GridStream Productions

by **Mivat** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 12:04 pm

I do hope they manage to tweak things, not the least the water which has a very liquid metal/quicksilver-look to it. This is often something that gamedevs aren't able to do properly, which is a tad sad.

Overall I have to say that it looks good. Maybe I'm just a traditionalist, but it looks TOO good for my taste, even for an Alpha-build. Too polished, if you will. The nature-shots are very nice and it looks like you're in nature (almost Oblivion-style), but for example Omni Ent doesn't look oppressive enough in comparison to what I remember it to look like. Athens was very nice, though.

I hope they don't polish things too much, as parts of Ka is supposed to look like it's been through a major war (which, incidentally, it has on several occations). Will be fun to see mobs/NPC's/players in the new engine. Hell, it might even bring me back to Ka again if it's good enough.

by **Bluerush2** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 12:28 pm

Sydney69 wrote:It is very very great but... now my personal question is "Could I be able to use AO on my machine in the future..."

Actual ao graphics are not great but at least I can play the game.
I have not the money to buy a new computer, so I just hope my AMD Athlon 64x2 3800, 2Gb Ram and my Geforce6800 GS/XT could be sufficient for this next AO engine

If anything it'll run even better as all the taxing stuff will be moved away from the cpu and on to the gpu. It's grrrreat!

by **Zooz** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:22 pm

Wow, that almost makes me want to play AO again

About the system requirements, I'm sure they're showing it off at the highest settings there and you can probably tone the graphics down to get AO to run on older PC's. Heh, maybe an improved engine will even mean it'll run better on older PC's at the lowest settings.

by **Robotsarebad** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 11:51 pm

looks great..
loved the "still alive" at the end.

all hail funcom

by **Shigy** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:51 am

For people worrying about whether there computer will run this it will almost deffantly run better unless your computer is from when AO was first realised (as in before all the expansions) as AO is using very old technology for it graphics which is why a computer upgrade does almost nothing for its performance these days. At the moment almost all the strain is put on the CPU. Hopefully with this graphics update (which I'm sure is still a way off although I would love to be wrong) it shall all run better.

And sydney your computer will deffantly run it.

by **Firia** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 7:15 am

Here's what I'm hoping the new engine will do; bring back some of the old AO communities that I knew and loved. Some good people drifted away with time.

I do like to reminise about the good ol' days of AO.

by **Eleanore69** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:12 am

Shigy wrote:For people worrying about whether there computer (...) And sydney your computer will deffantly run it.

Great to read that!

by **Nexeus** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 2:58 am

... interesting...

by **Firia** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:33 am

Nexeus wrote:... interesting...

Don't you mean, "pimpin'" or something pimp worthy?

by **Nexeus** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 6:27 pm

Firia wrote:
Nexeus wrote:... interesting...

Don't you mean, "pimpin'" or something pimp worthy?

Naah, we'll stick with interesting right now - mainly because this has been an enginge change that had been talked about since... D'Con 05, or 06.

It gets upgraded after a few we see a few other models, such as, Shadowlands, Character Models, Pets, Yalms, etc, etc...

... am I being insanely critical, yesh. Why for a bunch of reasons that possibly require a pm :-D

(no flame war here).

http://www.youtube.com/user/Tarryk · by **Tarryk** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 10:47 pm

Oh, it's been in talks a lot longer than that.

As has Conan, among countless other projects that aren't really doomed to the ultimate inevitable failure that every aged Bitter-Ex-Player seems to convince themselves about every time Funcom so much as breathes on good idea.

This new dev team kicks serious ass, and I have every confidence in their ability to see it through to it's full potential. Especially considering the crazy-cool changes I've seen this past year.

by **Gridfan** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:55 am

I find it very gutsy the current team decide to redo the graphics engine.
I suspect it was not just customer demands but their own frustration in how things are inside the AO game engine. (I suspect they've been slowly "improving" various internal code in the client the last year or so.)
And I'm sure a lot of code and ideas are "borrowed" from the Age of Conan game engine. (saves development time)

by **Firia** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 5:43 am

Tarryk wrote:Oh, it's been in talks a lot longer than that. As has Conan, among countless other projects that aren't really doomed to the ultimate inevitable failure that every aged Bitter-Ex-Player seems to convince themselves about every time Funcom so much as breathes on good idea.

GASP! Funcom breathes?! There is life :?:

Quick! I need to phone Vegas! All of it!

by **Nexeus** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 7:35 pm

Tarryk wrote:Oh, it's been in talks a lot longer than that. As has Conan, among countless other projects that aren't really doomed to the ultimate inevitable failure that every aged Bitter-Ex-Player seems to convince themselves about every time Funcom so much as breathes on good idea.

This new dev team kicks serious ass, and I have every confidence in their ability to see it through to it's full potential. Especially considering the crazy-cool changes I've seen this past year.

Hey, take that back, I'm not bitter! Just slight annoyed and or sorbet flavored :-P

Again it's cool that they are doing it, FINALLY, much like the social clothing thing, FINALLY, but I always have the same conversations when I talk to dev teams and some companies, don't just say your going to do something, come out and be freaking honest about it. I'm honestly glad that they are doing it though.

by **Dedojo** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 2:48 pm

Graphics where never my issue with AO... the repetative grind to 220 and and the rediculous need to have one specific weapon and armor set to make myself viable at all for pvp are why I quit. Players selling items for more money then a character is even capable of possesing via the games codeing.

I miss the community but the game just became a complete and total snorefest. Leveling was a prolongated joke forcing you to run the same group missions against the same creatures over and over again, or farming hecklers for 20 hours a day to even hope to level.

And frankly I think as beautiful as some of the shadowland zones where, I think they where poorly implemented and poorly used. I also think they tried to turn the game into some midevil fantasy, and pulled away from the sci-fi conlony conflict experience.

by **Mivat** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 7:16 pm

Looks good. Too bad it's two years too late for my part *shrugs*

http://www.youtube.com/user/Tarryk · by **Tarryk** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 7:51 pm

I'm so happy there's a whole new generation of active AO players who enjoy the game for what it is, and really look forward to this graphics boost.

by **Firia** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:14 pm

yeah, but I still want muh stories.

Hail to the RP generation of AO!

by **Arcblade** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:11 am

all i have to say is I've seen those type of screen shots for every mmo that i have played and then they decided to update it, the graphics might be a little more that 2/3's of the screen shots so they don't loose too many people to computer limitations

It would be uberz sweet if that was the real graphics though :shock:

, just gotta hope

GridStream Productions

New AO engine video - Awesome!

Hmmm

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