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Age of Conan failed because it is intrinsicly flawed. Not because of WoW
Litigator_AB
Member Posts: 311
Age of Conan has great graphics, beautiful music, an interesting combat system, and nice character generation. However, these are not the characteristics of a good MMORPG. The key components to an MMORPG are:
1. Content progression: There needs to be new content to progress to. This is not a function of just simply existing...there must be a reason to progress to it. Age of Conan lacks this. But strangely this might be its smallest fault.
2. Itemization: There needs to be items to work towards in AoC. No matter how cool it is to progress to T2 raids in AoC, there is absolutely no reason to do so because the epic gear is garbage. Gear 1-80 is substantially useless. The only gear that matters now are damage gems. And they are being duped as we speak...for weeks...without a fix (see point 5).
3. Character stability and/or improvement: You can keep characters static. In the alternative, you can buff them and improve their abilities. But in my MMORPG life I have never seen a game devalue abilities/stats/items with such broad strokes before. Epic gear lost 80% of its resistances. Crafted gear about the same. They nerfed shields. They nerfed LoS. They buffed mobs. They nerfed many combos 50%+ without a mention in the patch notes. Time and time again. Almost no class avoided the penalty stick. The character you leveled to 80 in June, who could, across the board, kill 3-7 equal level mobs at a time (depending on your class) was reduced to 1-2 mobs...with NO ability/method to regain that ability.
4. Freedom of movement: You can restrict player's movements from the beginning...players will get used to it. But don't make a world relatively free to move around in and then all of a sudden through up invisible walls. Nothing kills immersion and enjoyability more.
5. Cheating: You simply can't have it for long periods of time with no ramifications. It is one thing for something to happen (like a dupe bug). But to ignore it for 3 weeks? Good Lord. And this includes epic money bugs in June, raid exploits, you name it, AoC has had it. And never, not once, were these issues hotfixed.
6. Client stability: AoC is unstable. I've heard it has gotten worse since I left.
Lit
Comments
All true, but I'm sure pretty much everyone realized that its crap months ago.
MMO companies are finally realizing that people won't pay for reiterated garbage.
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Its soo true.
In this game the higher lvl you become the weaker you become compared to your enviroment.
There is no balance what so ever, pvp is about who can 1-shot who.
There is no point to anything. You cant get cool gear, there is no reason to own or take a battle keep. There is no content that you need your crafted gear for. There is no rewards for pvp (might change in the near future).
And all this is before we begin to talk about the problems with the things in the game, like the endless bugs that is worse than early SWG, the utterly boxed in feeling you get in the minimal size this game has (42 km2 with about 40% of that behind barriers so you cant move to it). Or like the lack of content after lvl 50, or the lack of any individuality in appearance or the broken class abilities or the broken game systems or the secrecy with the game elements so the players have no idea what things does making them unable to make educated choices about their chars.
And its before we begin to talk about all the hyped game contents that suddenly werent there at release.
Or its before we talk about the horrible way FunCom treat their customers. The way they ignore them, cheat them and treat them with disrespect.
No before all that the entire foundation of the what the game should have been based on is missing.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
Intrinsicly is not a word. and if you were going for Intrinsically, it isnt the word you are looking for.
Age of conan failed because the devolopers broke the cardinal rule, they released a broken, unfinished product and expect the customer to apprecieate it.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I didn't even realize people were blaming its failure because of Wow..
but yes I agree completely with the OP.
I am curious what the developers were thinking, letting players level so fast, since there was so little end game content. That feature just make no sense at all. The game reminded me of dungeon siege with all the invisible walls, you got the feeling you were being lead around on a string.
This was one of those games that should have waited until late fall, so they would have time to add more content.
When War comes out, the AoC servers are going to be ghost towns. Get ready for server merges.
It's a good question. I wish I could be a fly on the wall in Gaute's office because some of their decisions don't make any sense unless you figure there was someone who wanted to sabotage the game. More realistically though we are probably just seeing evidence of mismanagement and a case of over-ambitious development/patching.
There was a glimmer of hope there with Gaute's letter at the end of June but something just fell apart internally.
The worst part was the communication and organization in what Funcom did. But the game engine was pretty much too heavy to fix. They over focused on the graphics, which they hoped was going to be so easy to scale with other stuff in the world. It is a great contrast. The movements and stupid animations, are only funny the first few times, then it keeps getting annoying and limiting. Invisible walls and instanced world are a "no no" in 2008. You have to put out better stuff than that.
The communication was terrible. I saw people in all guilds exploiting the AoC game mechanics to gain easy ingame money. I did want to play the game straight up, and was shocked to see Funcom did not care about this. The exploiters got rich, and I got that hopeless give up feeling.. Whats the point playing, when exploiting/cheating does not bear any consequence. When you report the exploiters (not details) on AoC forum, your post will get locked/deletet and you may risk a ban for it. And when you send a mail to them, you will get an automated mail sent back 1 week later, with no assurance that someone cares.
Sorry Funcom!
Posts like these make me smile,MMo's did not begin with WoW,if WoW had released in the same state as AoC it wouldnt have been a success,WoW brought a whole new generation to on-line gamming and maybe set a bench mark,The reason mmo's are failing at the moment as devs are promising too much and they just cant deliver,it is as simple as that.
I would love to see alot of pre-wow players be here at the launch of WoW,ok it wasnt the shambles of VG or AoC but it was far from perfect with bugged quests,class imbalance and server crashes.
The thing is now it raised the bar with new players wanting the best from the outset but dont forget if you look back to WoW's release they were promising alot of things they still havent delivered and other things they did promise but took along time to add.
WoW's saving grace was anyone could play it on any system but for now times are moving on and even the new gamers want more and devs are trying to promise but in the last few years have failed to deliver...
If someone had came up to me in 1980 when I was on my Atari 2600 and said we will be playing games with thousands of people at the same time.I guess my response would have been,"but I only have 2 joysticks"
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/235780/page/8
And the Beta testers they said it was the best thing since sliced bread.
Responsablitly.
.... and the same can be said about ALL those other launched MMORPG's these last years (perhaps 1 exception LOTRO)
Hype from Beta testers ... together with FunCOM responsible for players upgrading their systems and 750K sales at 50 dollars a piece.
So much waste that could have been avoided by those fanboys.
MMORPG.COM hype....
Which beta testers said that? Maybe the open beta ones. All of the ones I know told me to stay away but I wouldnt listen. They were correct down the the last detail and theory about the games future.
Fungerer som det skal
FunCom's 1st MMO had all of the things on that list in spades. Anarchy Online has the largest itemization of any MMO ever, the broadest progression of character abilities, a massive open scaling game world. And an endless amount of varied encounter content both static and dynamic.
How the same company that created all that, also made Age of Conan is an absolute mystery. AoC feels like the Demo of an MMO by comparison. I am beginning to believe that the claimed development time and budget are a complete fiction.
I hate to say it, but I don't think they "broke" the cardinal rule. I think that IS the cardinal rule of MMORPG development today.
The new Cardinal Rule of MMORPG Development: Release your game in the most broken, unfinished, unstable and uninteresting condition you possibly can then place the blame on your customers when the product isn't successful.
Then I guess you spend the next five to ten years trying to patch the game up to an acceptable standard knowing you will never get even 10% of your original customer base to return. How you explain that to your investors I'm not quite sure.
Seriously, name me five big name MMOs that have been released in the last five years which didn't do this to some extent.
Anarchy Online did it (so why didn't we see this coming with Age of Conan?) and tried to recover from it, which it barely did.
Shadowbane did it, and never really recovered from it (instead it merely maintained a small but vocal following of blind fanboys who spent more time on the forums than in the game due to the fact that the game never worked properly).
Dark and Light really took the cake in this department. Their game was total shit even in their open beta (SoG, which they tried to deny was a beta by calling it a "pre-release" of the final product) and never really improved after that. Last I heard the developers fired all their programmers due to a lawsuit they were facing for stealing V-World technology to make their game. The servers were down too according to the rumor.
There was also: Tabula Rasa, which was a seemingly fun and enjoyable game until you hit level 30, leveling slowed to a crawl and you found out there wasn't any end-game content. Auto Assault, with the same issues. Vanguard, which was a boring and pointless clone of Everquest. SWG, which was a good game but got worse with every patch rather than better.
And now Age of Conan has followed in this same tradition. I'm not happy about it but more importantly I'm not suprised either! I saw this coming. I tried to warn people when I played in the beta for Age of Conan and saw that it wasn't the game the developers were claiming it was going to be. Nobody believed me. Maybe next time someone will... but probably not.
Quite honestly, I'm tired of seeing this pattern in new MMORPGs. I've become convinced that every MMORPG is going to pull some stunt like this upon release and there just isn't any way to stop it. Developers and publishers obviously believe they can get away with this crap. So I'm not buying into any more new MMORPGs. From now on I'm only going to try out MMOs that have already been released for several years. And I won't believe anyone who says a newly released game is any good until its been on the market for atleast six months. And I still probably won't play the game unless I get a free trial.
I suggest everyone else do the same. If we start treating MMO developers like the spineless liars that they are then maybe they will finally be forced to clean up their act.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
seems to me a PvP game with sucky PvP would fail.
Which beta testers said that? Maybe the open beta ones. All of the ones I know told me to stay away but I wouldnt listen. They were correct down the the last detail and theory about the games future.
Yeah, that sounds like the same story I had... except that I was one of the beta testers who tried to warn people AWAY from this game. But nobody would believe me. I even got into a huge fight with several members of my guild over it who (without having played the game) were convinced that AoC was going to be great. I guess those guys probably feel pretty stupid right about now.
If I had to guess who was hyping the game (other than FailCom) I would point the finger at those people who never played the game but blindly believed all the BS on the website about PvP and the combat system.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
this lined up exactly my level of importance
first is content.. gotta do something
Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions.
I thought it was only carebare role players who were still playing this game.
I mean who else would play this pos?
Anyone who considers themselves a PvPer would not be caught dead playing this game. There is no PvP system. The PvP itself is moronic. It's basically who can one-shot who. The 'revolutionary' combat system actually makes PvP insanely frustrating.
The PvE in this game is pointless and boring as hell. Any guild bragging about their progression in AoC should be laughed off the internet.
So, it must be the roleplayers keeping this game going. I mean the game looks great and there are...boobs. It's like RP heaven. RP on, RP on.
ROFL LMAO
I hate to say it, but I don't think they "broke" the cardinal rule. I think that IS the cardinal rule of MMORPG development today.
The new Cardinal Rule of MMORPG Development: Release your game in the most broken, unfinished, unstable and uninteresting condition you possibly can then place the blame on your customers when the product isn't successful.
Then I guess you spend the next five to ten years trying to patch the game up to an acceptable standard knowing you will never get even 10% of your original customer base to return. How you explain that to your investors I'm not quite sure.
Seriously, name me five big name MMOs that have been released in the last five years which didn't do this to some extent.
Anarchy Online did it (so why didn't we see this coming with Age of Conan?) and tried to recover from it, which it barely did.
Shadowbane did it, and never really recovered from it (instead it merely maintained a small but vocal following of blind fanboys who spent more time on the forums than in the game due to the fact that the game never worked properly).
Dark and Light really took the cake in this department. Their game was total shit even in their open beta (SoG, which they tried to deny was a beta by calling it a "pre-release" of the final product) and never really improved after that. Last I heard the developers fired all their programmers due to a lawsuit they were facing for stealing V-World technology to make their game. The servers were down too according to the rumor.
There was also: Tabula Rasa, which was a seemingly fun and enjoyable game until you hit level 30, leveling slowed to a crawl and you found out there wasn't any end-game content. Auto Assault, with the same issues. Vanguard, which was a boring and pointless clone of Everquest. SWG, which was a good game but got worse with every patch rather than better.
And now Age of Conan has followed in this same tradition. I'm not happy about it but more importantly I'm not suprised either! I saw this coming. I tried to warn people when I played in the beta for Age of Conan and saw that it wasn't the game the developers were claiming it was going to be. Nobody believed me. Maybe next time someone will... but probably not.
Quite honestly, I'm tired of seeing this pattern in new MMORPGs. I've become convinced that every MMORPG is going to pull some stunt like this upon release and there just isn't any way to stop it. Developers and publishers obviously believe they can get away with this crap. So I'm not buying into any more new MMORPGs. From now on I'm only going to try out MMOs that have already been released for several years. And I won't believe anyone who says a newly released game is any good until its been on the market for atleast six months. And I still probably won't play the game unless I get a free trial.
I suggest everyone else do the same. If we start treating MMO developers like the spineless liars that they are then maybe they will finally be forced to clean up their act.
Id imagine it would be common sense for future devs to look at all those failures and say this ISNT the way we should make an mmo. I mean every game you listed has flopped as a result. Hopefully they learned their lessons.
I see AOC's biggest flaws in the foundation of the game.
Melee combo system (which actually gets horrible in later levels) versus the boring casting.
Instancing is way too heavy and the instances themselves are boring, lack everything and offer nothing.
Overemphasis on graphics which alot of systems cannot handle well.
Just to name 3 things on top of my head .. worst piece of software I bought lately.
If you are not accustomed to eating kiwi, go slow at first.
heh - but you are touching on the greatest failure
It was actually a pve game, which suddenly noticed everyone wanted meaningful pvp, and in trying to change things at the last minute broke everything
they were faced with a dilemma - stick to the pve vision, and have a small but nore satisfied customer base, or hope that the game was suffiently robust to cope with a change of mechanics towards pvp play.
They took a gamble, they failed, and in so doing destroyed the pve game they had also (which was insufficiently complete - with many of the important instances bugged).
boobs? mate - they messed even that up
there is nowhere near enough sexual content to warrant anything like the hype it had.
boobs? mate - they messed even that up
there is nowhere near enough sexual content to warrant anything like the hype it had.
They should put that on the tombstone, "they couldn't even get boobs right."
You would think so... and yet many of the games I listed are years old but MMO developers keep making the same mistakes anyway.
Thanks for the reply though. Its good to see atleast someone reads my posts besides the warning happy moderators and that !#$&*@ with the blue text.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
All bad mechanics, bugs and everything aside, I think FC would fair way better if they didn't decide to treat their customers like crap. Lie to them, silence them when they voiced their dissatisfaction and lock of almost all communication besides a snotty mod remarks when locking threads.
That is I think the main reason FC failed and I really hope other companies learn something from it. You have to treat each and every one of your customers like someone who brings the food to your table in the end of things, as all respectful businesses do. You need the customers to survive and thrive and not vice versa.
I think gamers are a pretty tolerant bunch when it comes to games that they have been waiting for years and play just because they love the setting inspite all the obvious flaws.
Whilst some of the PvE quests are reasonably interesting I would agree that are generally pointless.
I am not sure I agree that AoC is a Roleplayer's Heaven though unless you were purely referring to the nice scenery & the fact that seating in bars actually works!
The core of the game is a single player quest where everyone is secretly the 'Chosen One' who escaped Tortage as it burned to the ground in the middle of a Civil War. This is just ridiculous & the only way of roleplaying in such an environment is outright denial.
I can remember coming across an amusing & well written back story on an unofficial RP website, where the author's character grew up normally & had not nearly drowned ?n a ship off Tortage & then developed amnesia. Further, she regarded all talk of 'Destiny Conspiracy Theories' as madness that would be swiftly met by the business end of an Assassin's Dagger.
It fairly ridiculous when the only way of successfully role-playing is to deliberately discard such a major part of the game, especially when it re-occurs every 10 levels or so.
RPers aren't obsessed with cartoon breasts though, you must be confusing them with Cybering GMs.
If you can't "Have your cake & eat it too", then how can "The proof of the pudding be in the eating"?
Take the Hecatomb? TCG What Is Your Doom? quiz.