mouse lag fix turned on anymore, which is nice because frame-rate is smoother with it off.

7. Finishing a mission no longer plays the little mission jingle. I assume it was recently lumped in with the "music off" function. Good idea, I grew weary of that sound.

8. Just noticed that full-body nano effects (like coat of barbs) irradiate over my entire yalm. This one might have always been in place, or at least for some time, and I just never had them turned on while yalming, but I don't recall it ever being that way, it's a pretty cool effect, especially the sparkly ones as they trail backwards during flight.

9. Mouselook: as in the patch notes, the left mouse button is now enabled for mouselook while in 3rd person (gotta be clicking on non-interactive stuff though). This is both good and bad. I love mouselook and I'm glad to see it enabled without the use of the ctrl key, but you still have to hit 5 on the numpad to recenter the camera. If they could make a togglable option to force the camera back to default position after mouselooking, THAT would be perfect.

10. Mechs + Female chars = Gynecologist chair. x.x

Reet wrote:10. Mechs + Female chars = Gynecologist chair. x.x

Glad I didn't pre-order then!

Personal research+ global research= Ill never see level 54 :p

My only question: Do the mechs dance???

No, they dont dance, or jump for that mater.

Ahahaha, Valli.... one of the first things I did was /ballet. XD

i like being able to scroll into first person.


Also the team alien missions rock, lots of fun and fairly quick

The only thing that is really pissing me off is the left-mouse button camera control. Two things:
1) Sure it's great when you are standing still, but when you are moving and you try to move your camera around it starts zooming out. It will even zoom out further then what's usually allowed using Minus key on your number pad. I tested it and I almost got clear on the other side of the zone before I zoomed back in on my yalm. Please fix that NOW!! heh

2) You can't have your mouse over anything....ANYTHING interactive or you have to click again. So good luck if you are in an alien raid and want to change your camera angle with your mouse. I wish they would make it as smooth as WoW (Even though I despise the game, it has good camera controls or maybe even make it the scroll button like City of Heroes/Villains.

I'm sure both of these issues have already been brought up several times on the AO Forums, so no need to clog the Devs with such information. I just hope it gets fixed soooooon!

I've noticed something kind of wierd when using my yalm now. When flying up or down it tends to level off on its own unless I'm going at a steep angle. Kind of annoying but I guess I'll get used to it.

Meenstreek wrote:The only thing that is really pissing me off is the left-mouse button camera control. Two things:
1) Sure it's great when you are standing still, but when you are moving and you try to move your camera around it starts zooming out. It will even zoom out further then what's usually allowed using Minus key on your number pad. I tested it and I almost got clear on the other side of the zone before I zoomed back in on my yalm. Please fix that NOW!! heh

2) You can't have your mouse over anything....ANYTHING interactive or you have to click again. So good luck if you are in an alien raid and want to change your camera angle with your mouse. I wish they would make it as smooth as WoW (Even though I despise the game, it has good camera controls or maybe even make it the scroll button like City of Heroes/Villains.

I'm sure both of these issues have already been brought up several times on the AO Forums, so no need to clog the Devs with such information. I just hope it gets fixed soooooon!

yep i've reported it the day of the expansion ... my only response was "oh we don't have any other reports of this, can it be replicated" ... i was like >< ... can't be much clearer, hold your mouse and move....

god love what they provide, but sometimes you just gotta smack your forehead and be like WTF?

I have to admit that I have yet to experience this problem in play, and I have selected monsters while running quite often. The camera would only wig out if I A) missed the monster and clicked somewhere inactive, and B) if I held down the mouse button for a time longer than I have my delay set to in F10 (I think a half second right now).

My immediate response to someone with the complaint would likely be: set your mouse click delay higher, and improve your aim when clicking.

I know, I know, I'm probably just not experiencing the same problem, that's just what I'm seeing from my particular standpoint, but quite a few people seem to be up in arms about it, so it must be a problem.

Tarryk, I have to agree that I can't really see what the issue is here. I tried to get someone to explain it to me on the AO forums, but even the explaination that I got did not help me to see it. Granted I've only tried this when trying to kill 'rats in the BY for my shirt. But still, I didn't have near the issue that others seem to have. From what people have said, mouse lag seems to be the biggest cause of the problem. In that when their mouse lags they accidentally hit something they shouldn't, causing their cam to be screwy. But I've always had problems with mouse lag on my old clunker and I still haven't experienced this particular problem. Maybe that's because I'm so used to the lag that I've learned how to compensate for it (being patient for that extra moment before actually clicking)?

It's best experianced when you get in your yalm. Just hold down your forward button your keyboard and then click in your left mouse button like you are wanting to move around your camera. Your yalm will keep moving forward while your camera seems to stop following your yalm. It may have to do with which camera style you are using. The one I use all the time while not in missions is 3rd Person Trail. I haven't tried it in other camera views yet. Although I'm pretty sure it does it in 3rd Person Lock as well, cause I remember it pissing me off in missions.

The issue I'm talking about is when you are trying to move your camera and click your left mouse button and it doesn't, I guess lack for better words, "grab hold of the camera". You have to click over and over again till it works. And it has to do with if your mouse button was highlighting something interactive like a door, mob, player, NPC, pick-up-able items, ect....

See that issue I can agree with, and I can't stand it. I've addressed that a few times now, the free-cam movement with the mouse works exactly as it did when you had to use the numpad to rotate the camera: if you're in motion, the camera just trails off without locking it's distance from your avatar like it should.

The issue that Valli and I are talking about is when people say the cam wigs out simply by selecting a creature while in motion. This would happen, but only if you weren't actually clicking on the creature, and only then if you were holding the mouse button beyond the delay you've set for it.

So basically same problem, two different circumstances.

But I agree wholeheartedly that the freecam needs a LOT of adjusting to really be worthwhile. Primary issue to be resolved: LOCK cam distance from avatar while in freelook! I hope they can do it, but I don't know for sure since it's embedded all the way down the very original coding in AO, and it might not be something they can't dig out. All they did with the mouselook was rebind the numpad keys to it.

Narcotic wrote:i like being able to scroll into first person.


Also the team alien missions rock, lots of fun and fairly quick

True they are fun and quick, but addictive too. As proof: