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Forums good indicator AoC may be belly-up.
Blackwell99
Member Posts: 352
If you ask your average AoC fan, they will tell you that this isn't true and that most players don't goto the forums. But anybody who plays MMORPG's knows that this statement is false within this game genre. MMORPGs are information based games, and virtually every body will use it for a source of information, whether it be about the class, or a newcomers forum, crafting...etc it seems that most people (even, or perhaps especially if it's that player's first MMORPG). will look to the forums for information.
If you believe that this is even slightly true then AoC is dead in the water. I saw a post that was on there for more than a week...it only had 125 VIEWS. That was the highest "viewed" thread in the PVP forums on the US side. (PvP is the most populated segment of the game). So when people tell you about how many new players are joining, and what a lively place AoC is--Keep that in mind, coupled with the fact that FC WILL NOT disclosed their population (which is completely unfair to new subscribers)
Makes you wonder. But im not making this up-check for yourself on their home page.
Comments
It could also indicate there are more mature AoCplayers left that doesn't feel like ranting on forums all day long...
The server I play on isn't packed but it has enough people, so I wouldn't worry for newbies...
And yet here we are. So much for your theory.
Yes people rant on forums, but alot more people go to view information. I guarantee everyone who rolled a DT for example, eventually went to the forums to see what was up with their class. (..after saying to themselves...wtf????)
I disagree. It is known in the gaming community that 10% of the player base goes to the forums. i would say that 10% of the 10% actually post. Everyone can go to a forum and see that the same subject has been rediscussed about 10 different times.
Does AOC have the same subs, no. But is it going to die, no. From other site like Ten Ton and Massivly they say they are on the up wing because of the DX10 coming out (if it isnt out already). I have check the test server out to check the DX10 about a month ago and it looked nice, but not ready at the time. I would come back if there was a free two weeks with DX10 and bugs crushed.
I disagree. It is known in the gaming community that 10% of the player base goes to the forums. i would say that 10% of the 10% actually post. Everyone can go to a forum and see that the same subject has been rediscussed about 10 different times.
Does AOC have the same subs, no. But is it going to die, no. From other site like Ten Ton and Massivly they say they are on the up wing because of the DX10 coming out (if it isnt out already). I have check the test server out to check the DX10 about a month ago and it looked nice, but not ready at the time. I would come back if there was a free two weeks with DX10 and bugs crushed.
It's known??? How is it known that 10% only look at the forums. FC has never talked about its subscription base, how in the world was it measured who looks at the forums?
Heck it's probably even worse than that because there are lots of people who don't subscribe who DO view the forums.
What you are saying is known, is actually not known.
Is it?
Look at it this way. Go to other game forums and see how they stack comparatively. I know for a fact that there are a bunch of threads in the triple digits on Guild Wars Guru and Guild Wars Online. This is a game whose last expansion was late '07, yet both forum sites are more active than the one AoC forum.
Forums may not be where the average player resides, but they ARE where experienced players go to exchange ideas, and where newer players into the game go for information. Lack of interest on the forums indicates the players into the game are disinterested, If they don't care, what makes you think the rest of the fanbase is gonna care?
Oh, and if forums meant nothing to the game, why do devs and CRs regularly check in and post?
im sorry but thats not true. i can just tell u about my experiences, but i always join mature guilds and i remember last time i asked the people about a thread in the forums (im playin WAR so it was a WAR forum) about 90% of them said they dont even visit any forum. that wasnt the first time that i seen this. just a few months ago i was playin a f2p game and in the guild we talked about an event and i would say more then 50% of them didnt knew about that because they never visited the forums.
im sorry but thats not true. i can just tell u about my experiences, but i always join mature guilds and i remember last time i asked the people about a thread in the forums (im playin WAR so it was a WAR forum) about 90% of them said they dont even visit any forum. that wasnt the first time that i seen this. just a few months ago i was playin a f2p game and in the guild we talked about an event and i would say more then 50% of them didnt knew about that because they never visited the forums.
Yeah, you took a poll?---Im not buying it--sorry.
But i just checked WAR's threads view amounts----they are in the THOUSANDS, some of those were left less than 12 hours ago. Whereas AoC has threads in 100's left a week ago. ---Do you see the difference?
I may go as far to say that MMORPGs are useless without forums. There are too many questions people have about statistics, crafting, classes, PvP, Raiding....I played WoW for years (off and on) and still had to get information about various topics from time to time. The forums you are talking to me on probably made it's claim to fame on this very fact alone. People who don't goto the forums in MMORPG's will probably quit playing altogether.
BTW- the name khartokhar3 , that wouldn't happen to be a Norwegian name would it?--Just curious
i never go to game sites i go here or places like tenton hammer for info.ten ton always has more info than the actual game sites
I disagree, AoC is dying and will die from game play issues.
I have never seen a MMO survive after losing 100%$ of the hard core gamer for having a lack of content...really, poor raids, lack of gear, and lack of things to do are driving the hard core MMO players away.
Other signs of a dying game are the board of directers trying to take the company public.................the company has more cash than it's worth............it went from 25 dollars on it's IPO to 2.50 dollars, so if the Board buys the remaining shares to 51% it can cash out and liquidate AoC.....they spent most of the money on the por game engine anyway. When the old director of AoC resignes because of game play issues, you know this game is doomed.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
I don't check the main forums hardly at all. I don't for most games I sub too, AoC, DDO, LOTRO. Everything I need or want to know is on the launcher. Server downtime, problems with the server they usually show up on the launcher. If I'm in a guild like I was in EQ2 I just visited here and the guild website.
If I think I have a bug with the client or my class I'll go to the main forums and see if anyone has the problem. Other than that I don't really care for main forums. I have several friends at work who are devoted to WoW and never go to the main forums or much else know they are there. Yes they are casual gamers.
.. .... .- - . - .-. --- .-.. .-.. ... .-- .... --- .-. . .--. --- .-. - .-.-.-
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Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
My guild currently has 392 members, about a quarter of those members are actually "active" players, getting on at sometime during the week, and we NEVER use the official forums for anything more than reading up on gripes or nerf-calls.
Here's AOC's current situation:
-Balance Issues:
:::TOS:::
-Can Oneshot ANYONE except soldier classes, with the lightning spec. Recast of 3minutes
-Have a PBAE "pulsing" spell line that 2-3shots any non-soldier classes.
-Get around 2-3 CC's, that last ridiculously long amounts of time. AKA: CC'locking
-Can heal themselves from 60% to 100% in under 5 seconds, while being hit
:::Assasins:::
-Practically immune to ALL types of CC's
-Move almost as fast as running stealthed
-Have massive crit values when attacking from stealth
-Have roughly 3-4 CC's, each lastly a decent amount of time. AKA: Massive CC'locking
-Do insane melee damage, EVEN to soldier classes (ie: heavy/plate classes)...can also CC'lock solider classes
:::Rangers:::
-Broken, unless you're pvp level 3+, or/and exploit your stances....you ain't kill'n SHIT by yourself
:::Guardians:::
-Hard as hell to kill when in defensive mode, can instantly switch between dmg/tank stances for situational needs
-Has 2 CC's, only one normally works on everyone as it's a stun and NOT a KD.
-Otherwise worthless for pvp
:::Conquerors:::
-Decently hard to kill if played corrently, can be dangerous to non-soldier classes
-Not much to say about them in pvp.....lol
:::Necromancers:::
-Decent DPS if nightfall speced for spell dmg.
-If faced against pvp3+ opponents might as well cut your own wrists, as unless you exploit your going to get ganked a LOT, will explain more below about pvp gear/level issues....
-Currently has a bugged spell called "Grip of Death", that is the one of the ONLY Target-AOE-Channeled spells in the game. The bugged aspect is that it has ZERO Line-of-Sight checks on the backend. So if you go into Spellweaving + GOD, even if your target runs to the otherside of the map or behind a rock....they are GOING to die unless you kill/cc the necro and trigger his cooldown on GOD.
-Has "Death God" effect on the immediate casted level of SWing that makes ALL spells casted do full crit dmg. Some consider this a bugged feature of the necro since none others get such a thing on the first tier of SWing. HOWEVER, without the Death God affect, a necro is essentially useless even in 1v1 combat due to pvp gear making large guilds literally immortal (again, more below about pvp gear, and the mess that it is).
:::Demonologists:::
-Get Two spells, that when casted together will more than lightly one-shot any non medium armor, and better, users.
-Get numerous CC's that allow them to CC'lock anyone they fight, obviously except assassins. Clothies beware...
-Not to much different than a necromancer without SWing or GOD. (literally, they practically have every defensive spell a necro gets...short of a couple minor differences)
-Not to much to say, than this is where Demo's should actually be (the only non-broken class in the game lulz).
:::Priest of Mitra:::
-Deals significant damage with pvp lvl 3+ gear
-One of the hardest classes to kill if they have pvp lvl 3+ gear, since they can heal themselves from 30% hp to 100% in under 4 seconds, while being hit!
-Major group oriented healing class in the game
:::Barbarian:::
-Just got twoshot by 4 different barbarians about an hour ago, too pissed off to post anything constructively about them atm lol.
:::Herald of Xotli:::
-Arguably the MOST number of times nerfed class in the game
-Generally loses most/all 1v1 encounters
-Great at taking down any medium armor and down classes, except assassins, IF they have a group to back them up. (ie: the counter-caster class for group pvp engagements)
-Otherwise a shadow of it's former self....
:::Dark Templar:::
-Arguably considered THE most gimp/underpowered/worthless/useless class in the game. (did I make my point?)
-Surprisingly becomes hard to beat in 1v1's at 80 IF they have pvp level 2+ gear, and has T2 raid gear.
-T2 raid gear for a DT, compared to other classes in T2 raid gear, essentially balance out to a playable pvp toon. However, this is IF you can stomach the something 300+hours of raiding/pvping required to even get to this point. Other classes get to this same "level" of worthfullness MUCH earlier in their career's.
-Getting "some" love in a future patch, or so we're told lol...
:::Bear Shamens:::
-The MOST bullshit class in the game to face 1v1 if you're NOT a heavy hitting dps/CC'ing class....
-A BS get's 3 different defensive shields that they can pop for massive benefits...
-Using all 3 shields + pvp level 4 gear + a guild that owns a Tier 3 BK = 89% invulnerability to essentially ALL damage done to them over 30 seconds. Not to mention the base of 43ish% invulns they have at all times when their shields are on cooldown. (Again, pvp gear issues below...)
-Do extremely nice melee dps
-Can heal themselves from 15% to 100% in 3 spells while in melee combat
:::::::::::::::::::The PvP Gear Mess, and You!:::::::::::::::::::::
Ok so, you might have noticed in many of my comments above about the "major points" of classes above about pvp gear being bad......wanna know why? It's pretty simple, when the system was first pushed out (many months post release) you could essentially exploit your way right to pvp leve 5 in the first couple days. Many guilds such as Dawn Razors, Epic Enthusiasts, Addiction, Primal Instict, The Arcanists, Death Legion, etc etc were some of the culprits.
Not to worry right? The GM's caught them doing this and massively punished these players....right?
SURE! They caught them redhanded, but were they all banned? NOPE! They were all reverted back to pvp level 0 and told "Don't do it again" ROFL!!
So you might as yourself, "What's the deal then?". The "deal" as it were, is that MASSIVE amounts of exploits in AOC are never really known about until 3+ months after it's initial "foundage" by exploiters. Then, knowing how shitty the punishment is...or lack there of for exploiters. All the "inner circles" of said major server guilds exploit them to hell and back.
The current situation, is "Fight Clubbing" in AOC. If you don't know what this is it was coined in DAOC when guild-mates on the pvp servers would simply drop guild and allow 1 guildmember to "drove" 30 other guild members for hours on end to get MASSIVE RealmPoints. The same applies in AOC, only with ZERO serious punishment by the GM staff. Hell, half the guilds on the major PVP server now (Tyranny) are fightclubbing. RP Shirestyle(AKA: formally Addiction) have been caught on numerous occasions by new guild members, whom then post SS's on the public forums about it. The downside is no one is ever really punished.
So ok, you might be saying then "Ok ok ok, we get it....theres an exploiting/hacking problems in AOC. How could pvp gear REALLY be that bad?". The deal with pvp gear, is a fullsuit for cloth casters gives you something around the lines of:
+350 pvp-only spell-damage modifiers
+16% pvp-only invulns across the board
+a good chunk of hp/mana/stamina
You then mix the above stats with the massive difficulty it is to actually get to pvp level 5 legitly, along with the Battle-Keep pvp invulns, and THEN individual class benefits...and you get pvp-god's essentially. Tier 3 BK buffs are something along the lines of 10-15% invulns (our guild hasn't had a tier3 BK in awhile, each time we get near one we get sieged and exploited out the ASS by crutch-pvp guilds, that and unless you have groups of pvp level 4+ guildies defending a BK, it's virtually impossible to defend a BK in AOC).
So, recap of AOC issues:
-Almost every class is broken in terms of usefulness or overpoweredness
-Each class has it's own forum, where the "most popular" class goes around and says nerf everyone else because we can't do anything EVEN if they are THE most broken/OP class in the game....*coughToScough*.
-PVE is essentially incomplete. We have 3 Tier 1 bosses, and 9 Tier 2 bosses whom only 2% of the community can even kill 3 of.
-The loot system is such that during 24man raids, you get "Bind on Pickup" raid gear that can't be sold/traded/looted by someone outside your particular raid. Not ONLY that, but the loot system is literally completely broken. In the past 3 weeks we've had over 30 Dark Templar drops, and only 3-4 drops for other classes. To add to an already shanked-dieing horse, you get BOP(Bind of Pickup) drops for classes YOU DON'T HAVE IN YOUR RAID. So a 3-7hour raid day for 24 people is essentially crapshot when 9 BOP items drop for say a HOX, and you have NO HOX's in your raid!!!
-Pvp gear ruins fairness/skill-based fights
-Mini-Games don't do shit for pvp exp. You get MAYBE 30-100 per game, and that's IF your team of pvp0-2's don't get matched with a full-gank team of pvp level 4-5's. To give a realistic comparison for you guys, pvp level 1: 7500 pvp exp, pvp level 2: 28,000 pvp exp, pvp level 3: is 75,000, pvp level 4: is something like 128,000....and pvp level 5 is like 200-250k pvp exp. You can ONLY get a max of 100pvp exp for a solo even-level kill. Compound that pain with the fact it degrades VERY quickly to something like 5-20pvp exp per kill, until it hits 1 pvp exp per kill. This is reset, per unique person you kill, every X many hours.
-Crafting is essentially worthless in AOC for anyone except level 40 or 60 mini-game pvp alts.
Hope this helped you guys with info-update of AOC's current state ^-^
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
im sorry but thats not true. i can just tell u about my experiences, but i always join mature guilds and i remember last time i asked the people about a thread in the forums (im playin WAR so it was a WAR forum) about 90% of them said they dont even visit any forum. that wasnt the first time that i seen this. just a few months ago i was playin a f2p game and in the guild we talked about an event and i would say more then 50% of them didnt knew about that because they never visited the forums.
Yeah, you took a poll?---Im not buying it--sorry.
But i just checked WAR's threads view amounts----they are in the THOUSANDS, some of those were left less than 12 hours ago. Whereas AoC has threads in 100's left a week ago. ---Do you see the difference?
I may go as far to say that MMORPGs are useless without forums. There are too many questions people have about statistics, crafting, classes, PvP, Raiding....I played WoW for years (off and on) and still had to get information about various topics from time to time. The forums you are talking to me on probably made it's claim to fame on this very fact alone. People who don't goto the forums in MMORPG's will probably quit playing altogether.
BTW- the name khartokhar3 , that wouldn't happen to be a Norwegian name would it?--Just curious
You obviously weren't around when SOE clamped down on the EQ boards and made it so that all threads had to be preapproved. But even before that, information sites like Allakhazam had become the hub of information for the game. Looking through message boards for the information you need is chaotic at best. Even worse when the forum is filled with useless threads like this one.
Given the track records of Funcom and, say EA, AoC will likely still be going with one tenth the subscription numbers that will cause EA to shut down WAR forever.
Personally I think that less people on the forum is due to the smaller number of buggs, there isn't so much to complain about anymore. It is true however that AoC is going a lot worse in US than EU, the opposite of WAR.
I think that if they really lost players the X-fire statistic would not rise slowly (It is 47 today, was down to 65 a few months ago, WAR is 20 today, down from 12 2 months ago). Of course it could be that more percentage of the AoC players are getting X-fire but I kinda doubt it. It went up a lot after the server mergers.
But it can well be that the game is losing US players and gaining EU players, havn't been on a US server.
Only real indicator now is the quarterly financial reports and not saying those can't be fudged some, many companies have done it in the past. On Xfire it appears that some companies and fanbois are manipulating the XFire numbers with threads on the boards, contests ( Turbine and CCP ), making it a guild rule to install and run it etc etc so as far as a indicator they are about pretty much about worthless anymore. I would not even put it past some less than scrupulous companies to have their employees to create accounts and log in just to create a illusion of activity.
Back to topic it does look like the forums are pretty dead, but then I rarely post on any games official boards unless I am upset about something. One thread over there did catch my eye though
forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php
dead servers after the big merge are not a good indication
I miss DAoC
If you want to monitor forum activity for Age of Conan I suggest using Alexa.com. It gives a nice indication on domain traffic.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/ageofconan.com
Looking at this you can see that reach (no of people) has been steady since october and page views (no of clicks) has slightly increased since december.
Note that Alexa has its problems and loopholes like other tools (read xfire). It can be tampered with, (many people installing it), It does not represent a significant propotion of the gaming population and it does not work with Vista.... (guess many gamers have vista due to DX 10). It does however tell us something about trends. It tells us that AoC is far from dying it has a healthy and steady population which approximately the same as in october.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
Steady? Sure, it has been steady. But healthy it is not. Looks like treading water to me. Servers have disappeared. The new servers are ghost towns. If you open up a single new server in a game and it is a ghost town, what does that tell you?
To a neutral observer, it means the game in North America is going to be hosted by four servers: Wiccana, Set, Tyranny, and Cimmeria. The other servers combined don't have the population of one of these servers. You can find 20 other MMOs in the same spot...might as well call it EQ2, UO, EQ, DaoC, CoH, D&Donline, etc etc.
That is AoC's fate. Like it or not.
3rd Quarter Financials linked from TenTonHammer
www.tentonhammer.com/node/49282
the significant highlights I get from reading both PDFs is
- there will be free trials offered digitally soon
- they will try to market to a younger audience
- they may start using microtransactions
personally, I think AOC is here to stay
EQ2 fan sites
Nadia: Sounds good in theory, but like anything, there are problems.
#1: Free trials will eat up the less remnants of Funcom's box revenue. They are still trying to support 200+ staff.
#2: A younger audience? Younger audiences have less credit. Younger audiences are more sophisticated in terms of their game choices. Doesn't sound wise.
#3: Microtransactions in a game that is supposed to be less item-centric? That would be suicide for AoC. Although I never got the impression of any leaning towards microtransactions from the report, unless you are speaking of things like character transfers and server transfers. It is astonishing that those types or revenue producing moves were not included earlier.
Do you look at post history? OP of that thread has some questionable posts.
Post history speaks volumes! Just like the OP of this thread.
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--------------------------------------------------------
Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
Yeah, you took a poll?---Im not buying it--sorry.
Of course you're not buying it, you have a hate-on for AoC and any posts that are contrary to your own are obviously fallacious as they don't support the way that you are trying to negatively portray the game.
No. closing the servers down isn't an indication the game is belly up. They close the severs down the game IS belly up.
I have no idea about sub numbers, or server load, but what I do know is that when I've been playing, I see plenty of other players running around the starter area, which is pretty good for a game that's been out for a few months. Means that not only are people still playing, but the game is either attracting new players, or people like it enough to still be rolling alts. Maybe both.
I don't know, but it doesn't feel like a deserted dying game to me at all. Unlike WAR, which felt desolate, but that could be due to the difference in number of servers and the way WAR spread players out all over the place. I know things like that can be deceptive - in AoC, everyone starts near Tortage, and there are only a few servers - but in terms of simply enjoying the game, and feeling like I'm not at all alone in that, AoC seems to be doing well.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
<Mod edit>
DOOOM!!!!
OK, i never go to official Threads, save for Pirates of the Burning Sea. and that was before it launched (I built ships for them). if i read all about he game beforehand, whhy play it? I don't need to do my homework to enjoy an mmorpg, i already have a job.
DOOM!!!!!
Age of conan is going to DIE!!! because i don't like it! so you must not play it!!! DOOM!!!
death to all MMORPG's that I don't like!! DOOOM TO ALL!!
ok, i think that covers about 90% of the threads on this website these days. Thanks for coming! If we could bottle all the hateraide on this site, we'd make a mint!
DIE AoC!! DOOOM!! I would go play a game, but I .....must.....stay....here....and.....HATE!!!!
/sarcasm off
Frank 'Spankybus' Mignone
www.spankybus.com
-3d Artist & Compositor
-Writer
-Professional Amature
I believe the 10% rule also. Only about 10% of players even look at the boards.
My proof? testlive patch notes.
Have you ever been in a game where an item was getting nerfed really hard.. and you knew it a month in advance because it was all over the forums? Try to sell that item 2 days before the patch goes live. Even if you spam the general channels you will get a ton of offers because people are generally clueless about what is being talked about on the forums.
Both these forums and the official forums are dead simply because most negative comments get banned. Ever notice how the long 'positive' threads contain a bunch of 'mod edit' notes on them. And how they drop off the first page becaues of " OMG.. AOC is 10/10 perfect game ever!!!" being bumped by the same person?
The official forums died, and these forums are dying because people get tired of having reasonable posts deleted by fanboy community managers.