Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
AoC ruined my life!
eviledna
Member Posts: 29
Actualy. no it didn't, i just stopped playing it after a while. This isn't even a post to slate it but rather a question.
I have been a gamer for over 25 years now going back to my old Amstrad where half the games wouldn't even load let alone play well and my point is this. I would have had a room full of games by now if i had kept them all, some truly great (imo) games such as Lazer squad (1984 version) Ultima 6, halflife and deus Ex (and 1 old school mmo) to name a few these sit in two wallets in a draw in my desk. The rest get played for a couple of weeks then because i dont have much space and i think i dont want to play them again, thrown.
These along with the truly bad games of our time that i have been fooled into would take up the space of a fair sized room in my house if anyone can remeber the cunning marketing ploy of the 1990's "put it in a bloody big box, people will be bound to see it!" And my question is this:
Why are mediocure mmo's vilified so much by the community, so much more than single player games?
I have come up with a few reasons that i think may be the reason but even so i struggle to understand the concept of why people will spend their precious spare time trolling the forums over them.
1: Hype. But then people have always hyped games, thats marketing Anyone remember Dikatana? "FROM THE CREATOR OF DOOM" no less, in big letters!
2: Expectation. A new screenshot every week, people posting on the boards that its going to be the best game ever, the blurb said that the game was going to be this and that people have put so much faith in this that there are pages and pages on the forums picking apart the promises and whether or they could sue over the dissapointment that the game didn't do as it said on the tin. This i can understand will generate quite alot of expectation, indeed, rather too much perhaps? but again games have always done this single player games just as much. "Dinamic squad based tactical action?" rubbish its just zerg. "enemy AI indistigishable from the real thing" they walk into walls!
4: The avaibility of forums and the ease of infomation and the abillity of the crazy people to be heard. Humm possibly The vangard people didn't bother with forums and people went nuts. why?
3. Comunity
Could it be that young people are so imersed socialy withing the cloud that they "must" have the platform within it to express themselfs in like some form of drug rather than /deleating the game, throwing it in the bin then going down the pub?
Comments
im sorry that you feel that way
Well m8, i think mmos are spawning like crazy now, becouse poeple whant them. But no one can give a new taste for mmo, they only give same mmorpgs clones or very very very bad quality mmorpgs ( AOC).
Remember when everyone were doing world war 2 games like crazy? There was demand, so they were giving it to us. Same with mmorpgs now.
All we need is a good SP RPG. And i am very happy that diablo 3 did not became anather mmorpg. Have huge hopes for it. And i really KNOW, blizzard wount fu*k up it.
Now about your pub... Alot of people dont like pubs... Having a BBQ in the back of your yard with beer and a bunch of friends - thats cool. Sitting in Pub which stinks like dirty hole, runing for a fag outside like some school boy... thats just sad.
I prefer getting a some friends at mine place and play consoles and drinking ( Wii partys FTW ) . Then going in to pub and sit like a bag of potatoes. And if people play games and dont go to pub, that does not mean they are social outcasts.
dont let one bad mmoprg question you as a gamer m8
.
I do live in ireland, but i am not irish nationality. So maybe i dont understand something about pubs...
I am still enjoying AoC.
The uproar in this forum about this game really shocked me. I can understand the people expressing their negative feelings towards the game regarding bugs or content which is not in -- and when this is put in reasonable sentences and presented in a polite (maybe somewhat bitter) way I even sympathise.
I don't understand the hate -- in fact it irritates me and makes me angry. I don't like the exaggerations and I also saw a lot plain lies about the game in these forums.
What people don't realize (and they can't I admit) is that people in the gaming industry are not getting that much money -- a programmer who is working on games earns roughly half the money he could get anywhere else. And this is true for almost every other job you could do.
I admit that Funcom made quite a few mistakes -- one of the biggest mistake I think was changing the direction from a PvP centric game into a PvE centric game -- in other words they lost course during the development.
I read stuff like "I hope Funcom will go bancrupt" -- I know a few people in the industry and they are not always working on games I would play. A company can make mistakes and within 5 years of development there are a lot of opportunities to make mistakes. But do people really believe that everyone in such a company (Sigil/Funcom/ ...) is an ***hole and deserves to loose her/his job?
What makes me sad is, that these relatively small companies like Funcom or Sigil or even this Darkfall company are taking risks to work out a niche (they have to, to stand apart from the big companies) -- often enough bringing something new to the table. They usually have even less money to build the game than some big company which just rips off their ideas polish them up with their next expansion or their next game.
Darkfall will be (if it ever get released) a niche game -- it wont be polished and I fear a lot of stuff will be completely broken. They probably wont ever recoup their investment -- and I fear in some time the game will be shut down. People in this forum usually want something different -- want innovation and fail to realize that there is a tradeoff for this -- a buggy game with _some_ exiting features. And while I also wouldn't play a game I don't enjoy ... just to support a company for the will to take a risk since I also like polished games which are not broken -- I really can't understand the hate towards those companies or individuals like Brad McQuaid ...
When I don't enjoy a game -- I just quit.
I completely agree Kerlith. The level of hqate directed at FC for AoC is ridiculous. Im still playing AoC as is my wife. The game still has some problems but at least they tried something new and different and as long as I enjoy that then Ill keep playing.
People posting skewed stock information and all the other stuff just to try and scare more people away from the game is pretty sad. A lot of the gripes are because things arent as they are in WoW.
At this rate all we'll ever play is WoW clones and the MMO genre will stagnate.
I totaly agree with Kerith and I am kinda suprised I found a "normal" person posting here hehe
I think you miss understand, AoC didn't ruin my life, I didn't even think it was a bad game, i thought it was mediocre. I bought it, played it for 2 months then forgot about it and went back to my old mmo. The title was supposed to be ironic? not sure of the correct term.
The point i was trying to make was that there is a current issue within the community of rather than just accepting that a poor game (and we could be talking about any amount of mmo's AoC, Vangard, D&l) is just what it is, a poor game. people should forget about it and move on like gamers do in the other genres i.e fps, adventure etc there seems to be culture of witch hunting in MMo's that is unhealthy for both game deveopment and players. And I too prefer a BBq over the pub the final paragraph in my post was rather about moving on and doing something else than any specific activity
.
And so you may ask yourself, why did I feel compelled to make a post in the first place as my entire post is about moving on. Its because i play a little known mmo and have done for the past 5 years, i post in its forum occasionaly but not often and only when i feel i have a valid point to make as you will see from my post count im not hugely active. The game as it is quite old did not happen to have a huge amount of activity in the fourms but that has changed resently due to the makers of this 7 year old well loved and exelent MMO (infact it has the acolade of being the highest rated game ever by MMORPG.com back in the day and still holds the title i think) the forums are currently being spammed by people who have never played it saying how rubbish it is and how crap the company that runs it is. This is purely because the makers of anarchy online are also responcible for ... yes AoC.
I think most of the hate (not all mind you) comes from folks who spend more of their time playing MMO's than any other activity in their lives.
No single player game could stand up to this sort off gameplay...these players burn through the content of those games in a matter of days, so they turn to MMO's.
These aren't just games to them, its their entire world, so when the game turns out to be less than promised, they experience a profound sense of disappointment and loss.
Even now with WAR, I've seen people who post WAR IS THE BEST GAME EVAH!. And you can can tell from their posts they are putting all their hope and dreams, heck, even their faith in a video game. If it doesn't meet their expectations (and trust me, no game can meet everyone's expectations) they'll lash out at it has hard as they did with AOC.
There isn't a game out there today that doesn't have a vocal group of folks who bitterly decry it as the worst thing that happened in their lives.
In my own case, I just cancelled a couple of subs with AOC last night. I was a slow leveling, so maybe it made me more patient, but I recently came to realize that I wasn't having fun anymore, so it was time to go.
Do I hate AOC or Funcom? No. Just a game, had many issues I didnt care for, but I got a few months of entertainment out of it, so I'll go out quietly into the night. But you won't see me creating new threads on this forum or any other decrying the game. There's new games on the horizon, (and I've returned to one I find I still enjoy, EVE) and life's too short to lose any sleep over a game.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I didn't misunderstood your post -- I just got a little carried away while typing my response
I totally agree with your point.
I don't think four comes before three, you aren't allowed to say "young people" in that way until you learn to count. Spelling is one thing people easily explain away, but I don't think "hey comun men itz jus a foorm" works with counting. I so hope you're a troll.
I think this is a place where you can safelly draw the "age" card without feeling like a fool. In this case, "age" equals "experience." If you have played since the old Amstrad or the early Ultima series, or like me who got into computer games 1973 and never let go, you are used to these kind of things... When "lifelike animations" meant 12 pixels that wobbled back and forth in 2D. we are used to marketing, we are used to how always.. always the words are so much more appealing than the limitations of the technical aspects.
Someone who just left their nintendo or their Playstation and borrowed daddys computer for a year to experience the games that the grownups like... they have no frame of reference.. when the marketing department tell them "this is the best ever!" they will actually believe that amazing feature WILL be the BEST EVER. Yes, they even add capital letters themselves. They hype up themselves...
I often wonder if they react to TV commersials int he same way as they do a game community page written by the game producers? If they do... I pity their bank account.
___________________________________________________
Anatomy of a Fanboi
This is you.
Lol you say "them" a lot.. haha and also i cant believe you dont even have a little resentment for funcom after player were being banned like leavers from a dota game just for being susspected of hacking, not proven. But I do agree with the general jest of you point, gamers just want a game to last, they want
"THE GAME"
Lol Their white castle so to speak.
Or their white whale.
Ellandra, does have a very good point I suppose. if you buy a thing and don't like it you should still be able to have and use it without being forced to pay more and more, but i guess that is the nature of the beast. I do have yet to see however, any form of product anywhere that has swapped out a tag line of "BEST THING EVER" (even when its not) and gone for the "ITS A HALF DECENT THING, ITS OK I SUPPOSE" line.
And unfortunatly uncertantyP I am massively dyslexic I am trying my best but the spell checker seems not to be working (for me atleast) If you are that offended by my spelling, well, dont read my posts then
The companies developing the games are to blame. they hype up their game before its released saying " our game is going to be amazing! you will be able to do things never seen before! Look no further everything is in this game!" People get all excited and wait for the game to be released and find out half the things that were promised won't be in the game for 1-2 years after release or maybe never put in. They discover the game is a huge piece of crap and feel like they wasted their time and money on a bogus product.
Developers should be more upfront and honest with the players. Sure give us your long term goals for the game but be realistic on what we will see or experience when the game is released. If you create a good game you won't need to over hype your product it will sell itself and people will be less bitter.
I quoted the core question just for clarity.
So ok, why? It may be just the simple fact that mmorpg players are people who like to interact with others online. So people who play mmorpgs are probably inherently more likely to post on forums.
But I think it also has something to do with the fact that so many mmorpg players expect more from mmorpgs than they do from single player games. They (we) want mmorpgs to be more, to be better, to fullfill that fantasy of stepping into an alternate reality. Sure they are just games but I think that most of us are hoping that maybe, somhow, they will be a little more than an ordinary game.
Developers manipulate those hopes at their own risk. Mmorpg gamers put a lot of emotional investment into this whole genre. If devs can convince people that their game will be the ONE to satisfy that unrequieted craving they can draw a huge number of people to their game. If the game then fails to live up to the image the devs spun in the minds of the fans, well, they shouldn't be suprised when all of that emotional investment turns negative.
Maybe the point of all this is that mmorpg gamers care more. We actually do give a damn.
Or I could just be making things up so I'll look thoughtfull and insightfull on a internet forum. Who knows?
Its a marketing plan, if companies creat lots of hype, and their games lives up to it (obviously not AoC), there will be much more people playing it.
I BOUGHT THAT GAME! ha (daikatana)
I actually liked it though, but this is why I believe there are no golden eggs in gaming.
(meaning one dev cant crap out awesome games over and over *cough richard garriott cough*)
Own, Mine, Defend, Attack, 24/7
The reasons why MMOs create much stronger reactions than other type of games is because they are not really games but social hobbies that the 'players' invest wastly more time and emotion into than simple games.
MMO players invest a large part of their spare time and some of their social energy into a MMO. This means if the MMO fail then it will cost the players dearly in lost social network and lost time (which are the most valuable comodities in our modern socities).
Losing some money doesnt really matter. There is little difference between wasting money on a bad movie or a bad solo game. Its just wasted money and its soon forgotten.
Not so with MMOs. Beginning a new MMO is a significant investement in social resources similar to if you joined a club for a hobby or sport. Its a whole different lvl of involvement and investment. That is why the MMO players spend so much time investigating if a MMO is worth it for them.
In the case of FunCom they hyped and lied about their game to such an extend that they sold it to a lot of people who thought they now began to invest their time and resources into something that really wasnt there and therefor they felt cheated on a deep personal level that a solo game can never reach. And when FunCom then ignored the reactions and instead spewed out lots of Glamour press statements that had nothing to do with the reality the players experienced in the game then it felt like a personal insult.
Thats why FunCom is the target of this anger bordering on hate.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
I am also still enjoying AoC & agree that a lot of the criticism is exaggerated, but for me at least it certainly didn't live up to the expectations I will probably quit next month when my advance subscription runs out.
I agree with most of your points, especially the general disbelief about people saying "I hope Funcom go Bankrupt". I enjoyed playing the game, but I don't hope it self destructs after I leave just because I won't be playing for that much longer. I don't begrudge other people that still enjoy it either, since once I have quit I doubt I will give the game much thought & probably won't even browse the forums anymore.
I don't agree with the picture you seem to paint though of Funcom somehow being 'Poor Struggling Artists' that need to be nurtured & supported for the sake of the industry. No-one forced Gaute Godager to compare WoW to McDonalds & AoC to Steak & Wine, but if he was honest I bet he would admit that he regrets having made that arrogant comment now.
Funcom didn't portray themselves as an honest company simply doing their best to create something people might enjoy, rather they arrogantly tried to position themselves as being better than everyone else before their game had even launched. Despite all the issues there have been, they still go around claiming that the game had a perfect launch & they couldn't have hoped for anything better. They seem to be in denial about many issues & pursue Orwellian policies on their own boards to suppress critics.
A lot of the anger seems to be focussed around PvP, but since I play PvE & was avoiding PvP until the new consequences system was introduced I can't really comment. For me though, the game didn't live up to my expectations of the 'RPG' side of 'MMORPG' & it seems more like a console game with built in chat channels. It's fun for a while, but the novelty has worn off now & too much would need to change for it to be the sort of game that I could enjoy playing for several years as I did with my last MMO.
I just hope that WAR doesn't suffer a similar fate as I am really looking forward to it.
If you can't "Have your cake & eat it too", then how can "The proof of the pudding be in the eating"?
Take the Hecatomb? TCG What Is Your Doom? quiz.
The only reason I am active here is that I do enjoy MMO's, that is no doubt. Of course I have plenty else to do (college and I'm a digital artist) but I do love games. I'm going to school to get into the industry (with 3D design hopefully) so of course I'll speak about them a lot.
The reason I bash AoC is that I want players, and developers, to know that a company can not pull this kind of shit without a backlash. I am fine with shitty games, they happen. I am even fine with a developer taking a risk and failing.
What I am not fine with are lies and spin. I want the gaming industry to have some form of merit in it and by expressing my negativity towards this game (as everyone else is doing as well) developers, Funcom and players can tell that people won't stand for a half assed cash grabbing scheme. It's the same exact thing if you got a horribly cooked burger at some restaraunt, and you even went there again and got another horrible burger and horrible service. It is no doubt that you would tell other people that this place sucks.
MMORPG developers however think they can get away with simply patching it later mentality that needs to stop in the industry. Patches need to happen, that's a fact, but you can't simply patch in stuff to the magnitude as AoC left out.
Also I really do hope Funcom goes bankrupt, or at least AoC gets shut down. Why? It's not because I hate Funcom but because otherwise it will just send a message that developers can still develop half assed product and make money on them. Having Funcom fall would provide a very clear example of what happens when you give shit service.
I would not "hate" Funcom so much if I didn't feel insulted - yes, insulted - by their handling of customers and the lies with which they marketed their game.
Let's say Darkfall releases (by some miracle) - and let's say it's as bugged and content-lacking as AOC
If the developers came right out publicly and said "OK look, this game development stuff is hard and we had to release early, sorry for that and please bear with us - we're going to put the content that's missing in the game like this, month 1 we hope to do X, month 2 to do Y. Every week we'll have a developer update showing you, the players how we're progressing and what you can expect for your MMO dollar"
I'd say - FINE, and give them my 15 bucks and then see how it goes
What I don't accept is a company saying:
"AOC IS AMAZING
It's like steak when WoW is a greasy burger!
It has EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED!"
Then after the release - total silence. No updates on what is going to happen, no communication regarding core game issues, extremely poor moderation on their forums and poor customer service on all sides.
Then they come back to forums one day 3 months after launch and have the gall to say:
"But we WEREN'T lying, it's all there (except drunken brawling)"
"that's a lie, it's all broken - here's a list of what's broken that we made 2 months ago and have been screaming about for 2 months"
"THREAD CLOSED - learn to show Funcom some respect!"
Sorry
No
Just no.
That fee is to pay for the games up keep. Servers, Staff , Devs , CS and GM's cost money , Without them the game would stay as it is now , With no hope of improving. This seems to be an issue a lot of those people don't get.
Most companies can't afford to keep a game in development until It's Perfect , This is where Blizzard beat everyone else, they had those funds. Which automatically made them king. Now expectations are that high for every release , Which is leading to so much disappointment .
Older gamers are much more likely to brush it off as just another pos piece of software. Those newer to the genre in large part got their first taste from WOW , So their reaction is much different. The problem is WOW introduced more people to the genre than any other game .Which IMO is why you see so much more people expressing contempt than those expressing it's nothing new .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I have to agree here -- I also read the remark and I found it completely silly or self-delusion at best. I also don't think that Funcom is handling their communication very wise (and yes – that’s a huge euphemism).
And -- for me -- it is also alarming if any company dares to compare their product with World of Warcraft. Whatever someone is thinking about that game (I played it up to level 27, but started it again with my son recently) -- it is highly polished and it has great game and level design ... and I think especially a CEO of another game company should be able to acknowledge this effort. For me, when I read something like that I start to wonder if they really did their homework (Brad McQuaid said something similar btw).
I think that it is a very problematic situation to work for a game company when the CEO is also the lead game designer (not bashing anyone here – since I really have no clue how talented Gaute/Brad is or how fair and open he is in discussions), simply because you can't really discuss game design problems or disagree with him without the fear that you might lose your job.
Anyways – I am very sure that Funcom has quite a few very good people working for them. And I am also very sure a lot of them want their game to be as best as possible and are indeed also nice persons.
What people might not know is that Blizzard is an internal studio of Vivendi. Vivendi is a French media conglomerate -- and last I checked they own also the second largest mobile network in France and they might even still provide the water for Lyon (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi). They indeed can spent much more money in the development of games than any other company (maybe with the exclusion of EA -- but I would even doubt that).
Now try to imagine yourself working for a studio -- the game you are working on is awesome (on paper) -- you are very convinced that it will be the next best thing after sliced bread and the art you are creating is something you are really proud of. And at some point in development your CEO tells you that their publisher decided to release the game in the state it is now ... you are not satisfied because it could (no HAS) to improve ... you know that it is not what it was on paper back three years ago.
You saw everything what happend during the development -- you are aware that the programmers had a really big problem showing your art in the game engine (and maybe it was even your fault because you screwed something up during the export) and this and many other little things delayed the progress -- You are probably still proud of your work. And now your CEO stands there and tells you the game has to be released -- it has to recoup .. NOW ... otherwise they had to lay off you and a few of the other junior artists since they can't afford to pay the next monthly wage. What is the right decision morally?
To release a finished product and lay off half of the crew -- or to hold your company together and release the game half finished -- recoup some of the money, satisfying the publisher and work hard to deliver the content that was missing -- later?
For me -- this question is a no-brainer, really.
Well, thing is: AOC is a MMORPG. MMORPGs imply the key principle of what the internet today is about, in fact it displays the direction our society is developing nowadays. Its all about participation, its all about interaction, its about masses, who - merged together - are more powerful than any big monopolist like company in the world. (ok I do idealize here a bit, but you get the point)
Now look at AOCs gameplay. Where does it encourage big groups? Where does it encourage big alliances? Where does it encourage real participation? Of course you got the sieges and everything, but it also is not deniable that they tend to be boring and broken. You have a single player like gameplay from level 1-20. After that it doesn't get much better.
On the other side you have Wikipedia, full user generated and administrated content. You have Blogs which are even able to manipulate googles search results (jjust look up "miserable failure"), hell countries like iran, china and others as well throw writers of blogs into the jail, because their messages are like weapons. Don't let me even begin with youtube...
Ok, this said, now take into consideration that there have been some MMORPG failures in the past, which made people angry. AOC is not the first disappointment in MMORPG history. Think about SWG, Archlord, Vanguard, well I won't go into that too much, people will know what I mean. Those failures have been AOC misfortune in a way. I won't go so far to say AOC was the last straw that broke the camels back ... but it goes into the right direction.
Now with that anger been adressed take it and put it together with the principle of the so called web 2.0 era. (I know this phrase has been used shamelessly for advertising by numerous companies, but you get it). The possibilities are there, to express your anger. You have blogs, you have forums, potcasts, videos. The platform is big enough for you to tell your opinion about the game. "So why don't use it? Don't let Funcom get away with it. Spread the message and let them go bancrupt once and forever."
In some more years a game such AOC won't get that much attention anymore, if it fails. Things will even out. When we are used to this whole system of communication, people will be more relaxed on such matters. Thats at least my opinion. But to clear things up, I don't really think its a bad thing what is now happening. I admit its sometimes a bit harsh, the complains we here at the moment aren't always justified. But all in all the whole thing just reflects that kind of changes we are experiencing since 5 years now or so.