wow, thats a damn good looking MMORPG.

Uuuuh pretty. If only I cared for MMORPGs.

BRB, changing underwear.

OMG! I "almost" thought that was a photograph... 'very realistic art style... 'very good.

(typo: Funcon = Funcom)

These are actually pretty decent screens for a game that I have not had high hopes for in the past. Who has the time for an MMO, though?

could someone explain to me how good local visuals cause network lag?

I have a friend that works there, he says its going to be fun. I think he is bias though.

Very Impressive.

Looks awesome, but I've sworn off buying MMOs without first playing a free trial.

Thing is... the graphics don't lag the net code... they only lag the PC it's being played upon so technically there's no problem with having a graphically demanding game except that you immediately reduce the target audience - just like people originally thought with Crysis (and in the same way, i'm sure that this game scales well).

@Mr. Fahey:
"the game is still looking far too pretty for a lagless massively multiplayer online roleplaying game"

Well, network lag isn't caused by graphics. If you have a good machine you should have no problems.

AoC gives me a chubby. :)

@DigitalHero: Then again, the definition of a "good machine" seems to change every month or so.

Watched a friend in the beta a month ago.. these images are well above what they are testing and he had an uber rig - believe it when I see it.

I'll be picking that up (on PC of course)

Looks like a Braveheart reunion

@TalKeaton: Game Design Major:Not really. The Nvidia 8 series GPU has been out for well over a year, and it is still the fastest GPU on the market. I have had 2 gigs of memory longer than that.

So what other hardware needs to change so often. HDD? Optical drive? PSU? CPU? Nope. Not for games. Video encoding maybe you might need the latest and greatest CPU, but not for gaming. PC's are GPU bottlenecked right now at the GPU.

Not trying to be a pain but I get really tired of people stating things that are false about the PC. Even when joking.

Grind, ding, grind, ding, grind, ding, meh.

So pretty. Need new PC.

@Darkedge:

I bet these have been "touched" up a lil bit.

Lets see how pretty those graphics are when ur stuttering to move a couple feet in a zone with 300 people trying to kill each other.

@MrSoursop:
In MMOs you often have a very large number of people on the screen at the same time, so state of the art graphics are almost never an option.

@TalKeaton: Game Design Major:
Indeed it does.

@Darkedge:

A month ago was pre-Cheetah 2.

@Stefanten: Those numbers can be reduced with instancing. Of course, I hate instancing.. But it does help in that regard.

Aside from the graphics though, I'm mostly excited over the gameplay elements. Could be a very successful MMO. Might knock EQ2 down a notch.

I hope to god that they improved upon the gameplay a bit, back when I played in the beta everything felt unfinished, and this was back when there was only a few weeks to go before "release". Hopefully the few extra months of development has helped the game a bit because I cancelled my pre-order based on my beta experience.

Looks great but i currently play WoW and that has made me dislike MMO's completely. I don't know what the pricing structure of AoC will be like but if i didn't have friends playing WoW, i wouldn't buy games that had monthly fees.

I have been waiting for this MMO since '06? But they just keep pushing it back and back and... I was gonna get it for the march release but now, I'm not sure. Busy atm and we know MMO's takes ALL of your time. I hope it will come out great, and maybe I will get it. But atm, no more MMO's

The screens look great though, atleast this game can be awsome unlike WoW pale clone Warhammer online that is looking worse and worse.

These are bullshots.

/in beta.

MOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!

BATHROOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!

Nothing can ever be worse than Star Trek V's rendition of Row, Row, Row, Your Boat.

@AndrewDB: All screens of all games posted by a dev or publisher in the world is a bullshot, some more then other. But that doesn't mean it does not look this good on highest end pc in a build yet released etc etc.

I have a friend in beta, but he is a bastard greeedy and don't want to share his account. FROM HELL I STAB YOU!! :(

Why do you need a new computer, this will be a 360 title as well.

Also, I hope this game isn't a big pile of shit.

muhmorpuguh...

That's FunCOM, not funcon.

"PC's are GPU bottlenecked right now at the GPU."

What CPU is keeping up with the likes of an 8800GTX ? Maybe one of Intel's Extreme cpus, at $1000.

Pretty much any 8800 card is going to be twiddling it's thumbs unless you're running something from Intel that costs twice that of your video card.

--
ps. looks ... interesting ? what do you do, fight lions all day ?

I would love to see a free trial to come as well...as always the game itself always grows in beauty

Yea, graphics sure saved EQII and Vangarbage.

@Fyren: AoC looks good because of gameplay especially pvp, for me anyway.

The graphics look rubbery to me and really unappealing. It's that kind of "next-gen" appearance that'll pop up every so often, like in Vanguard, and I just don't like how it looks at all.

THAT SAID, the gameplay has always been what caught my eye in AoC. Hopefully it turns out pretty well.

@MrSoursop: It's largely because people are retards and can't discern between "lag" and "frame rate" issues.

@Vorpal: yeah I agree they have that fake EQ2 plastic look. The backgrounds look amazing though

@The_Foo: Comes from casters missing a heal, and saying "lag" instead of indicating their hardware isn't up to spec. It takes the blame entirely off of them. Over the years, low fps and lag have become interchangeable within MMO's because ultimately both have similar consequences and typically low fps due to a large number of characters on the screen is hard to tell apart from lag due to the same.

@Duoae: Could you please inform Ubisoft about this, so the Rainbow Six Vegas 2 multiplayer graphics don't look like first gen Xbox games? I still can't figure out why they made it look so bad.

For all you jack-asses. Just to let you know local high quality graphics don't negatively effect network performance. I run this game with the graphics looking like this and I have had no problem with lag beyond the common lag for a beta.

So, is all the nudity in this game female only?

Or can I rock it like a Scotsman Berserker?

The nudity is topless females only right now. I don't think the ratings boards would "let the lower half fly loose"

Pretty. I'm thinking the system requirements may be frightening, though.

/stab /stab /stab /stab /stab /stab /stab /stab

Wow, that looks amazing for an MMO. I may try it whenever.

Damn it! Just come out already!

@liquid_kore:

Ah... The ones i've seen look okay? Maybe they weren't multiplayer.

To be fair, some games have lower graphics settings on MP because there is slightly more strain on the system with MP enabled... especially closed systems like consoles....
Though i've never really played a game that had worse graphics on MP by default.

To bad these monster engines will cripple there fanbase. I loved EQ to death, but the fact I didn't play EQ2 was because my crappy comp didn't have direct shared 9.0. Jumped into EQ2 a year or two later and loved it (even thought it had been watered down by wow) but it was a little late.