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Search function nerfed
MoLoK_
Member UncommonPosts: 307
Anyone know why Funcom took away the full server search feature? Any special reason you can think of? Did it take up too many resources or? Anybody got a theory?
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Here is the answer you are looking for. Charles made a survey to figure out how many people there actully was playing Age of Conan. Here is result of his work. After this, Funcom disable the search function.
Link: http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs26/f/2008/184/7/b/aoc_stuff_again_by_mrhenrik.jpg
Link: http://fc05.deviantart.com/fs26/f/2008/184/f/6/nvm_by_mrhenrik.jpg
There is also a thread about it here
Link: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/188777
Interesting... according to that survey 900 out of 1100 of those answering have played WoW before AoC.
Most of Age of Conan playerbase are buildt from Ex-WoW players (around 70%). I don't know if that is good or bad for the community.
So people rate AoC 8/10 and around 60-70% would/already did recommend it to their friends.
Say what you want about WoW, but the majority of gamers have tried it at one point or another, so by that standard most of any new mmo populations can be described as 'came from wow'. Personally when I hear that phrase it does not mean anything bad or good.
Dunno. They also added a cooldown timer to the search button at the tradepost. Both could be related to a reduction in server strain.
More than likely though, the search function was changed to combat gold spammers. Or at least that would be a nice side effect.
Naaj, they disable the full server search function, because they wont tell you how many people are playing, every ones guild roster has 75% of the people inactive for the last month or so, every time funcom says anything about it they are stating box sale figures. I really don't see how they can have over 100k.
It is pretty obvious that they do not want people to know how empty the servers are... or at least to be able to track the loss of players.
It is pretty obvious that they do not want people to know how empty the servers are... or at least to be able to track the loss of players.
No dev wants players to have access to such numbers, especially when it is a publicly traded company. Do you know any games that just tell you those numbers? I only know Eve. This kind of information is not relevant with the game experience anyway, so why do you care so much? If you cant find others to play with, quit. Do you need a number to reassure you?
if funcom wants aoc to be a good game maybe they should stop being morons and fix the bugs i mean fix them and stop being jerks on their forums. then maybe they might get some fan base back till then their full of crap and lies.
It is pretty obvious that they do not want people to know how empty the servers are... or at least to be able to track the loss of players.
No dev wants players to have access to such numbers, especially when it is a publicly traded company. Do you know any games that just tell you those numbers? I only know Eve. This kind of information is not relevant with the game experience anyway, so why do you care so much? If you cant find others to play with, quit. Do you need a number to reassure you?
He is pretty much correct that it is unusual to find many MMORPG's allowing a full server search on class, etc. precisely because of the ability to player-count.
The rest of the post is garbage baiting though..
Currently Playing Nothing...
Here is another post about the server health
Classy Gamer
He goes on to discuss how his thread about server populations was locked by Funcom, and the following patch that next week added the search nerf.
But, this gives an idea of how bad some servers were doing population wise between July 1st - 3rd.
Ouch
No wonder Funcom locked his thread.
Why wouldnt they want people to have access to that information? Seriously.
I remember you could search like that in DAoC...
You guys are being a bit silly to believe the search function was restricted due to amateur analysts. Funcom's the only current top-selling developer for the PC besides Maxis and Blizzard, what would they care about any John Doe from these boards?
And are you not being naive to think it was not removed due to concerns of numbers.
Why have something that has existed since Closed Beta, Open Beta (the one that is still going on actually), until a week after the post I had shown from the person whose thread was locked.
And, why would you think Funcom is a top-selling developer? Where do you get the numbers for that "fact"?
Example: Top 25 PC games of all time - IGN = No Funcom
Top Rated games - Gamespot = No Funcom
But I did find this
Wiki - List of best selling video games
There is AoC...right next to that other awesome game....Deer Hunter...WOOT!
The point is - why remove it?
The search function is something which was conciously added.. not an oversight... and then removed.
The only plausible answer I can come up with is that Funcom didnt want players to notice decreasing numbers.. perhaps there is another reason?
And are you not being naive to think it was not removed due to concerns of numbers.
Why have something that has existed since Closed Beta, Open Beta (the one that is still going on actually), until a week after the post I had shown from the person whose thread was locked.
And, why would you think Funcom is a top-selling developer? Where do you get the numbers for that "fact"?
Example: Top 25 PC games of all time - IGN = No Funcom
Top Rated games - Gamespot = No Funcom
But I did find this
Wiki - List of best selling video games
There is AoC...right next to that other awesome game....Deer Hunter...WOOT!
Note I said CURRENT top seller. A-la they're the only company that's appeared on the NPD charts besides Maxis and Blizzard every week throughout May, into June and we've yet to see how they performed in July.
That's the public information about Funcom that the masses will see, not whatever appears on MMORPG.com forums. So why would they care?
As for why they'd remove something that's existed since Closed Beta...why wouldn't they if it becomes a problem?
Do you play? Are you getting spammed by gold sellers all day? Is server lag an issue? Could the removal of server-wide search functionality help the servers the same way the addition of a cooldown to the Trade Post search does?
Have a theory on why they'd alter Trade Post searching as well? I sure can't find many Flawless Star Rubies for sell lately, does that mean AoC is tanking?
Get real. Anyone who plays and is tired of receiving PMs and mail from gold spammers sees this as a good thing, and not a connection to some amateur info painting a picture counter to what Nielsen paints.
Pretty good point actually. But the question remains. Why wouldnt they post it in the patch notes with everything else? I could see something like this.
"We have disabled the search function to 1 page to cut down on the gold spamming, guild recruiting, etc, etc till we find a better way to reduce such spamming."
But nothing was there about it so Im guessing its the reason that everyone here on these boards thinks it is.
Just my 2 cents.
And are you not being naive to think it was not removed due to concerns of numbers.
Why have something that has existed since Closed Beta, Open Beta (the one that is still going on actually), until a week after the post I had shown from the person whose thread was locked.
And, why would you think Funcom is a top-selling developer? Where do you get the numbers for that "fact"?
Example: Top 25 PC games of all time - IGN = No Funcom
Top Rated games - Gamespot = No Funcom
But I did find this
Wiki - List of best selling video games
There is AoC...right next to that other awesome game....Deer Hunter...WOOT!
Note I said CURRENT top seller. A-la they're the only company that's appeared on the NPD charts besides Maxis and Blizzard every week throughout May, into June and we've yet to see how they performed in July.
That's the public information about Funcom that the masses will see, not whatever appears on MMORPG.com forums. So why would they care?
As for why they'd remove something that's existed since Closed Beta...why wouldn't they if it becomes a problem?
Do you play? Are you getting spammed by gold sellers all day? Is server lag an issue? Could the removal of server-wide search functionality help the servers the same way the addition of a cooldown to the Trade Post search does?
Have a theory on why they'd alter Trade Post searching as well? I sure can't find many Flawless Star Rubies for sell lately, does that mean AoC is tanking?
Get real. Anyone who plays and is tired of receiving PMs and mail from gold spammers sees this as a good thing, and not a connection to some amateur info painting a picture counter to what Nielsen paints.
Pretty good point actually. But the question remains. Why wouldnt they post it in the patch notes with everything else? I could see something like this.
"We have disabled the search function to 1 page to cut down on the gold spamming, guild recruiting, etc, etc till we find a better way to reduce such spamming."
But nothing was there about it so Im guessing its the reason that everyone here on these boards thinks it is.
Just my 2 cents.
There's a lot that doesn't end up in the patch notes, good and bad. Such as gems and silk showing up on trade searches weeks ago, a good thing. Or any given nerf, bad things.
There's also the idea of...who cares? Who actually has to search the entire server populace besides a person who has reason to? What reason do they have? Gold spammers found their reason, random guild invite solicitors found their reason.
Does this impact people searching for a tank for an instance? Or a healer? No. The majority of people in-game playing don't care, it doesn't impact their gameplay. What part of gameplay is dependent upon server-wide searches? Nothing.
The amateur analysts are affected, but who cares? It's not like anything they say can counter the continued sales dominance AoC enjoys, verifiable by actual firms with reliable data.
My main argument is that it's pretty self-absorbed and not very logical to believe one person is responsible for the search feature being restricted.
You really expect a blog entry or MSPaint chart can actually reach the screens of the hundreds of thousands of people playing? Do you believe the investors browse MMORPG.com forums to make their million dollar decisions?
That is what you imply, and that's what I disagree with in the face of more logical explanations such as everything aforementioned about abuse of the feature that's effected the quality of gameplay for everyone that plays.
Yet, you would think, based on Funcom's admittance that they wish to see a total of 3k players per server at any given time, they would account for maximum loads on their servers. This should prevent server search spikes.
Yet, no server ever hit this peak during the time before search was removed.
And why would a thread discussing the search tool be blatantly closed on the forums, and the person who created the thread given points toward banning? Because he mentioned server populations? Is that against ToS?
As to gold spammers, do you think they took their time to go through each page, and right click each player to send them a tell through roughly 30 pages of 50 players? No, now Funcom has made the job of the Gold Seller even easier, where they have to concentrate on only 50 players per zone.
Funcom actually made the lives of the spammer much easier by removing the multi search feature.
Searching the Trader is a whole other story. That thing has been buggy for so long, just looks like another bug to me. And the fact no economy exists in the first place...except for gems, which still act buggy at times.
And to place Funcom in the same ranks as Blizzard and Maxis is even funnier. Funcom had 2 months so far of big sales thanks to magazine reviews for the 1-20 game, and as the public becomes more aware of the issues within the game at higher levels, this will not stay a top 10 game for long.
Xfire has proven a downward spiral, and based on forum discussions of empty servers, I do not see anything good coming of this.
But, rose colored glasses help, and I hope they do not break on you, like it has for so many others..
Cracks in AoC
Watered down combat
Finally hit 49, scared of the gaps at 50+
(EDIT: a Note about the sales situation "Australia loses AoC on top 10 chart"...oops)
Thus my whole "Why be surprised that something changed between closed beta and release?" sentiment. Nothing can be planned for perfectly; 'else Age of Conan wouldn't have the random server stalls that it does.
If a server hit its peak, that'd mean no additional players could play. Why would that be a design intention? If they wanted servers to hit their peak, they would've launched with fewer servers. I fail to see your point.
Maybe because the thread served no point, just like this one? Are you saying the fact Funcom doesn't entertain conspiracy theories on their boards, mean the theories are in fact true? I disagree with that logic.
That really doesn't make any sense at all unfortunately.
All we can guess about gold farmers is that they have automated processes to both send tells, and mail to players synchronously. Never had a friend or guildie receive a mail ad for gold at the same time you did? Or a tell?
Ever notice you'd receive 20-30 spam tells for gold in one play session, but could log off for two or three days and rarely see even one or two gold messages in your offline buffer?
Would it be dumb to put two and two together from the above, and make the assessments that 1. They're able to gather a lot of people's names at once, and send tells and emails to them at once; and 2. They're restricted to online players.
Would it then be dumb to point out server-wide searches as the likely culprit in enabling them to do that?
Yeah, that's stupid. It makes a whole lot more sense that Gaute soiled himself after the JPEG seen all around the world hit the first page of Age of Conan's forums on MMORPG.com; before 20 minutes later being knocked off by the more popular Xfire analysis of things.
As for server-wide searches being removed making gold spammers lives easier...that doesn't make enough sense for me to even argue with. This was a restriction, remember? Nothing new was implemented to make anyone's life easier. Searching by zones has always been a feature; but limits any automation they have to zones, rather than the entire server. If that in fact hasn't been changed too.
Nah, there's a cooldown timer with a visible numeric countdown. The logic behind it is no different than a message board search disallowing repeated searching probably.
I won't go into any opinion you have on the economy, since it shows nothing of you 'cept vindictiveness you harbor that leads to malformed logic when it comes to the actual topic at hand.
And for all that opinionated mess, I could care less.
As for Australia's charts; North America and Europe are Age of Conan's biggest audiences. Even so, I'm quite sure its already off of the top 10 if July's numbers were present here as well in North America and Europe.
The thing is though, like with Australia, it'd have been knocked off by Maxis and Blizzard products; which kind of goes along with my whole point that its about the only current PC game selling alongside them.
That's all off topic though, but relevant anyway. Age of Conan sells, and will continue to sell whether you or I like it.
I have an idea. The easiest solution? Why not post a screenshot of your guild list? And even do it during primetime. How large would you say your guild is?How often have the players logged in? Hopefully it is 100+ players (as any lesser guilds really have no chance for Battle Keeps, and you wish to have a Battle Keep...correct?)
I understand your concern over the feelings of posters here on the MMORPG forums (why I do not know, when you clearly stated our opinions mean naught, yet you continue to argue your points like they mean something..)
I have stated before, and will again here. Hard proof works better than conjecture. You stated top selling, yet it has fallen off charts, Xfire shows a massive exodus of players, and many have stated the populations are shrinking, while only you say it seems to not be. Even though bloggers and even more current reviews (which show a downturn in scores also) have stated their dislike of what is happening in the game, the supposed silent majority are...what...playing?
So by all means, show us the proof. I am quite interested.
Yet, no server ever hit this peak during the time before search was removed.
And why would a thread discussing the search tool be blatantly closed on the forums, and the person who created the thread given points toward banning? Because he mentioned server populations? Is that against ToS?
As to gold spammers, do you think they took their time to go through each page, and right click each player to send them a tell through roughly 30 pages of 50 players? No, now Funcom has made the job of the Gold Seller even easier, where they have to concentrate on only 50 players per zone.
Funcom actually made the lives of the spammer much easier by removing the multi search feature.
Searching the Trader is a whole other story. That thing has been buggy for so long, just looks like another bug to me. And the fact no economy exists in the first place...except for gems, which still act buggy at times.
And to place Funcom in the same ranks as Blizzard and Maxis is even funnier. Funcom had 2 months so far of big sales thanks to magazine reviews for the 1-20 game, and as the public becomes more aware of the issues within the game at higher levels, this will not stay a top 10 game for long.
Xfire has proven a downward spiral, and based on forum discussions of empty servers, I do not see anything good coming of this.
But, rose colored glasses help, and I hope they do not break on you, like it has for so many others..
Cracks in AoC
Watered down combat
Finally hit 49, scared of the gaps at 50+
(EDIT: a Note about the sales situation "Australia loses AoC on top 10 chart"...oops)
You sir get a big QFE from me. This game needed at least another year before its release. Funcom will be out of business before the end of 2009.