Age of Conan is Still a Good Game

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Death of a Game: Age of Conan.

BlackDragon1010

@Nebless, after playing the game for years, and nothing really changes but you see everybody quitting, you do not need to pretend to be an "all knowing aoc expert", because you just see it yourself. This game was great, i would not say the same about the PvP but the PvE was one of the best out there, but the bad managening from FC has ruined it.

In the year 2008, there were 5 server on EU, 2 server on USA, one in Korea, now there are only 2 servers, no need steam to find out the game has lost over the 50% of the players.

BrotherMaynard

BlackDragon1010 said:

@Nebless, after playing the game for years, and nothing really changes but you see everybody quitting, you do not need to pretend to be an "all knowing aoc expert", because you just see it yourself. This game was great, i would not say the same about the PvP but the PvE was one of the best out there, but the bad managening from FC has ruined it.

In the year 2008, there were 5 server on EU, 2 server on USA, one in Korea, now there are only 2 servers, no need steam to find out the game has lost over the 50% of the players.

I see that your main is a necro...

Scot

BlackDragon1010 said:

@Nebless, after playing the game for years, and nothing really changes but you see everybody quitting, you do not need to pretend to be an "all knowing aoc expert", because you just see it yourself. This game was great, i would not say the same about the PvP but the PvE was one of the best out there, but the bad managening from FC has ruined it.

In the year 2008, there were 5 server on EU, 2 server on USA, one in Korea, now there are only 2 servers, no need steam to find out the game has lost over the 50% of the players.

Welcome to our Forums!

Old AoC player myself, the game was never as bad as the panning it got, but over time MMORPG's always have faced real issues with player retention. But we now live in a gaming world that is designing games like sweets, eat one and move on to the next sweetie. That is a hard environment for MMORPG's to launch into or survive in long term.

Maurgrim

I don't remembered you had to farm mobs for 10-15 lvls, I got to max level doing mostly quests and dungeons, sure there were some mob grinds but not that much as video says.

Po_gg

Whoa BlackDragon, huge necro... (my post above still talks about TSW, rest in peace)

Maugrim, at launch there were two of those "still zones", one at around 50 and one at a bit above 70. You had to farm those levels (via villas, etc.) and it was pretty boring.

Turan helped the former by adding a new area for the level range between 50 and 60, and with the extra level20-40 of the Gateway to Khitai from Godslayer (if you don't mind clearing all the "starter" zones) now you can quest your way to 80 without any mindless mob killing for xp.

BlackDragon1010

I do not get this joke about necro, i have 11 toons and the necro was the last one i have levelled just to have some fun at kiting in chaos.

@Scot the idea of mmorpgs was a failed idea from the begin. Playing a mmorpg requires too much time, often you have to dedicate 24/7 on it, this is the reason mmorpgs are losing players overall in favour of games that requires less time.

One of the thing i like about AoC is that you do not have to dedicate to it that much time and if you have a job you can still play it and catch with the rest. However the lack of players makes this game pointless, you log and there is nothing to do, how many of you rolled more than one alt?

I say this game is good but for the pvp. FC should advertise it more, instead they advertise other games in AoC taking away the players. The Saga server for instance has killed 2 guilds. This policy FC had about advertising other games in AoC is old and it does all but good to the game.

Think about it, why would i want to invest time and money over a game that is advertising other games? Not everybody can jump from a game to another.

Scot

BlackDragon1010 said:

I do not get this joke about necro, i have 11 toons and the necro was the last one i have levelled just to have some fun at kiting in chaos.

@Scot the idea of mmorpgs was a failed idea from the begin. Playing a mmorpg requires too much time, often you have to dedicate 24/7 on it, this is the reason mmorpgs are losing players overall in favour of games that requires less time.

One of the thing i like about AoC is that you do not have to dedicate to it that much time and if you have a job you can still play it and catch with the rest. However the lack of players makes this game pointless, you log and there is nothing to do, how many of you rolled more than one alt?

I say this game is good but for the pvp. FC should advertise it more, instead they advertise other games in AoC taking away the players. The Saga server for instance has killed 2 guilds. This policy FC had about advertising other games in AoC is old and it does all but good to the game.

Think about it, why would i want to invest time and money over a game that is advertising other games? Not everybody can jump from a game to another.

Putting in that time worked fine for years, but MMO companies saw they could increase their player base by making MMOs easier, the key change was making MMOs soloable to top level, that brought in the solo game players.

But you are right about the population, if that is not there the game will just struggle to maintain a footing. 

goboygo

Scot said:

BlackDragon1010 said:

@Nebless, after playing the game for years, and nothing really changes but you see everybody quitting, you do not need to pretend to be an "all knowing aoc expert", because you just see it yourself. This game was great, i would not say the same about the PvP but the PvE was one of the best out there, but the bad managening from FC has ruined it.

In the year 2008, there were 5 server on EU, 2 server on USA, one in Korea, now there are only 2 servers, no need steam to find out the game has lost over the 50% of the players.

Welcome to our Forums!

Old AoC player myself, the game was never as bad as the panning it got, but over time MMORPG's always have faced real issues with player retention. But we now live in a gaming world that is designing games like sweets, eat one and move on to the next sweetie. That is a hard environment for MMORPG's to launch into or survive in long term.

Korean MMO's are basically designed the same way, rehashing most of the systems to a game with slighty different graphics, pull as much from the cash shop as you can, then rinse and repeat. BDO tried to be different, though the systems were complex they simply weren't fun to execute, and all roads still lead to the cash shop unless you have no life whatsoever.

You are right disposable short term games for all platforms.  There are very few exceptions.

H0urg1ass

Maurgrim said:

I don't remembered you had to farm mobs for 10-15 lvls, I got to max level doing mostly quests and dungeons, sure there were some mob grinds but not that much as video says.

Yeah, this was a problem at launch, but they added an entire new zone to the game that carried those 15 levels easily.  Not only that, but the new zone also has one of the most amazing dungeons of any MMO I ever played.

The new Zone was Y'mir's Pass and the dungeon was Ampitheater of Karutonia.  

Quicksand

AoC is still one of the the best mmorpg's I've ever played. PvP and PvE both. Absolutely loved AoC! 

I may have to log back in one day and check out what its like now.

Po_gg

H0urg1ass said:

Not only that, but the new zone also has one of the most amazing dungeons of any MMO I ever played.

Well said, fellow AoK fan    Frost Father must be kept unchained https://youtu.be/_bXIjroeYmA?t=507 

Quicksand said:

I may have to log back in one day and check out what its like now.

If that one day is around now, you can get a couple of login rewards from the Anniversary: https://www.mmorpg.com/age-of-conan-unchained/news/funcom-kicks-off-11th-anniversary-event-in-age-of-conan-1000052451 

I'm afraid it's a bit of a late start for the mount though...

Hatefull

Still worth a look right now? I have not played in...probably 3 years or so.

H0urg1ass

Hatefull said:

Still worth a look right now? I have not played in...probably 3 years or so.

If all of my friends hadn't left for BDO, then I'd still be playing it.  IMO, it's one of the best, most underappreciated MMO's ever released.

Po_gg

As an altoholic with several characters in most games I disagree on the "atrocious leveling" of AoC, usually I've found it a nice journey. Not to mention the fast lane that is called Vanaheim... true, it was added only a few years ago. Level to 80 in days, I'd call that atrocious.

With that said, AoC did have shortcuts, and in the past (previous threads, etc.) I always cited those as a negative example, a trendsetter even, since AoC was amongst the first games with that. Seems dumb to give players the tools to actually bypass most of your game... even if your expansion is entirely level 80 content.

Emphasis on the past tense however, those are gone now, both the offline levels (was 1 level at every 4 days) and the option to create a character at level 50 were removed when they've "revamped" the subscription.

Po_gg

Gorwe said:

With that said, they did what with subscription? No more offline leveling etc?

Yep, happened about three years ago. Was kinda controversial, with plenty of rage and shaking of fists... I posted this about the remove of offline levels:

"However, there are weird parts as well, like removing the offline levels, as in deleting them.

Now, I was speaking against offline levels since FC added it into the game, so on one hand, yay   but on the other, I actually understand why that part made a lot of peeps angry. Discontinue offline levels, sure why not? But erase the existing ones... seems dumb. Players got those in part of their subscription, in a sense they paid for those levels. Telling them "just spend them quickly" is not helping, when players have more than 100 Spend on what? Creating 2 characters and pulling them to the cap?"

At the same time they also removed the stipend from the subscription, and lowered the f2p character slots to 1 from the former 2 (only applied to accounts created after the change, so naturally the new f2p accounts number got a boost in the last week), removed Veteran rewards, etc.

They've stripped away a lot from the subscription, and in return they promised a price drop. Which then didn't happened due to a "bug". Funny guys there at Funcom...

Sub price only got the drop more than 2 years later. I'm sure it must've been a huge work to do it, that's why it took that long.   Editing a number from 15 to 12.99 is a difficult task indeed.

edit: I just edited it to 13, then 12.99 in a few minutes, but what do I know, I'm just posting stuff

Po_gg

I believe their main issue is communication, which can amplify their second largest issue, dumb decisions. They can't communicate well even their good moves, and they go into headless chicken mode when they have to defend one of their (many) negative ones. Just look at the clusterf.ck they did with Vanaheim...

With the offline levels, nobody would've batted an eye if they just say (and decide) the new subscription won't give them anymore. They of course went with a more hostile decision and removed the entire mechanic, which in return generated some anger.

But, on top of that (communication) they just had to rub salt in it and add the snarky line into the notes below that section: "barring catastrophe, you should use your offline levels by then, as they will disappear after the changes go live"

Guess what, barring catastrophe maybe you shouldn't make them disappear the first place?

But that was years ago, since then the communication fiasco scene got a couple very strong contenders... "Don't you guys have phones?"

BlackDragon1010

I remember in the year 2008 you could buy the game and play it as much you wanted. Then they added the subscription, the account had no limitations. When i came back my account was limitated as free player despite i bought it. Felt like a scam really.

TEKK3N

I honestly think the game should have been just PvE.
But what really ruined it for me is the bad performance on most machines.
The engine wasn't optimized well.

Asheram

Rhoklaw said:

@BlackDragon1010 I believe he was referring to Necro because you rezzed a 2 year old thread.


Did he or did the system?

Hatefull

H0urg1ass said:

Hatefull said:

Still worth a look right now? I have not played in...probably 3 years or so.

If all of my friends hadn't left for BDO, then I'd still be playing it.  IMO, it's one of the best, most underappreciated MMO's ever released.

I remember coming over from WoW as a Raid Tank, with most of my guild, and we got wrecked on AoC raids. By far some of the best raiding I have ever experienced. I may load it up again and just look around. We did eventually go to progression but there was a learning curve there.

Nebless

BlackDragon1010 said:

I remember in the year 2008 you could buy the game and play it as much you wanted. Then they added the subscription, the account had no limitations. When i came back my account was limitated as free player despite i bought it. Felt like a scam really.

The game has always been subscription based, right from the start.  I still have my game box from that same time and it states right on it, 'includes 30 days free VIP' and then a subscription is required to continue to play.

The old 'but I bought it' concept has been beaten to death.  All you 'bought' was a game box and CD's.   Everything else you rented while you paid for the privilege of playing on their servers.  And if you stopped your sub, you lost access to the whole game.

Po_gg

"I remember in the year 2008 you could buy the game and play it as much you wanted."

Yep, I was puzzled as well on that segment... maybe he means the initial month? Since you could play it as much as you wanted after you got the game - for a month

F2p and limitations is an old topic, and as Nebless says above, prior the switch "When i came back my account was limitated" even more, since you couldn't play without paying at least for a month.

After the f2p at least you could play, sure with some restrictions. I don't see how it felt like a scam...

The only questionable part of the restrictions was RotG. That really raised a few concerns and heated discussions, not just on the official forums but here as well for example.

They changed it a few years later, however.

BlackDragon1010

Nebless said:

The game has always been subscription based, right from the start.  I still have my game box from that same time and it states right on it, 'includes 30 days free VIP' and then a subscription is required to continue to play.

The old 'but I bought it' concept has been beaten to death.  All you 'bought' was a game box and CD's.   Everything else you rented while you paid for the privilege of playing on their servers.  And if you stopped your sub, you lost access to the whole game.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

You are totally wrong. The game didn't even have a trial time, you buy it period. The memberships was added almost one year later.

BlackDragon1010

Po_gg said:

"I remember in the year 2008 you could buy the game and play it as much you wanted."

Yep, I was puzzled as well on that segment... maybe he means the initial month? Since you could play it as much as you wanted after you got the game - for a month

F2p and limitations is an old topic, and as Nebless says above, prior the switch "When i came back my account was limitated" even more, since you couldn't play without paying at least for a month.

After the f2p at least you could play, sure with some restrictions. I don't see how it felt like a scam...

The only questionable part of the restrictions was RotG. That really raised a few concerns and heated discussions, not just on the official forums but here as well for example.

They changed it a few years later, however.

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Maybe those from Russia? I heard some of them had some kind of trial, but the Europeans did not, the game was "you buy it you play it as much you like". Later on they did add the membership. In the meanwhile they changed all the accounts who did not have a memeberhip into free accounts, despiste we bought the game that was NEVER when it was released a FtP game. Regards.

Po_gg

BlackDragon1010 said:

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Maybe those from Russia? I heard some of them had some kind of trial, but the Europeans did not, the game was "you buy it you play it as much you like". Later on they did add the membership. In the meanwhile they changed all the accounts who did not have a memeberhip into free accounts, despiste we bought the game that was NEVER when it was released a FtP game. Regards.

/scratches head... 

That's totally mixed up. I'm in the EU by the way.

We either played totally different games, or one of us has a weirdly obfuscated memory, presenting the past in random order...

Based on your mention of "trial", and "one year later", I believe I know where's the source of the confusion though.

Here's how I remember on the events:

2008, the game launches (after delays, and with some issues, lacking high-level content, but with extra bugs in return) as a subscription-based game, like almost all games at that time.

Offered an array of sub plans, plus gamecards for those who have burnt themselves already with Funcom's billing system during AO, and didn't want to trust their credit card data on Funcom.

I still have all six gamecards, because (as the leaflet says in the box) "6 different, exclusively designed game cards to collect" - they really look great.

There was also a guest key programme, you could invite friends to try out the game for 7 days.

At the end of 2009, introduced the unlimited trial.

(I'm pretty sure this is where your memory had a small hiccup)

Basically what Wow has now, anyone could create an account for free, without any payment details given, and play Tortage without a time limit.

At the same time they've cancelled the guest key programme, which caused some heated discussions (the whole game for 7 days, vs. Tortage-only, plus other restrictions, but "forever". Some found the guest key as a better option for a trial).

Then on the summer of 2011, the f2p.

Was controversial (or just typical Funcom), since the f2p model had more restrictions than the unlimited trial - but hey, on the flipside, you could finally leave Tortage for free, without a subscription