This cracks me up. A glimmer of hope for a game thats dead. You do realise that it only takes into account the Europe side? When AoC is on a top 20 list from Amazon or some other U.S. company then maybe you can hoot and holler about it being 17th. Less than 900 xfire users yesterday, LOL
You are incredibly ignorant about the reality of the situation. AoC is the fifth most purchased MMO on Direct2drive,
You make it seem like this is a huge accomplishment. Fact of the matter is that there were few mmorpg releases this year and considering the hype surrounding Age of Conan, it should have been number 2 or 3, closely struggling with Warhammer Online. The fact it's number 5 shows how poorly the game is selling at this moment.
Yes and it should have wow like numbers or it's a Failzor!!!!!! Oh it's dying it's dying...yeah right
/Holds up doll Now show me on the doll where the bad ol Funcom GM touched you
Wish it dead all you want guy, it's still has an audiance, the audience seems to be growing and it isn't going anywhere. The only thing that is fail here is your poor attempt at Scocial Engineering.
That poll is unmitigated garbage.
Here's the thread where they were publicizing that poll, and giving instructions on how to cheat and vote multiple times.
Quote from Dargaad, the guy who first posted it: "Go vote again, not far from #1."
Take a look at the many posts from Worgpest, and the dates he edited his posts (3 or 4 days after the fact). He changed them after he started getting called on it on the Voodoo Extreme website.
Amusingly enough, you can now only vote on the VE poll if you are a registered user, because of all the problems they were having with cheaters stuffing the ballot box. Their promises that duplicate votes would be "nuked" was hogwash, and they knew it at the time.
Anyway, too late, the damage is already done, and the poll is worthless unless they delete all the votes and start over.
It does illustrate the problem with fanatics, though. They will do anything - lie, cheat, deceive, whatever - to make their game appear better than it is.
As an aside, this is another reason why the first VE poll was also garbage.
This reminds me of that little poll site they linked to that showed AOC as #2. They find any obscure, unknown place and then count anything as a 'sign' LOL. The fact is that on every 'major' site like amazon.com.. AOC isn't listed in the top 100 PC games sales. AOC hasn't been on Amazon's chart since May.
Play.com is huge in europe, so it is on a "Major" site.
Yep, AOC, Vanguard and Anarchy Online.. all are at the top of the list as far as MMORPGs go. Great company.
? hmmm... something tells me you think VG and AoC are made by same company?? just NO.
No, I meant they are all games that had highly hyped releases and are now in the <50,000 subscriber base. They are all games who have a few diehards who post incessentantly on the forums about how the game as 'turned the corner' and is getting better. Go to their forums, there are the same type of people as on these forums saying the same things.
AOC has fallen out of the group with Eve, Lotro and warhammer.. it is now with Vanguard and Anarchy online.
When I said 'great company'.. I didn't mean Funcom the company, i meant ' group'.
You know that Eve game you are talking about around its first year only had about 20-30k subs with a top of 2000-3000 players on a peak time (thats when i started the game) - None that quit that game where standing around it screaming DEAD!DEAD!DEAD!. I wonder why...
If people on this board have enough in them to care so much so they will go on to the forum just to scream DEAD!DEAD!DEAD!, then let me tell them that it isnt helping at all for the game.
If people want to warn other people then do it by saying what you didnt like about the game, dont get pissed if players tell you that its your taste/its been fixed/or perhaps agrees but not to the degree you make it sound as. On many occasion your negativ views on the game will be agreed upon by the players also, but they unlike the sceptimist can overlook it for other things in the game. Arguing good and bad points is healthy for the game, including arguing the value of the OPs polls or whatever. Screaming ARMAGEDDON! as soon as something positive is said is just trolling.
<IMHO>
The playerbase of AoC is looking like it has stabalized, that means its not dead. It might be shot and wounded heh - but just couse it doesnt have a stable playerbase as of todays EvE, Lotro and Warhammer doesnt equal it to being dead.
Im sure there are many people that would enjoy a trip back to hyboria, but with all the screaming of DEAD!DEAD!DEAD! are reluctant to do so.
</IMHO>
(P.S im no fanboi, i dont play and i wont play unless i see another patch like ymirspass +2 or get a free day tryout on my old account, so no need for anyone to drag out the fanboi-card on me)
P.P.S - wish all the mumbojumbo about the freaking subs would end, talk about the game as it is now instead and not how many freaking users it lost at launch. Thats yeasterday now..
FagerCraft - Feeding the trolls on mmorpg.com since 2005.
The main problem AoC have now is so many servers, the fact is at release they stated they have enough server for 600.000 players and during first 14 days they added bunch of new ones. ( probably to support 800K-1M ).
A lot of people left the game well its not WoW and it had issues + missing features etc..
Even now there is quite few servers with healthy population and some that are almost ghost towns.
Once merges are done all servers will have healthy population and they even plan to open new ones most likely for those that will come back with winback program aka some free time for all ex subscribers.
Yep, AOC, Vanguard and Anarchy Online.. all are at the top of the list as far as MMORPGs go. Great company.
? hmmm... something tells me you think VG and AoC are made by same company?? just NO.
No, I meant they are all games that had highly hyped releases and are now in the <50,000 subscriber base. They are all games who have a few diehards who post incessentantly on the forums about how the game as 'turned the corner' and is getting better. Go to their forums, there are the same type of people as on these forums saying the same things.
AOC has fallen out of the group with Eve, Lotro and warhammer.. it is now with Vanguard and Anarchy online.
When I said 'great company'.. I didn't mean Funcom the company, i meant ' group'.
No again. AoC has a subscriberbase are more or less 200 000 in size. I would absolutely not guess VG to have that much going for it. And another thing VG is not based on any real lore so I would not compare VG and AoC for that reason too. AO is F2P, banana and apple comparison from your side.
Yep, AOC, Vanguard and Anarchy Online.. all are at the top of the list as far as MMORPGs go. Great company.
? hmmm... something tells me you think VG and AoC are made by same company?? just NO.
No, I meant they are all games that had highly hyped releases and are now in the <50,000 subscriber base. They are all games who have a few diehards who post incessentantly on the forums about how the game as 'turned the corner' and is getting better. Go to their forums, there are the same type of people as on these forums saying the same things.
AOC has fallen out of the group with Eve, Lotro and warhammer.. it is now with Vanguard and Anarchy online.
When I said 'great company'.. I didn't mean Funcom the company, i meant ' group'.
No again. AoC has a subscriberbase are more or less 200 000 in size. I would absolutely not guess VG to have that much going for it. And another thing VG is not based on any real lore so I would not compare VG and AoC for that reason too. AO is F2P, banana and apple comparison from your side.
In a very real sense, in the Hype to Failure Ratio, Age of Conan is the Vanguard of 2008. AoC has become the joke of every gaming community other than AoC's, just like Vanguard was and still is, even though VG has improved into a much better game (it's quite a bit better than AoC at the moment).
AoC has become the blueprint for exactly what NOT to do when developing and releasing an MMO. There is a very good reason for that - it wasn't capricious, nor was it a conspiracy - the game was and still is a very weak MMO, and came nowhere near measuring up to the hype FC created.
While the AoC fanatics claim it has improved and changed, most realize that the claims of fanatics are quite often meant to deceive people (somewhat like encouraging people to vote on a poll multiple times). Addtionally, I would certainly hope SOME improvements have been made over seven months, because quite literally AoC was so terrible in every category of gameplay it had nowhere to go but up. And it still has a long, long way to go until it's just an average MMO, in my opinion.
Produce proof of the 200K+ subscribers, if you can.
The sales numbers don't lie. Go check Amazon's PC sales list and you'll see that AOC is not even in the top 100!!!! EB Games:#176 LOL. 176. Yeah sales are brisk at EB games like some tool said earlier!! LOL Wal Mart: Not even in the top 50 (they only track the top 50 on their site)
Oh yeah, AOC is just flying off the shelves LOL!
Kind of like LOTRO...oh wait...#32 on Play.com and can we even find it on Amazon? Yet, no one is screaming it is closing?
Last year (2007) sales tracking showed LOTRO selling just a 1/3 of what AoC sold in 1 month.
The fact it is still selling, and the game has made leaps and bounds in it's stability and content means that overall it has more of a chance of holding on than most give it credit for.
People should sometimes just let the mistake go if the company makes strides to fix the main issues (unlike LOTRO which has made no strides to fix the major complaints so many have)...
I am impressed with the steps they have taken, and will be ready to load back up when DX10 and merges kick in.
The sales numbers don't lie. Go check Amazon's PC sales list and you'll see that AOC is not even in the top 100!!!! EB Games:#176 LOL. 176. Yeah sales are brisk at EB games like some tool said earlier!! LOL Wal Mart: Not even in the top 50 (they only track the top 50 on their site)
Oh yeah, AOC is just flying off the shelves LOL!
Kind of like LOTRO...oh wait...#32 on Play.com and can we even find it on Amazon? Yet, no one is screaming it is closing?
Last year (2007) sales tracking showed LOTRO selling just a 1/3 of what AoC sold in 1 month.
The fact it is still selling, and the game has made leaps and bounds in it's stability and content means that overall it has more of a chance of holding on than most give it credit for.
People should sometimes just let the mistake go if the company makes strides to fix the main issues (unlike LOTRO which has made no strides to fix the major complaints so many have)...
I am impressed with the steps they have taken, and will be ready to load back up when DX10 and merges kick in.
First off, LOTRO has been out for quite sometime. In terms of MMO's, AoC is still fairly fresh. LOTRO, while certainly not a blockbuster by any means, has carved somewhat of a niche for itself. AoC has lost more subscribers in its first 6 months than any MMO in history. So not only is AoC hurt badly by the fact that it is no longer selling boxes, but also by the fact that the game is not good enough to keep hardly anyone playing after a month.
DX10 will not help AoC at all. As far as server merges go, it is nothing more than life-support until they pull the plug.
The sales numbers don't lie. Go check Amazon's PC sales list and you'll see that AOC is not even in the top 100!!!! EB Games:#176 LOL. 176. Yeah sales are brisk at EB games like some tool said earlier!! LOL Wal Mart: Not even in the top 50 (they only track the top 50 on their site)
Oh yeah, AOC is just flying off the shelves LOL!
Kind of like LOTRO...oh wait...#32 on Play.com and can we even find it on Amazon? Yet, no one is screaming it is closing?
Last year (2007) sales tracking showed LOTRO selling just a 1/3 of what AoC sold in 1 month.
The fact it is still selling, and the game has made leaps and bounds in it's stability and content means that overall it has more of a chance of holding on than most give it credit for.
People should sometimes just let the mistake go if the company makes strides to fix the main issues (unlike LOTRO which has made no strides to fix the major complaints so many have)...
I am impressed with the steps they have taken, and will be ready to load back up when DX10 and merges kick in.
LOL Lotro on it's worst day is a better game by far than AoC is on it's best day. Only thing AoC has going for it is pretty graphics. Woo hoo that will entertain most people for about a week, then the shallow game play and immature community kicks in and most adults cancel their subs.
When AoC ever gets andy decent crafting, player housing, some guild tools other than the most basic imaginable, it's loot table optimized, some half ass imaginaticve quests etc then it will be up to EQ1 standard game play. After that it can work on trying to catch LoTRO.
The sales numbers don't lie. Go check Amazon's PC sales list and you'll see that AOC is not even in the top 100!!!! EB Games:#176 LOL. 176. Yeah sales are brisk at EB games like some tool said earlier!! LOL Wal Mart: Not even in the top 50 (they only track the top 50 on their site)
Oh yeah, AOC is just flying off the shelves LOL!
Kind of like LOTRO...oh wait...#32 on Play.com and can we even find it on Amazon? Yet, no one is screaming it is closing?
Last year (2007) sales tracking showed LOTRO selling just a 1/3 of what AoC sold in 1 month.
The fact it is still selling, and the game has made leaps and bounds in it's stability and content means that overall it has more of a chance of holding on than most give it credit for.
People should sometimes just let the mistake go if the company makes strides to fix the main issues (unlike LOTRO which has made no strides to fix the major complaints so many have)...
I am impressed with the steps they have taken, and will be ready to load back up when DX10 and merges kick in.
First off, LOTRO has been out for quite sometime.
So...dont count that Mines of Moria came out just one month ago? Shall we ignore that release? And how low on the sales charts it is?
In terms of MMO's, AoC is still fairly fresh. LOTRO, while certainly not a blockbuster by any means, has carved somewhat of a niche for itself.
This I agree with, and as such, will never really come to any more than a niche game with a small population. Both games will probably end up that way.
AoC has lost more subscribers in its first 6 months than any MMO in history. So not only is AoC hurt badly by the fact that it is no longer selling boxes,
So...you missed the part that it IS STILL selling boxes? Huh? The actual point of the OP's post which was...that it is STILL selling?
but also by the fact that the game is not good enough to keep hardly anyone playing after a month.
Is this anecdotal? Can you maybe point me to where your data shows that people leave after their month is up? Or is this just a "personal" opinion
DX10 will not help AoC at all. As far as server merges go, it is nothing more than life-support until they pull the plug.
All I can say to this is...how many failures (games shut down or considered a loss) does Funcom have? Now lets count how many Turbine has...
Seems like play.com discounted sale of AoC boxes is a hit. The game climbes like 3 rankings pr day. It's rank 19 today. www.play.com/Games/PC/6-/TopSellers.html If anyone contemplates on buy the game, get over there now, it's only 7.99 pound while it lasts. Certainly better priced than 39.95 $ in most other stores.
When I tried to buy it, it was for EU only am I doing something wrong???? and does this come with the snow mammoth
I had a heck of a time finding it in my city.EB ghames is eliminating PC games totally from there store and Future shop just has a pile of WOW expansions and some warhammer also.I paid 50 bucks.
I got the snow mammoth with my copy.It is a level 40 thingy so will be awhile before i get to use it.Weird thing was they said they gave us some IDOL or something like that but all i got from /claim was the mammoth.I wonder if because my first 30 days are free,that they chose not to give it to me . oh talisman that is what it was ,err i think anyhow lol.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Seems like play.com discounted sale of AoC boxes is a hit. The game climbes like 3 rankings pr day. It's rank 19 today. www.play.com/Games/PC/6-/TopSellers.html If anyone contemplates on buy the game, get over there now, it's only 7.99 pound while it lasts. Certainly better priced than 39.95 $ in most other stores.
When I tried to buy it, it was for EU only am I doing something wrong???? and does this come with the snow mammoth
I had a heck of a time finding it in my city.EB ghames is eliminating PC games totally from there store and Future shop just has a pile of WOW expansions and some warhammer also.I paid 50 bucks.
I got the snow mammoth with my copy.It is a level 40 thingy so will be awhile before i get to use it.Weird thing was they said they gave us some IDOL or something like that but all i got from /claim was the mammoth.I wonder if because my first 30 days are free,that they chose not to give it to me . oh talisman that is what it was ,err i think anyhow lol.
My impression is that a lot of the AoC sale happens over FC's community page.
VG is made by Sigil which was bought by sony. The min that happened everyone that had been following VG instantly said puck it. Anyways, AoC has found its niche audience, and lest face it, every game but WoW will be niche until something that has as much fan fair is released. The only games that can compete with WoW are other franchise games, and the 1 game coming out that looks promising is KOTRO. On a side note
Stock prices can't be used to show how much of a faliure FC is. FC stock spiked when AoC was released, just like every other MMO company, and then dropped off after box sales started to be non exsitant, just like every other MMO company. FC stock actually leveled off in Augest to be just above what it was at prior to AoC release. But, due to lack of investments due to a World wide recession, FC started to lose value again, just like every other company in the world execpt Walmart. THe key difference between FC and other MMO companies is that FC only has 1 other game still generating revenue, which is AO and all other games it has created have been sold and they no longer make money off of their sales. What people fail to understand is, just because a company has been in existence for a long time doesn't mean it isn't a flediing company. Until FC is able to retain games under their license, it will continue to go through this sort of cycle, unless it makes a game that can topple WoW. One benefit that FC has over other games is that each of the new games its bringing out has a good RP following and each game has a unique and in depth and unique story behind it. Only time will tell if this model is successful. Perdiction, expect FC stock to rise Q2 of 09 and have a small spike in late Q3 of 09.
Oh yeah right, some more misinformation please. Funcoms stock never leveled off till October where it can't go much lower. All the way through August it was still looking like a downhill racer.In january it was at $4.75 USD a share and in late July it was again at $4.75 USD a share, by the end of August it was at $2.75 a share and has continued to drop to around 30 cents US a share. investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/charts/charts.asp The game is pretty much dead now except for the die hard fans. I would be willing to bet that there are few MMORPG players left that have not tried it or at lerast heard about it. Prediction - The game may level off now and/ or continue a slow bleed but it will never be much more than it is now.
Intresesting you only highlight part of what i had to say about FC stock prices. In august it leveled off but then started another downhill decline due to a failing world economy. I was wrong about 2 things, and thoes are when it started to down turn and leveled off. It was late august to mid early sep, not much movement, but then in mid sep it started to go down again.
AoC is a niche game. The combat system, the FFA PvP servers, the skill>gear, and instances ensured that's all it would ever be. Anyone that thought differently doesn't know what makes a blockbuster MMO.
Anyone that says AoC sucks because the questing system sucks must hate most other MMOs. I hear LotRO and DDO have "great" questing.
The buzz on the forums says that WAR is having similar problems with people getting bored with it after the first month. I wonder why that is?
I wouldn't say AoC is the VG of 2008. AoC sold a lot more copies than VG did. I think a lot of people got hyped up about the game and it didn't turn out how they thought it would and are disappointed, and then some have taken it too far.
VG is made by Sigil which was bought by sony. The min that happened everyone that had been following VG instantly said puck it.
Anyways, AoC has found its niche audience, and lest face it, every game but WoW will be niche until something that has as much fan fair is released. The only games that can compete with WoW are other franchise games, and the 1 game coming out that looks promising is KOTRO.
On a side note Stock prices can't be used to show how much of a faliure FC is. FC stock spiked when AoC was released, just like every other MMO company, and then dropped off after box sales started to be non exsitant, just like every other MMO company. FC stock actually leveled off in Augest to be just above what it was at prior to AoC release. But, due to lack of investments due to a World wide recession, FC started to lose value again, just like every other company in the world execpt Walmart. THe key difference between FC and other MMO companies is that FC only has 1 other game still generating revenue, which is AO and all other games it has created have been sold and they no longer make money off of their sales. What people fail to understand is, just because a company has been in existence for a long time doesn't mean it isn't a flediing company.
Until FC is able to retain games under their license, it will continue to go through this sort of cycle, unless it makes a game that can topple WoW. One benefit that FC has over other games is that each of the new games its bringing out has a good RP following and each game has a unique and in depth and unique story behind it. Only time will tell if this model is successful.
Perdiction, expect FC stock to rise Q2 of 09 and have a small spike in late Q3 of 09.
Oh yeah right, some more misinformation please. Funcoms stock never leveled off till October where it can't go much lower. All the way through August it was still looking like a downhill racer.In january it was at $4.75 USD a share and in late July it was again at $4.75 USD a share, by the end of August it was at $2.75 a share and has continued to drop to around 30 cents US a share.
The game is pretty much dead now except for the die hard fans. I would be willing to bet that there are few MMORPG players left that have not tried it or at lerast heard about it. Prediction - The game may level off now and/ or continue a slow bleed but it will never be much more than it is now.
Intresesting you only highlight part of what i had to say about FC stock prices. In august it leveled off but then started another downhill decline due to a failing world economy. I was wrong about 2 things, and thoes are when it started to down turn and leveled off. It was late august to mid early sep, not much movement, but then in mid sep it started to go down again.
AoC is a niche game. The combat system, the FFA PvP servers, the skill>gear, and instances ensured that's all it would ever be. Anyone that thought differently doesn't know what makes a blockbuster MMO.
Anyone that says AoC sucks because the questing system sucks must hate most other MMOs. I hear LotRO and DDO have "great" questing.
The buzz on the forums says that WAR is having similar problems with people getting bored with it after the first month. I wonder why that is?
I wouldn't say AoC is the VG of 2008. AoC sold a lot more copies than VG did. I think a lot of people got hyped up about the game and it didn't turn out how they thought it would and are disappointed, and then some have taken it too far.
I think that it was fairly accurate when it was said that AoC is the Vanguard of 2008. Initially AoC sold about 800k copies and about 6 monthe later it is down to roughly 100k subs. Initially VG sold around 240k copies and about 6 months later it was down to about 50k subs. Both games are niche games. Both games are slowly but surely fixing it's problems. Both games promised more but delivered less at Launch. Both games will never be able to shake it's reputation as a crappy game despite all the improvements to those games. Both of the games creators had to leave the company in shame.
SOE and Funcom are the 2 names in the MMO community that will keep people from playing their games, no matter how good those games are, just because they are developed by SOE or FC.
On the bright side, the new year is just a week away so maybe there will be another gaming company that will launch a new game that will be even worse than the AoC launch and people will have a new company to trash and give FC a break for awhile.
I think that it was fairly accurate when it was said that AoC is the Vanguard of 2008.
Initially AoC sold about 800k copies and about 6 monthe later it is down to roughly 100k subs.
Initially VG sold around 240k copies and about 6 months later it was down to about 50k subs.
Both games are niche games.
Both games are slowly but surely fixing it's problems.
Both games promised more but delivered less at Launch.
Both games will never be able to shake it's reputation as a crappy game despite all the improvements to those games.
Both of the games creators had to leave the company in shame. SOE and Funcom are the 2 names in the MMO community that will keep people from playing their games, no matter how good those games are, just because they are developed by SOE or FC. On the bright side, the new year is just a week away so maybe there will be another gaming company that will launch a new game that will be even worse than the AoC launch and people will have a new company to trash and give FC a break for awhile.
Well AoC is still selling, while VG is only a monthly charge and you can play the game for 44 days for only $16, this ofcourse could change with time.
Also VG didn't sell as well and doesn't have enough in it to attract people to come back to it since it is mainly a PvE game, while AoC does.
I think that it was fairly accurate when it was said that AoC is the Vanguard of 2008.
Initially AoC sold about 800k copies and about 6 monthe later it is down to roughly 100k subs.
Initially VG sold around 240k copies and about 6 months later it was down to about 50k subs.
Both games are niche games.
Both games are slowly but surely fixing it's problems.
Both games promised more but delivered less at Launch.
Both games will never be able to shake it's reputation as a crappy game despite all the improvements to those games.
Both of the games creators had to leave the company in shame. SOE and Funcom are the 2 names in the MMO community that will keep people from playing their games, no matter how good those games are, just because they are developed by SOE or FC. On the bright side, the new year is just a week away so maybe there will be another gaming company that will launch a new game that will be even worse than the AoC launch and people will have a new company to trash and give FC a break for awhile.
Well AoC is still selling, while VG is only a monthly charge and you can play the game for 44 days for only $16, this ofcourse could change with time.
Also VG didn't sell as well and doesn't have enough in it to attract people to come back to it since it is mainly a PvE game, while AoC does.
the AoC vs Vanguard argument is like 2 kids yelling at each other "yeah my game might be a loser but yours is a bigger loser".
I seem to remember that Vanguards loot tables were at least optimized which still puts it ahead of AoC.
Well, I visited the VG forums every now and then and VG does have new players joining every day so it isnt just a monthly charge. I was in Target store a week ago and saw AoC in the clearence bin for $9.98, which would put it as the same price as VG.
I look at the comparison between VG and AoC like this: Vanguard went from 240k subs to 50k subs in about 6 months. That would come out to be roughly 1 out of every 5 players stayed with the game. AoC went from 800k to 50k-150k in about 6 months. That would come out to be roughly 1 out of every 10 players stayed with the game. If we look at it that way it would seem that AoC failed even more than VG.
You may not agree with me,and thats alright, but FC is just as bad as SOE and both companies are looked upon as "game-killers" in the MMO industry. In pretty much every aspect, AoC is just as bad as Vanguard. Coming up on the 2 year aniversary for VG and the game is still around the 40K sub mark. That is still about a 20% retention rate from Launch. AoC is currently at about a 10% retention rate from their Launch numbers. Some people may even say that AoC has fared more badly than VG ever did.
Well, I visited the VG forums every now and then and VG does have new players joining every day so it isnt just a monthly charge.
I was in Target store a week ago and saw AoC in the clearence bin for $9.98, which would put it as the same price as VG. I look at the comparison between VG and AoC like this:
Vanguard went from 240k subs to 50k subs in about 6 months. That would come out to be roughly 1 out of every 5 players stayed with the game.
AoC went from 800k to 50k-150k in about 6 months. That would come out to be roughly 1 out of every 10 players stayed with the game.
If we look at it that way it would seem that AoC failed even more than VG. You may not agree with me,and thats alright, but FC is just as bad as SOE and both companies are looked upon as "game-killers" in the MMO industry.
In pretty much every aspect, AoC is just as bad as Vanguard.
Coming up on the 2 year aniversary for VG and the game is still around the 40K sub mark. That is still about a 20% retention rate from Launch.
AoC is currently at about a 10% retention rate from their Launch numbers.
Some people may even say that AoC has fared more badly than VG ever did.
Those some people would not happen to be yourself? lol
Those some people would not happen to be yourself? lol
Actually many people think that, myself included.
Both Vanguard and AoC failed big time but AoC was hyped up 10 times more and it was so far from what they promised that in my book it's the bigger failure.
Age of Conan is the biggest failure in the history of MMO's.
----------------------------- Originally posted by Frobner "Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
Those some people would not happen to be yourself? lol
Actually many people think that, myself included.
Both Vanguard and AoC failed big time but AoC was hyped up 10 times more and it was so far from what they promised that in my book it's the bigger failure.
Age of Conan is the biggest failure in the history of MMO's.
lol. Ohh really..lol. Hey make another post about that Einstein.
I was in Target store a week ago and saw AoC in the clearence bin for $9.98, which would put it as the same price as VG.
And again I use LOTRO as an example here. After 6 months it was also selling for 9.99, and has even lowered it's sub prices at various times and constant;y inundates it's players with "Please come back to us" emails.
This does not make a game a failure, as LOTRO may be niche, but is not a fail...and so far, there is no indicator that AoC has gone the way of VG or Tabula Rasa even.
My suggestion is to wait for proof of failure before calling a fail first.
Based on feedback, AoC has improved considerably since Craig took over, and that is a fair indicator of what is happening with the game...while it took VG since launch to get to where it is...and Tabula Rasa?...Never recovered. And look at DDO? That game is still going, even though so many notations have been made that it runs on 30-40k players.
I think...thanks to the forward looking game engine, and a twist on MMO mechanics, there is a niche for AoC, and if LOTRO can run on niche, AoC will do just fine.
Comments
You are incredibly ignorant about the reality of the situation. AoC is the fifth most purchased MMO on Direct2drive,
You make it seem like this is a huge accomplishment. Fact of the matter is that there were few mmorpg releases this year and considering the hype surrounding Age of Conan, it should have been number 2 or 3, closely struggling with Warhammer Online. The fact it's number 5 shows how poorly the game is selling at this moment.
Yes and it should have wow like numbers or it's a Failzor!!!!!! Oh it's dying it's dying...yeah right
http://ve3d.ign.com/poll/237/2008-Game-of-the-Year #2 currently
/Holds up doll Now show me on the doll where the bad ol Funcom GM touched you
Wish it dead all you want guy, it's still has an audiance, the audience seems to be growing and it isn't going anywhere. The only thing that is fail here is your poor attempt at Scocial Engineering.
That poll is unmitigated garbage.
Here's the thread where they were publicizing that poll, and giving instructions on how to cheat and vote multiple times.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=177630&page=3
Quote from Dargaad, the guy who first posted it: "Go vote again, not far from #1."
Take a look at the many posts from Worgpest, and the dates he edited his posts (3 or 4 days after the fact). He changed them after he started getting called on it on the Voodoo Extreme website.
Amusingly enough, you can now only vote on the VE poll if you are a registered user, because of all the problems they were having with cheaters stuffing the ballot box. Their promises that duplicate votes would be "nuked" was hogwash, and they knew it at the time.
Anyway, too late, the damage is already done, and the poll is worthless unless they delete all the votes and start over.
It does illustrate the problem with fanatics, though. They will do anything - lie, cheat, deceive, whatever - to make their game appear better than it is.
As an aside, this is another reason why the first VE poll was also garbage.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Play.com is huge in europe, so it is on a "Major" site.
? hmmm... something tells me you think VG and AoC are made by same company?? just NO.
No, I meant they are all games that had highly hyped releases and are now in the <50,000 subscriber base. They are all games who have a few diehards who post incessentantly on the forums about how the game as 'turned the corner' and is getting better. Go to their forums, there are the same type of people as on these forums saying the same things.
AOC has fallen out of the group with Eve, Lotro and warhammer.. it is now with Vanguard and Anarchy online.
When I said 'great company'.. I didn't mean Funcom the company, i meant ' group'.
You know that Eve game you are talking about around its first year only had about 20-30k subs with a top of 2000-3000 players on a peak time (thats when i started the game) - None that quit that game where standing around it screaming DEAD!DEAD!DEAD!. I wonder why...
If people on this board have enough in them to care so much so they will go on to the forum just to scream DEAD!DEAD!DEAD!, then let me tell them that it isnt helping at all for the game.
If people want to warn other people then do it by saying what you didnt like about the game, dont get pissed if players tell you that its your taste/its been fixed/or perhaps agrees but not to the degree you make it sound as. On many occasion your negativ views on the game will be agreed upon by the players also, but they unlike the sceptimist can overlook it for other things in the game. Arguing good and bad points is healthy for the game, including arguing the value of the OPs polls or whatever. Screaming ARMAGEDDON! as soon as something positive is said is just trolling.
<IMHO>
The playerbase of AoC is looking like it has stabalized, that means its not dead. It might be shot and wounded heh - but just couse it doesnt have a stable playerbase as of todays EvE, Lotro and Warhammer doesnt equal it to being dead.
Im sure there are many people that would enjoy a trip back to hyboria, but with all the screaming of DEAD!DEAD!DEAD! are reluctant to do so.
</IMHO>
(P.S im no fanboi, i dont play and i wont play unless i see another patch like ymirspass +2 or get a free day tryout on my old account, so no need for anyone to drag out the fanboi-card on me)
P.P.S - wish all the mumbojumbo about the freaking subs would end, talk about the game as it is now instead and not how many freaking users it lost at launch. Thats yeasterday now..
FagerCraft - Feeding the trolls on mmorpg.com since 2005.
The main problem AoC have now is so many servers, the fact is at release they stated they have enough server for 600.000 players and during first 14 days they added bunch of new ones. ( probably to support 800K-1M ).
A lot of people left the game well its not WoW and it had issues + missing features etc..
Even now there is quite few servers with healthy population and some that are almost ghost towns.
Once merges are done all servers will have healthy population and they even plan to open new ones most likely for those that will come back with winback program aka some free time for all ex subscribers.
How accurate do you think this graph is ?
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html
Is it possible that lotro have only 150K ... i thought it had at least 250K
Futilez[Do You Have What It Takes ?]
? hmmm... something tells me you think VG and AoC are made by same company?? just NO.
No, I meant they are all games that had highly hyped releases and are now in the <50,000 subscriber base. They are all games who have a few diehards who post incessentantly on the forums about how the game as 'turned the corner' and is getting better. Go to their forums, there are the same type of people as on these forums saying the same things.
AOC has fallen out of the group with Eve, Lotro and warhammer.. it is now with Vanguard and Anarchy online.
When I said 'great company'.. I didn't mean Funcom the company, i meant ' group'.
No again. AoC has a subscriberbase are more or less 200 000 in size. I would absolutely not guess VG to have that much going for it. And another thing VG is not based on any real lore so I would not compare VG and AoC for that reason too. AO is F2P, banana and apple comparison from your side.
AoC is 16 now.
? hmmm... something tells me you think VG and AoC are made by same company?? just NO.
No, I meant they are all games that had highly hyped releases and are now in the <50,000 subscriber base. They are all games who have a few diehards who post incessentantly on the forums about how the game as 'turned the corner' and is getting better. Go to their forums, there are the same type of people as on these forums saying the same things.
AOC has fallen out of the group with Eve, Lotro and warhammer.. it is now with Vanguard and Anarchy online.
When I said 'great company'.. I didn't mean Funcom the company, i meant ' group'.
No again. AoC has a subscriberbase are more or less 200 000 in size. I would absolutely not guess VG to have that much going for it. And another thing VG is not based on any real lore so I would not compare VG and AoC for that reason too. AO is F2P, banana and apple comparison from your side.
In a very real sense, in the Hype to Failure Ratio, Age of Conan is the Vanguard of 2008. AoC has become the joke of every gaming community other than AoC's, just like Vanguard was and still is, even though VG has improved into a much better game (it's quite a bit better than AoC at the moment).
AoC has become the blueprint for exactly what NOT to do when developing and releasing an MMO. There is a very good reason for that - it wasn't capricious, nor was it a conspiracy - the game was and still is a very weak MMO, and came nowhere near measuring up to the hype FC created.
While the AoC fanatics claim it has improved and changed, most realize that the claims of fanatics are quite often meant to deceive people (somewhat like encouraging people to vote on a poll multiple times). Addtionally, I would certainly hope SOME improvements have been made over seven months, because quite literally AoC was so terrible in every category of gameplay it had nowhere to go but up. And it still has a long, long way to go until it's just an average MMO, in my opinion.
Produce proof of the 200K+ subscribers, if you can.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
The sales numbers don't lie. Go check Amazon's PC sales list and you'll see that AOC is not even in the top 100!!!!
EB Games:#176 LOL. 176. Yeah sales are brisk at EB games like some tool said earlier!! LOL
Wal Mart: Not even in the top 50 (they only track the top 50 on their site)
Oh yeah, AOC is just flying off the shelves LOL!
Kind of like LOTRO...oh wait...#32 on Play.com and can we even find it on Amazon? Yet, no one is screaming it is closing?
Last year (2007) sales tracking showed LOTRO selling just a 1/3 of what AoC sold in 1 month.
The fact it is still selling, and the game has made leaps and bounds in it's stability and content means that overall it has more of a chance of holding on than most give it credit for.
People should sometimes just let the mistake go if the company makes strides to fix the main issues (unlike LOTRO which has made no strides to fix the major complaints so many have)...
I am impressed with the steps they have taken, and will be ready to load back up when DX10 and merges kick in.
Kind of like LOTRO...oh wait...#32 on Play.com and can we even find it on Amazon? Yet, no one is screaming it is closing?
Last year (2007) sales tracking showed LOTRO selling just a 1/3 of what AoC sold in 1 month.
The fact it is still selling, and the game has made leaps and bounds in it's stability and content means that overall it has more of a chance of holding on than most give it credit for.
People should sometimes just let the mistake go if the company makes strides to fix the main issues (unlike LOTRO which has made no strides to fix the major complaints so many have)...
I am impressed with the steps they have taken, and will be ready to load back up when DX10 and merges kick in.
First off, LOTRO has been out for quite sometime. In terms of MMO's, AoC is still fairly fresh. LOTRO, while certainly not a blockbuster by any means, has carved somewhat of a niche for itself. AoC has lost more subscribers in its first 6 months than any MMO in history. So not only is AoC hurt badly by the fact that it is no longer selling boxes, but also by the fact that the game is not good enough to keep hardly anyone playing after a month.
DX10 will not help AoC at all. As far as server merges go, it is nothing more than life-support until they pull the plug.
Kind of like LOTRO...oh wait...#32 on Play.com and can we even find it on Amazon? Yet, no one is screaming it is closing?
Last year (2007) sales tracking showed LOTRO selling just a 1/3 of what AoC sold in 1 month.
The fact it is still selling, and the game has made leaps and bounds in it's stability and content means that overall it has more of a chance of holding on than most give it credit for.
People should sometimes just let the mistake go if the company makes strides to fix the main issues (unlike LOTRO which has made no strides to fix the major complaints so many have)...
I am impressed with the steps they have taken, and will be ready to load back up when DX10 and merges kick in.
LOL Lotro on it's worst day is a better game by far than AoC is on it's best day. Only thing AoC has going for it is pretty graphics. Woo hoo that will entertain most people for about a week, then the shallow game play and immature community kicks in and most adults cancel their subs.
When AoC ever gets andy decent crafting, player housing, some guild tools other than the most basic imaginable, it's loot table optimized, some half ass imaginaticve quests etc then it will be up to EQ1 standard game play. After that it can work on trying to catch LoTRO.
In the meantime enjoy the pixilated boobies
I miss DAoC
Kind of like LOTRO...oh wait...#32 on Play.com and can we even find it on Amazon? Yet, no one is screaming it is closing?
Last year (2007) sales tracking showed LOTRO selling just a 1/3 of what AoC sold in 1 month.
The fact it is still selling, and the game has made leaps and bounds in it's stability and content means that overall it has more of a chance of holding on than most give it credit for.
People should sometimes just let the mistake go if the company makes strides to fix the main issues (unlike LOTRO which has made no strides to fix the major complaints so many have)...
I am impressed with the steps they have taken, and will be ready to load back up when DX10 and merges kick in.
First off, LOTRO has been out for quite sometime.
So...dont count that Mines of Moria came out just one month ago? Shall we ignore that release? And how low on the sales charts it is?
In terms of MMO's, AoC is still fairly fresh. LOTRO, while certainly not a blockbuster by any means, has carved somewhat of a niche for itself.
This I agree with, and as such, will never really come to any more than a niche game with a small population. Both games will probably end up that way.
AoC has lost more subscribers in its first 6 months than any MMO in history. So not only is AoC hurt badly by the fact that it is no longer selling boxes,
So...you missed the part that it IS STILL selling boxes? Huh? The actual point of the OP's post which was...that it is STILL selling?
but also by the fact that the game is not good enough to keep hardly anyone playing after a month.
Is this anecdotal? Can you maybe point me to where your data shows that people leave after their month is up? Or is this just a "personal" opinion
DX10 will not help AoC at all. As far as server merges go, it is nothing more than life-support until they pull the plug.
All I can say to this is...how many failures (games shut down or considered a loss) does Funcom have? Now lets count how many Turbine has...
Interesting when you look at it that way?
When I tried to buy it, it was for EU only am I doing something wrong???? and does this come with the snow mammoth
I had a heck of a time finding it in my city.EB ghames is eliminating PC games totally from there store and Future shop just has a pile of WOW expansions and some warhammer also.I paid 50 bucks.
I got the snow mammoth with my copy.It is a level 40 thingy so will be awhile before i get to use it.Weird thing was they said they gave us some IDOL or something like that but all i got from /claim was the mammoth.I wonder if because my first 30 days are free,that they chose not to give it to me
. oh talisman that is what it was ,err i think anyhow lol.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
When I tried to buy it, it was for EU only am I doing something wrong???? and does this come with the snow mammoth
I had a heck of a time finding it in my city.EB ghames is eliminating PC games totally from there store and Future shop just has a pile of WOW expansions and some warhammer also.I paid 50 bucks.
I got the snow mammoth with my copy.It is a level 40 thingy so will be awhile before i get to use it.Weird thing was they said they gave us some IDOL or something like that but all i got from /claim was the mammoth.I wonder if because my first 30 days are free,that they chose not to give it to me
. oh talisman that is what it was ,err i think anyhow lol.
My impression is that a lot of the AoC sale happens over FC's community page.
Intresesting you only highlight part of what i had to say about FC stock prices. In august it leveled off but then started another downhill decline due to a failing world economy. I was wrong about 2 things, and thoes are when it started to down turn and leveled off. It was late august to mid early sep, not much movement, but then in mid sep it started to go down again.
AoC is a niche game. The combat system, the FFA PvP servers, the skill>gear, and instances ensured that's all it would ever be. Anyone that thought differently doesn't know what makes a blockbuster MMO.
Anyone that says AoC sucks because the questing system sucks must hate most other MMOs. I hear LotRO and DDO have "great" questing.
The buzz on the forums says that WAR is having similar problems with people getting bored with it after the first month. I wonder why that is?
I wouldn't say AoC is the VG of 2008. AoC sold a lot more copies than VG did. I think a lot of people got hyped up about the game and it didn't turn out how they thought it would and are disappointed, and then some have taken it too far.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/charts/charts.asp
The game is pretty much dead now except for the die hard fans. I would be willing to bet that there are few MMORPG players left that have not tried it or at lerast heard about it. Prediction - The game may level off now and/ or continue a slow bleed but it will never be much more than it is now.
Intresesting you only highlight part of what i had to say about FC stock prices. In august it leveled off but then started another downhill decline due to a failing world economy. I was wrong about 2 things, and thoes are when it started to down turn and leveled off. It was late august to mid early sep, not much movement, but then in mid sep it started to go down again.
AoC is a niche game. The combat system, the FFA PvP servers, the skill>gear, and instances ensured that's all it would ever be. Anyone that thought differently doesn't know what makes a blockbuster MMO.
Anyone that says AoC sucks because the questing system sucks must hate most other MMOs. I hear LotRO and DDO have "great" questing.
The buzz on the forums says that WAR is having similar problems with people getting bored with it after the first month. I wonder why that is?
I wouldn't say AoC is the VG of 2008. AoC sold a lot more copies than VG did. I think a lot of people got hyped up about the game and it didn't turn out how they thought it would and are disappointed, and then some have taken it too far.
Hell AoC sold more copies than WAR.
War = 1.2 million
AoC = Can't find an exact figure, but it was nearly a million the first month.
Both games have done equallly well in terms of sales.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
I think that it was fairly accurate when it was said that AoC is the Vanguard of 2008.
Initially AoC sold about 800k copies and about 6 monthe later it is down to roughly 100k subs.
Initially VG sold around 240k copies and about 6 months later it was down to about 50k subs.
Both games are niche games.
Both games are slowly but surely fixing it's problems.
Both games promised more but delivered less at Launch.
Both games will never be able to shake it's reputation as a crappy game despite all the improvements to those games.
Both of the games creators had to leave the company in shame.
SOE and Funcom are the 2 names in the MMO community that will keep people from playing their games, no matter how good those games are, just because they are developed by SOE or FC.
On the bright side, the new year is just a week away so maybe there will be another gaming company that will launch a new game that will be even worse than the AoC launch and people will have a new company to trash and give FC a break for awhile.
Well AoC is still selling, while VG is only a monthly charge and you can play the game for 44 days for only $16, this ofcourse could change with time.
Also VG didn't sell as well and doesn't have enough in it to attract people to come back to it since it is mainly a PvE game, while AoC does.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
Well AoC is still selling, while VG is only a monthly charge and you can play the game for 44 days for only $16, this ofcourse could change with time.
Also VG didn't sell as well and doesn't have enough in it to attract people to come back to it since it is mainly a PvE game, while AoC does.
the AoC vs Vanguard argument is like 2 kids yelling at each other "yeah my game might be a loser but yours is a bigger loser".
I seem to remember that Vanguards loot tables were at least optimized which still puts it ahead of AoC.
I miss DAoC
Well, I visited the VG forums every now and then and VG does have new players joining every day so it isnt just a monthly charge.
I was in Target store a week ago and saw AoC in the clearence bin for $9.98, which would put it as the same price as VG.
I look at the comparison between VG and AoC like this:
Vanguard went from 240k subs to 50k subs in about 6 months. That would come out to be roughly 1 out of every 5 players stayed with the game.
AoC went from 800k to 50k-150k in about 6 months. That would come out to be roughly 1 out of every 10 players stayed with the game.
If we look at it that way it would seem that AoC failed even more than VG.
You may not agree with me,and thats alright, but FC is just as bad as SOE and both companies are looked upon as "game-killers" in the MMO industry.
In pretty much every aspect, AoC is just as bad as Vanguard.
Coming up on the 2 year aniversary for VG and the game is still around the 40K sub mark. That is still about a 20% retention rate from Launch.
AoC is currently at about a 10% retention rate from their Launch numbers.
Some people may even say that AoC has fared more badly than VG ever did.
Those some people would not happen to be yourself? lol
Actually many people think that, myself included.
Both Vanguard and AoC failed big time but AoC was hyped up 10 times more and it was so far from what they promised that in my book it's the bigger failure.
Age of Conan is the biggest failure in the history of MMO's.
-----------------------------
Originally posted by Frobner
"Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
Actually many people think that, myself included.
Both Vanguard and AoC failed big time but AoC was hyped up 10 times more and it was so far from what they promised that in my book it's the bigger failure.
Age of Conan is the biggest failure in the history of MMO's.
lol. Ohh really..lol. Hey make another post about that Einstein.
And again I use LOTRO as an example here. After 6 months it was also selling for 9.99, and has even lowered it's sub prices at various times and constant;y inundates it's players with "Please come back to us" emails.
This does not make a game a failure, as LOTRO may be niche, but is not a fail...and so far, there is no indicator that AoC has gone the way of VG or Tabula Rasa even.
My suggestion is to wait for proof of failure before calling a fail first.
Based on feedback, AoC has improved considerably since Craig took over, and that is a fair indicator of what is happening with the game...while it took VG since launch to get to where it is...and Tabula Rasa?...Never recovered. And look at DDO? That game is still going, even though so many notations have been made that it runs on 30-40k players.
I think...thanks to the forward looking game engine, and a twist on MMO mechanics, there is a niche for AoC, and if LOTRO can run on niche, AoC will do just fine.