According to mmogchart.com, AO had a peak of 60,000 subscribers shortly after its launch in 2001. By 2002, it had plummeted to only 10,000 subscribers. Since then, it has gone up and down, but never came close to the peak numbers.
Unless the vast majority of AO's players were all hiding on the German server. It fell way way below the 10K mark
Ohh yeahh I am just trolling.. Look when you want to test statements like *I probably left out a few chapters of this disaster story. I am sure other will be happy to fill it in. You need to back it up with facts. And I doubt you can because the game is growing bigtime now (whch is obvious for any user actually logging on). Even these damn xfire numbers show that, so chill out a bit and get your facts straight before you start your revolution.
Who, exactly, needs to back up their facts here? You criticize someones post for being innaccurate and yet you pull Xfire numbers out of your ass. You're the one that needs to get their facts straight. If the game is "growing bigtime" where do you have any proof? Face it, you're nothing but a fanboy troll spewing misinformation here. The game is in it's death bed, and I have facts to back that up: 1) The Lead Designer resigned! 2) Server merges. That is a last-ditch sign of desperation by any MMO company, especially in a game that is so new. 3) Xfire stats. Although this is only a very rough estimate (a concept that few fanboys understand), it is still an estimate of the trend of a game. That being said, as AOC population numbers are so low and continuing to decline, Xfire becomes less and less of an accurate measure as the player base bleeds away.
Look AoC troll posters, it's not like it is a secret. There are many people currently playing AoC that get the same feeling. People are returning to AoC which is in strong contrast to your doomsay.
3) Xfire stats. Although this is only a very rough estimate (a concept that few fanboys understand), it is still an estimate of the trend of a game. That being said, as AOC population numbers are so low and continuing to decline, Xfire becomes less and less of an accurate measure as the player base bleeds away.
Xfire is never an accurate measurement of player activity and game popularity. Game A can have 5 times more players than game B, yet game B can still rank 3 times higher than game A on Xfire... it's never accurate and can't even be used as a rough estimate. Xfire depends solely on it's users for it's game statistics - hence it's biased towards whatever games it's users (not gamers in general) play most.
Using Xfire as a tool for measuring game popularity is ludicrous. It may have millions of registered accounts, but most Xfire users are reffered to the program by fellow players. This means that some games seem to be way more popular according to Xfire than they really are (e.g.: Unreal Tournament 2004, Call of Duty series), whereas other games will seem rather unpopular when they're actually quite popular (e.g.: Starcraft, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3).
Unreal Tournament has four times as many players as Unreal Tournament 2004 every night (you can check this with their respective in-game server browsers, I have). Still UT2004 ranks 51st and UT ranks in at a miserable 155th. That should say plenty for how 'accurate' Xfire really is.
That doesn't mean Age of Conan is suddenly regaining players again. I wouldn't know about that, I'm not playing it (anymore) - and Xfire obviously isn't anywhere near an appropriate tool for measuring game popularity. Age of Conan doesn't register in any server browsers or anything either, so the only real way to check would be to see if server statuses are becoming more crowded nowadays. And for that, you'd have to play the game.
Look AoC troll posters, it's not like it is a secret. There are many people currently playing AoC that get the same feeling. People are returning to AoC which is in strong contrast to your doomsay.
What, Craig made you come to work on Sunday? Or are you using your home computer to send your propaganda?
Listen, we all know, people are not "returning to AoC". There was a bump in server population when pvp-patch went live but these were mainly players who had quit playing but came back briefly to check out the patch which they had been waiting for a long long time. I seriously doubt anybody actually re-subscribed because of that patch.
No matter what you, Avery or Cobra says, servers are NOT booming, they are dying. There is a reason why FC is doing server merges. But you should know this as you work for them.
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by Scared
Originally posted by OrionMan
Look AoC troll posters, it's not like it is a secret. There are many people currently playing AoC that get the same feeling. People are returning to AoC which is in strong contrast to your doomsay.
What, Craig made you come to work on Sunday? Or are you using your home computer to send your propaganda?
Listen, we all know, people are not "returning to AoC". There was a bump in server population when pvp-patch went live but these were mainly players who had quit playing but came back briefly to check out the patch which they had been waiting for a long long time. I seriously doubt anybody actually re-subscribed because of that patch.
No matter what you, Avery or Cobra says, servers are NOT booming, they are dying. There is a reason why FC is doing server merges. But you should know this as you work for them.
What matters is we have an opinion on the game like you do from a paying subcriber perspective. You left and feel the need to justify that here by telling everyone "how its like".
To be so short sighted to say "we all know" to that you "doubt anyone has re-subscribed" to "no matter what" makes you seem so unsure and confused. This is because you don't really know. Its just a back down throughout your post.
I log in, lots of people running around, lots of events, lots of PvP action, regular sieges. So I just speak from experience and back it up with proof. Where as your just "telling us" how it is to justify your stance of game dislike.
I can fraps tortage on 3 different servers right now and show a busy area. I can post over a dozen threads with lots of other people saying they have noticed an increase.
You just come here to plead with people, to beg people not to re-subscribe and that is well just desperate..
What matters is we have an opinion on the game like you do from a paying subcriber perspective. You left and feel the need to justify that here by telling everyone "how its like". To be so short sighted to say "we all know" to that you "doubt anyone has re-subscribed" to "no matter what" makes you seem so unsure and confused. This is because you don't really know. Its just a back down throughout your post. I log in, lots of people running around, lots of events, lots of PvP action, regular sieges. So I just speak from experience and back it up with proof. Where as your just "telling us" how it is to justify your stance of game dislike. I can fraps tortage on 3 different servers right now and show a busy area. I can post over a dozen threads with lots of other people saying they have noticed an increase. You just come here to plead with people, to beg people not to re-subscribe and that is well just desperate..
You always say that same crap. The moment someone leaves the game, he can't form an oppinion on it. I have played AoC since beta for hundreds of hours but when I left a month ago I know nothing of the game because I don't have the "experience"? Are you saying they have fundamentally changed the game in one month? Give me a break. And like I said before I still have a friend playing so I'm not just speculating.
This "increase in population" that you are speaking of is probably just current players switching from dead servers (yes, there are those) to the couple not-so-dead servers still left. It's not like hordes of new players are joining AoC. You know it and I know it.
Playing AoC was like paying to alpha-test a game. I might try it again when the game is finished.
Spoils of War - The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by Scared
Originally posted by AmazingAvery
What matters is we have an opinion on the game like you do from a paying subcriber perspective. You left and feel the need to justify that here by telling everyone "how its like". To be so short sighted to say "we all know" to that you "doubt anyone has re-subscribed" to "no matter what" makes you seem so unsure and confused. This is because you don't really know. Its just a back down throughout your post. I log in, lots of people running around, lots of events, lots of PvP action, regular sieges. So I just speak from experience and back it up with proof. Where as your just "telling us" how it is to justify your stance of game dislike. I can fraps tortage on 3 different servers right now and show a busy area. I can post over a dozen threads with lots of other people saying they have noticed an increase. You just come here to plead with people, to beg people not to re-subscribe and that is well just desperate..
You always say that same crap. The moment someone leaves the game, he can't form an oppinion on it. I have played AoC since beta for hundreds of hours but when I left a month ago I know nothing of the game because I don't have the "experience"? Are you saying they have fundamentally changed the game in one month? Give me a break. And like I said before I still have a friend playing so I'm not just speculating.
This "increase in population" that you are speaking of is probably just current players switching from dead servers (yes, there are those) to the couple not-so-dead servers still left. It's not like hordes of new players are joining AoC. You know it and I know it.
look its great to have an opinion. 1 month ago there was no Patch 2.0 and now your saying things are factual on hearsay. If your friend is still playing ask him why? Did you plead with him to stop too?
Patch 2.0 corrected a lot of wrongs, no it's not perfect, no patch ever is, but it went a long way to fix a lot of things and introduce content. Patch 2.0 also fundamentally changed balance in quite a few classes too. If you have access to Patch 3.0 on the test server you will see overall its just getting better and better.
No one ever said "Hordes" of players are flocking back to the game, the population increase is noticable on some specific servers. Others are as dead as they were months ago.
3) Xfire stats. Although this is only a very rough estimate (a concept that few fanboys understand), it is still an estimate of the trend of a game. That being said, as AOC population numbers are so low and continuing to decline, Xfire becomes less and less of an accurate measure as the player base bleeds away.
Xfire is never an accurate measurement of player activity and game popularity. Game A can have 5 times more players than game B, yet game B can still rank 3 times higher than game A on Xfire... it's never accurate and can't even be used as a rough estimate. Xfire depends solely on it's users for it's game statistics - hence it's biased towards whatever games it's users (not gamers in general) play most.
Using Xfire as a tool for measuring game popularity is ludicrous. It may have millions of registered accounts, but most Xfire users are reffered to the program by fellow players. This means that some games seem to be way more popular according to Xfire than they really are (e.g.: Unreal Tournament 2004, Call of Duty series), whereas other games will seem rather unpopular when they're actually quite popular (e.g.: Starcraft, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3).
Unreal Tournament has four times as many players as Unreal Tournament 2004 every night (you can check this with their respective in-game server browsers, I have). Still UT2004 ranks 51st and UT ranks in at a miserable 155th. That should say plenty for how 'accurate' Xfire really is.
That doesn't mean Age of Conan is suddenly regaining players again. I wouldn't know about that, I'm not playing it (anymore) - and Xfire obviously isn't anywhere near an appropriate tool for measuring game popularity. Age of Conan doesn't register in any server browsers or anything either, so the only real way to check would be to see if server statuses are becoming more crowded nowadays. And for that, you'd have to play the game.
You,sir, are completely and utterly wrong. The fact that Xfire is a rough estimate of player trends may boggle your mind but the fact is that the trends can be linked on Xfire to many historical events on different games that does in fact prove that it does somewhat accuratly reflect what players are doing. Is it a 100% accurate model of what is going on? Of course not. But it does indicate trends. However, as player bases get smaller and smaller, such as in AoC, it does get less and less accurate.
As for Call of Duty series, it is ranked high because it is amazingly popular. COD4 has around 18000-19000 servers on any given night. Oh, by your logic I guess that is just coincidence then that it is ranked #2 on Xfire. Nope, noone is playing COD4, Xfire rank is just a random number!
Again, your comparison of different UT series is meaningless. Both UT and UT2004, while great games, are not exactly new releases. Lets face it, most UT players, at least in those early series, have moved on. So when you have a very low population, such as these games have, Xfire does become less and less meaningful, as far as rankings are concerned. Also you should be aware that UT2004 has some very popular mods that show up in Xfire but not on your browser search in UT. So therefore your comparison of UT to UT2004 does not take into account some very popular mods on 2004 such as Red Orchastra. I would be willing to bet there are many more people playing UT2004, with mods, than UT. UT was released in what, 2001??? What cavemen are still playing that?
look its great to have an opinion. 1 month ago there was no Patch 2.0 and now your saying things are factual on hearsay. If your friend is still playing ask him why? Did you plead with him to stop too? Patch 2.0 corrected a lot of wrongs, no it's not perfect, no patch ever is, but it went a long way to fix a lot of things and introduce content. Patch 2.0 also fundamentally changed balance in quite a few classes too. If you have access to Patch 3.0 on the test server you will see overall its just getting better and better. No one ever said "Hordes" of players are flocking back to the game, the population increase is noticable on some specific servers. Others are as dead as they were months ago.
No need to plead him to stop. My friend would leave in a heartbeat but unfortunately he was dumb enough to buy the 6 month subscription. He's not actively playing, just a couple of hours aweek until he sees the same old turd under the polish.
What matters is we have an opinion on the game like you do from a paying subcriber perspective. You left and feel the need to justify that here by telling everyone "how its like". To be so short sighted to say "we all know" to that you "doubt anyone has re-subscribed" to "no matter what" makes you seem so unsure and confused. This is because you don't really know. Its just a back down throughout your post. I log in, lots of people running around, lots of events, lots of PvP action, regular sieges. So I just speak from experience and back it up with proof. Where as your just "telling us" how it is to justify your stance of game dislike. I can fraps tortage on 3 different servers right now and show a busy area. I can post over a dozen threads with lots of other people saying they have noticed an increase. You just come here to plead with people, to beg people not to re-subscribe and that is well just desperate..
You always say that same crap. The moment someone leaves the game, he can't form an oppinion on it. I have played AoC since beta for hundreds of hours but when I left a month ago I know nothing of the game because I don't have the "experience"? Are you saying they have fundamentally changed the game in one month? Give me a break. And like I said before I still have a friend playing so I'm not just speculating.
This "increase in population" that you are speaking of is probably just current players switching from dead servers (yes, there are those) to the couple not-so-dead servers still left. It's not like hordes of new players are joining AoC. You know it and I know it.
Hold on now, you played the game steadily longer than I have. Yet you're here to tell everyone how bad it is? Why would you play for (at least) 5 months (almost half a year) if a game sucks? Sorry to be so questionable, something about that just makes no sense at all.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by Scared
Originally posted by AmazingAvery
look its great to have an opinion. 1 month ago there was no Patch 2.0 and now your saying things are factual on hearsay. If your friend is still playing ask him why? Did you plead with him to stop too? Patch 2.0 corrected a lot of wrongs, no it's not perfect, no patch ever is, but it went a long way to fix a lot of things and introduce content. Patch 2.0 also fundamentally changed balance in quite a few classes too. If you have access to Patch 3.0 on the test server you will see overall its just getting better and better. No one ever said "Hordes" of players are flocking back to the game, the population increase is noticable on some specific servers. Others are as dead as they were months ago.
No need to plead him to stop. My friend would leave in a heartbeat but unfortunately he was dumb enough to buy the 6 month subscription. He's not actively playing, just a couple of hours aweek until he sees the same old turd under the polish.
If the game is as shit as you think then really only the depth varies. Your friend still insists on getting his feet wet so that must be a sign. You think these forums are crap, you think the game is crap.
No one is saying all these neat things we hear about are iminent. Patch 2.0 was up and going since the start of August. Look at all the decent fixes and some welcomed content it brought. By the looks of it Patch 3.0 is bigger and more of the same, it's logical to think that this will come through with more time. Working upon that the continuation flow of more and more content, new things and fixes.
No one is saying rush in with your wallet. Weigh up the feedback good and bad and the choice should be up to the person when the time is right, if they are tempted, or not yet.
Sooner or later you polish something so much its quite a difference from its first appearance.
Command and Conqueror 3, tiberium wars, Patch 1.05 radically changed the pace of the game.
Supreme Commander's Forged Alliance; completely revamped to discourage tactics like mass fabricator farms as resource generators.
Sins of a Solar Empire, Patch 1.1 about to emerge, substantial changes afoot, doubling weapon cooldown times, shortenting others etc etc.
Newer is not always better, if people prefer to old way in these games they can still play like that. With Age of Conan, there is no going back to the difference of nature of the game, but the principle is still the same. Yes Age of Conan is a mmorpg and these games are RTS, but the changes made / making are just the same for comparison purposes.
In the last couple of weeks we have seen massive steps to rebalance the game. City building lower resource requirements, fundamental changes to classes evening balancing out and news of further improvements to crafting from a fresh dev brought in solely for this.
We have been given news of a rough roadmap for the short term future which embodies change in almost every area of the game. I am sure the readers here are all capable of making their own mind up whether to give AoC another go, or come to the game from stratch. No one needs to go around begging people not to sub because in some way the play experience of the game they had, done them so many wrongs, in some many ways. Thats just desperation speak and looking for clarification for that particular choice made in public view. Just look at all the comments in this thread where people were upset by you telling them or promoting what should be done.
If you had contructed your posts in a more balanced fashion your points might of been taken a bit more seriously. Your beef with parts of the game can be justified by quite a few minds but to ignore the changes that are all happening to the game as we speak as well ignorance at best.
I was in the beta and knew I wouldn't pay for it right away. I know it'll turn out to be a good game but most MMO's its good to wait 6 months or more till they have most of the kinks out of it.
I have friends playing it and they're having fun but they do say their are problems still. I'm more critical than they are so I'll just wait.
i was in beta for AOC. paid $100 for the CE version. played for 2 months canceled due tot he issues. but came back about a month ago, and i found that despite being orignally slow, it has picked up in response to the initial pvp patch. and with the 3.0 pvp patch(fugitive system which is on TL server) soon coming, that should bring a good amount people who are curious in how the game is. at first for the first week when i came back it was pretty dry within a approximately 4-6 days it started to pick up.
now there are a good 30-50 people in kesh alone PVPing or doing mini games lol. hell with my guild VG in deathwhisper we go at it with Deathtouch, Past redemption, Divine legion, Inixile, SLayers on a nightly basis, early evening til 4am almost im gearing towards PVP lvl 2 with my conqueror and having a blast. we have enough people that we are able to form 16 man raids and pvp each other. in fact we had a BK siege the other night (didnt happen though DIvine Legion punked out it seems or claims that VG and Outforblood wouldnt do GUild vs Guild Siege lol) was alot of smack talking in OOC to say the least.
Lot of tactics being used, balancing of classes in the groups, whoever useed the ebst tactics, and had the best rounded class pick in their group basically won lol. also performance has improved in AOC i get an higher sustained FPS average now 30-50 fps but then agian i upgraded to my 6400 X2 (3.2ghz dual core) and 4GB (had to lower it though cause found out a limit with the memory controller when taking up 4 dimm slots so i may repurchase 2x 2GB corsair XMS2 sticks)
Sleepnaught and aryana and Arrowphobia were a comical trip talking smack (especially sleepnaught with his random babbling of nonsensical L33t speak) lets just say hilarity insued. if thats not fun I dont know what is.
but I wont deny there is issues, there were trusts broken with people, but hopefully funcom and Criag can pull it around. frankly they have to if they want to keep or improve their standings with subscribers, but with the inclusion of the PVP patch new content for thunderriver coming and DX 10 already being implemented in TL i think the day is going to get brighter. here is hoping.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
I was in the beta and knew I wouldn't pay for it right away. I know it'll turn out to be a good game but most MMO's its good to wait 6 months or more till they have most of the kinks out of it. I have friends playing it and they're having fun but they do say their are problems still. I'm more critical than they are so I'll just wait.
Cool look forward to when we get you on the team. It's immense fun and frankly I would not wait longer as the bugs that currently still are around hardly are noticable, and you need to start aquiring powerpoints. Powerpoints come with loyalty and subscription so there is really no way around that.
Hold on now, you played the game steadily longer than I have. Yet you're here to tell everyone how bad it is? Why would you play for (at least) 5 months (almost half a year) if a game sucks? Sorry to be so questionable, something about that just makes no sense at all.
You fanbois are dumb. First you claim, I only say the game sucks because I've played it for a short time. Now when you hear I've been playing for months and months, you say "why would you play if I think the game sucks?". What is the amount of playtime I should have in order to have the right to say AoC sucks?
Why did I play for so long? Well, I had 4 months of free play and also I wanted the game to be good. Like many others here I was bored with current MMO's and was looking for a change. Also like many others, I believed the AoC hype and thought this game was something special.
I saw it was not that special during the first few weeks in beta. I kept telling myself, "this is only beta". However, as the launch came close, it became obvious that the game was what it was. You can polish a turd but it's still a turd.
But like I said, I wanted the game to be good, so I kept telling myself, "maybe the endgame pvp will be awesome?". It wasn't. It was horrible. And since I'm a pvp player, this was a deal breaker. Logging in became more and more difficult. And as the server population dropped every day, the game became even more boring. Still I kept logging in listening the promises of updates that are coming "next week".
By this time I was fed up with constant lying of Erling and other professional liers employed by FC. So when it came time to start to actually pay for monthly play, I said no thanks and moved on.
AoC is probably the biggest disaster in MMO history. I only hope future developers will learn from this and not make the same mistakes.
Luckily Guild Wars 2 is coming out next year and you will all see what a real pvp MMO looks like.
Originally posted by AmazingAvery If the game is as shit as you think then really only the depth varies. Your friend still insists on getting his feet wet so that must be a sign. You think these forums are crap, you think the game is crap. If you had contructed your posts in a more balanced fashion your points might of been taken a bit more seriously. Your beef with parts of the game can be justified by quite a few minds but to ignore the changes that are all happening to the game as we speak as well ignorance at best.
I actually like these forums. I like discussing with other players about a game. What I don't like is corporate lackeys, like yourself and some others here, who get paid to post FC propaganda here.
Haha, "balanced"? Avery is talking about balanced? Thanks for a good laugh.
Look there is a difference between discussing and bitching. When 100% of your posts over the last months just say the same negative stuff over and over again, then you are not discussing anymore. You are doing something else called trolling. By any stretch I do not think anyone really missed your point (unless they are really blind), so perhaps it's time to move on so others with newer impressions can get a chance to express their views.
Hold on now, you played the game steadily longer than I have. Yet you're here to tell everyone how bad it is? Why would you play for (at least) 5 months (almost half a year) if a game sucks? Sorry to be so questionable, something about that just makes no sense at all.
You fanbois are dumb. First you claim, I only say the game sucks because I've played it for a short time. Now when you hear I've been playing for months and months, you say "why would you play if I think the game sucks?". What is the amount of playtime I should have in order to have the right to say AoC sucks?
Why did I play for so long? Well, I had 4 months of free play and also I wanted the game to be good. Like many others here I was bored with current MMO's and was looking for a change. Also like many others, I believed the AoC hype and thought this game was something special.
I saw it was not that special during the first few weeks in beta. I kept telling myself, "this is only beta". However, as the launch came close, it became obvious that the game was what it was. You can polish a turd but it's still a turd.
But like I said, I wanted the game to be good, so I kept telling myself, "maybe the endgame pvp will be awesome?". It wasn't. It was horrible. And since I'm a pvp player, this was a deal breaker. Logging in became more and more difficult. And as the server population dropped every day, the game became even more boring. Still I kept logging in listening the promises of updates that are coming "next week".
By this time I was fed up with constant lying of Erling and other professional liers employed by FC. So when it came time to start to actually pay for monthly play, I said no thanks and moved on.
AoC is probably the biggest disaster in MMO history. I only hope future developers will learn from this and not make the same mistakes.
Luckily Guild Wars 2 is coming out next year and you will all see what a real pvp MMO looks like.
Now that's a perfectly legitimate reason. Of course it has to come side by side with a personal attack. I'm pretty much in the same boat, I feel the same way about most MMO's on the market today. AOC was the only one I could get past a two week period in. Does that make me a fanboi or dumb? In my experience, that would be a solid no.
Maybe you took my question as a (too) personal one, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that your attacks were of a retaliative nature. That's also understandable, and I apologize. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to discuss these issues, without getting personal with our arguments. After all it's only a game at the root of the topic here.
I have no problem with you posting your concerns or even your hate for a game. I just like to know where the motivation comes from. What your experience was like, is an easy way to come to a conclusion about such a subject. Now that you explained "your experience", I understand where you're coming from. I'd actually agree with you more than the others taking part in this discussion. Though my personal experience was not a bad as yours, however, it definitely wasn't as good as some who post here.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I dont care what funcom patches in AoC. The game is doomed. It cost too much to make ($50 mil I believe and most was borrowed money) and its not getting enough income to even keep up on maintenance.
The biggest problem with AoC is the endgame content. There really isnt any. The dungeons are horrible, crafting is so bad they should have just left it out. Pvp is worthless, player cities do nothing. The gear is a complete joke.
Its gonna be a great day when Funcom either files for bankrupcy or they sell AoC to a competent company who can make it profitable. Then I will return with no regrets.
AoC is a good game now. The last five month saw them greatly reduce client OOM issues and crashes. They are balancing out flaws like gems, crafting and a lack of pvp system. Most of the endgame dungeons now work (although they are still very mundane). Seiging now works. All of these things are great updates to the game, but they all should have been done before the game launches. Because the game was launched unfinished, it lost the majority of it's players in the first 2 months.
Why does it matter?
1. Most of the game is based around seiging or large Guild vs Guild activities. This is no longer possible since on most servers, there simply aren't enough players to do these things. If server mergers come within a month or two, then this will be solved. Yes, seiging does happen on a few servers, but it is a rare occurance and then you are left with very little to do at endgame. Seiging should be going on every night, it should be what people log on and do. Instead it requires a ton of organization and coaxing even to get one seige happening very infrequently.
2. (my opinion). Funcom as a company is in serious danger. They took on a lot of debt to launch AOC, and even with 800k box sales in May, the company was very unprofitable. Some of the money they borrowed is still in the bank, so they can keep operating the game, but probably not for more then 4 months. I highly doubt Funcom as a company will exist in February 2009. There is a possibility if they stabilize the game (which they mostly have) that the game will get sold off to another company, but because of their debt, it is unlikely Funcom will be sold directly.
If you are interested in AOC, get a trial account and play it. The first 20 levels are really good (but be warned of a bit of a drastic dropoff). If you like the trial, then play the game. The only warning I would add is that the game might not be around in January.
AOC right now is slightly better than Warhammer. The difference is that Warhammer has a more solid company behind it and doesn't have the possibility of being closed down for awhile.
AoC is a good game now. The last five month saw them greatly reduce client OOM issues and crashes. They are balancing out flaws like gems, crafting and a lack of pvp system. Most of the endgame dungeons now work (although they are still very mundane). Seiging now works. All of these things are great updates to the game, but they all should have been done before the game launches. Because the game was launched unfinished, it lost the majority of it's players in the first 2 months. Why does it matter? 1. Most of the game is based around seiging or large Guild vs Guild activities. This is no longer possible since on most servers, there simply aren't enough players to do these things. If server mergers come within a month or two, then this will be solved. Yes, seiging does happen on a few servers, but it is a rare occurance and then you are left with very little to do at endgame. Seiging should be going on every night, it should be what people log on and do. Instead it requires a ton of organization and coaxing even to get one seige happening very infrequently. 2. (my opinion). Funcom as a company is in serious danger. They took on a lot of debt to launch AOC, and even with 800k box sales in May, the company was very unprofitable. Some of the money they borrowed is still in the bank, so they can keep operating the game, but probably not for more then 4 months. I highly doubt Funcom as a company will exist in February 2009. There is a possibility if they stabilize the game (which they mostly have) that the game will get sold off to another company, but because of their debt, it is unlikely Funcom will be sold directly. If you are interested in AOC, get a trial account and play it. The first 20 levels are really good (but be warned of a bit of a drastic dropoff). If you like the trial, then play the game. The only warning I would add is that the game might not be around in January. AOC right now is slightly better than Warhammer. The difference is that Warhammer has a more solid company behind it and doesn't have the possibility of being closed down for awhile.
Good post I agree with just about everything within, the biggest problem they face now is on the population front. I'd like to see them consolidate down to like 10 servers at most.
Whether they will close down or not is the biggest question to be answered at this point.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Please stop it, you are really annoying and pedant, stop random bitching people and grow up.
What you call "random bitching", I call a discussion. Who are you to say what we can and can't talk about here? I say you grow up and let people express their oppinions not matter how much they differ from yours.
Comments
Unless the vast majority of AO's players were all hiding on the German server. It fell way way below the 10K mark
Cut and paste right off Xfire.com:
Age of Conan:
#41 down from #39 yesterday
Highest: #4 on 2008-06-01
Who, exactly, needs to back up their facts here? You criticize someones post for being innaccurate and yet you pull Xfire numbers out of your ass. You're the one that needs to get their facts straight. If the game is "growing bigtime" where do you have any proof? Face it, you're nothing but a fanboy troll spewing misinformation here. The game is in it's death bed, and I have facts to back that up: 1) The Lead Designer resigned! 2) Server merges. That is a last-ditch sign of desperation by any MMO company, especially in a game that is so new. 3) Xfire stats. Although this is only a very rough estimate (a concept that few fanboys understand), it is still an estimate of the trend of a game. That being said, as AOC population numbers are so low and continuing to decline, Xfire becomes less and less of an accurate measure as the player base bleeds away.
Look AoC troll posters, it's not like it is a secret. There are many people currently playing AoC that get the same feeling. People are returning to AoC which is in strong contrast to your doomsay.
Cut and paste right off Xfire.com:
Age of Conan:
#41 down from #39 yesterday
Highest: #4 on 2008-06-01
....
3) Xfire stats. Although this is only a very rough estimate (a concept that few fanboys understand), it is still an estimate of the trend of a game. That being said, as AOC population numbers are so low and continuing to decline, Xfire becomes less and less of an accurate measure as the player base bleeds away.
Xfire is never an accurate measurement of player activity and game popularity. Game A can have 5 times more players than game B, yet game B can still rank 3 times higher than game A on Xfire... it's never accurate and can't even be used as a rough estimate. Xfire depends solely on it's users for it's game statistics - hence it's biased towards whatever games it's users (not gamers in general) play most.
Using Xfire as a tool for measuring game popularity is ludicrous. It may have millions of registered accounts, but most Xfire users are reffered to the program by fellow players. This means that some games seem to be way more popular according to Xfire than they really are (e.g.: Unreal Tournament 2004, Call of Duty series), whereas other games will seem rather unpopular when they're actually quite popular (e.g.: Starcraft, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3).
Unreal Tournament has four times as many players as Unreal Tournament 2004 every night (you can check this with their respective in-game server browsers, I have). Still UT2004 ranks 51st and UT ranks in at a miserable 155th. That should say plenty for how 'accurate' Xfire really is.
That doesn't mean Age of Conan is suddenly regaining players again. I wouldn't know about that, I'm not playing it (anymore) - and Xfire obviously isn't anywhere near an appropriate tool for measuring game popularity. Age of Conan doesn't register in any server browsers or anything either, so the only real way to check would be to see if server statuses are becoming more crowded nowadays. And for that, you'd have to play the game.
What, Craig made you come to work on Sunday? Or are you using your home computer to send your propaganda?
Listen, we all know, people are not "returning to AoC". There was a bump in server population when pvp-patch went live but these were mainly players who had quit playing but came back briefly to check out the patch which they had been waiting for a long long time. I seriously doubt anybody actually re-subscribed because of that patch.
No matter what you, Avery or Cobra says, servers are NOT booming, they are dying. There is a reason why FC is doing server merges. But you should know this as you work for them.
What, Craig made you come to work on Sunday? Or are you using your home computer to send your propaganda?
Listen, we all know, people are not "returning to AoC". There was a bump in server population when pvp-patch went live but these were mainly players who had quit playing but came back briefly to check out the patch which they had been waiting for a long long time. I seriously doubt anybody actually re-subscribed because of that patch.
No matter what you, Avery or Cobra says, servers are NOT booming, they are dying. There is a reason why FC is doing server merges. But you should know this as you work for them.
What matters is we have an opinion on the game like you do from a paying subcriber perspective. You left and feel the need to justify that here by telling everyone "how its like".
To be so short sighted to say "we all know" to that you "doubt anyone has re-subscribed" to "no matter what" makes you seem so unsure and confused. This is because you don't really know. Its just a back down throughout your post.
I log in, lots of people running around, lots of events, lots of PvP action, regular sieges. So I just speak from experience and back it up with proof. Where as your just "telling us" how it is to justify your stance of game dislike.
I can fraps tortage on 3 different servers right now and show a busy area. I can post over a dozen threads with lots of other people saying they have noticed an increase.
You just come here to plead with people, to beg people not to re-subscribe and that is well just desperate..
You always say that same crap. The moment someone leaves the game, he can't form an oppinion on it. I have played AoC since beta for hundreds of hours but when I left a month ago I know nothing of the game because I don't have the "experience"? Are you saying they have fundamentally changed the game in one month? Give me a break. And like I said before I still have a friend playing so I'm not just speculating.
This "increase in population" that you are speaking of is probably just current players switching from dead servers (yes, there are those) to the couple not-so-dead servers still left. It's not like hordes of new players are joining AoC. You know it and I know it.
Playing AoC was like paying to alpha-test a game. I might try it again when the game is finished.
Spoils of War - The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
You always say that same crap. The moment someone leaves the game, he can't form an oppinion on it. I have played AoC since beta for hundreds of hours but when I left a month ago I know nothing of the game because I don't have the "experience"? Are you saying they have fundamentally changed the game in one month? Give me a break. And like I said before I still have a friend playing so I'm not just speculating.
This "increase in population" that you are speaking of is probably just current players switching from dead servers (yes, there are those) to the couple not-so-dead servers still left. It's not like hordes of new players are joining AoC. You know it and I know it.
look its great to have an opinion. 1 month ago there was no Patch 2.0 and now your saying things are factual on hearsay. If your friend is still playing ask him why? Did you plead with him to stop too?
Patch 2.0 corrected a lot of wrongs, no it's not perfect, no patch ever is, but it went a long way to fix a lot of things and introduce content. Patch 2.0 also fundamentally changed balance in quite a few classes too. If you have access to Patch 3.0 on the test server you will see overall its just getting better and better.
No one ever said "Hordes" of players are flocking back to the game, the population increase is noticable on some specific servers. Others are as dead as they were months ago.
Cut and paste right off Xfire.com:
Age of Conan:
#41 down from #39 yesterday
Highest: #4 on 2008-06-01
....
3) Xfire stats. Although this is only a very rough estimate (a concept that few fanboys understand), it is still an estimate of the trend of a game. That being said, as AOC population numbers are so low and continuing to decline, Xfire becomes less and less of an accurate measure as the player base bleeds away.
Xfire is never an accurate measurement of player activity and game popularity. Game A can have 5 times more players than game B, yet game B can still rank 3 times higher than game A on Xfire... it's never accurate and can't even be used as a rough estimate. Xfire depends solely on it's users for it's game statistics - hence it's biased towards whatever games it's users (not gamers in general) play most.
Using Xfire as a tool for measuring game popularity is ludicrous. It may have millions of registered accounts, but most Xfire users are reffered to the program by fellow players. This means that some games seem to be way more popular according to Xfire than they really are (e.g.: Unreal Tournament 2004, Call of Duty series), whereas other games will seem rather unpopular when they're actually quite popular (e.g.: Starcraft, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3).
Unreal Tournament has four times as many players as Unreal Tournament 2004 every night (you can check this with their respective in-game server browsers, I have). Still UT2004 ranks 51st and UT ranks in at a miserable 155th. That should say plenty for how 'accurate' Xfire really is.
That doesn't mean Age of Conan is suddenly regaining players again. I wouldn't know about that, I'm not playing it (anymore) - and Xfire obviously isn't anywhere near an appropriate tool for measuring game popularity. Age of Conan doesn't register in any server browsers or anything either, so the only real way to check would be to see if server statuses are becoming more crowded nowadays. And for that, you'd have to play the game.
You,sir, are completely and utterly wrong. The fact that Xfire is a rough estimate of player trends may boggle your mind but the fact is that the trends can be linked on Xfire to many historical events on different games that does in fact prove that it does somewhat accuratly reflect what players are doing. Is it a 100% accurate model of what is going on? Of course not. But it does indicate trends. However, as player bases get smaller and smaller, such as in AoC, it does get less and less accurate.
As for Call of Duty series, it is ranked high because it is amazingly popular. COD4 has around 18000-19000 servers on any given night. Oh, by your logic I guess that is just coincidence then that it is ranked #2 on Xfire. Nope, noone is playing COD4, Xfire rank is just a random number!
Again, your comparison of different UT series is meaningless. Both UT and UT2004, while great games, are not exactly new releases. Lets face it, most UT players, at least in those early series, have moved on. So when you have a very low population, such as these games have, Xfire does become less and less meaningful, as far as rankings are concerned. Also you should be aware that UT2004 has some very popular mods that show up in Xfire but not on your browser search in UT. So therefore your comparison of UT to UT2004 does not take into account some very popular mods on 2004 such as Red Orchastra. I would be willing to bet there are many more people playing UT2004, with mods, than UT. UT was released in what, 2001??? What cavemen are still playing that?
No need to plead him to stop. My friend would leave in a heartbeat but unfortunately he was dumb enough to buy the 6 month subscription. He's not actively playing, just a couple of hours aweek until he sees the same old turd under the polish.
You always say that same crap. The moment someone leaves the game, he can't form an oppinion on it. I have played AoC since beta for hundreds of hours but when I left a month ago I know nothing of the game because I don't have the "experience"? Are you saying they have fundamentally changed the game in one month? Give me a break. And like I said before I still have a friend playing so I'm not just speculating.
This "increase in population" that you are speaking of is probably just current players switching from dead servers (yes, there are those) to the couple not-so-dead servers still left. It's not like hordes of new players are joining AoC. You know it and I know it.
Hold on now, you played the game steadily longer than I have. Yet you're here to tell everyone how bad it is? Why would you play for (at least) 5 months (almost half a year) if a game sucks? Sorry to be so questionable, something about that just makes no sense at all.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
No need to plead him to stop. My friend would leave in a heartbeat but unfortunately he was dumb enough to buy the 6 month subscription. He's not actively playing, just a couple of hours aweek until he sees the same old turd under the polish.
If the game is as shit as you think then really only the depth varies. Your friend still insists on getting his feet wet so that must be a sign. You think these forums are crap, you think the game is crap.
No one is saying all these neat things we hear about are iminent. Patch 2.0 was up and going since the start of August. Look at all the decent fixes and some welcomed content it brought. By the looks of it Patch 3.0 is bigger and more of the same, it's logical to think that this will come through with more time. Working upon that the continuation flow of more and more content, new things and fixes.
No one is saying rush in with your wallet. Weigh up the feedback good and bad and the choice should be up to the person when the time is right, if they are tempted, or not yet.
Sooner or later you polish something so much its quite a difference from its first appearance.
Command and Conqueror 3, tiberium wars, Patch 1.05 radically changed the pace of the game.
Supreme Commander's Forged Alliance; completely revamped to discourage tactics like mass fabricator farms as resource generators.
Sins of a Solar Empire, Patch 1.1 about to emerge, substantial changes afoot, doubling weapon cooldown times, shortenting others etc etc.
Newer is not always better, if people prefer to old way in these games they can still play like that. With Age of Conan, there is no going back to the difference of nature of the game, but the principle is still the same. Yes Age of Conan is a mmorpg and these games are RTS, but the changes made / making are just the same for comparison purposes.
In the last couple of weeks we have seen massive steps to rebalance the game. City building lower resource requirements, fundamental changes to classes evening balancing out and news of further improvements to crafting from a fresh dev brought in solely for this.
We have been given news of a rough roadmap for the short term future which embodies change in almost every area of the game. I am sure the readers here are all capable of making their own mind up whether to give AoC another go, or come to the game from stratch. No one needs to go around begging people not to sub because in some way the play experience of the game they had, done them so many wrongs, in some many ways. Thats just desperation speak and looking for clarification for that particular choice made in public view. Just look at all the comments in this thread where people were upset by you telling them or promoting what should be done.
If you had contructed your posts in a more balanced fashion your points might of been taken a bit more seriously. Your beef with parts of the game can be justified by quite a few minds but to ignore the changes that are all happening to the game as we speak as well ignorance at best.
I was in the beta and knew I wouldn't pay for it right away. I know it'll turn out to be a good game but most MMO's its good to wait 6 months or more till they have most of the kinks out of it.
I have friends playing it and they're having fun but they do say their are problems still. I'm more critical than they are so I'll just wait.
i was in beta for AOC. paid $100 for the CE version. played for 2 months canceled due tot he issues. but came back about a month ago, and i found that despite being orignally slow, it has picked up in response to the initial pvp patch. and with the 3.0 pvp patch(fugitive system which is on TL server) soon coming, that should bring a good amount people who are curious in how the game is. at first for the first week when i came back it was pretty dry within a approximately 4-6 days it started to pick up.
now there are a good 30-50 people in kesh alone PVPing or doing mini games lol. hell with my guild VG in deathwhisper we go at it with Deathtouch, Past redemption, Divine legion, Inixile, SLayers on a nightly basis, early evening til 4am almost im gearing towards PVP lvl 2 with my conqueror and having a blast. we have enough people that we are able to form 16 man raids and pvp each other. in fact we had a BK siege the other night (didnt happen though DIvine Legion punked out it seems or claims that VG and Outforblood wouldnt do GUild vs Guild Siege lol) was alot of smack talking in OOC to say the least.
Lot of tactics being used, balancing of classes in the groups, whoever useed the ebst tactics, and had the best rounded class pick in their group basically won lol. also performance has improved in AOC i get an higher sustained FPS average now 30-50 fps but then agian i upgraded to my 6400 X2 (3.2ghz dual core) and 4GB (had to lower it though cause found out a limit with the memory controller when taking up 4 dimm slots so i may repurchase 2x 2GB corsair XMS2 sticks)
Sleepnaught and aryana and Arrowphobia were a comical trip talking smack (especially sleepnaught with his random babbling of nonsensical L33t speak) lets just say hilarity insued. if thats not fun I dont know what is.
but I wont deny there is issues, there were trusts broken with people, but hopefully funcom and Criag can pull it around. frankly they have to if they want to keep or improve their standings with subscribers, but with the inclusion of the PVP patch new content for thunderriver coming and DX 10 already being implemented in TL i think the day is going to get brighter. here is hoping.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
Cool look forward to when we get you on the team. It's immense fun and frankly I would not wait longer as the bugs that currently still are around hardly are noticable, and you need to start aquiring powerpoints. Powerpoints come with loyalty and subscription so there is really no way around that.
You fanbois are dumb. First you claim, I only say the game sucks because I've played it for a short time. Now when you hear I've been playing for months and months, you say "why would you play if I think the game sucks?". What is the amount of playtime I should have in order to have the right to say AoC sucks?
Why did I play for so long? Well, I had 4 months of free play and also I wanted the game to be good. Like many others here I was bored with current MMO's and was looking for a change. Also like many others, I believed the AoC hype and thought this game was something special.
I saw it was not that special during the first few weeks in beta. I kept telling myself, "this is only beta". However, as the launch came close, it became obvious that the game was what it was. You can polish a turd but it's still a turd.
But like I said, I wanted the game to be good, so I kept telling myself, "maybe the endgame pvp will be awesome?". It wasn't. It was horrible. And since I'm a pvp player, this was a deal breaker. Logging in became more and more difficult. And as the server population dropped every day, the game became even more boring. Still I kept logging in listening the promises of updates that are coming "next week".
By this time I was fed up with constant lying of Erling and other professional liers employed by FC. So when it came time to start to actually pay for monthly play, I said no thanks and moved on.
AoC is probably the biggest disaster in MMO history. I only hope future developers will learn from this and not make the same mistakes.
Luckily Guild Wars 2 is coming out next year and you will all see what a real pvp MMO looks like.
I actually like these forums. I like discussing with other players about a game. What I don't like is corporate lackeys, like yourself and some others here, who get paid to post FC propaganda here.
Haha, "balanced"? Avery is talking about balanced? Thanks for a good laugh.
Please stop it, you are really annoying and pedant, stop random bitching people and grow up.
Look there is a difference between discussing and bitching. When 100% of your posts over the last months just say the same negative stuff over and over again, then you are not discussing anymore. You are doing something else called trolling. By any stretch I do not think anyone really missed your point (unless they are really blind), so perhaps it's time to move on so others with newer impressions can get a chance to express their views.
You fanbois are dumb. First you claim, I only say the game sucks because I've played it for a short time. Now when you hear I've been playing for months and months, you say "why would you play if I think the game sucks?". What is the amount of playtime I should have in order to have the right to say AoC sucks?
Why did I play for so long? Well, I had 4 months of free play and also I wanted the game to be good. Like many others here I was bored with current MMO's and was looking for a change. Also like many others, I believed the AoC hype and thought this game was something special.
I saw it was not that special during the first few weeks in beta. I kept telling myself, "this is only beta". However, as the launch came close, it became obvious that the game was what it was. You can polish a turd but it's still a turd.
But like I said, I wanted the game to be good, so I kept telling myself, "maybe the endgame pvp will be awesome?". It wasn't. It was horrible. And since I'm a pvp player, this was a deal breaker. Logging in became more and more difficult. And as the server population dropped every day, the game became even more boring. Still I kept logging in listening the promises of updates that are coming "next week".
By this time I was fed up with constant lying of Erling and other professional liers employed by FC. So when it came time to start to actually pay for monthly play, I said no thanks and moved on.
AoC is probably the biggest disaster in MMO history. I only hope future developers will learn from this and not make the same mistakes.
Luckily Guild Wars 2 is coming out next year and you will all see what a real pvp MMO looks like.
Now that's a perfectly legitimate reason. Of course it has to come side by side with a personal attack. I'm pretty much in the same boat, I feel the same way about most MMO's on the market today. AOC was the only one I could get past a two week period in. Does that make me a fanboi or dumb? In my experience, that would be a solid no.
Maybe you took my question as a (too) personal one, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that your attacks were of a retaliative nature. That's also understandable, and I apologize. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to discuss these issues, without getting personal with our arguments. After all it's only a game at the root of the topic here.
I have no problem with you posting your concerns or even your hate for a game. I just like to know where the motivation comes from. What your experience was like, is an easy way to come to a conclusion about such a subject. Now that you explained "your experience", I understand where you're coming from. I'd actually agree with you more than the others taking part in this discussion. Though my personal experience was not a bad as yours, however, it definitely wasn't as good as some who post here.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I dont care what funcom patches in AoC. The game is doomed. It cost too much to make ($50 mil I believe and most was borrowed money) and its not getting enough income to even keep up on maintenance.
The biggest problem with AoC is the endgame content. There really isnt any. The dungeons are horrible, crafting is so bad they should have just left it out. Pvp is worthless, player cities do nothing. The gear is a complete joke.
Its gonna be a great day when Funcom either files for bankrupcy or they sell AoC to a competent company who can make it profitable. Then I will return with no regrets.
AoC is a good game now. The last five month saw them greatly reduce client OOM issues and crashes. They are balancing out flaws like gems, crafting and a lack of pvp system. Most of the endgame dungeons now work (although they are still very mundane). Seiging now works. All of these things are great updates to the game, but they all should have been done before the game launches. Because the game was launched unfinished, it lost the majority of it's players in the first 2 months.
Why does it matter?
1. Most of the game is based around seiging or large Guild vs Guild activities. This is no longer possible since on most servers, there simply aren't enough players to do these things. If server mergers come within a month or two, then this will be solved. Yes, seiging does happen on a few servers, but it is a rare occurance and then you are left with very little to do at endgame. Seiging should be going on every night, it should be what people log on and do. Instead it requires a ton of organization and coaxing even to get one seige happening very infrequently.
2. (my opinion). Funcom as a company is in serious danger. They took on a lot of debt to launch AOC, and even with 800k box sales in May, the company was very unprofitable. Some of the money they borrowed is still in the bank, so they can keep operating the game, but probably not for more then 4 months. I highly doubt Funcom as a company will exist in February 2009. There is a possibility if they stabilize the game (which they mostly have) that the game will get sold off to another company, but because of their debt, it is unlikely Funcom will be sold directly.
If you are interested in AOC, get a trial account and play it. The first 20 levels are really good (but be warned of a bit of a drastic dropoff). If you like the trial, then play the game. The only warning I would add is that the game might not be around in January.
AOC right now is slightly better than Warhammer. The difference is that Warhammer has a more solid company behind it and doesn't have the possibility of being closed down for awhile.
Good post I agree with just about everything within, the biggest problem they face now is on the population front. I'd like to see them consolidate down to like 10 servers at most.
Whether they will close down or not is the biggest question to be answered at this point.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
What you call "random bitching", I call a discussion. Who are you to say what we can and can't talk about here? I say you grow up and let people express their oppinions not matter how much they differ from yours.