Why does this keep happening?

[Benevan]

I have recently bought and installed DAoC. I can connect to the game, pick a server and create a character. Every time i have tried to play i'd log into the game but after about a minute I get dumped to a black screen saying "A serious error has occured. Your client has stopped receiving messages from the server. Hit escape to continue." So I hit esc and i get booted to my desktop with AOL still running. Attepmting to sign back on doesnt work, it says try connecting later. Then I try to close AOL but it is always has locked up every time I have attempted to log into the game. So I let it sit for a few minutes still the same, nothing changed and my little aol explorer ( the thing that moves while your computer is working on the internet is frozen. The only thing I have been able to do at this point is to ctrl+atl+delete so it will let me "End Task" for the Aol program. Then I get back to nromal Aol goes away and I get back to my desktop. Nothing works after this either my computer seems frozen i shutdown or restart and I have to End Task 2 more times in programs I don't know because there was no info in the title bar of the window that you have to either Wait, End Task or Cancel. I have written 3 Emails to Mythic over the last 2 days asking for help and they haven't acknowledged me. My computer's specs are:
AMD 1.0Ghz, 256 Ram, Nvidia 3D card v12.41, 56k modem, Win ME and AOL is the ISP. Any postings that would help would be appreciated

[ekgringo]

With MMORPG games (and frankly, in general) AOL = bad

[ 10-12-2001: Message edited by: Hamza ]

[Equis]

The first thing to do is make sure you have the newest Video and Sound Card drivers. Then make sure you have the newest Direct X version. If these don't fix your problem, check this site.

http://support.darkageofcamelot.com

It is possible that your video/sound card are not supported. I find that unlikely with a new system however.

If this still doesn't fix the problem, you might want to consider a different internet service provider. Like the other poster stated AOL + Online games = bad. Even if you get the game running, I think you might find the preformance poor running through AOL.

Not to defend Mythic but game launches are a very busy time for developers. They may not be able to get back to you for a few days. Hopefully that link can direct you to an area where you questions will recieve a quicker reply.

[Benevan]

I appreciate the help guys. I have already been through the whole DAoC Tech Support webpage and have been tweaking my system in reply to what the answers there were. Also before i had posted this topic I had previously been through all of their support info. I am severly frustrated with Mythic and this cursed game in general. Another Email makes 4 now and still no answers, I am beginning to wonder just what kind of operation Mythic is running. I also think they should have been up front with problems relating to playing their game. Like the AOL thing, if I had known this, it would have had an effect on my purchase of DAoC. I never had any problems playing EQ with AOL and Ultima also. I just dont know. Every time the game crashes it messes up my computer as previously stated and after I can get my computer to Restart it runs scan disk saying I shut down improperly. So I guess I can't play the game. I'm not giving up, just I am getting worried about my computer (I mean how many times can I shut down improperly before something gets messed up too bad.) I dont know. I think Mythic should release a statement about ALL of the problems and give solutions, they answers they have on their Tech Support page are pretty vague and not a real solution to the problems stated, they more like explain what the problem is. Thats all I am too frustrated to think anymore. DAoc was released not fully developed!!!

[Majestic]

I feel your frustrationg, as I had the same problems with EQ when it first started.

I'm not going to tell you to not be mad, I just urge you to make sure you are mad at the right situation / people...

Since others (many, many others) can connect to DAoC with no problem, it's not necessarily the game that is the cause of the trouble, and it may not be something that Mythic has any control over. Do you have a friend maybe that has cable or dsl? if so, so if you can get a network card (about $15) and hook up to their high-speed internet to play. If you can play here, tell AOL 'bye bye'. EQ and UO, both great games, don't really compare to the graphics or design of DAoC - newer games require more horsepower, both from your PC and in the case of onling games, from your service provider.

When you are in the game, hit SHIFT-P to get your resource meter up. The first circle is ping, the second packet loss, and the third is your frames per second. Green is good, yellow triangle bad, red square worse... which circles are affected before you get booted? Is your hard drive cycling before you get booted? Make sure you scandisk and defrag and have enough room on your C: drive for the windows swap file (couple hundred or more is minimum).

My girlfriend is trying to play, and she couldn't on the previous PC I built for her. It would kick her out at about 1 - 2 minutes in.

So, I upraged her system (she had an old celeron 450, I upgraded her to a PIII 450, she had an old voodoo 2 (not supported card), I added a TNT2 ultra, she had 128 mb ram, I bumped her to 196) - she should be able to play with this configuration, but she still got dumped. I noticed that each time, her hard drive was cycling like CRAZY. So, I defragged and she could play a bit longer (like 5 minutes) then the same thing happened. She had only 150 meg free, I freed up 450 mb and she could go for about 10 minutes. I was flustered. I put in a new, faster hard drive - problem solved. How could Mythic know my hard drive would be too slow? there are WAY TOO MANY configurations of computers, 100's and 1000's of different drives, video, sound cards, etc, they can't test them ALL.

I hope you get things figured out, DAoC is a lot of fun and way more stable than EQ or UO or AC or AO was at launch (played them all, DAoC is WAAAAY better so far in stability and lag...)

GOOD LUCK! see you online =)

-Arameus
Ranger, Merlin Server

[Cerbrathan]

My suggestion.. get rid of AOL as soon as possible. Get a real internet connection and I think that will solve all your problems.