AoC Open Beta Delayed… UPDATE! NO NDA!

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… for a few hours. The Open Beta will begin at roughly 20:00 GMT (8pm GMT) according to a post on the Funcom forums by their CM. And here I was all excited… I actually got up early and showered for this. *Hmmph!* 😉

To add an extra patch to improve the gaming experience and quality of gameplay, the official start time of the IGN Open Beta now is:

20:00 GMT (8 pm GMT)
(to check the current GMT time please refer to http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/)

We wanted to add the extra update prior to launching the servers rather than to fix it shortly after the start of the Open Beta.

Users who have registered for the Open Beta will also receive an information e-mail about this in their inboxes shortly.

Thanks for your understanding.

Graev and I want to note that the Open Beta is under a NDA… well we think so anyway. According to TTH the NDA for US Reporters was lifted. Are bloggers Press? — omg not this again.. To err on the side of caution, we’re going to assume that we will not be allowed to share our experiences in the beta with you right away. We look forward to when Funcom drops the NDA for their “open” beta for everyone.

We have plans for a podcast where we will discuss with each other what we liked the most, what we disliked, and everything else we experienced. We also plan to do a writeup and if the NDA drops during the weekend we’ll record some videos. WE WILL be posting videos. Please Note: We do not want anyone breaking the NDA on our blog. We will be doing our best to remove violations completely.

If you’re in the open beta and want to say hello in-game or meet up with us feel free to contact me via instant messenger. The information is in our Contact Us section.

Additional Note: If you are having any technical issues with the Open Beta feel free to post them here. I know the Funcom reps are making the rounds at various forums and sites creating threads so this information isn’t strictly under the NDA. Maybe we will be able to help each other should any unforeseen issues arise.

This blog post will be updated as more information becomes available.

Update #1: 10:29am PST: Servers down an additional 2 hours until 22:00GMT (roughly 2pm 3pm (Screw you daylight savings time!!) PST)

Update #2: “There is no NDA for the Open Beta. Feel free to make screenshots, videos, or post comments on anything that you see in the Open Beta.

However the Closed Beta is still under NDA. If you happen to be in both make sure that all screenshots/videos/comments come from the Open Beta Client/Server.” – Source

Update #3: It’s 2:30pm PST and the servers are up!  We’re on Server #2 since the first was full.  in-game name: Keen.

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  • now i dont have any problems just wantd to say lol posting 7 mins befor the servers WERE suppose to come up was just not very nice of them /sigh time to go twidle my thumbs for another 4 hrs

  • Oh well better 5 hours waiting then trying to log in for 5 hours 😉

    Although i am confused when this patch will be downloadable?
    Hopefully it will be small.

  • Well just type in gmt time orso in google and you will find the convertor to check yours.

    The beta was supposed to begin at 15h gmt but was delayed for 5 hours.

    So with that delay the OB starts at 22h where i live (gmt+1 belgium)

  • Hey guys i watched all your videos on AoC lol and i must say.. wow. lol. As i download the patch and get rdy to play the open beta at work lol, i look forward to seing you guys in the game. Names ravenlof Cya there!

  • Server names have not been announced yet have they? We’ll probably just go on the Server #1 though.

  • Ravenlof Lower your resolution before you start up the game. that was my problem.

  • @Ravenlof: yes, that means servers are down. And yes, try changing your resolution before you start the game. Make it lower resolution. Also make sure DX9 is selected.

  • so i just installd the lastest patch an now my comp freezes up when starting even tho workd find…..5 hrs ago

  • so does that mean we cant PvP? Or we cant actually become the class we want, was hoping to test out the TOS

  • Things have changed. All classes are available at level 1, not at level 20 like they used to be. As for PvP… i have no idea. I doubt it.

  • hmm what should i change my res to? i tried 1280×800. anyway its 11am here in hawaii atm and im still getting the unable to authenticate in the log in screen so i take it i should wait an hour? lol

  • @ Ravenlof

    Just go to this site and you will see the GMT time
    http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/

    You can also enter your location on that site, that your time will show up + the GMT time so it will show at what hour you can start logging in 😉

    Hopefully this is of any help to you.

  • The problem with seeing a black screen is something that happenend with the latest patch in the beta. Was not there before 😉

    Anyway as you start the game you get this window with information etc and once ready you click play. Now what you do is click settings there and set the game to start in window mode and not full screen. This way you will not have the black screen. Then once you have gotten past the user/pass and before you create a toon set it back to full screen again.

    This should be fixed before release they say.

  • Ummmm.. I just made a tempest of set, is there anyway to make it so I have a lower chance of spells or heals getting interupted? Im getting raped out here by 2 sometimes 1 mob

  • I’m seriously thinking of a barb now or something, this mage is a piece of thin thin paper, with interuptable spells just from regular hits

  • server 1 is working, just hoping TOS works out to all the hype after level 10 or so

  • and im stuck in the island of white sands or whatever, wont load tortage when I hit the boat

  • with the TOS does the dammage problem even out? Getting killed by 2 mobs, cant imagine how PvP would be..

  • @Galo: That’s a problem that casters/healers usually face at lower levels. You’re a squishy character and always will be compared to other classes. But the higher you get the higher your survivability and damage. At level 20 I could still take decent hits from players before death.

  • hopefully I can take enough hits before my buddy can heal me, hes making a priest of mitra so that’ll help, kind of weird with targeting and casting, different from WoW, havnt played an mmorpg for about a year and a half since WoW, gotta get used to being quick again.

  • ok so keen i am in some dire need of help. I go to play the game an it says can not render blah blah iv uninstalld an so forth an yet still nothing. I know ur busy beating down people an bloodying up your screen but if u could hold bak the cry of battle to lend some help id love it (._.)

  • If you can get the options screen to come up before you launch the game try adjusting your resolution and turning down all the settings before launching the game.

    Also, what are your system specs?

  • amd athlon 64 x2 dual core 4600+ 1022 ram
    uhh geforce 8500 GT vid card

    an it wont even let me pick a resolution lol just gives me a blank list, an i even tried taking it out of fullscreen.
    earlyer today it workd fine i could get in game well to the log in screen but servers were down.

  • so i give up this is crap not gonna lie works fine then this new patch screwd everything. i dont know wut else to do an fed up to boot glad i spent the 17 bucks for NOTHING. gg me

  • A lot of people are having loads of various problems. I’m not sure what your specific problem could be. 🙁 My suggestion is to post on these boards or the official boards.

  • wow, the barbarian is really nice, lot less squishy then the TOS and still does a ton of dammage, sucks having 1 nuke for 10 levels as a TOS

  • ok i dont have the beta… is finals week and im not risking grades….. anyways… anyone wanna provide some insights thus far?

    also i dont know if anyone has noticed that AoC is on the cover of PC Gamer for the july edition. yet another item to be obtained thru buying something. you get what is the equivalent of hearthstone in wow if you buy the magazine. i think some other items are obtained thru the magazine as well. believe me im all about this game… but does anyone find it i dunno… for lack of a better word, disheartening to see all these items or betas or anything for that matter tha you have to buy and are not given to you in game or are not earned in game?
    anyways sorry for my poor grammar my brain is mush right now

  • ok just got off work on gonna try get back in. For some reason its saying that it has to re-verify the client because of a crash. Anyone else get this?

  • NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX is my card is that decent enough? maybe thats the reason im having alot of trouble.

  • http://slashrandom.wordpress.com/ (Rick?) says:

    “In \Program Files\Funcom\IGN Beta Event, there’s a SimpleConfig.exe you can run. If you set the graphics to the lowest setting, the client will run and you can see everything. You can then reset the resolution once you enter the game, and supposedly it’ll stick at the higher resolution. I haven’t gotten to test that yet, I’ll let you know how it goes!”

    Maybe that will help some of you. I don’t have AoC beta (too lazy?) so I just look forward to comments on both these blogs every day after work.

  • I’m torn over the TOS and harold of xotli, every video I watch harold of xotli absolutely destroys any class while staying alive and while a tos can nuke like no other, once they are in combat there done for.

  • ok so i kickd my computer after noticing only had 1 gig of ram an i think the other ram stick got put in allthe way so now im up to 2 gig an able to play yay just saying loving it so far

  • @Meatgazer: I’ll be posting my full writeup/impressions/videos tomorrow on the 1-13 gameplay and Open beta.

    @Ravenlof: My brother has a similar card and he’s having a lot of issues with the game.

  • so what can i do to fix it? i get into the game and freeze for a while than that leads to the crazyness setting in and me going apeshit on my comp lol.

  • Beleive i’ve made up my mind…hopefully.. too many classes that look extremely interesting, but i’ve fallen on a conqueror, high survivability, with some mid to high dammage

  • Anyone know how to turn off 1 core for a core 2 duo, someone was sayin you can get more FPS that way.

  • Never really thought gaurdian would do too good, always thought of it as a prot warrior with like 10 points in arms in WOW, takes a good ammount of dammage but TRIES to do dammage and fails hah

  • Don’t use the ‘Shift+F12’ function to take hi-rez screen shots. You’ll end up freezing the game or have bizzar graphical issues and have to restart anyway. Just use F11 to take normal screen shots..

    Just a heads up.

  • ok it seems i had to go to support.dell.com to update the new drivers. what i dont get is my comp is like 5 mnths old i got the dell xps gaming labtop. anyway uploading driver now and HOPEFULLY (praying) i can actually play.

    @galo: gale comon man, WoW sucks now. prot warriors would good pve… thats it. Guardidan can be dps i know cause i did the pvp weekend aNd kicked ass lol thats why i said you might like it.

  • Well sorry didn’t know that you tried it, I was watching videos and the 3 I saw of a gaurdian he did aboslutely nothing, hitting for 40-60 at 20 with a 2h. I may try it since 17 days is definitely enough time to get the 4-5 classes im interested in to 13 and try them out in some lowbie PvP, and yes I know wow sucks now, I was addicted to the thing for 2 and a half years and it just got more boring then anything I could ever imagine.

  • what is with all this stop responding, getting annoying as hell, kill some mobs for a quest, video stops sound stops, sound starts but skips, sounds like its gonna crash, everythings fine. Then a bit afterwards kill more guys for a quest and it just stops responding and encounters an error. Think they woulda tried and fixed crashing by now.

  • I just crashed for my last time tonight. I’m not going to try logging in again. So frustrating.

  • Hopefully they release a HUGE ass patch within the first week.. I reported at least 30 different bugs, an exploit, and the crashes many times…

  • For the guy getting his spells interrupted you can put points into spell concentration or something like that to get less of that. Click the I button for your character information window and have a look at the right.

    As for the crashed I dont have too many of those in the closed beta but I do get disconnected more since you guys started the open beta 😉

    As for that item in the computer magazine there is a hearthstone system in the game if you check among the abilities/combos. It is called path of asura (5min CD I think) and it can be set to different places later and hearth you back. Give it a try after completing a quest. Should take you back to the Thirsty Dog Inn or whatever it is called.

  • theres an NDA I think, so we cant get videos, otherwise i’d make one for youtube

  • PVP with this client is a joke.. 1.9 FPS< 44 when not fighting, and max of 14 when fighting

  • No NDA on the open beta thingie so take screenshots, videos whatever.

    f11 for screenshots.

    galo: it should be fine if you got a good computer.

  • The poor performance could be either be due to the fact that the game client was built in debug mode and/or running with several debug based utilities in the background. I don’t have the client package so if anyone can check if the client runs with msvcrtd.dll or msvcrt.dll, would be great too.

  • You all should remember a few things..

    This Open BETA is hosted and held by IGN, not Funcom themselves. The client that’s being used is a older one, than the current one in closed beta etc..

    The amount of players in the starting zones are like 4x more than the server is supposed to handle at once, so you can’t really expect anything else than a laggy experience.

    The whole Open BETA is a gimmick when it comes to “beta testing”. First of all, the Open BETA isn’t held by Funcom at all, so I would be surprised if they are watching the Open BETA much at all. I think IGN have paid for this whole Open BETA thing, and that’s why you had to be an subscriber to get invited. I think the whole point wit the Open BETA is just for people to test the first few levels of the game, to get more people buying the game. Why would they want people to beta test an old client? And why would they have a level 13 cap in a BETA?

    Just face it, the Open BETA isn’t really a BETA.
    It’s a chance for those who want, to pay for being able to try out the game until level 13 on a old client.

    I don’t really understand why Funcom gave IGN such a old client, as it gives players a poorer impression than if they gave them the latest client which runs quite a lot better, and got all the latest stability and class balancing fixes.

    And as Horpse mentioned, the client is indeed in a debug mode, and as well all know, that always cause some failure and memory leaks.

    There is a reason why closed BETA and Open BETA testers aren’t able to play on the same servers, that’s because there are two different clients. And the Open BETA isn’t even hosted by Funcom.

    So with an older client, not hosted by Funcom, debug mode, 3-5x times the amount of players the server is supposed to handle at once, don’t expect a flawless experience.

  • Well, after hours and hours of trying to get into the game last night after seeing the dreaded DXUT error I managed to log in and play till lvl 5, about 1 hour of playing. the game frooze whiile talking to a NPC and after rebboting the computer and ended up seeing the DXUt error again and the rendering error as well. I’m at work atm and cant log onto any forums to see if there is any updates on the problems many of us testers are getting. I know that the DXUT error is common among many, I suspect it has something to do with the latest patch we all downloaded bring us to 1.2008.501 client. Personally the lack of respsonse from FC about these 2 very common errors alot of us are getting fusterating but its beta and thats what we are there for to find and crash the system so its playable on release. I played a HoX and smashing mobs with my broken Ore and implaing them was sweet!

  • @ Dragula

    I really doubt Funcom will try to address those issues, as I said it’s not Funcom which are holding the Open BETA, but IGN.

    The DXUT and rendering error has been non-existent for ages in the closed BETA, and I haven’t seen it after any of the latest patches either so it might be the Open BETA client, and I seriously don’t think Funcom really care about the Open BETA client, as it got nothing to do with either the closed BETA nor release client anyway.

  • @Verus: I have a 2.4gig dual core, 2 gigs of ram, 8600gts 256mb ddr3 for the video card, im getting this gaming accelerator and testing it out, if that doesnt work, getting a new graphics card definitely, anyone know a monster graphics card in the $250 dollar range? Like a 9800, I saw one for 300 was considering that, or just an 8800 GT, then eventually a new processor.

  • The defendergate gaming accelerator IS Legit, I bought it, no stolen card, scanned it, no viruses, ran it, works fine, went from 15 to 45-50 FPS in pvp, AMAZING

  • im lvl 8 in the open beta, a ranger is 10, im getting hit for 284, theyre supposed to be gimped to hell right now I thought.