Funcom shows revamped AO visuals

Published 19 November, 2009

Age-old MMO moving to new 3D engine.

Comments (17) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #1 3 years ago

    Ooh shadows. Ooh water. Anyone still play?

  • Buztafen #2 3 years ago

    Sky looks better in the old pics. It also looks a bit...1999...
    Edited by Buztafen at 19/11/09 @ 16:53

  • Sar #3 3 years ago

    Colour me underwhelmed.

    Wow looks better than that. Did when it was released 5 years ago as well.

  • Miths #4 3 years ago

    Doesn't really seem like much of an upgrade. Although four screenshots - three of them the same place from different angles - obviously isn't much to go by.
    AO was my first MMORPG around six or seven years ago. Or at least that's what the release dates I just looked up indicate (I remember being there for the Shadowlands expansion) - I'm actually a bit surprised that it hasn't been nine or ten years instead with all the MMOs I've been through since then, none of them holding my interest for much longer than five or six months at the most, usually a lot less. But I guess in several cases my ADHD is more to blame for that than the games :).

  • poopmonster #5 3 years ago

    When I read "shows off", I thought there was something to show off.

    They do know this is 2009, right?

  • poopmonster #6 3 years ago

    (Perhaps someone forgot to press Send in 2001)

  • DaemonSpawn #7 3 years ago

    Normal mapping and dynamic shadows are certainly welcome, as well as grass on the first screenshot (somehow it is absent from others), but water in TES3:Morrowind looked better, and Morrowind was the first game with pixel-shaded water reflections.
    Anyway it's a nice bonus for those who's still playing (there're not much choice on sci-fi MMO market), but personally I'm not so impressed by upgraded visuals to jump in.
    Edited by DaemonSpawn at 19/11/09 @ 18:24

  • curtlikesmeat #8 3 years ago

    Yeah very underwhelming - if the graphics were anything reasonable I would be interested as I'm sure they've made many tweaks to the gameplay over the years since I played it very briefly at launch.

    WoW level graphics and I'd be very very interested as the setting is excellent.

  • Pirotic #9 3 years ago

    Love how they had to label which shots were old

  • Gl3n #10 3 years ago

    I played this for a good couple of years back in the day. Still have really fond memories :)

  • penhalion #11 3 years ago

    We've made our graphics slightly less crap. Anyone interested?....Anyone?.....Anyone at all?

    **

  • Whizzo #12 3 years ago

    I can remember launch day all those years ago, it did actually look pretty nice back then too, at least when you were in the game and not getting constantly disconnected!

    I have some very fond memories of Rubi-ka it's nice to see it still going even if I've got no intention of ever going back.

    Occasionally I miss using my sledgehammer on those Omni scum though... :-)

  • spatss #13 3 years ago

    Used to play this a lot back in the day, and it was a solid game. Could be interesting to revisit it and see how it holds up with the "new" graphics engine and all.

  • TriggerHippie #14 3 years ago

    Lol Whizzo. Yes launch day was a nightmare! I seem to remember being rewarded some in game item for having suffered it.

  • thedaveeyres #15 3 years ago

    Christ, the hours I put into that game...

  • xentar #16 3 years ago

    while the screens dont show much of an improvement (shadows and water may be nice but if the models stay the same, its not worth much) the game itself is still superb. AO has the best advancement system in any MMOPRG. Its complex and very rewarding with tons of options. And the game runs very fine even on cheap laptops and offers a free version which is very playable even without microtransactions. So to sum it aup, i dont understand all the negativity here :-/

  • Means #17 3 years ago

    Work in progress guys...most of the visuals aren't even turned on yet. Antialiasing isn't even turned on in these. I certainly hope the old sky looks better as there IS no sky in the new shots. This is part of a weekly update we give our players (though it doesn't always include engine screens)...it is a bit out of context here on its own. Age of Conan water and shadows might not seem like a big deal when viewed on their own to everyone but it certainly is a big deal to us and we are very proud of how it is coming together. Current technology certainly limits the kind of environments we can produce...these screens were put up to display the difference the new water and shadows would make in the old familiar environments...I'm really looking forward to what we will be able to produce for great sci-fi settings in the new engine. On the whole I don't really understand the general negativity here...DX7 to DX9 (with support for DX10/11 later) is going to make a huge difference to the world we can offer our players.

    Anways...work in progress...not "Done".