Critic of Funcom urging new players to try AoC for themselves!

Draccan

 

Anyone who ever cared to read my posts in the past knows I have been (and remain) a huge critic of Funcom and the way they launched AoC. I cried foul on many things months before launch. I was in the beta too. God know's I was pissed of at Funcom. Also my computer crashed quite frequently at launch and it doesn't now when I have just returned.

While I have never made it to endgame, only to the middle part, I have to say this game is worth checking out. Funcom acted bad in not just telling the community about the game as it is (why claim it supports DX10 when it didn't - I doubt it sold them more boxes).. Game as it is is beautiful enough.

 

Anyways long story short, I think Tortage alone is worth a visit. More than a year after there still is no game that can rivel the graphics of AoC. There is no game out with such a "lush and brutal" (to use Funcom's own description) world.

This game might not be for hardcore guilds who spend two nights a week raiding - but for the casual gamer it offers an experience unlike anything else out there. Also the atmosphere of the game world is more mature than any out there. I don't care a tiny bit of boobies in a videogame, but the graphics is just amazing. The game world really instills this experience of a violent, dangerous work with many hidden secrets and treasures.

 

Come on in and try for yourself. I have just created this post, where I offer five three buddy keys for free. Mind you that you have to pay 2.99$ from fileplanet to download the client if you can't find a free torrent or borrow the game cd's somewhere.

With the games on the horizon I still find AGE OF CONAN the only interesting pvp game in existance - despite all its short comings. Unfortunately Funcom has dug a big hole for themselves so many people would be scared of from trying it again..

I for one will spend some months now in Age of Conan and I have to applaud Funcom for making a new expansion that does not add more classes or levels. Brave and cool move. New classes are not needed when they have some of the best classes in any mmo (for a class system anyways). And more levels are not needed when some content is needed for existing ones.

 

 

banecrow

Won the free version of the game over a month ago. Game was horrid then and I doubt  1 1/2 months have made a difference.  Glad I did not have to pay for it because it would have been a waste of money.

LaoZhuZong

MLM?

Draccan

Originally posted by banecrow


Won the free version of the game over a month ago. Game was horrid then and I doubt  1 1/2 months have made a difference.  Glad I did not have to pay for it because it would have been a waste of money.

 

I really wonder what you found horrid in such a short time. I know once you get more than half way through the game some content used to be missing, a lot of grinding, but they have solved this with updates incl. Ymir's Pass.

Also it surely can't be the character creator, the graphics or music. The combat system is quite cool in my opinion. While the combo system isn't perfect it still rivals most other out there for an mmo.

So what was so horrid and how far did you go?

finaticd

A lot of people did just come back over the last three months, there were over 100,000 free trials downloaded plus all the old players got free trials and instead of a rise in population Age of Conan lost 20% of its player base after free trials so unless they fix the game trying to sell it to new players is a fruitless endeavour. 

Also you mention PvP, the PvP players were the majority and now it seems they are a minority.  There are two reasonably populated PvP servers and 4 reasonably populated PvP servers worldwide...forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php

One of the reasons is because AoC PvP is mediocre at best, it is dry pointless, 5 PvP levels are pretty boring then the PvP penalty systems. If AoC had great PvP people would have stayed after the free trials and the game would start growing.

AoC is very devoid of stuff to do today, it is linear, and there is very little content that has come out since release and unless if Tier 3 has 30 bosses or so there will be little to do untill the expansion for endgamers. Having said that once the expansion comes out it will be more bugs and there will be little added once again starting the cycle over.

EDIT: One service I aplaud AoC for doing is it keeps all the players interested in only graphics (blood and female pixilated nudity) and the ability to talk 2nd grade bathroom humor in global in one game while the people who enjoy gameplay can play other games that are just better made.

Ethian

I'd have to agree with you.

I've played pretty much all of the big MMOs out (AoC...WAR...WoW...LOTRO..EQ2..). For the gamers who enjoy a brutal open pvp world, AoC is unmatched at the moment imo. Of course this is on the open-pvp servers (ive never played on closed servers).

Just last night I re-subbed to play with my g/f since she can't seem to put it down. She loves the combat and the finds the world beutifull. AoCs combat system is truely like no other MMO out, which is a huge draw compared to the bland / boring combat in some the MMOs out now....LOTRO comes to mind LOL

The only issue I have now is that Aion is out soon, which is very polished and has an intersting pvp concept. Its going to be hard to not cancel my AoC account and move onto a new/fresh MMO with pvp as their focus.

I truely do wish AoC the best. Its probly the most fun and unique MMO thats come out in a long time in my opition. And the fact that Funcom has taken the time and energy to make AoC as polished as it is now puts them high in my books. I salute them for all the hard work and dedication they put towards the game.

Draccan

Originally posted by finaticd


A lot of people did just come back over the last three months, there were over 100,000 free trials downloaded plus all the old players got free trials and instead of a rise in population Age of Conan lost 20% of its playerbase after free trials so unless they fix the game trying to sell it to new players is a fruitless endever.
Also you mention PvP, the PvP players were the majority and now it seems they are a minority.  There are two reasonably populated PvP servers and 4 reasonably populated PvP servers worldwide...forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php
One of the reasons is because AoC PvP is mediocre at best, it is dry pointless, 5 PvP levels are pretty boring then the PvP penalty systems. If AoC had great PvP people would have stayed after the free trials and the game would start growing.
AoC is very devoid of stuff to do today, it is linear, and there is very little content that has come out since release and unless if Tier 3 has 30 bosses or so there will be little to do untill the expansion for endgamers. Having said that once the expansion comes out it will be more bugs and there will be little added once again starting the cycle over.

 

I really think people should try it out for themselves. Anyone playing casually as I do, might find the content more than satisfying. In fact I think Tortage alone is worth trying the game for. 2.99$ or a free trial is definitely worth it.

The whole 20% drop is something you read out of the quarterly report. Working for a major financial institution I can tell you that subscription numbers can not be so simply analyzed from the info Funcom has given us. So don't state it as a fact please.

Also I would love to know which game out there incl. those released in September that is better than AoC?

I for one can't see any other game on the horizon that can beat AoC. It might be a rough gem, but it is still a gem. 

 

 

 

Pocahinha

try it for free..only 2.99$ lol

Same crap...the game to work had to be done all over..no over instancing...no crap combat system, free to roam bigger zones, less graphics and textures so the game doesnt need to load everywhere we go....more class balance and gear intemization...

banecrow

 
Also I would love to know which game out there incl. those released in September that is better than AoC?

 

I think the answer to that would be any of them.

finaticd

Well forum traffic to AoC.com and gamespot along with X fire allow it to be triangulated so it is pretty accurate.  And it is pretty easy to deduce because they announce all additional sources of revenue.  IE Norway socialism gave them around 500,000 usd and selling the game outright to asia gave them over a million usd. Europe pays a few dollars more and USA pays a few dollars less so 15 USD avg for 1-1yr sub will give a very small margin of error.

AmazingAvery

Oh hello there Draccan!  Don't let finaticd with his false info take you off course. Being a critic is totally fine, being someone who admits spreading false info is another thing.

As for the population:

Craig Morrison. game director for Age of Conan had this to say:

"I think we are comfortable that the majority of the servers have good healthy populations. There are a few though are possibly a little below where we would prefer, but were retained for specific reasons (as with the Oceanic flagged server)

I don't think that we would consider any major merges at this stage. The server populations are very stable, and are certainly not dropping in any significant way. Of course those servers that were originally lower are still at the levels they always have been.

The trials and re-evaluation period obviously brought more players onto the servers and now those periods have ended there will naturally be less players online than there was during the trial periods.

The overall levels on the quieter servers aren't any lower than they were originally though so it may be that we consider some merges down the line but it isn't something we feel is necessary just at the moment."

Bit different to what some people will have you say that everything is barren eh.

Trying the game is out is the right thing to do, so is doing a bit of homework to fall on the right server. And no there are not 3 or 6 servers in the game only finaticd so don't even bother coming back with anything.

Krayzjoel

The game is very appealing visually and many of the bugs have been taken care of to a point.

My problems the game are: (My opinion only.)

1. Little to nothing to do except raiding. I dont sign on much anymore except to raid.

2. Money IMO is pointless after a while. Nothing to spend it on or even to bother  trying aquiring it. I dont like the mounts in the game so I dont bother.

3. The Loot drop from bosses is horrid.....either that or Ive been very unlucky. i rarely see any Demo drops. Ive seen way too many occasions where two of the same raid loot items drop. Ive been rading for 2 months every week in BRC, Kilikki, yakmahr, and Vistrix , unf i only have 3 pieces to show for it. Im not asking for my drops all the time but comon throw me a bone here.

4. I have rarly seen or aquired any "reciepes" for my profession. Ive maxed out what I could in alchemy and gemcrafting.

5. PVP IS. HORRID!!!!! Majority of the time minigames are so lopsided it isnt even fun. Its rare that you see a "close" match.  People rarely pvp on non pvp servers.  The PVP on the pvp servers is ok, but mostly a gankfest and rez pad campers. Theres really no incentive for people to pvp.

This is jusy my opinion only ....from my experiences only. Im on the brink of no longer subbing to the game after 4 more weeks. If it wasnt for the great people in my guild i'd already have left AOC again and never to look back.

finaticd

Originally posted by AmazingAvery


Oh hello there Draccan!  Don't let finaticd with his false info take you off course. Being a critic is totally fine, being someone who admits spreading false info is another thing.
As for the population:
Craig Morrison. game director for Age of Conan had this to say:


"I think we are comfortable that the majority of the servers have good healthy populations. There are a few though are possibly a little below where we would prefer, but were retained for specific reasons (as with the Oceanic flagged server)
I don't think that we would consider any major merges at this stage. The server populations are very stable, and are certainly not dropping in any significant way. Of course those servers that were originally lower are still at the levels they always have been.
The trials and re-evaluation period obviously brought more players onto the servers and now those periods have ended there will naturally be less players online than there was during the trial periods.
The overall levels on the quieter servers aren't any lower than they were originally though so it may be that we consider some merges down the line but it isn't something we feel is necessary just at the moment."
Bit different to what some people will have you say that everything is barren eh.
Trying the game is out is the right thing to do, so is doing a bit of homework to fall on the right server. And no there are not 3 or 6 servers in the game only finaticd so don't even bother coming back with anything.

 You really want to play a game from a company that has reps just posting junk like that?

WTF the only people spreading false information is Funcom and it seems Amazing Avery just did the same thing by reposting it.

Funcom lies to gain new people it is a very deceptive company, AA seems to be in accord with Funcom. You just posted a bunch of spin there are 6 half full servers and the rest are ghost towns, anyone who followed this game would know that so you are reposting a deceptive quote from Funcom. Funcom doesn't like merging servers it looks bad and costs them money and the consider 150 players on a server such as the new PvP server to be "below what we would prefer".!

Here are players of your game lauging at your developer quote forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php and notice it got locked!

Now I'm pretty offended it seems you stooped pretty low AA. I'm pissed at your lies and attack on my character, that is way over the line! I don't lie I post what ois most likely the truth, while Funcom posts what most likely will make their game and company look good aside from the numbers which are pretty much always bad.

 

Also the servers are just going to continue to have fewer and fewer players unless the expansion with no date on the horizon brings them back.  Remember Funcom has no problem leaving players on empty servers they did it at release for many months and are doing it again now.

 

 

Barteaux

Originally posted by Ethian


I'd have to agree with you.
I've played pretty much all of the big MMOs out (AoC...WAR...WoW...LOTRO..EQ2..). For the gamers who enjoy a brutal open pvp world, AoC is unmatched at the moment imo. Of course this is on the open-pvp servers (ive never played on closed servers).
Just last night I re-subbed to play with my g/f since she can't seem to put it down. She loves the combat and the finds the world beutifull. AoCs combat system is truely like no other MMO out, which is a huge draw compared to the bland / boring combat in some the MMOs out now....LOTRO comes to mind LOL
The only issue I have now is that Aion is out soon, which is very polished and has an intersting pvp concept. Its going to be hard to not cancel my AoC account and move onto a new/fresh MMO with pvp as their focus.
I truely do wish AoC the best. Its probly the most fun and unique MMO thats come out in a long time in my opition. And the fact that Funcom has taken the time and energy to make AoC as polished as it is now puts them high in my books. I salute them for all the hard work and dedication they put towards the game.

 

Aye, nothing I've seen beats AoC in terms of MMORPG-PvP.

It is the most interesting of all mmo's out atm, and definitely worth a try.

I especially like the low-fantasy setting w/o the glowing neon cartoon armor.

I left, like so many others, after the botched launch, and returned earlier this year. At first I hated the ganking (playing on a PvP-server), but still I didn't want  to go all PvE. I was about to quit again, but stayed for the remainer of my prepaid time. During that time I learnt how to avoid some gankers, and how the beat others. In the end I found that the added threat from roaming gankers gave the PvE part of the game added excitement. I decided to renew my sub and stayed on. I have not regretted that decission.

And these days it's just getting better. I see more and more players join up / come back to my server, and the game is better than ever. Add the incoming patches and expansions to that, and I know this will be my mmo-home for the forseable future.

LizardEgypt

Yeah, I was very frustrated at first with the White Sands PvP and what not, but honestly later in the game PvP gets very fun.. at first I hated the hostile Counter-Strike server attitude that alot of game seemed to have but soon you start to get grudges against players start hunting other players, looking for duels and fights, using the environment to your advantage.. it becomes a lot of fun.

"Aion is coming out soon. It's new and fresh and from what I hear, has some pretty good PvP. Should everyone try that? I don't know.. but I seems a more logical choice to me than to try just another "failed" MMO like AoC."

This may be true, but alot of people are also saying Aion adds Nothing new and nothing fresh at all. It has an interesting PvP idea with the abyss and what not but for all you know three months down the road when everyone's "OMG NEW MMO It"S GOING TO SAVE US FROM THE SHITTY FAILED GAMES" phase is over, it could leave you in the same situation, it's not going to be a godsend unless it's pretty much flawless.

 

Reion1

Originally posted by eureka105


Why do everyone always insist that people should try the game for themselves? There are thousands of games out there and dozens of MMO's, nobody has the time to try them all. And why should they?
I see AoC as another mediocre MMO that "could have been..". Should you try it? Maybe if you are a Conan fan. Should everyone try it? Absolutely not.
Aion is coming out soon. It's new and fresh and from what I hear, has some pretty good PvP. Should everyone try that? I don't know.. but I seems a more logical choice to me than to try just another "failed" MMO like AoC.

 

lol, why? because I can tell you that sushi tastes like chicken, will you take my word for it?

googajoob7

i did nt like it at release but i played for three months earlier this year and found it to be a decent game . will return for a couple of months next year to get my tos to 80 before the xpacs out . its well worth a few months play at least .

Rawiz

As a fellow "critic", I don't agree with you on all of this. First of all there's plenty of posts that urge people to try AoC, so you might have as well posted on one of those? So you're not having computer problems anymore, great, more power to you.. that doesn't mean you should just blindly jump in, if you were one of those who had these problems.

As you probably realize the middle part of any MMO is mostly about getting to the top level so you can fully see what the game is about. I know from first-hand experience that mid-game at the moment is a lot better than it was when I first played last summer.. there's enough content there to go through. However the main problem with AoC for me at least, is the severe lack of endgame content and fully functional sieging. Now before any bloke who reads this and goes on how it endgame will expand in the next patch, I already know this and it's about god damn time!

Are you seriously implying that 2 nights a week is hardcore raiding? I mean Jesus Christ, you can't be serious right? As for the graphics I don't care at all about those myself, all I care about is how the game works and how ideas are implemented so that they make sense and function well.

As for the expansion.. well I have some mixed feelings about that one. For example there's a topic on this board how AoC expanded to the wrong direction (Asia), when Cimmeria or Aquilonia would've made more sense to me at least. Other thing is that I don't know how much longer especially raiders wish to remain on the same level only to get some new items on their characters. Last but not least there's the tiger issue, but to be honest that's been covered everywhere since the release of expansion info, so I will just skip that one.

PvP in the game has imbalances, just like every other MMO there is really. I'd still like to see border kingdoms finished and sieges working even if it meant cutting the current amount on participants allowed in them. It would be a lot better to have 20v20 sieges than lagging out in the current ones. Cross-server minigames would be a huge improvement also and even though FC says they take a lot of planning and work, in my opinion this should recieve plenty of man-power to implement, because it would especially help people stranded on a less popular servers.

I would agree that AoC is a good game for a casual person. I'd even say that 2 raids a week is very casual in MMO scale and that makes it even better for people who don't want to spend too much time in a game. However I wouldn't recommend AoC to anyone who really likes to spend their time to work on their character.

Damn, that's my longest post on this site ever.

twiggy550

 Sounds like somebody never made it off of "Tortuga"

Had to say it, sorry.

Naranar

Originally posted by twiggy550


 Sounds like somebody never made it off of "Tortuga"
Had to say it, sorry.

 

Had to quote it , sorry.

Btw its Tortage.

LordBonezy

The first poster and another one on the first page are shills. It's pretty easy to spot and with backing by Avery on page 2, hmmmmmm is there Funcom in this thread?

Sieges broken/laggy

Raids lame

Guild cities not customizable

Resources for cities, takes too long to acquire

guild bank, still 50 slots,

DX10 well still beta,

I mean where do you want the list of things which still don't have functionality or value in the game to end? Why is it necessary for us to look past all of the stuff that is missing or broken or not fun in order to appreciate the game? Boobs, great. Music, great, exprience/gameplay/customization, lacking very very lacking.

So what should we do when the free trial fails, well instead of figuring out why it fails, i.e. because mutiple components of the game simply do not work coherently together, lets just start upping the pay of the shill department and market this pig to the masses with as much lipstick as we can. I mean is the rainbow in color or is this just a dream?

The truth about AOC is that AOC is a poorly implemented, poorly supported product. Were it anything but that, it would be growing substantially with a free trial. The truth about Funcom is that Funcom is a horrible company and employs shills/multilevel markets in the practice of suggesting sales and falsely advertising the features of the product. Instead of working with the community in a real way, and fixing core components of the game, they have simply decided to just do what they think is best, and that is what they did before AOC launched, sell the game to anybody saying just about anything about it, and in anyway. Never mind that the game stinks in a lot of areas, both objectively and subjectively. If it were not so, the evidence which is layer upon layer from all areas of the internet, statistics from alexa on webhits, from the crowd here at mmorpg, from xfire play time which is down, from the lack of sub boosts from the FREE TRIAL, to their own projections of where their community and subscriber base is heading, which is clearly not a growth scenario. Their actual plans for the program are not stated in that release just like they actually planned for AOC to be doing substantially better with a winback program however...

CLEARLY they have finally realized that they are not going to see 300k or even 200k subscriptions for AOC ever again unless they fix it. The community has told them over and over in the hundreds of suggestion forum threads which have been made since the first week of launch what new features they want, what things in the game need fixing, what is a priority and by scale of sample what is important to them, the players. These suggestions are important because what a majority of posters agree on is very likely to be agreed upon by the entire group. However, they've decided that rather than fix it they are going to scrap it and make a new game, different designing, different mechanics, maybe better, but I'm not betting the farm, I'm not even betting a few dollars for a look. Funcom hear me and hear the rest of the universe that knows about your company, Free play trial before pay or you can go fuck yourselves on the expansion.

If they felt the AOC product could stand on its own they wouldn't be employing shills or MLMs or folks on forums to say good things about their product, they would let the perception be crafted by the shared exprience and story telling of the folks who have actually played the game and the consensus of those folks is that AOC is a failure and should not be supported or developed unless the company doing it is going to do it right and lay off the bullshit.

 

Aceundor

Originally posted by LordBonezy


 

lol

Are you still here? Well at least this time your exagerations, half truths and lies were mixed into a wall of text. Guess noone will read much of it. 

Move along.....

Blackwell99

 I DO agree that everyone should try Tortage...I have always recommended this aspect.

 

I DO NOT recommend paying any charges--Tortage is good---but NOT that good!

 

There are tons of posts with people who have been doubled billed and who have been fooled into taking an offer that left them subscribed due to an ambiguous UI within the trial.

 

If you can try Tortage, that's cool.....but DO NOT give your Credit Card info to FC. (they give away AoC disks like candy now-a-days). So if you need to try the game--find a different way.

 

If they want you to try it--they can offer it for 100% free. (Like EvE and many others)

DO NOT GIVE FC YOUR CC INFO (until you are certain you want to sub--but watch out for double billing)

 

You've been warned

AmazingAvery

Originally posted by eureka105

Originally posted by Aceundor

Originally posted by LordBonezy


 

lol

Are you still here? Well at least this time your exagerations, half truths and lies were mixed into a wall of text. Guess noone will read much of it. 

Move along.....

 

What he listed there are not half truths but facts. Only opinion he said is that raids are lame. And most players would agree with that. Raids are lame. Once you've done them once, you never want to do them again.

Do you even play this game? Your signature says you don't. Maybe you should actually play it before you give yopur opinions?

At least Draccan being a Critic has done so with mostly factual info and clear presence. There is nothing wrong with trying the game out.

I don't beleive you play the game either, yet, another fresh account just for AoC negativity. Funny that. Be negative, be a critic, but don't be a troll. Most of the things lord B says kept him subbing to the game for over a year. Now AoC was worth his money for that long so trying out the game is not a bad thing is it. Why don't you do the same. Nice to see you again. Was worth his money for sure!!

LordBonezy

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Originally posted by eureka105

Originally posted by Aceundor

Originally posted by LordBonezy


 

lol

Are you still here? Well at least this time your exagerations, half truths and lies were mixed into a wall of text. Guess noone will read much of it. 

Move along.....

 

What he listed there are not half truths but facts. Only opinion he said is that raids are lame. And most players would agree with that. Raids are lame. Once you've done them once, you never want to do them again.

Do you even play this game? Your signature says you don't. Maybe you should actually play it before you give yopur opinions?

At least Draccan being a Critic has done so with mostly factual info and clear presence. There is nothing wrong with trying the game out.

I don't beleive you play the game either, yet, another fresh account just for AoC negativity. Funny that. Be negative, be a critic, but don't be a troll. Most of the things lord B says kept him subbing to the game for over a year. Now AoC was worth his money for that long so trying out the game is not a bad thing is it. Why don't you do the same. Nice to see you again. Was worth his money for sure!!

Avery maybe you'd like to get your fucking facts straight. I didn't sub to this pile for over a year. I was subbed from launch to October 08. I quit when my fucking guild died because our fucking server imploded. Oh  yeah and maybe you recall Funcom's answer to that was merging in January 3 months later. When the problem was known for 6 months because it started in July/August. It was widely discussed on every fucking forum daily at AOCforums. You maybe forgot cause you were too busy bsing the folks here and posting snippets of this useless article and that useless article.

When I came back, that was in June 09. Just before the free trials, I beat it by a week. When I came back I was happy to report that DX10 beta was in. Its Beta how excited would you all be if it had been beta at launch. Now imagine my boner when it was in 450 days later and it ran like shit compared to DX9 which was very very good. Also performance was fixed up which really was true 6 months ago. However there really wasn't a whole lot to keep me interested and to write home about. There was however a shit ton of the things I didn't like before still present. Total lack of support in areas of the game and depth.

The game isn't worth the sub. It wasn't worth the sub for the 100k or so who actually tried it for free and it is predicted by Funcom themselves to not be worth it over the course of the next few months as they predict and quite accurately a 10-15% drop in revenues directly tied to a drop in subscriptions which will probably be in the neighborhood of 15-20% to offset the revenue from product sales, and character transfer options.

You are on here every day talking about how the game is bigger better, and the expansion this and that. They still have not delivered what they advertised originally, and they have falled very very short on dozens of other areas which make a game fun, functional and gel well. Funcom is a horrible company and go ahead and represent them as not. The world was also flat at one time too but don't be telling folks that I subbed to this game over a year cause that is downright fucking false!

finaticd

Ya I think the loads of people who just recently retried this game during free trials and win backs disproved that this game is worth playing at all.

That is just very extreme bias...ignoring 100,000 people or so to listen to the one person that says this game is good just because his posts is 100% positive OPINIONS of Age of Conan.