I've just joined this game recently - 1 month - and I have already gotten 2 characters to 45 or better - and have tried many, looking for the right class for me. I like this game alot - just seems to be more fun and have less whiners in the ingame chat channels than most of the other games I've played(EVE would be the exception).
After reading the complaints against this move I have formed a conclusion: most of those who are complaining have quit and didn't seriously intend to come back, unless Funcom got down on their knees and pleaded. All Funcom really did was affirm that if you have not played in over 1/2 a year you are probably not coming back - and even then it is only characters UNDER lvl 20 that are being deleted. Now I don't agree with the 4 hours to make level 20 - even with double xp it took me like 8-10 hours to get through Tortage - I consider myself an average player - but 8-10 hours of gameplay? That is not much, in fact this is the easiest game I've played in a long time to level.
To you who are complaining - hey you gave up on this game long ago, FunCom didn't give up on you - you gave up on Funcom. There are things I would like to see fixed in this game - especially the moronic bug that has you occasionally running on your horse - and unable to get off it unless you relog or zone. I think perhaps you should try playing it again before you spill your bile, but you would rather cry that the low-level toons you abandoned over half a year ago are being deleted. Funcom doesn't owe you anything, stop crying.
Well, if you dont want play/subscribe AoC Why the hell u want a level 20 or below char? Funcom is right. If you is a subscribed active member, all your chars will be certainly more than 20 levels in... 2 days? or 1 day perhaps? level 20 char is very very very easy to reach. so... if you want to play, just play. if you dont want, just leave and have your useless char deleted. (maybe i want your char name for my char too, leave the name free for use). :P
I agree that on the surface this isn't that big a deal. Most people probably don't even remember what characters they have under level 20... I know I don't. And the low character wipes don't bother me.
The problem is that this move comes from a company with very little "good will" in the bank. And by very little I mean none in most people’s minds. Other companies could do this, and it wouldn’t hurt them much if at all. Funcom though, can’t make these kinds of moves. It just refreshes people’s memories of why they left this game in the first place.
Unfortunately for Funcom they’ve put themselves in the position that any decision they make, no matter how seemingly insignificant, will be highly scrutinized.
It seems like every time the waters start to calm a bit for Funcom, they make a decision like this. It's frustrating and entertaining all at the same time.
I can't believe people are seriously crying about this. You can go 1-20 in ~4 hours. They're only deleting sub 20 characters that are over 7 months old.
Second, I received this email too. Frankly I found it hilarious! They are essentially saying "resubscribe or else". I closed the email while laughing and I made a comment to the effect of, "Yeah, that's a great way to bring me back as a customer: threaten me!"
Whatever their actual reasons are, that's the way that the email came across to me. There's less than zero chance for that to work when I'd already written the game off.
Maybe they're role playing? "Give us your money or we cut off your...! ..er... delete your newbs!"
In preparing for the upcoming Age of Conan server merges,
Nice link. How are the server merges done back a year ago "upcoming"? It seems Google was not your friend. They haven't announced which servers are being merged into other servers yet for this round.
Yeah I think deleting toons is plain stupid. They can not back up characters on disk? Is this the stoneage? I was thinking of resubbing in the near future when things were a little more stable financially since i like playing several sub MMOs but I am not resubbing just to save my toons. Therefore, AoC you lost me bloody business forever. You sure do know how to stay successful. One of the reasons I switch off and on EQ2 and WOW is because they never delete anything of mine. So guess what? they both get my business. I just alternate. Happy Gaming people.
Massively.com contacted Erling Ellingsen for comment on this development who informed them that the deletions are being made in order to "free space in the database."
I can see why Funcom would like to free up some names on inactive accounts for their actual subscribers, but if this is the real reason they must have serious problems on a very basic level.
To elaborate on why I think this sounds like a problem: A characters recordset in the database (name, items+amount, coin, stats, appearance etc.) will of course occupy a certain amount of space. Most data will be integer values represented by one or two bytes of data.
Example: A character has 10 pcs. of "Basalt" in his inventory. That would be: Amount (10) = 2 bytes, Item/ressource index (Basalt) = 2 bytes and location in players inventory (Bagslot) = 2 bytes.
Even with charname, stats, attributes etc. any given character should be representable within 4Kb. (Thats 4096 bytes of information)
Erling told us about the "800.000 accounts created" at one time. Let's imagine that all of those accounts created 10 characters each. Let's even imagine that Funcoms database structure was far from optimal and as an example requiring a massive 10Kb pr. character. To make things completely impossible let us put ALL of that on ONE single server (database)...
Our database (yes this is simplyfied) would need: 800.000 * 10 * 10Kb = 80.000.000Kb.
Sounds like much? Well that is about 80.000 Mb or 80Gb of data. Now tell me how big your personal datastorage is? (That would be your harddisk).
Yeah I know (hope) that this is a cheap shot, but so was Erlings. Just the usual smoke and mirrors from that front it seems.
(To see an example of "realtime performance testing" on databases have a look at www.tpc.org/default.asp, current benchmarks are done on 1 terabyte databases, thats about 1000Gb )
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!! (repeat ad infinitum)
Still, bloody messed up way to get people to resubscribe.
Yeah, hahaha. Initially it does seem like a sorry attempt at getting ex-subscribers to panic and re-subscribe, doesn't it? Maybe they thought: "Well if we get even a few of them back, good - the others won't ever come back anyway."
But I think there's actually another, semi-valid reason for this move.
I remember one of the Bioware devs (Gordon Walton, I think) saying deleting inactive characters is a good idea, because new players get turned off if they have to try too many times while creating their character. Now, if you merge servers like AOC has had to, from way too many servers to just a few, and keep the characters, that will make a lot of names unavailable. So, yes, it'd cause noticeable problems in namespace. Probably they sat down and pushed some numbers and found the potential gain (new players not turned off at character creation) would be higher than the potential loss (meaning: players who see this as a kick in the nuts and decide to not come back ever). Either way I suspect the gain would be little, but - oh, well.
I agree that on the surface this isn't that big a deal. Most people probably don't even remember what characters they have under level 20... I know I don't. And the low character wipes don't bother me.
The problem is that this move comes from a company with very little "good will" in the bank. And by very little I mean none in most people’s minds. Other companies could do this, and it wouldn’t hurt them much if at all. Funcom though, can’t make these kinds of moves. It just refreshes people’s memories of why they left this game in the first place.
Unfortunately for Funcom they’ve put themselves in the position that any decision they make, no matter how seemingly insignificant, will be highly scrutinized.
It seems like every time the waters start to calm a bit for Funcom, they make a decision like this. It's frustrating and entertaining all at the same time.
By who? A bunch of whiners,forum trolls who did not play beyond level 20,who has never played all the new content that has been added post Gaute era.You must be kidding.
This game belongs to Funcom not the other way.
In the land of Predators,the lion does not fear the jackals...
I'm on a hiatus from AoC anyway, so if they delete my lowbie characters to free up names and such then so be it. Though, I'm not sure how many names they'll actually free up by deleting my lowbie characters, since my names are, for the most part, made up on the spot.
Besides, it's not as if getting to level 20 takes any significant amount of time.
OmaliMMO Business CorrespondentMemberUncommonPosts: 1,177
Originally posted by mikenet707
Yeah I think deleting toons is plain stupid. They can not back up characters on disk? Is this the stoneage? I was thinking of resubbing in the near future when things were a little more stable financially since i like playing several sub MMOs but I am not resubbing just to save my toons. Therefore, AoC you lost me bloody business forever. You sure do know how to stay successful. One of the reasons I switch off and on EQ2 and WOW is because they never delete anything of mine. So guess what? they both get my business. I just alternate. Happy Gaming people.
Backing up your character on a disk would then require them to port it over when you would like to get that character back. That means a person has to individually move the character over, making sure that none of the data was lost, the files are intact, must be updated to be compatible with the current version, working out the bugs, and moved over to an open slot. This is assuming that it doesn't end up being so old that it is no longer compatible. These people cost money.
Star Wars Galaxies has a similar operation, but it costs $50 to transfer a character from a closed server, to cover the cost of paying someone to do the above. Who in their right mind is going to pay $50 to revive a newbie character on Age of Conan?
If none of your toons were over level 20, and you were inactive for over 7 months, then I highly doubt you were ever going back. Sounds to me like you're just trolling the boards and looking for a reason to whine about Funcom. Considering you likely had no intention of starting/returning to Age of Conan in the first place, Funcom sees you as no loss.
First of all I am no troll. I have toons over 20 but that is not the point. I bought the game initially and put many many hours in gameplay (not power leveling). Therefore for them to delete is not just insulting the customer(me) but telling me how much they care. All of us do not have free time to just blow playing games all day. Soms of us are military,some of us just had babies,some of us just have to work and make a living,etc.etc. And I play many MMOs and can not pay subscriptions for all at one time. It is nice that, you who think you know everything ,don't know much at all about real life. Wow has my business,EQ2 has my business,and some others. I guess AoC is too poor to manage or they just don't care. It is one or the other. Neither works for me the consumer. SO who is losing? me or them? Happy Gaming to all except people with no sense to think about other people before talking. And Blah blah blah to any replies.
I don't see it as a reason to complain. Inactive account, under level 20, no big deal.
However it is some penny-ante stuff that makes FC look like they're having problems. Its not good PR. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the longevity of the game.
I can't believe people are seriously crying about this. You can go 1-20 in ~4 hours. They're only deleting sub 20 characters that are over 7 months old.
Cry more, seriously.
/couldn't agree more
its not hard to get to 20, apart from that, characters over 7 months old, THATS OVER HALF A YEAR!
Agree with this and others. Plus, they'll allow you to reactivate your account free of charge for 7 days. So simply log in 6 days before merger and save yourself a few hours and keep your toon.
I certainly don't think any game company owes inactive accounts that haven't been accessed in 7+ months any certainty to maintain that data. They aren't a charity. And keeping your old data at the expense of new active players being charged an "affordable" price is not what I'd expect of a responsible MMO provider. Be thankful they sent out the emails to give you a choice.
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by mikenet707
First of all I am no troll. I have toons over 20 but that is not the point. I bought the game initially and put many many hours in gameplay (not power leveling). Therefore for them to delete is not just insulting the customer(me) but telling me how much they care. All of us do not have free time to just blow playing games all day. Soms of us are military,some of us just had babies,some of us just have to work and make a living,etc.etc. And I play many MMOs and can not pay subscriptions for all at one time. It is nice that, you who think you know everything ,don't know much at all about real life. Wow has my business,EQ2 has my business,and some others. I guess AoC is too poor to manage or they just don't care. It is one or the other. Neither works for me the consumer. SO who is losing? me or them? Happy Gaming to all except people with no sense to think about other people before talking. And Blah blah blah to any replies.
By definition of the contractual based service in place you are only a customer when you pay for something. If you pay for the internet service which you are using now, and as an example you create an email address ending in @comcast or @ whatever and you cancel that service you will loose your email address after 30 days. If you own a DVR through your TV company and you cancel you will not be able to access recording stored on that DVR unless you maintain that subscription even if it holds PPV's that you have paid for and recorded.
Right before release, this topic was brought up, as it was picked out in the agreement. In said agreement you take on as part of subscribing, is just the same as "Some" other mmo's operated for example through SoE or SquareEnix. By deleting that space it is better servicing funcom's game customers eg people who are paying.
EQ2 Did you know? "If I cancel my account, is there any guarantee that my characters will not be deleted?"
"At this time, we do not delete characters from an account that has been cancelled, but we cannot yet guarantee that a cancelled account's characters will not be deleted. However, when you do reactivate your account and find that any of your characters are not present, please send in a CS Ticket, and a GM will investigate that for a potential restoration. Please also review our policy on character deletions from our website."
Cancelling Station Acc with EQ2: "You will only have access to the four additional EverQuest II character slots while you are an active Station Access subscriber. If you cancel your Station Access subscription or let it expire, but continue with your EverQuest II subscription, you will only retain access to the seven most recently played characters on your EverQuest II account and you will lose access to the other characters unless you delete one or more of the most recently played characters (then the next most recently played character(s) will be accessible). "
For all Station Access games: "Will I lose my characters if I cancel my account?
Canceling your account does not affect your characters immediately, only your billing information. Though we generally do not delete characters on closed accounts, we cannot guarantee the integrity of characters after an account closes. Please keep in mind that you will need to use the same Station Name and Password that you used before you canceled your subscription to the game when you choose to log in again."
WORLD OF WARCRAFT® TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT
Blizzard Entertainment may, in its sole and absolute discretion, suspend or terminate your access to the Service and disable or delete the Account, if: [...]
(3) you use all of the allotted time that you have purchased to access World of Warcraft via a "World of Warcraft Game Card" or similar instrument.
If you owned your character in a game why can't you legally sell it on?
Blah? informed consumer.
OmaliMMO Business CorrespondentMemberUncommonPosts: 1,177
Originally posted by mikenet707
First of all I am no troll. I have toons over 20 but that is not the point. I bought the game initially and put many many hours in gameplay (not power leveling). Therefore for them to delete is not just insulting the customer(me) but telling me how much they care. All of us do not have free time to just blow playing games all day. Soms of us are military,some of us just had babies,some of us just have to work and make a living,etc.etc. And I play many MMOs and can not pay subscriptions for all at one time. It is nice that, you who think you know everything ,don't know much at all about real life. Wow has my business,EQ2 has my business,and some others. I guess AoC is too poor to manage or they just don't care. It is one or the other. Neither works for me the consumer. SO who is losing? me or them?
The over 20 character thing is exactly the point. If your account is inactive for 7 months, that is seven. Seven months. Five months short of a year. Five months short of 365 days.If your character was inactive for 7 months, and is still under level 20, chances are that character isn't coming back. Funcom would like the space your unused character who never passed the tutorial is wasting away in. If you put "many many" hours into a character and it hasn't reached level 20 yet, you are doing something very wrong.
You need to stop being so defensive. If you feel insulted by a company deleting characters you're not using, and haven't used for almost a year, and had no intention on using unless they gave you some free time, then you need to reexamine yourself, not the company. You're not a customer, you're not paying for any service they are offering, nor are you using their service.
Getting past level 20 to secure your character doesn't require you to play the game all day, and insulting the rest of us by insinuating the old "you have no life if you got this far" or "Well at least I have a JOB" and that the rest of us are out of touch with "real life", attacking the rest of us isn't going to gain you any sympathy or make you look any less like the troll you are. I have two jobs and go to college full time, and I managed to make it past level 20 in a couple of days. I also happen to play several other MMOs, run an MMO business-related website, and still have some free time aside from that.
No one is losing here. You were never going to be their customer, so whether or not you come here to troll and claim they lost a customer is irrelevant, they were never going to have you in the first place.
"Happy Gaming to all except people with no sense to think about other people before talking. And Blah blah blah to any replies."
I still think level 20 is too high for a purge, it should be level 10 or so. Funcom already did that in Anarchy Online, a game with 220 levels (way more than Conan) and purge all inactive char of level 5 or lower.
I dont see the need to purge level 20 character, it takes new players 12+ hours to get there, in Anarchy online level 5 was reached within 20-30 minutes so purging inactive character that low had no impact, someone coming back after a year break getting back to 20 takes time.
OmaliMMO Business CorrespondentMemberUncommonPosts: 1,177
Originally posted by Aguitha
I still think level 20 is too high for a purge, it should be level 10 or so. Funcom already did that in Anarchy Online, a game with 220 levels (way more than Conan) and purge all inactive char of level 5 or lower. I dont see the need to purge level 20 character, it takes new players 12+ hours to get there, in Anarchy online level 5 was reached within 20-30 minutes so purging inactive character that low had no impact, someone coming back after a year break getting back to 20 takes time.
Anarchy Online is also partially free to play, so purging level 5- characters will probably purge more characters than Age of Conan's 20. For a title like Anarchy Online, you have people who create accounts, play for a few minutes, and then logout and never look back.
Looking at this objectively, I am confused by the prospect of a player who plays less than 12 hours in a month (amounting to about 20 minutes a day) and doesn't even finish the tutorial, who suddenly wants to come back over seven months later to probably play another couple hours and then quit for close to a year again.
I agree with the naysayers on one thing, Funcom probably doesn't care. As a business owner with a set of names to hand out, I would give the name first to the person who is joining and has a prospect of staying, rather than someone who bought the game for fifty bucks, didn't play enough to get the fundamentals down, and then ditched the game, likely before the free month was even over. It's prioritizing your customers.
I still think level 20 is too high for a purge, it should be level 10 or so. Funcom already did that in Anarchy Online, a game with 220 levels (way more than Conan) and purge all inactive char of level 5 or lower. I dont see the need to purge level 20 character, it takes new players 12+ hours to get there, in Anarchy online level 5 was reached within 20-30 minutes so purging inactive character that low had no impact, someone coming back after a year break getting back to 20 takes time.
In Anarchy Online, level 5 is newb island ( i.e. tutorial ) level. In Age of Conan, under level 20 is newb island a.k.a.Tortage ( i.e tutorial level ).
In both instances you are not losing anything. There is no epic sword of greatness on Tortage. There is only the most basic of armor and weapons. Tortage is strictly a tutorial the same as newb island in AO.
By the way, just for nitpickiness, there are 320 levels in AO. 200 + 20 + 30 + 70.
i recived two emails one for each of my accounts and that has made my mind up i will never replay AoC again. I was there in the begining and have max lvl toons and the reason i stoped playing was cause the game had no high lvl content but i allways said i will retry it when it has more content. One of the reasons i would go back was to play all the toons i made which i managed to get some really cool names but now they getting deleted all i can say is good bye to what could of been a great game.
If thats enough to stop you from playing a game im sorry but your hopeless, stop gaming immediately as your just full of fail.
And ive really gotta laugh at the people who seem to think that just because they bought the game, gives them to rights to whatever they want in game for an unlimited amount of time whether they play or not, guess what, screw you non payers, id drop you in a second (no loss either) to give my actual paying customers the names you tried to steal forever.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling" Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
First, props for linking to Massively. Second, I received this email too. Frankly I found it hilarious! They are essentially saying "resubscribe or else". I closed the email while laughing and I made a comment to the effect of, "Yeah, that's a great way to bring me back as a customer: threaten me!" Whatever their actual reasons are, that's the way that the email came across to me. There's less than zero chance for that to work when I'd already written the game off. Maybe they're role playing? "Give us your money or we cut off your...! ..er... delete your newbs!"
There is a load of noob character from people who only played the game a few days at launch. Deleting them and setting the names free on the servers seems like a good decision to me, not blackmail.
I don't see why anyone would care, if you actually loved your characters they should be over 20 now anyways. I did play every single quest on the island and took my time, still leveled to 20 in a Saturday afternoon and evening.
If they said that they were deleting high level characters things would be different, that would be a very stupid thing to do but I am surprised that anyone care about this.
I'm all for this, I think Funcom are doing the right thing, in fact I'd extend it to all levels of characters. If someone is inactive for over 7 months they are effectively hogging not just the database, but also 'reserving' a character name which someone else may want.
It's the server merge I can do without.
[Disclaimer : I play AoC mainly because I am a fan of RE Howard's Conan stories, and the excellent community that exists on the server Crom]
You seem to think I am a AoC hater. Did u look at the pic I have had up for months? Actually, outside of the slow attack in the game I really liked it a lot. Me and my son were playing it. All my systems can play it on high quality settings and it looked beautiful. Maybe I have been spoiled by EQ2 and WOW and some others for never deleting my toons whatever level they are. At least I will go back to them whenever I can. They get my 3 month sub everytime I return. They don't mind me hogging the database while I take care of RL stuff. Thanks for your understanding. Peace.
I can't believe people are seriously crying about this. You can go 1-20 in ~4 hours. They're only deleting sub 20 characters that are over 7 months old. Cry more, seriously.
Who care if "only" below 20? Not even to mention that one can have lv. 5 as ah agent ... will lose all.
Comments
I've just joined this game recently - 1 month - and I have already gotten 2 characters to 45 or better - and have tried many, looking for the right class for me. I like this game alot - just seems to be more fun and have less whiners in the ingame chat channels than most of the other games I've played(EVE would be the exception).
After reading the complaints against this move I have formed a conclusion: most of those who are complaining have quit and didn't seriously intend to come back, unless Funcom got down on their knees and pleaded. All Funcom really did was affirm that if you have not played in over 1/2 a year you are probably not coming back - and even then it is only characters UNDER lvl 20 that are being deleted. Now I don't agree with the 4 hours to make level 20 - even with double xp it took me like 8-10 hours to get through Tortage - I consider myself an average player - but 8-10 hours of gameplay? That is not much, in fact this is the easiest game I've played in a long time to level.
To you who are complaining - hey you gave up on this game long ago, FunCom didn't give up on you - you gave up on Funcom. There are things I would like to see fixed in this game - especially the moronic bug that has you occasionally running on your horse - and unable to get off it unless you relog or zone. I think perhaps you should try playing it again before you spill your bile, but you would rather cry that the low-level toons you abandoned over half a year ago are being deleted. Funcom doesn't owe you anything, stop crying.
Well, if you dont want play/subscribe AoC Why the hell u want a level 20 or below char? Funcom is right. If you is a subscribed active member, all your chars will be certainly more than 20 levels in... 2 days? or 1 day perhaps? level 20 char is very very very easy to reach. so... if you want to play, just play. if you dont want, just leave and have your useless char deleted. (maybe i want your char name for my char too, leave the name free for use). :P
I agree that on the surface this isn't that big a deal. Most people probably don't even remember what characters they have under level 20... I know I don't. And the low character wipes don't bother me.
The problem is that this move comes from a company with very little "good will" in the bank. And by very little I mean none in most people’s minds. Other companies could do this, and it wouldn’t hurt them much if at all. Funcom though, can’t make these kinds of moves. It just refreshes people’s memories of why they left this game in the first place.
Unfortunately for Funcom they’ve put themselves in the position that any decision they make, no matter how seemingly insignificant, will be highly scrutinized.
It seems like every time the waters start to calm a bit for Funcom, they make a decision like this. It's frustrating and entertaining all at the same time.
First, props for linking to Massively.
Second, I received this email too. Frankly I found it hilarious! They are essentially saying "resubscribe or else". I closed the email while laughing and I made a comment to the effect of, "Yeah, that's a great way to bring me back as a customer: threaten me!"
Whatever their actual reasons are, that's the way that the email came across to me. There's less than zero chance for that to work when I'd already written the game off.
Maybe they're role playing? "Give us your money or we cut off your...! ..er... delete your newbs!"
Nice link. How are the server merges done back a year ago "upcoming"? It seems Google was not your friend. They haven't announced which servers are being merged into other servers yet for this round.
Yeah I think deleting toons is plain stupid. They can not back up characters on disk? Is this the stoneage? I was thinking of resubbing in the near future when things were a little more stable financially since i like playing several sub MMOs but I am not resubbing just to save my toons. Therefore, AoC you lost me bloody business forever. You sure do know how to stay successful. One of the reasons I switch off and on EQ2 and WOW is because they never delete anything of mine. So guess what? they both get my business. I just alternate. Happy Gaming people.
I can see why Funcom would like to free up some names on inactive accounts for their actual subscribers, but if this is the real reason they must have serious problems on a very basic level.
To elaborate on why I think this sounds like a problem: A characters recordset in the database (name, items+amount, coin, stats, appearance etc.) will of course occupy a certain amount of space. Most data will be integer values represented by one or two bytes of data.
Example: A character has 10 pcs. of "Basalt" in his inventory. That would be: Amount (10) = 2 bytes, Item/ressource index (Basalt) = 2 bytes and location in players inventory (Bagslot) = 2 bytes.
Even with charname, stats, attributes etc. any given character should be representable within 4Kb. (Thats 4096 bytes of information)
Erling told us about the "800.000 accounts created" at one time. Let's imagine that all of those accounts created 10 characters each. Let's even imagine that Funcoms database structure was far from optimal and as an example requiring a massive 10Kb pr. character. To make things completely impossible let us put ALL of that on ONE single server (database)...
Our database (yes this is simplyfied) would need: 800.000 * 10 * 10Kb = 80.000.000Kb.
Sounds like much? Well that is about 80.000 Mb or 80Gb of data. Now tell me how big your personal datastorage is? (That would be your harddisk).
Yeah I know (hope) that this is a cheap shot, but so was Erlings. Just the usual smoke and mirrors from that front it seems.
(To see an example of "realtime performance testing" on databases have a look at www.tpc.org/default.asp, current benchmarks are done on 1 terabyte databases, thats about 1000Gb
)
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
Yeah, hahaha. Initially it does seem like a sorry attempt at getting ex-subscribers to panic and re-subscribe, doesn't it? Maybe they thought: "Well if we get even a few of them back, good - the others won't ever come back anyway."
But I think there's actually another, semi-valid reason for this move.
I remember one of the Bioware devs (Gordon Walton, I think) saying deleting inactive characters is a good idea, because new players get turned off if they have to try too many times while creating their character. Now, if you merge servers like AOC has had to, from way too many servers to just a few, and keep the characters, that will make a lot of names unavailable. So, yes, it'd cause noticeable problems in namespace. Probably they sat down and pushed some numbers and found the potential gain (new players not turned off at character creation) would be higher than the potential loss (meaning: players who see this as a kick in the nuts and decide to not come back ever). Either way I suspect the gain would be little, but - oh, well.
By who? A bunch of whiners,forum trolls who did not play beyond level 20,who has never played all the new content that has been added post Gaute era.You must be kidding.
This game belongs to Funcom not the other way.
In the land of Predators,the lion does not fear the jackals...
I don't really have a problem with this.
I'm on a hiatus from AoC anyway, so if they delete my lowbie characters to free up names and such then so be it. Though, I'm not sure how many names they'll actually free up by deleting my lowbie characters, since my names are, for the most part, made up on the spot.
Besides, it's not as if getting to level 20 takes any significant amount of time.
Backing up your character on a disk would then require them to port it over when you would like to get that character back. That means a person has to individually move the character over, making sure that none of the data was lost, the files are intact, must be updated to be compatible with the current version, working out the bugs, and moved over to an open slot. This is assuming that it doesn't end up being so old that it is no longer compatible. These people cost money.
Star Wars Galaxies has a similar operation, but it costs $50 to transfer a character from a closed server, to cover the cost of paying someone to do the above. Who in their right mind is going to pay $50 to revive a newbie character on Age of Conan?
If none of your toons were over level 20, and you were inactive for over 7 months, then I highly doubt you were ever going back. Sounds to me like you're just trolling the boards and looking for a reason to whine about Funcom. Considering you likely had no intention of starting/returning to Age of Conan in the first place, Funcom sees you as no loss.
First of all I am no troll. I have toons over 20 but that is not the point. I bought the game initially and put many many hours in gameplay (not power leveling). Therefore for them to delete is not just insulting the customer(me) but telling me how much they care. All of us do not have free time to just blow playing games all day. Soms of us are military,some of us just had babies,some of us just have to work and make a living,etc.etc. And I play many MMOs and can not pay subscriptions for all at one time. It is nice that, you who think you know everything ,don't know much at all about real life. Wow has my business,EQ2 has my business,and some others. I guess AoC is too poor to manage or they just don't care. It is one or the other. Neither works for me the consumer. SO who is losing? me or them? Happy Gaming to all except people with no sense to think about other people before talking. And Blah blah blah to any replies.
I don't see it as a reason to complain. Inactive account, under level 20, no big deal.
However it is some penny-ante stuff that makes FC look like they're having problems. Its not good PR. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the longevity of the game.
/couldn't agree more
its not hard to get to 20, apart from that, characters over 7 months old, THATS OVER HALF A YEAR!
Agree with this and others. Plus, they'll allow you to reactivate your account free of charge for 7 days. So simply log in 6 days before merger and save yourself a few hours and keep your toon.
I certainly don't think any game company owes inactive accounts that haven't been accessed in 7+ months any certainty to maintain that data. They aren't a charity. And keeping your old data at the expense of new active players being charged an "affordable" price is not what I'd expect of a responsible MMO provider. Be thankful they sent out the emails to give you a choice.
By definition of the contractual based service in place you are only a customer when you pay for something. If you pay for the internet service which you are using now, and as an example you create an email address ending in @comcast or @ whatever and you cancel that service you will loose your email address after 30 days. If you own a DVR through your TV company and you cancel you will not be able to access recording stored on that DVR unless you maintain that subscription even if it holds PPV's that you have paid for and recorded.
Right before release, this topic was brought up, as it was picked out in the agreement. In said agreement you take on as part of subscribing, is just the same as "Some" other mmo's operated for example through SoE or SquareEnix. By deleting that space it is better servicing funcom's game customers eg people who are paying.
EQ2 Did you know? "If I cancel my account, is there any guarantee that my characters will not be deleted?"
"At this time, we do not delete characters from an account that has been cancelled, but we cannot yet guarantee that a cancelled account's characters will not be deleted. However, when you do reactivate your account and find that any of your characters are not present, please send in a CS Ticket, and a GM will investigate that for a potential restoration. Please also review our policy on character deletions from our website."
Cancelling Station Acc with EQ2: "You will only have access to the four additional EverQuest II character slots while you are an active Station Access subscriber. If you cancel your Station Access subscription or let it expire, but continue with your EverQuest II subscription, you will only retain access to the seven most recently played characters on your EverQuest II account and you will lose access to the other characters unless you delete one or more of the most recently played characters (then the next most recently played character(s) will be accessible). "
For all Station Access games: "Will I lose my characters if I cancel my account?
Canceling your account does not affect your characters immediately, only your billing information. Though we generally do not delete characters on closed accounts, we cannot guarantee the integrity of characters after an account closes. Please keep in mind that you will need to use the same Station Name and Password that you used before you canceled your subscription to the game when you choose to log in again."
WORLD OF WARCRAFT® TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT
Blizzard Entertainment may, in its sole and absolute discretion, suspend or terminate your access to the Service and disable or delete the Account, if: [...]
(3) you use all of the allotted time that you have purchased to access World of Warcraft via a "World of Warcraft Game Card" or similar instrument.
If you owned your character in a game why can't you legally sell it on?
Blah? informed consumer.
The over 20 character thing is exactly the point. If your account is inactive for 7 months, that is seven. Seven months. Five months short of a year. Five months short of 365 days.If your character was inactive for 7 months, and is still under level 20, chances are that character isn't coming back. Funcom would like the space your unused character who never passed the tutorial is wasting away in. If you put "many many" hours into a character and it hasn't reached level 20 yet, you are doing something very wrong.
You need to stop being so defensive. If you feel insulted by a company deleting characters you're not using, and haven't used for almost a year, and had no intention on using unless they gave you some free time, then you need to reexamine yourself, not the company. You're not a customer, you're not paying for any service they are offering, nor are you using their service.
Getting past level 20 to secure your character doesn't require you to play the game all day, and insulting the rest of us by insinuating the old "you have no life if you got this far" or "Well at least I have a JOB" and that the rest of us are out of touch with "real life", attacking the rest of us isn't going to gain you any sympathy or make you look any less like the troll you are. I have two jobs and go to college full time, and I managed to make it past level 20 in a couple of days. I also happen to play several other MMOs, run an MMO business-related website, and still have some free time aside from that.
No one is losing here. You were never going to be their customer, so whether or not you come here to troll and claim they lost a customer is irrelevant, they were never going to have you in the first place.
"Happy Gaming to all except people with no sense to think about other people before talking. And Blah blah blah to any replies."
The irony is killing me.
I still think level 20 is too high for a purge, it should be level 10 or so. Funcom already did that in Anarchy Online, a game with 220 levels (way more than Conan) and purge all inactive char of level 5 or lower.
I dont see the need to purge level 20 character, it takes new players 12+ hours to get there, in Anarchy online level 5 was reached within 20-30 minutes so purging inactive character that low had no impact, someone coming back after a year break getting back to 20 takes time.
Anarchy Online is also partially free to play, so purging level 5- characters will probably purge more characters than Age of Conan's 20. For a title like Anarchy Online, you have people who create accounts, play for a few minutes, and then logout and never look back.
Looking at this objectively, I am confused by the prospect of a player who plays less than 12 hours in a month (amounting to about 20 minutes a day) and doesn't even finish the tutorial, who suddenly wants to come back over seven months later to probably play another couple hours and then quit for close to a year again.
I agree with the naysayers on one thing, Funcom probably doesn't care. As a business owner with a set of names to hand out, I would give the name first to the person who is joining and has a prospect of staying, rather than someone who bought the game for fifty bucks, didn't play enough to get the fundamentals down, and then ditched the game, likely before the free month was even over. It's prioritizing your customers.
In Anarchy Online, level 5 is newb island ( i.e. tutorial ) level. In Age of Conan, under level 20 is newb island a.k.a.Tortage ( i.e tutorial level ).
In both instances you are not losing anything. There is no epic sword of greatness on Tortage. There is only the most basic of armor and weapons. Tortage is strictly a tutorial the same as newb island in AO.
By the way, just for nitpickiness, there are 320 levels in AO. 200 + 20 + 30 + 70.
If thats enough to stop you from playing a game im sorry but your hopeless, stop gaming immediately as your just full of fail.
And ive really gotta laugh at the people who seem to think that just because they bought the game, gives them to rights to whatever they want in game for an unlimited amount of time whether they play or not, guess what, screw you non payers, id drop you in a second (no loss either) to give my actual paying customers the names you tried to steal forever.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
There is a load of noob character from people who only played the game a few days at launch. Deleting them and setting the names free on the servers seems like a good decision to me, not blackmail.
I don't see why anyone would care, if you actually loved your characters they should be over 20 now anyways. I did play every single quest on the island and took my time, still leveled to 20 in a Saturday afternoon and evening.
If they said that they were deleting high level characters things would be different, that would be a very stupid thing to do but I am surprised that anyone care about this.
I'm all for this, I think Funcom are doing the right thing, in fact I'd extend it to all levels of characters. If someone is inactive for over 7 months they are effectively hogging not just the database, but also 'reserving' a character name which someone else may want.
It's the server merge I can do without.
[Disclaimer : I play AoC mainly because I am a fan of RE Howard's Conan stories, and the excellent community that exists on the server Crom]
You seem to think I am a AoC hater. Did u look at the pic I have had up for months? Actually, outside of the slow attack in the game I really liked it a lot. Me and my son were playing it. All my systems can play it on high quality settings and it looked beautiful. Maybe I have been spoiled by EQ2 and WOW and some others for never deleting my toons whatever level they are. At least I will go back to them whenever I can. They get my 3 month sub everytime I return. They don't mind me hogging the database while I take care of RL stuff. Thanks for your understanding. Peace.
Who care if "only" below 20? Not even to mention that one can have lv. 5 as ah agent ... will lose all.