My Ncsoft Story

Slangroth

Yesterday marked my 5th Ncsoft game. Out of all the 5 ive tried, I disliked all of them.

My first game was Guild Wars, bought a few months after I quit WoW. After a few hours in teh game I could not take it anymore. For one the graphics engine is horrible. Animations are horrible ( including movement) and for some weird reason when there are a few people on screen my fps drops, even with every setting turned down,exept resolution(1152 x 864).

Shortly after I bought City of Villains, I was persuaded by the sales res at ebgames. This game was a little different, Though the graphics were kind of the same, laggy with most settings down, I bared with the game. I liked the character customization options. they were so many that I doubt i'd see someone who looked like me, which is a + in any game. After a while though it somewhat got boring. I reached level 11 or so and for the entire time I would do the same thing, get quest, go in a dungeon alone, kill 1 guy and go back. It always seemed the same. I also realized the horrible combat system at this time, everything was so slow, it was hard to believe that I was even fighting. I made a blaster character to see if anything was fast paced, but yet it was slow and made me feel as it I was not in a fight. I quit this game shortly after because I thought, "I cant pvp like this"

I also had a CoH trial, from the CoV package, but it was the same story.

Next game up was Lineage 2. After browsing through customization options I was sure disappointed, but I played on. This game also had a horrible graphics engine, and did not play well. The game was pretty interesting for the first hour or so, but then it struck me. I speak to an npc, they tell me to go kill some things, and maybe when im a higher level I can go kill another set of things. I uninstalled the game the next day.

Lastly, I tried auto assault. Customization options were weak, but who cares eh? im gonna be in a car. So anyway I begin playing, and notice, that its the same engine as CoV and CoH.After getting through the introduction, it was out to the field. I shot my machine gun(which was mounted on top) and noticed like 4-5 straight going red shots, but then I watched the marks on the wall and realized that for some off reason the hit area is spread out.

for instance the + is where the red shots went, and the .'s are where the bullet marks were.

.         .        +        .         .

So anyway after playing this game I found that the missions werent interesting and it was overall boring. I still have the subscription though, I will play it a little more today.

I did not post this to flame any games, as my English teacher said, "Aristotle would never insult his audience when writing to them" It would be foolish to flame games which are played by alot of people here, its just my two sense on the games of Ncsoft I have tried so far.

In summary I found these similar in most of the games.

1) Crappy instructions, usually for trial games. For instance in Auto assault they say there are two installers, one up to level 20 and a full one, the one up to level 20 being alot smaller. They linked an FTP site, where the files are supposed to be, but to my suprise only the full one was there, yay for me a 2 gig download instead of a 700 mb one. For lineage two I had to wait 1 hour in line from fileplaned to download a 2 gig file on Internet Explorers default download. So if anything happened I cant resume the download.

2) Bad graphics engine, and graphics.  The screenshots are eyepiercing, but its weird that when in the game the graphics look probably like a nintendo 64 game with higher resolution(even when all settings are up) so bad and get such low fps, even when settings are fully down.

3) Level up system isnt too shabby, usually consists of grind and repetitive, and I mean repetitive things, even in dungeons. In CoV it was the same damn thing each time, go in some underground place and kill a head snake or so, or go in a casino and kill the head snake.

4) I really think they need to just get their own download server for clients and stuff, because they do sell the games online. It wasnt too big a problem for me on downloads as I was going at 700 kb/s usually.

5) Combat and animations look very unreal, and combat is usually slow and again, boring.

Overall what I liked about the games was maybe the storyline, they were pretty interesting.

Thats all for now that I can say, please dont reply saying bla bla ure lame all those games rock and you suck, like I said its just what I found interesting when I played.

Edit: just incase you were wondering what kind of pc I have,

its 2.8ghz pentium 4, eVGA 6600gt video card, 1024 ddr 3200 memory, 450 watt powersuply and a 7200 rpm 35 gig hardrive( I have a 120 gig in my other pc, dont want to switch though), my sound card is a creative sound blaster live, mouse is steelpad qck+, mouse is a logitech mx518 gaming mouse, headset is a plantonics, and speakers are a 3 piece logitech set,

gping to upgrade when the DX10 video cards come out

Unknown

I am uncertain what your problem is with the graphics.  I never lag in Guild Wars and rarely lagged in AA when i played it.  Although I have heard of other people with lag in AA.

The Guild Wars graphics are certainly superior to WoWs.  I have played them both on highest settings and have spoken with a graphics programming professional that I know personally his verdict was similar to mine.

I am not saying any of these games have awesome graphics engines or whatever but GW's is as good as any other.  All you have to do is look at the water rendering in WoW versus GW to see that.

I am also uncertain why you dislike the animations in GW as they seem comparable to WoW to me. 

Gameloading

One thing is for sure. Its your computer that is the problem, not the game'sdid you check if everything was working in order?I own all Ncsoft games, and Guild Wars, L2, CoH and Auto Assault all run like a charm, although I did have some problem with CoV, which is strange, as its the same engine as COH. and I hardly have a great system.

Also, Lineage 2 on highest settings graphics easily blows most other MMO's out of the water, Guild Wars's Graphics are decent, Auto assault's are nice, and CoH/CoV's are simply outdated.

Your complaints about the games are correct, Except for Lineage 2's. you didn't play enough to fully judge the game yet, as you didn't experience the feature the game is all about: PVP. but the grind in Lineage 2 is indeed heavy.

I personally liked City of Heroes. Not a game to play for months, but I did enjoy the 3 months I spend playing it. fun game.

I don't really agree with your comment about the animations either.

But you made a good post.

on a sidenote, if you download the fileplanet download client, then you wouldn't have the download problem.

Meon

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Originally posted by Slangroth
Yesterday marked my 5th Ncsoft game. Out of all the 5 ive tried, I disliked all of them.
My first game was Guild Wars, bought a few months after I quit WoW. After a few hours in teh game I could not take it anymore. For one the graphics engine is horrible. Animations are horrible ( including movement) and for some weird reason when there are a few people on screen my fps drops, even with every setting turned down,exept resolution(1152 x 864).
Shortly after I bought City of Villains, I was persuaded by the sales res at ebgames. This game was a little different, Though the graphics were kind of the same, laggy with most settings down, I bared with the game. I liked the character customization options. they were so many that I doubt i'd see someone who looked like me, which is a + in any game. After a while though it somewhat got boring. I reached level 11 or so and for the entire time I would do the same thing, get quest, go in a dungeon alone, kill 1 guy and go back. It always seemed the same. I also realized the horrible combat system at this time, everything was so slow, it was hard to believe that I was even fighting. I made a blaster character to see if anything was fast paced, but yet it was slow and made me feel as it I was not in a fight. I quit this game shortly after because I thought, "I cant pvp like this"
I also had a CoH trial, from the CoV package, but it was the same story.
Next game up was Lineage 2. After browsing through customization options I was sure disappointed, but I played on. This game also had a horrible graphics engine, and did not play well. The game was pretty interesting for the first hour or so, but then it struck me. I speak to an npc, they tell me to go kill some things, and maybe when im a higher level I can go kill another set of things. I uninstalled the game the next day.
Lastly, I tried auto assault. Customization options were weak, but who cares eh? im gonna be in a car. So anyway I begin playing, and notice, that its the same engine as CoV and CoH.After getting through the introduction, it was out to the field. I shot my machine gun(which was mounted on top) and noticed like 4-5 straight going red shots, but then I watched the marks on the wall and realized that for some off reason the hit area is spread out.
for instance the + is where the red shots went, and the .'s are where the bullet marks were.
. . + . .
So anyway after playing this game I found that the missions werent interesting and it was overall boring. I still have the subscription though, I will play it a little more today.
I did not post this to flame any games, as my English teacher said, "Aristotle would never insult his audience when writing to them" It would be foolish to flame games which are played by alot of people here, its just my two sense on the games of Ncsoft I have tried so far.
In summary I found these similar in most of the games.
1) Crappy instructions, usually for trial games. For instance in Auto assault they say there are two installers, one up to level 20 and a full one, the one up to level 20 being alot smaller. They linked an FTP site, where the files are supposed to be, but to my suprise only the full one was there, yay for me a 2 gig download instead of a 700 mb one. For lineage two I had to wait 1 hour in line from fileplaned to download a 2 gig file on Internet Explorers default download. So if anything happened I cant resume the download.
2) Bad graphics engine, and graphics. The screenshots are eyepiercing, but its weird that when in the game the graphics look probably like a nintendo 64 game with higher resolution(even when all settings are up) so bad and get such low fps, even when settings are fully down.
3) Level up system isnt too shabby, usually consists of grind and repetitive, and I mean repetitive things, even in dungeons. In CoV it was the same damn thing each time, go in some underground place and kill a head snake or so, or go in a casino and kill the head snake.
4) I really think they need to just get their own download server for clients and stuff, because they do sell the games online. It wasnt too big a problem for me on downloads as I was going at 700 kb/s usually.
5) Combat and animations look very unreal, and combat is usually slow and again, boring.
Overall what I liked about the games was maybe the storyline, they were pretty interesting.
Thats all for now that I can say, please dont reply saying bla bla ure lame all those games rock and you suck, like I said its just what I found interesting when I played.
Edit: just incase you were wondering what kind of pc I have,
its 2.8ghz pentium 4, eVGA 6600gt video card, 1024 ddr 3200 memory, 450 watt powersuply and a 7200 rpm 35 gig hardrive( I have a 120 gig in my other pc, dont want to switch though), my sound card is a creative sound blaster live, mouse is steelpad qck+, mouse is a logitech mx518 gaming mouse, headset is a plantonics, and speakers are a 3 piece logitech set,
gping to upgrade when the DX10 video cards come out

---

Everyone has their own opinion
I personally don't like any NCsoft games exept for Guild Wars.
Just one question, if you think GW graphics are bad... can you point me to a game which you think has "good" graphics? No sarcasm intended.

brutotal

You turned all of the graphics down and then complained about bad graphics. Nice.



GW and L2 are a great visual feast but your computer can't handle it. That is also the reason for the lag.

treysmooth

To me, it sounds like you need to upgrade your computer.  I play guildwars and COX and have no lag in guild wars and next to none in COH sans Atlas when there are a bunch of people in the area.  I have all the graphics in both games maxed and can say that they are some of the best in mmo's in my humble opinion.  At the same time I can say I have a friend that was running it on a crappy graphics card and cpu and had the settings down and the games looked like a crappy cartoon.  I'm a computer tech so I presuded him to upgrade his processor and his graphics card to a 7600gt(inexpensive and powerful for the price) and he loves it now.  I hear alot of people say man the lag is bad today in COH and then I ask for system specs and its clear why.  If you don't have it you need at min a gig of ram(I run two gigs dual channel)  I reccommend a 7600gt or above if you really want the graphics to shine and a cpu of 2800 to 3000 range min intel or amd doesn't seem to matter with COH/guildwars(I have one of each both perform well).  My framerate never chugs in either game and the shadows, physics and effects all look good. 

The reason I say upgrade is if you came from WOW it kinda makes since as WOW requires pretty low system specs to run.  After Issue 7 in COX the physic update really pushed the system requirements up a bit.  I have a feeling if you upgrade your rig and manually set the graphics to 200 percent in everything you will have a completely different view of COH.  Hope this helps.

Lanmoragon

Yep, like a few others I would definitely have to say that a 6600GT isn't the star it used to be.  I remember not that long ago it was one of the most praised cards.  It was pretty cheap and for a mid-line card it ran great.  But that was a while ago.  I have a 7600GT, which I think is sorta like the new 6600GT.  Its cheap and runs everything great, but not every game at full settings (like EQ2).

Slangroth

I bought the 6600gt about 2 years ago, it was the 3rd best card on benchmarks.

And as for the one who said I turn them down and complain about graphics, I put them all the way up too, but it still doesnt really look that impressive.

On a side note, when I complain about lagging and poor performance I refer to anything lower than 65 fps. I like fps in 80's and 90's when theres not much going on, but when there pvp I can accept 30's and so. Its just my preference in games.

I go back to GW for a few, as I havent really played it that much.

and a game with better graphics? oblivion.

I would also like to note that one of my friends has a sapphire radeon 1900xtx, 2 gigs of ddr2 and he complains about CoV messing up.

I have also played Guild Wars on a 6800ultra at a lan center last year.

on a side note I play several other games as BF2, Counter Strike source etc.

Greatness

1)Do you mean instructions to download the game or how to play?

2)Bad graphics? What games are you playing lol?

3)I agree with you here, most of the games are grind games except atleast in my opinion Guild Wars and Auto Assault are less of a grind.

4)I believe they do, not sure though.

5)You are kind of right.

Squall15

First, your comp might suck or just be full of virus/spyware. Spyware will exchange files through the internet which will greatly decrease performance in games ( lagz) I personally dont like their games either, but hey, everyone has their own opinions...

Slangroth

one of the games I play is far cry. that seems to have better grapihcs.

and for the instructions, I am refering to like download and install instructions, they seem unprofessional, I dont mind because god knows the amount of stuff ive done on my computer, but when it comes to installing an mmo they could make it simpler. Linking someone to an FTP server in my opinion is unprofessional.

computer has no spyware or virus' currently, like I said anything below70 fps is bad with exceptions of pvp, the average person sometimes considers 40 fps good etc

Squall15

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Originally posted by Slangroth

one of the games I play is far cry. that seems to have better grapihcs.
and for the instructions, I am refering to like download and install instructions, they seem unprofessional, I dont mind because god knows the amount of stuff ive done on my computer, but when it comes to installing an mmo they could make it simpler. Linking someone to an FTP server in my opinion is unprofessional.
computer has no spyware or virus' currently, like I said anything below70 fps is bad with exceptions of pvp, the average person sometimes considers 40 fps good etc

---

Make installing an MMO simpler? You put the disk in and press a few buttons and the rest is pretty much auto. Smiple enough? or am i missing something

OwenMcQ

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Originally posted by Slangroth
one of the games I play is far cry. that seems to have better grapihcs. and for the instructions, I am refering to like download and install instructions, they seem unprofessional, I dont mind because god knows the amount of stuff ive done on my computer, but when it comes to installing an mmo they could make it simpler. Linking someone to an FTP server in my opinion is unprofessional. computer has no spyware or virus' currently, like I said anything below70 fps is bad with exceptions of pvp, the average person sometimes considers 40 fps good etc

---

Far Cry (and many other games) have better graphics, but I don't see where this is a problem with NCSoft specifically.

MMORPGs tend to have much longer development cycles than games like Far Cry, which are designed just to show off graphics engines.  Therefore, their graphics are typically a tad behind "cutting edge".  The graphics in CoH weren't bad at the time, and I thought Guild Wars' graphics were perfectly acceptable.  Their new game, "Aion" looks fantastic, actually (in fact, it uses the CryTek engine).

As far as needing 70+ fps to play an MMORPG, I'm baffled.  Even in first person shooters, latency is a much larger issue than frames per second, and most MMORPGs aren't nearly as twitch-based, PvP or otherwise.

Bhazir

I own all games as well (except the expansion of GW).

1. Didn't have any problem getting AA installed (wich is the only game I don't have in a boxed version)
2. Well not sure but as the others pointed out, it is your system. I didn't have any problems with any of the graphic engines and I play them all on max. And some of those graphics are realy mindblowing. But well that is more a fact of taste isn't it?
3. Welcome to the most MMORPGs, every level based game is grind and even the skillbased ones are grindfest. How well those are hidden is of course another case. In COX however I never felt that I had to level up, same as in AA. The only game wich realy pushed me to get a higher level was L2 because it is a full open PvP world. And to be honest L2 is one of the most known grindings.Also the quest/missions I felt were different, but hey I read the background and I'm more interrested in the backstory behind a mission/quest. There aren't a lot of other mmorpgs out there that have other type of missions/quests like go kill x thing or get me x thing or any combination of it.
4. Most games I download aren't on the own servers of the game creators, only patches are. Why should a bussiness invest in own servers when it would be cheaper to host them on different services like fileplanet and so on?
5. again taste here, for me the COX combat looked nice, the AA fire for me spread out (yes even in graphics). Only L2 movement and fighting is a bit outdated, but it is also the oldest game between them.

So overall all 5 are just like any other mmorpg out there, limited in some way with their bad things and good things. Now go play Dark and Light and let see what you say about animations there

shae

Well... wow! Everyone has a right to their points of view and oppinions but I have to say, I cannot disagree more with 99.5% of what your saying. It's not that your way off base with everything your saying, you just have to take into conisderation the "type" of game your playing before your make a broad sweeping generalization about it's game play.

Lineage 2 for example, you fault it for it's "Quests"??? Well, wth did you expect! L2 isn't a questing game, it's not even a raiding game, it's a game that centers around PVP and Castle Sieging, it's a LONG grind because it's geared towards players that LIKE long grinds. Dear god it says it right on the back of the box? Then you going to get angry on NCSoft because a game isn't specifically designed as you'd like it to be? Ok sure, go ahead, but how does that make sense exactly?

Anyways, I think your making large sweeping assumptions here that really are not right. As far as your issues with every single graphical engine for every single game, well I think that's really more of an issue with game settings set to high on a lower end system or a poorly set up rig. I honestly loved the engine in both CoH and CoV, AA looked great too and L2 is what it is.

Anyways, just my 2 copper.

Unknown

It sounds like you are used to high graphics quality FPS games.  I'm sorry but not MMO compares to those.  You said you played WoW and yet you bash NCSoft games with better graphics than WoW.

I can understand being down on MMOs in general, but I don't understand why you single out NCSoft when you have played another MMO from a different company that has some of the same problems.

GW is better than WoW in probably 4 out of those 5 things you mention.  Client is easy as pie to install and network updates are far more efficient with its streaming content.  Graphics are better.  Performance tends to be better due to different network structure.  It is far less grindy, no question on that one.  Now if you don't like GW as a game that is fine, but I it seems to me that your point falls down if you are singling out NCSoft as Blizzard's flagship title is just as or more guilty.

ikra

its simple.. the main reason this guy is whining so much is because he has a crappy computer.. cant even run GW decently... no wonder all he can play is WoW i think....

crazy arsehole, buy a new pc and play the games again.. GW horrible graphics???? LOL!!!! youve gotta be kidding me right??? unless you cant actually see the graphics because yur PC cant handle it anyway

ab29x

OP: Sweet! Another bitch-whine-ouchmytainthurts complain thread.  Good for you and your craptastic experience with NCSoft products.  Who cares. To each... You're not special by a long shot.

People usually only pipe up on a positive note to rebuttle negative crap that they find absurd or something to that taste.  Otherwise they're busy enjoying what they are doing. 

Just because: L2 Love the game, wont play it because I don't have enough time to invest and I'd probably need a heavy dose of ritalin to be able to grind out past 25. 

GW - Couldn't get into it, along with AA. 

CoV - Friend of mine is a programmer at Cryptic up in SJ.  Was in on the betas, very vanilla to me.  He's now on Marvel.  Hopefully it will be nothing like CoX.

I also blame you that I'm up this early.  Your absoultely ridiculous space wasting excuse for a whine topic caused a disturbance in the force.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I lied.  It was the gail force winds we're having this morning in Anaheim, Ca

 

QSatu

About graphics.. my pc can hangle gw with max details better then wow
with mid/low details.. so you propably have some problems with you pc =]

I agree with everything what gestalt11 said =]

mbblade

well i ahve only played 3 of em and i would say i didn't mind any of them

fmaalex

if u didnt like the gameplay...i cant argue with u cuz u can have ur own opinion, lemme lay down a few facts before i bash the rest of ur post:

1. FPS games will ALWAYS have better graphics than MMOs from the same timeline. u cant compare the two, becuz the graphic engine and wat it contributes to the gameplay itself is completely different, so if u r saying the graphics sucks compare to FPS games....u need to quit MMOs

2. Lineage 2 has been out for 2+ years, GW has been out for 1+ year.

3. Graphic engine for all 5 games, its by the same company of course its gonna be similar

4. GW at HIGHEST setting runs faster than WoW in mid/low setting, tested on all 3 of my comps...say what u will about the realistic graphics of WoW, imho it looks like crap compare to GW

I'm re-reading ur post and typing as i go...so this post might be a bit random at times

k, first off, u played Farcry and stuff....good for u, u cant expect MMOs to have the same detail as a FPS, becuz the gameplay system is completely different, peeps have different opinions about which MMO has the best graphics (Realistic vs. artwork) but if u say L2 or GW has "bad" graphics after quitting a game like WoW, might wanna get ur eyes checked out. Also, L2 has been out for quite awhile so its not quite fair to compare its graphics to stuff that came out recently...even though imo L2 still has one of the top (not the top) designs and graphic engine in the MMO market today, GW certainly looks nicer than L2...but then again gameplay is different

I dunno wats wrong with ur comp, based on the specs u have it shouldnt lag even on highest settings in GW, can't say much about L2 cuz there are SO many characters in one screen its bound to lag...try sieging and u'll know wat i mean...but if u can run WoW, u can run GW just fine...but apparently u can't so u might wanna get ur comp checked out

Imo, L2 and GW's battle animation is a tat more realistic than WoW...dunno how u can even complain about that point, i'm sure i'm not the only one that takes this stance.

Its repetitive becuz it was designed that way to please hardcore gamers...read the million posts that was made on l2 alrdy...if u cant take the grind, dont play it cuz it will never be "fun" until u hit 70s, and that takes....forever

Tbh i got most of NC's games off Fileplanet...never had a problem there o.O

Customization of asian MMOs r usually very generic, if u dont like it then there's not much u can do about it really, however L2 does have more customization then most other Asian MMOs on the market (cept Systemholic Rohan, which has like 20million customizations options ^.^) i believe...6hairs and 6 faces and 4 different hair colours o.O

Bonzar

I thought Guild Wars was built on it's own engine and Lineage II was built on the Unreal 2 engine. Where'd you get the idea that all 5 games (by NCSoft?) were built on the same engine?

Thorneb

     Man I don't understand this myself. I have a wee 1.8 ghz with 1 gig ddr memory and a g-force 5500 graphics card with 128 megs of mem there. And I run Lineage II smoothly and guildwars also. And the graphics on both are fantastic compared to other games I've tried. Fps are not as important to me as latency either. I get good fps...just not the most important thing. And as for wow as an example has vibrant and colorful graphics but looks like saturday morning toons. Only game that gives me trouble is SWG since the screwed it all up lol.