How do you get players back into any game they left?
Just some examples and please take it as that.
SWG if they had given me back the game I "had"... I would have gone back. Point being *I* personally enjoyed the game I lost.
If you bought and quit AoC or WAR (seem like related recent examples) then you didn't like the game you bought. They both have lost 100's of thousands of players...
Either you didn't get what you thought you were buying or you just plain didn't like it.
So they can basicly make the game you thought you were going to buy... or if you left just due to bugs/content they could fix that. However, then they have to find a way to actually get you to try the game again and hopefully hook you.
I use these examples simply because... I think when two games have lost customers relatively quickly its due to people not liking what they bought. As opposed to losing customer numbers over a period of time (years) or radical changes or even both.
Unless they actually got feedback from a majority of those who left I'm not sure how they would get them back.
I know with WAR as an example when I quit there was no feedback form (don't remember one for AoC either). Mythic later emailed me a feedback thing. However, the way the questions were worded I wasn't actually able to answer anything that made me leave (from my perspective anyway).
The biggest issue for any developer is to actually listen to the overwhelming majority and forget "the vision". If you don't want to provide what most of your customers want.. why are you in a "for profit" business? You can try to peddle things people don't want to buy on infomercials.
Beyond that the biggest issue is probably going to be getting most of those people to even try the product again. That really isn't something you have much control over.. you can't force people to reinstall the game to take advantage of "come back" trials etc..
Which is why they need to get it "right" at launch... maybe somebody will figure that out now?
Maybe I'm wrong, but my observation is that MMORPG players do not typically return to games they have angrily quit in the past. Funcom made a lot of people really furious with the way they handled things and I don't think there is really any way they will be able to make up for that.
It sucks, but you only get ONE chance to make a first impression.
I left the game for two reasons. First is the blatant homosexual promotion agenda in the game. I am sure I will get attacked for this but listen to what the npcs are saying and some of the quests. Also I thought I detected an anti american bias. Granted the people they planted in the forms had atrocious grammar but it was more than that.
Maybe I'm wrong, but my observation is that MMORPG players do not typically return to games they have angrily quit in the past. Funcom made a lot of people really furious with the way they handled things and I don't think there is really any way they will be able to make up for that. It sucks, but you only get ONE chance to make a first impression.
qft
First thing that pissed me off was the issue with combat on horse back. We worked our asses off to get gold to purchase a horse. The horse could be used in combat with because they had certain attacks. They stripped those away and told us our horses were not suppose to have that ability until we got a horse that cost like 50 gold! Well screw that. Then they started really messing with skill trees and reworking classes...totally screwing some up and not fixing what was broke with them to begin with. Some classes were so over powered it made fighting them an act of futility. I gave up.
There is only two ways I will ever come back. Return horses to how they were. Two, have combat like Mount and Blade.
Since launch Age of Conan subscriptions have gone from 800k to only 100k. That means there could be over half a million players that have tried AoC but didn't like it. Some players will never come back but some might, and Funcom needs them. There was supposed to be a some kind of a win-back-program, but for some reason Funcom hasn't launched it yet. The question is: Is this win-back-program enough, or does Funcom need to do something else? Personally I would like to see some kind of public apology for lying to the community.
I have to say I pre-ordered this game and have left within the first free month. The game was fun but many of the talents and abilites were not working properly. Also a key feature I was looking forward to was not in game "Spell Weaving". In my honest opinion the only way I would play this game again, is if Funcom offered returning veterens a full and I mean FULL free month of gameplay. With our old characters and no wipe afterword. At this point a free trial isnt enough time especially for the casual players to really get a taste of the changes.
So if Funcom gives me a free month of AOC (as long as you have already purchased the game in the past) then I would come back and play it. Ofcourse if I liked it id re-sub after the free month...if not...at least I would have seen where the game is going.
P.S. 10 day free trials are epic fails because they usually never give people enough time to get a real feel for the game...besides I dont care about an apology at this point...since they wont give us our money back..ill take a free month instead.
1 = AoC is bad, Funcom Games are basically lames, To much instancing in zone, lack of content, bad pvp. etc etc etc. People was playing this game only because most players want a new `WoW` (a new game). So AoC was the test for them,... People played the first month them when back to their favorites mmo right after they realise that AoC have nothing long term to offert.
I'd go back if they delivered a Linux client, a NATIVE Linux client.
I'm phasing Wine out of my Linux OS and will only play games that run natively in Linux. So far I can still play some of my favorites: Second Life, Savage 2, and Neverwinter Nights. It will be hard to give up EVE when I finally get rid of Wine though
I find it harder and harder to resolve my dislike for Windows, but continue to support Windows software through the use of Wine. Its hypocritical, IMHO.
Since launch Age of Conan subscriptions have gone from an estimated 800k to only 100k. That means there could be over half a million players that have tried AoC but didn't like it. Some players will never come back but some might, and Funcom needs them. There was supposed to be a some kind of a win-back-program, but for some reason Funcom hasn't launched it yet. The question is: Is this win-back-program enough, or does Funcom need to do something else? Personally I would like to see some kind of public apology for lying to the community.
It's pretty simple -
1) Offer free trials for vets (a la SWG)
2) Offer free transfers for those that resub
3) Figure out what originally drew people to AoC and what sent them away
4) Tell them in email that they fixed those problems
The problem is, by the looks of it, the Devs don't know what drove people away. Bugs, lack of world area, lack of quests, lack of crafting, lack of items, lack of things to do (aka, content), and too much instancing.
Now granted, they are addressing many of those issues. But they still haven't implemented new content systems (barfights, player housing, a crafting revamp, etc), they will never address instancing, and are working towards changing the fundamentals of the game that drew people to AoC the first time around.
I don't want items to mean more. I don't want combat to be more WoW-like in any way. I don't want a constant string of nerfs and buffs for class balance.
i really hoped AoC would have been good...bought it after much discussion with friends and in the end was among the disappointed (and that was with me playing the best class...HoX) alas i dont think even a free month would keep me there...i am having a blast in darkfall
Since launch Age of Conan subscriptions have gone from 800k to only 100k. That means there could be over half a million players that have tried AoC but didn't like it. Some players will never come back but some might, and Funcom needs them. There was supposed to be a some kind of a win-back-program, but for some reason Funcom hasn't launched it yet. The question is: Is this win-back-program enough, or does Funcom need to do something else? Personally I would like to see some kind of public apology for lying to the community.
Where AoC is going to face it's biggest problems is the game just isn't fun enough can they actually change the zone size so they aren't so smallish?Can they craft a pve story that the players will in fact care enough about to play?Will they ever polish the post 20 game to the levels of the starter zone?Until they do some of these things how much would getting all of those players to come and try again do?Most would come back see the game still is no better than any offering from a reputable company and leave again.
They are better of scrapping this whole joke of a game and salvage the engine for something useful down the line,Fantasy high or low has been done as a matter of fact it is overdone great games with plenty of polish when it comes to pve games there is simply no good reason to play this game or even try it again since I doubt anyone playing now can say this game is going to offer a signifigantly better experience than what is already out there.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Since launch Age of Conan subscriptions have gone from 800k to only 100k.
Not completely true, but pretty close
"Outlook*
Based on the development of key factors after launch and in Q308 specifically, revenues are expected to be between TUSD 8.000 and 10.000 in Q408. The dominating revenue stream will be subscription revenues from Age of Conan. The Company has initiated cost reduction initiatives to adjust the cost base to better reflect the anticipated revenue levels from its major games. No major restructuring costs are expected due to these cost reduction initiatives."
They have cash enough to keep working on their new MMO "The Secret World". I'd say they don't look like they are in trouble as a company.
AoC needs ti just die....so future mmo's will NOT be released early. So whatever you are playing. if it was released early switch games. Sleep for a couple months, Watch every Anime out there, Tinker around in WoW, EQ2, FFXI, Anything but rewarding that kind of behavior.
If AoC were in Development for 6 more months there is no doubt it would have been a WoW killer. but they got greedy and dropped the ball, Hell imo the game was released 1/2 finished.
Funcom as a company is so poorly run, it doesn't suprise me that AoC is in the state its in. When Anarchy Online released, Funcom immediately got titled with worst MMO launch ever. They did rectify this by making a solid PvP / PvE game that turned out to be quite enjoyable. Instead of learning from their original mistakes, they repeated them almost as if they copied and pasted them right into AoC, literally. If anyone knows what I'm talking about ( resistances in AoC such as toxic and nano which are part of Anarchy Onlines programming ). I mean come on people, thats complete rookie mistakes.
I don't know how long it lasted or if they ever fixed it, but a ticket submission in AoC used to get you an automated response telling you to go to Anarchy Online website.
The game apparently was optimized for nvidia but not ati, and they ignored the problem for the first month or so. Basically my free month that came with the box purchase was wasted.
Now if they want to give a free month trial, I might give the game another go. Otherwise, they got their money but I feel ripped off because I met the system requirements but in cities outside of the starter area my fps dropped down to 5 or 8 fps. Not really fun or playable, atleast for me.
What was the video card you were using back then? Maybe it wasn't powerful enough and you had the game settings set to very high?
Let us know what was the model of the ATI card...
I had an ATI card and didn't have too much tech problems, but it was a big known issue first couple of months. Tech forum full of posts how to work around or optimize your client til they fixed it for ATI users of certain cards. New cards at the time, iirc.
Since launch Age of Conan subscriptions have gone from 800k to only 100k. That means there could be over half a million players that have tried AoC but didn't like it. Some players will never come back but some might, and Funcom needs them. There was supposed to be a some kind of a win-back-program, but for some reason Funcom hasn't launched it yet. The question is: Is this win-back-program enough, or does Funcom need to do something else? Personally I would like to see some kind of public apology for lying to the community.
If the Age of Conan had captured the essence of an REH Conan story to begin with, we wouldn't be asking these kinds of questions. Instead, we'd be wondering what AoC could do to break the 3-5 million mark.. That's my opinion on the matter. Sadly, the only game where I feel like I'm playing someone in REH's Hyboria isn't even related to the Conan IP. It's called God of War, and even worse, Sony makes it.
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AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by Souldrainer
If the Age of Conan had captured the essence of an REH Conan story to begin with, we wouldn't be asking these kinds of questions. Instead, we'd be wondering what AoC could do to break the 3-5 million mark.. That's my opinion on the matter. Sadly, the only game where I feel like I'm playing someone in REH's Hyboria isn't even related to the Conan IP. It's called God of War, and even worse, Sony makes it.
Would it be possible to explain how the game in your opinion doesn't capture the Lore to your satisfaction in the context and premise that FC have been clear about their interpretation of it for many years prior to release and the fact it is a video game afterall?
They might have more, maybe 150K but that doesn't really matter, they still have a lot of players to get back if they can.
As I see it, the problem isn't really that the game was very bugged at the launch, or the system, or whatever. The problem is that the game is far to small right now.
If they fix that they will start to attract more players fast, but if not current numbers will stay. They need to get that expansion out soon.
Since launch Age of Conan subscriptions have gone from an estimated 800k to only 100k. That means there could be over half a million players that have tried AoC but didn't like it. Some players will never come back but some might, and Funcom needs them. There was supposed to be a some kind of a win-back-program, but for some reason Funcom hasn't launched it yet. The question is: Is this win-back-program enough, or does Funcom need to do something else? Personally I would like to see some kind of public apology for lying to the community.
1- Email with a apology to the old subscribers who quited.
2- Offer them one month free.
3- Put the option to skip Tortage OR add new and diferent content in Tortage for each class.
redesign the shitty game world, remove instances, remove loading screens, change combat back to how it was orignally in beta, remove resspads, redesgin stealth, make mounted combat viable.
I am telling you the game is far from perfect. They are Professions missing, it could be larger and many little things have to be optimized. But well it makes fun, at least for me. I haven t seen one better rp-Game out there, nor have I with better Graphics. Yes it is instanced, but you are used to it after a short period of gaming.
The Game is at least to me, much more fun than any other MMORG out there, that includes Warcraft. And yes I have played that througly. begun at 12 February 05. When I remember Corectly, for a few years. (Well not only that)
I don't know. I was rather pissed over the way the Set incident was handled by Funcom. If you don't know what that is then look on offical boards. I think that was was the breaking point for me.
All the other stuff I can live with but total incompetence, never.
Good thing the subscriber are rising again, maybe this game will ones again shine in the future. If it wants to, it has to improve alot...but now it is a good game still. For some the best MMORG out there...
Comments
How do you get players back into any game they left?
Just some examples and please take it as that.
SWG if they had given me back the game I "had"... I would have gone back. Point being *I* personally enjoyed the game I lost.
If you bought and quit AoC or WAR (seem like related recent examples) then you didn't like the game you bought. They both have lost 100's of thousands of players...
Either you didn't get what you thought you were buying or you just plain didn't like it.
So they can basicly make the game you thought you were going to buy... or if you left just due to bugs/content they could fix that. However, then they have to find a way to actually get you to try the game again and hopefully hook you.
I use these examples simply because... I think when two games have lost customers relatively quickly its due to people not liking what they bought. As opposed to losing customer numbers over a period of time (years) or radical changes or even both.
Unless they actually got feedback from a majority of those who left I'm not sure how they would get them back.
I know with WAR as an example when I quit there was no feedback form (don't remember one for AoC either). Mythic later emailed me a feedback thing. However, the way the questions were worded I wasn't actually able to answer anything that made me leave (from my perspective anyway).
The biggest issue for any developer is to actually listen to the overwhelming majority and forget "the vision". If you don't want to provide what most of your customers want.. why are you in a "for profit" business? You can try to peddle things people don't want to buy on infomercials.
Beyond that the biggest issue is probably going to be getting most of those people to even try the product again. That really isn't something you have much control over.. you can't force people to reinstall the game to take advantage of "come back" trials etc..
Which is why they need to get it "right" at launch... maybe somebody will figure that out now?
Maybe I'm wrong, but my observation is that MMORPG players do not typically return to games they have angrily quit in the past. Funcom made a lot of people really furious with the way they handled things and I don't think there is really any way they will be able to make up for that.
It sucks, but you only get ONE chance to make a first impression.
The only thing they need to do is listen to the comunity and use the good info that it gives and filter the bad parts.
I left the game for two reasons. First is the blatant homosexual promotion agenda in the game. I am sure I will get attacked for this but listen to what the npcs are saying and some of the quests. Also I thought I detected an anti american bias. Granted the people they planted in the forms had atrocious grammar but it was more than that.
qft
First thing that pissed me off was the issue with combat on horse back. We worked our asses off to get gold to purchase a horse. The horse could be used in combat with because they had certain attacks. They stripped those away and told us our horses were not suppose to have that ability until we got a horse that cost like 50 gold! Well screw that. Then they started really messing with skill trees and reworking classes...totally screwing some up and not fixing what was broke with them to begin with. Some classes were so over powered it made fighting them an act of futility. I gave up.
There is only two ways I will ever come back. Return horses to how they were. Two, have combat like Mount and Blade.
I have to say I pre-ordered this game and have left within the first free month. The game was fun but many of the talents and abilites were not working properly. Also a key feature I was looking forward to was not in game "Spell Weaving". In my honest opinion the only way I would play this game again, is if Funcom offered returning veterens a full and I mean FULL free month of gameplay. With our old characters and no wipe afterword. At this point a free trial isnt enough time especially for the casual players to really get a taste of the changes.
So if Funcom gives me a free month of AOC (as long as you have already purchased the game in the past) then I would come back and play it. Ofcourse if I liked it id re-sub after the free month...if not...at least I would have seen where the game is going.
P.S. 10 day free trials are epic fails because they usually never give people enough time to get a real feel for the game...besides I dont care about an apology at this point...since they wont give us our money back..ill take a free month instead.
1 = AoC is bad, Funcom Games are basically lames, To much instancing in zone, lack of content, bad pvp. etc etc etc. People was playing this game only because most players want a new `WoW` (a new game). So AoC was the test for them,... People played the first month them when back to their favorites mmo right after they realise that AoC have nothing long term to offert.
2 = Simply don`t go back to AoC
Other is my vote.
I'd go back if they delivered a Linux client, a NATIVE Linux client.
I'm phasing Wine out of my Linux OS and will only play games that run natively in Linux. So far I can still play some of my favorites: Second Life, Savage 2, and Neverwinter Nights. It will be hard to give up EVE when I finally get rid of Wine though
I find it harder and harder to resolve my dislike for Windows, but continue to support Windows software through the use of Wine. Its hypocritical, IMHO.
It's pretty simple -
1) Offer free trials for vets (a la SWG)
2) Offer free transfers for those that resub
3) Figure out what originally drew people to AoC and what sent them away
4) Tell them in email that they fixed those problems
The problem is, by the looks of it, the Devs don't know what drove people away. Bugs, lack of world area, lack of quests, lack of crafting, lack of items, lack of things to do (aka, content), and too much instancing.
Now granted, they are addressing many of those issues. But they still haven't implemented new content systems (barfights, player housing, a crafting revamp, etc), they will never address instancing, and are working towards changing the fundamentals of the game that drew people to AoC the first time around.
I don't want items to mean more. I don't want combat to be more WoW-like in any way. I don't want a constant string of nerfs and buffs for class balance.
i really hoped AoC would have been good...bought it after much discussion with friends and in the end was among the disappointed (and that was with me playing the best class...HoX) alas i dont think even a free month would keep me there...i am having a blast in darkfall
Where AoC is going to face it's biggest problems is the game just isn't fun enough can they actually change the zone size so they aren't so smallish?Can they craft a pve story that the players will in fact care enough about to play?Will they ever polish the post 20 game to the levels of the starter zone?Until they do some of these things how much would getting all of those players to come and try again do?Most would come back see the game still is no better than any offering from a reputable company and leave again.
They are better of scrapping this whole joke of a game and salvage the engine for something useful down the line,Fantasy high or low has been done as a matter of fact it is overdone great games with plenty of polish when it comes to pve games there is simply no good reason to play this game or even try it again since I doubt anyone playing now can say this game is going to offer a signifigantly better experience than what is already out there.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Not completely true, but pretty close
"Outlook*
Based on the development of key factors after launch and in Q308 specifically, revenues are expected to be between TUSD 8.000 and 10.000 in Q408. The dominating revenue stream will be subscription revenues from Age of Conan. The Company has initiated cost reduction initiatives to adjust the cost base to better reflect the anticipated revenue levels from its major games. No major restructuring costs are expected due to these cost reduction initiatives."
They have cash enough to keep working on their new MMO "The Secret World". I'd say they don't look like they are in trouble as a company.
"TO MICHAEL!"
1.) No instanced Zones
2.) Faster Leveling
3.) Generally more content
4.) More nude women
5.) New Character Options - all male characters look like Bodbuilders right now
6.) Graphics for WoW-Player-Graphic Cards
AoC needs ti just die....so future mmo's will NOT be released early. So whatever you are playing. if it was released early switch games. Sleep for a couple months, Watch every Anime out there, Tinker around in WoW, EQ2, FFXI, Anything but rewarding that kind of behavior.
If AoC were in Development for 6 more months there is no doubt it would have been a WoW killer. but they got greedy and dropped the ball, Hell imo the game was released 1/2 finished.
I don't know how long it lasted or if they ever fixed it, but a ticket submission in AoC used to get you an automated response telling you to go to Anarchy Online website.
Yeah, they copied and pasted.
What was the video card you were using back then? Maybe it wasn't powerful enough and you had the game settings set to very high?
Let us know what was the model of the ATI card...
I had an ATI card and didn't have too much tech problems, but it was a big known issue first couple of months. Tech forum full of posts how to work around or optimize your client til they fixed it for ATI users of certain cards. New cards at the time, iirc.
If the Age of Conan had captured the essence of an REH Conan story to begin with, we wouldn't be asking these kinds of questions. Instead, we'd be wondering what AoC could do to break the 3-5 million mark.. That's my opinion on the matter. Sadly, the only game where I feel like I'm playing someone in REH's Hyboria isn't even related to the Conan IP. It's called God of War, and even worse, Sony makes it.
Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
Would it be possible to explain how the game in your opinion doesn't capture the Lore to your satisfaction in the context and premise that FC have been clear about their interpretation of it for many years prior to release and the fact it is a video game afterall?
They might have more, maybe 150K but that doesn't really matter, they still have a lot of players to get back if they can.
As I see it, the problem isn't really that the game was very bugged at the launch, or the system, or whatever. The problem is that the game is far to small right now.
If they fix that they will start to attract more players fast, but if not current numbers will stay. They need to get that expansion out soon.
[Mod Edit]
1- Email with a apology to the old subscribers who quited.
2- Offer them one month free.
3- Put the option to skip Tortage OR add new and diferent content in Tortage for each class.
redesign the shitty game world, remove instances, remove loading screens, change combat back to how it was orignally in beta, remove resspads, redesgin stealth, make mounted combat viable.
the list goes on and on.
I am telling you the game is far from perfect. They are Professions missing, it could be larger and many little things have to be optimized. But well it makes fun, at least for me. I haven t seen one better rp-Game out there, nor have I with better Graphics. Yes it is instanced, but you are used to it after a short period of gaming.
The Game is at least to me, much more fun than any other MMORG out there, that includes Warcraft. And yes I have played that througly. begun at 12 February 05. When I remember Corectly, for a few years. (Well not only that)
[Mod Edit]
I don't know. I was rather pissed over the way the Set incident was handled by Funcom. If you don't know what that is then look on offical boards. I think that was was the breaking point for me.
All the other stuff I can live with but total incompetence, never.
Lets face it, AOC is complete failure and there is no help for this game, its just a matter of time when FC will finnaly decide to shut servers down .
For Funcom would be better if they revamp Anarchy Online.
Good thing the subscriber are rising again, maybe this game will ones again shine in the future. If it wants to, it has to improve alot...but now it is a good game still. For some the best MMORG out there...