Author Topic: I need... SOMETHING.  (Read 12676 times)

Blue Pulsar

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #40 on: December 30, 2012, 11:35:16 PM »
Try updating your graphics card's drivers first. Had a similar problem with CoH once on my desktop PC (which is even more ancient than yours).

Actually, the game prompted me to do so when I first started it up. Still nothing. I am starting to think it may be my OS.

Yeah, my PC is antiquated. I've found PC years is like dog years squared. After a year or two, you can't really call them "up-to-date" anymore. I mean, I did build it with really good parts for the time. So, in comparison to other off-the-shelf PCs, it is really closer to 4-5 years old tech-wise.
Blue Pulsar - 50 nrg/kin def - first toon - Liberty
Bane of Lanur - 52 nec/dark MM - Main vill - Liberty
Destan H. - 53 SS/FA brute - Farm/PvP hybrid - Freedom
Destan's Fury - 53 StJ/Regen brute - PvPer - Freedom
Destan's Shadow Gang - 53 Thug/Dark MM - PvPer - Freedom

Little Green Frog

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #41 on: December 31, 2012, 01:12:12 AM »
Actually, the game prompted me to do so when I first started it up. Still nothing. I am starting to think it may be my OS.

Yeah, my PC is antiquated. I've found PC years is like dog years squared. After a year or two, you can't really call them "up-to-date" anymore. I mean, I did build it with really good parts for the time. So, in comparison to other off-the-shelf PCs, it is really closer to 4-5 years old tech-wise.

The Secret World is both demanding and somewhat buggy (causes hiccups even on high end systems), so if you are rocking a video card shipped in 2006, this may be the main problem. You may use this tool to check if the game is supposed to run with your chipset to be sure:
http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/pc-games/the-secret-world/gpu-analyzer

Blue Pulsar

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #42 on: December 31, 2012, 01:27:19 AM »
The Secret World is both demanding and somewhat buggy (causes hiccups even on high end systems), so if you are rocking a video card shipped in 2006, this may be the main problem. You may use this tool to check if the game is supposed to run with your chipset to be sure:
http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/pc-games/the-secret-world/gpu-analyzer

Thanks a ton for this link, Frog. It showed me my problem.

"Your PC's NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS is below the game's recommended specification."

Should be easily fixed. It's probably time for a new one anyway. Still, I don't see why it would let me get through all the opening crap, the server selection, and the character creator and then just crash the game.
Blue Pulsar - 50 nrg/kin def - first toon - Liberty
Bane of Lanur - 52 nec/dark MM - Main vill - Liberty
Destan H. - 53 SS/FA brute - Farm/PvP hybrid - Freedom
Destan's Fury - 53 StJ/Regen brute - PvPer - Freedom
Destan's Shadow Gang - 53 Thug/Dark MM - PvPer - Freedom

Little Green Frog

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #43 on: December 31, 2012, 01:31:07 AM »
Thanks a ton for this link, Frog. It showed me my problem.

"Your PC's NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS is below the game's recommended specification."

Should be easily fixed. It's probably time for a new one anyway. Still, I don't see why it would let me get through all the opening crap, the server selection, and the character creator and then just crash the game.

May be one of the quirks. It does the same thing for me, but if I wait a few seconds, I can see the environment slowly being rendered up and once that's done, the game is back at full speed. My video card is GTX 580 with the newest drivers, so it's not a performance issue.

Blue Pulsar

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #44 on: December 31, 2012, 04:26:29 AM »
May be one of the quirks. It does the same thing for me, but if I wait a few seconds, I can see the environment slowly being rendered up and once that's done, the game is back at full speed. My video card is GTX 580 with the newest drivers, so it's not a performance issue.

Hmm... Well, I checked the system requirements for the game. Being a cheapskate, I searched for a good deal and found a brand new GT 620 for 55 bucks. It's way, way above the minimum system specs (which is only a step up from what I have now, the GEforce 8800... go figure) so I hope it does the trick.

And when City of Heroes comes back, I'll have even better looking fieh to trow! :D
Blue Pulsar - 50 nrg/kin def - first toon - Liberty
Bane of Lanur - 52 nec/dark MM - Main vill - Liberty
Destan H. - 53 SS/FA brute - Farm/PvP hybrid - Freedom
Destan's Fury - 53 StJ/Regen brute - PvPer - Freedom
Destan's Shadow Gang - 53 Thug/Dark MM - PvPer - Freedom

srmalloy

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #45 on: January 01, 2013, 08:12:14 AM »
Star Wars TOR's gameplay is cloned from WoW. Except it's Star Wars so every power has unique flavor of flashiness. But it has rage, mana (somewhat minute, unexpandable amount of it), skill trees, power trainers to sink money into, mounts, channeling abilities, the stupidly difficult dungeons and the Holy Trinity.

One of the things that continues to irk me about SWTOR is how the open-world PvE stacks players up at fixed-location glowies, while the relatively small number of instances (read 'personal story) have arbitrary blocks across otherwise-open doorways that prevent you from entering if you're not the right class or don't have the correct mission... and I keep thinking how much 'bigger' the world would feel if the game were done more like CoH, where missions not explicitly open-world (and some that are, remembering instanced outdoor missions) were all instanced, so you didn't run into individuals or groups going after the same objectives at the same time you are and having to wait for glowie respawns. It wouldn't even be a problem if everybody who had mission X got the same map layout, as long as it kept you from seeing a half-dozen people chasing the same set of mission goals at the same time.

Mister Bison

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #46 on: January 01, 2013, 09:06:18 AM »
One of the things that continues to irk me about SWTOR is how the open-world PvE stacks players up at fixed-location glowies, while the relatively small number of instances (read 'personal story) have arbitrary blocks across otherwise-open doorways that prevent you from entering if you're not the right class or don't have the correct mission... and I keep thinking how much 'bigger' the world would feel if the game were done more like CoH, where missions not explicitly open-world (and some that are, remembering instanced outdoor missions) were all instanced, so you didn't run into individuals or groups going after the same objectives at the same time you are and having to wait for glowie respawns. It wouldn't even be a problem if everybody who had mission X got the same map layout, as long as it kept you from seeing a half-dozen people chasing the same set of mission goals at the same time.
Oh yeah and that too is from WoW, completely forgot about that.

Do you realize that doors in City are also arbitrarily-locked? We can withstand rockets and toss 2-ton titanium robots like ragdolls, but we can't open a stupid wood door if we are not in a mission, or a certain moment of the year ? It may be true that the game would feel bigger if all those doorways were closed and you thought there are can be an infinite number of things on the other side of all the doorways, but it's also nice that you don't have to reload every time ;) and it feels more real.

The glowie sharing is also a stupid choice in my opinion, but it has the advantage of allowing you to group also when doing the quests (did that the other day, but at the quest givers. Saw a man getting the same quests as me, so we grouped for an hour or two to get though them faster and with more xp) and to do several quests at a time... which I don't find this fun :/ it splits your attention unneededly.
Yeeessss....

Hyperstrike

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #47 on: January 01, 2013, 10:31:58 AM »
Except Paragon was working on developing not one, but two other games at the same time they were working on I24 and loads of new costumes and about a dozen new powersets for CoH.

So they're not "like Paragon", because even with limited resources and their staff spread thin, Paragon still put time and effort into their existing product while they worked on new things. Sure, Cryptic has two "existing products", but even if Cryptic split their attention 50/50 between CO and STO, that still means a half-dozen new powersets and additions to existing sets, and another half-dozen for STO. (Where are the staff weapons?  Where are the plant powers?  Where are the water powers?  Where are the control sets?  Where are the elemental melee sets? Where is the native Mac client for all the Mac CoH players who now have nothing at all? Why aren't they at least thinking about working on those - or, if they are, why aren't they letting people know that they're thinking about working on those?)

This would have been the time for them to try to catch up to CoH to attract the tens of thousands of players that would have revitalized their game.  Instead, they just shrugged and went back to making Yet Another Generic Fantasy MMO and ignored the players beating down their door.

That's just it.  Cryptic hasn't "split" their attention between CO and STO.
They've still got a modest crew on STO because of the license, the fact that it's a cultural draw with a built in fanbase, and is making money hand over fist.

But the majority of CO's devs have been "temporarily" retasked to help out on Neverwinter.
Unfortunately, due to some of the early bungling by Cryptic and Atari, the game's fanbase is a fraction of what it was, as they've basically chased away would-be customers with their shoddy mis-management of the game.

srmalloy

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #48 on: January 02, 2013, 05:08:21 AM »
Do you realize that doors in City are also arbitrarily-locked? We can withstand rockets and toss 2-ton titanium robots like ragdolls, but we can't open a stupid wood door if we are not in a mission, or a certain moment of the year ? It may be true that the game would feel bigger if all those doorways were closed and you thought there are can be an infinite number of things on the other side of all the doorways, but it's also nice that you don't have to reload every time ;) and it feels more real.

In CoH, the doors are eye candy unless you have a mission -- the instance you enter isn't part of the zone; in SWTOR, you can see into the screened-off area, but can't go inside. To make things even more schizoid, while in some places you have your conversations inside a walled-off part of the map, there are others -- on Tython where you talk to the Jedi Council shortly before leaving for the Republic fleet -- where you walk up to the door, click on the door, and then everyone else sees you just standing there with the little 'conversation' icon while you have your personal cutscene; apparently it was too much trouble to do it consistently one way or the other across the game.

Atlantea

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #49 on: January 02, 2013, 06:39:46 AM »
That's just it.  Cryptic hasn't "split" their attention between CO and STO.
They've still got a modest crew on STO because of the license, the fact that it's a cultural draw with a built in fanbase, and is making money hand over fist.

But the majority of CO's devs have been "temporarily" retasked to help out on Neverwinter.
Unfortunately, due to some of the early bungling by Cryptic and Atari, the game's fanbase is a fraction of what it was, as they've basically chased away would-be customers with their shoddy mis-management of the game.

As I've stated before on the CO forums in regard to STO getting more attention -

It's like this - if someone holds a gun to your head and says "I want you to say that Cher is the greatest singer ever." Do you get credit for it if you say that? Does anyone think you believe it? No of course not. (Sorry if anyone is a Cher fan out there, the metaphor is just the first thing that popped into my mind.)

The only reason STO is getting as much development as they do is that CBS and Paramount are holding their "gun" to Cryptic's head. They'd lose the IP license if they treated STO as poorly as they do Champions. Without that metaphorical "gun" held to their head, I think STO would be down in the basement with CO.


General Idiot

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #50 on: January 02, 2013, 12:53:00 PM »
No.  They basically are like Paragon, they have limited resources.

And right now, most of those are being retasked to work on Neverwinter.

Sure, they could have seen a bump from a CoH promo.

But Neverwinter is their next cash cow.

I'm not any happier about it than you.  But, if it came down to it, I'd rather have just had CoH never shut down in the first place.

Personally, I'm hoping that once Neverwinter is up and running (And I'll likely be playing it, because I love D&D and Cryptic's two current games aren't too bad other than the lockboxes.) that instead of laying off a number of people like most companies do after a new game is finished they instead reassign those who would otherwise be laid off to work on new things for their older games. I'm also hoping one of those 'new things' will be porting the Foundry (For those who don't know, it's their version of AE) into Champions. STO already has it and from what I understand Neverwinter is getting an upgraded version of the STO one.

Of course, the former is likely PWE's decision rather than Cryptic's so that may be a foolish hope. And the latter wouldn't happen without the former, most likely.

dwturducken

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Re: I need... SOMETHING.
« Reply #51 on: January 02, 2013, 05:50:49 PM »
Personally, I'm hoping that once Neverwinter is up and running (And I'll likely be playing it, because I love D&D and Cryptic's two current games aren't too bad other than the lockboxes.) that instead of laying off a number of people like most companies do after a new game is finished they instead reassign those who would otherwise be laid off to work on new things for their older games. I'm also hoping one of those 'new things' will be porting the Foundry (For those who don't know, it's their version of AE) into Champions. STO already has it and from what I understand Neverwinter is getting an upgraded version of the STO one.

Of course, the former is likely PWE's decision rather than Cryptic's so that may be a foolish hope. And the latter wouldn't happen without the former, most likely.

Do we know if there was a hiring binge in the run-up to work beginning on Neverwinter? Aside from the ones hired over from Paragon, I have not heard of one, but I don't exactly have my ear to the ground. If there was a large hiring, it stands to reason that we can expect a round of layoffs.
I wouldn't use the word "replace," but there's no word for "take over for you and make everything better almost immediately," so we just say "replace."