xiliquiern

Yep. I had the same thing happen on my Story mission - made it to the end, then it told me that it couldn't connect and discarded the mission results. So I rebooted the PS3 and tried again. Same thing. Oh, and I can't buy anything from the store, either. Not just one part, or even one category of parts. Nothing at all. It can't seem to find the connection. Order missions work just fine, and I hear the ACU voice comms as well. So I have no idea what this is, but it's annoying as hell.

I'm afraid I may have brought about a rather negative atmosphere - perhaps it's the weather... Regardless of how the promotion is going, I'm mind very excited to play - hopefully with and/or against everyone here at some point. I think that's what's bumming me out; this game has a lot of potential. I want to see it realized. I think, in terms of lifespan, there is definitely more to keep play interesting here than AC4 or ACFA. -- I've never participated competitively in AC, but am interested to watch how things develop in that regard.

I have been playing the AC series since the original came out. I loved it. When ACFA was announced, I was stoked. After playing AC4 I was hoping it would be something a little...more traditional. As soon as I read about the even faster gameplay, etc. I decided it wasn't even worth bothering about. I think many others had the same idea. This is why I'm frustrated at the "marketing" effort made by the publisher. When it comes down to it, this is a multiplayer game. It depends on a large, involved fanbase to be successful for any serious period of time. Yet, as far as I can tell, they haven't made any effort to substantially increase the US fanbase. I mean, we've got like three weeks now. As best I can tell, there haven't been any recent major US/EU magazine/gaming site reviews of the "non-beta" working product. There is no US/EU demo. The neat iOS/Android App hasn't been translated and released for the US/EU. Not a big deal, but it's something interesting and a bit different. Unless I'm mistaken, the facebook.com/armoredcore page is run by EJraven Lynx; the guy from ArmoredCoreOnline, not anyone from Namco/Bandai or From. The US ACV page comes up on page 3 of a Google search for "armored core v". As best I can tell, there is nothing on the armoredcore.net or armoredcore.net/acv site that links to the US version. I mean, come on. I agree, when you've got a small group it's better not to subdivide them further, but everything I've ever heard about that says that it's pretty much impossible - for any game. Are there titles that allow cross-platform multiplayer? I don't know how accurate vgChartz is in being able to report sales, but their NA numbers are interesting for AC4.

Just wanted to restate, given some of the strong reactions, that I'm not 100% on that translation. Directionally sure, though, yes. Honestly, I think it makes sense. This game seems to be a lot more about people playing together than against one another. I could see it being pretty annoying to hire on a couple of mercs only to enter combat and find out there's a language barrier one way or another. That being said, I'm a little curious about just how much Namco/Bandai is doing to promote the game in the US/EU. So far...it seems like pretty much nothing. AC fans will hear about it and play it. Some mech genre fans may hear about it on related blogs. But it seems like everyone else will never hear a word. I may be missing things, but there doesn't look like there is any real attempt to grow the fan base as much as simply sell the game to people who already know they want it. C'est la vie, I suppose.

Just something I noticed today on the ACV Japanese FAQ. The question, roughly translated as: Can I play with players internationally? And the response, roughly translated as: The Japanese and International versions are of different regions - you will not be able to play together (even) on the same hardware. -- I imagine that I'm not 100% spot on in these translations, but I think I'm directionally correct. It sounds like online play will be region locked...if someone could double check this, that would be fantastic. If this is the case, and you only have the US version, it may not matter what setups the Japanese players are typically fielding...

It seems to be the best source, if you can translate it well enough. I can't do much better than google translate, unfortunately. That link above is the source.

So...it's less than a month now until the US release... Are we going to get an english version of the ACV app? Are we going to get an english PS3/XBOX demo? And as BerserkFury asked - the Japanese site has a lot of detail about the state of the servers, the ladders, upcoming updates and news... The US site seems to have the usual promotional images, pre-order details, a brief feature overview, and a three sentence overview. Will we be getting a similar status/news blog?

It'd be interesting to watch, for sure. And I'm glad that the ECM is suitably potent.

tl;dr - I think the ECM and other countermeasure opportunities in ACV are ripe for the picking; I just hope they are effective enough to cause use in the community. Without having played it, or really read too much to the exact details, I'm inclined to agree. I'm sure there will be archetypes that cater to specific roles: hand-to-hand combat, short range combat, glass cannon, harassment, AP tank, missile jockey, OW, snipers, ambush, etc. However, I think the sheer number of roles is enough to create constant friction without having one specific build that is simply superior. I could see an EN equipped dual Karasawa monster having a hey day with damage centric Kinetic AP tanks, but it will be feeling pretty powerless (I'd hope) if he happens across someone playing a MW with Generator Jammers and fitted with EN armour. Similarly, I'd think the guerilla fighter would be hampered by Generator jammers, tracking rounds, movement jammers, FCS jammers. It's a lot harder to play that roll successfully if you can't boost well or can't move well otherwise. Similarly, if the opponent knows where you are all the time, it's a bit hard to get the drop. And if your FCS runs at a crawl, the surprise ambush turns into a skirmish. As is common with other team based games, I could certainly see situations in which squads of four either carry a dispersed set of countermeasures, lowering their DPS, but making them far more effective, or deploy a single lightly armed Buff-fit AC to enhance friendly fighting abilities and negate enemy tactics.

To what extent is the wiki open to editing by others? And regarding DLC parts - is ANOTHER MOON the only part? Has FROM announced future DLC/microtransaction offers? Wonder if I could get a monocle...

Thanks for the team information, Niji. March 20 will be a fun day. -- I have to say, I haven't read very much about the various countermeasure systems available in ACV, but it's sounding like things will be shaken up quite a bit if they are effective. AMS, chaff, EO, FCS jamming, tracker bullets, recon jamming, movement reducers, generator jamming, etc. Combined with the different armour/damage types, it seems like there could be a wide variety of setups. I'm sure that cookie cutter setups will arise, but it seems like it would be harder to put together a single "best" option. -- Also, looks like there will be some tweaking going on in the next server outage 2/24 10:00 to 15:00 2/25 4:00-6:00. Looks like some serious AC part tweaks and some new territories with new extra mission as well.

Good question...that's actually a pretty interesting mechanic - certainly could change the early stages of the game if you joined up with a high level team from the beginning.

Just out of curiosity, how is ACU handling their team once the game launches state side - have slots already been spoken for? Or is there a signup somewhere?

Regarding the bosses... I think it's important to consider that FROM has to balance them for a rather wide swathe of situations. A novice individual playing by themselves or with a similarly skilled friend will likely have a very hard time with the encounters - especially the first few times. By contrast, a team of four highly skilled and highly organized players who have bested the enemies multiple times will find it almost casually easy. Considering talent and know-how, the amount of damage actually dealt by four serious players versus a team of two new or casual players would be well in excess of double, I'd imagine. And the amount of damage taken per capita would probably be less than half. That's a serious consideration. And unless I'm mistaken, the damage output and armor points of the enemies do not scale depending on the number of players. FROM seems to build these encounters to be accessible to most players - not total newbies, but pretty much everyone else. Perhaps we'll begin to see more difficult scenarios arise as the talent level in general ascends...that would be very interesting.

If that's how the territories work, I'm afraid I have to agree. There will be a huge initial land grab, and then a big stalemate. Without any way to invade without consent of the owners, I'm thinking few people will have the goodwill or sporting humour to allow others an opportunity to take their territory. At the same time, I could imagine the problems of leaving it all open and real time. One could log off Sunday night and log in Tuesday evening only to discover everything had been captured. How does the game adress this?