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Do you think AoC Failed? Read before Flame. :D
renshu1287
Member Posts: 22
THESE ARE MY OPINIONS AND JUST THAT.
So tons of people debate back and forth on if the game failed or not. Lots of people cite fabricated sub numbers to prove their opinion one way or the other. IMO what matters the most is was it fun? The Honey Moon phase was extreamlly fun.
Shortly after that however, and this is my experience from when the game first came out, it just flopped hard. Everyone rolled caster classes as they were extreamlly OP, itemization of the game was nonexistent, the NEW combat system the game introduced wasn't very inovative. The caster classes didn't even have to DDR combo their moves like the melee did. The GMs were amongst other things cybering with customers instead of helping the ones that had issues. The game was bugged beyond beileve. GMs were slapping bans on people for just about anything. Among the leading cause in the early weeks being too good and killing people.
The thing that probably killed it the most for me. Was 80 percent of the server joined one guild and zerged the remaining ten people then claimed to be l33t at pvp. Also there was really only one maybe 2 places to go at lvl 80 and pvp was really it. The PVE raid side of things left much to be desired.
So what do you guys think. Did it fail or not?
Comments
Yep, imo it pretty much failed.
I read somewhere that they had 42 servers at launch and have subsequently closed 31 of them as the subscriber base has dropped below 100k. While that's still more than enough to keep the game ticking over, it's a hell of a lot less than they were expecting/hoping for and in a genre that measurese "success" in millions, 100k subs is pretty dire.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
well failed in what sense?
they failed at retaining a huge volume of people who bought the box at launch.
Is the game a failure, depends on your own opinion on what amount of subs is considerd non failure.
I have fun with it, and they keep fixing and adding stuff. The mechanics of combat and pvp are a blast. To me they didnt fail at creating an entertaining game.
Theres a lot of positive things that are overshadowed by the launch last year and the issues that arise when you balance classes.
i think most people like to pick an arbitrary subscription number lower than wows and around where their current game is at.
personally i dont care if there are 30 packed servers or just 3-4, i only play on one.
Nope. THere are several servers left and they are each pretty well populated, and a couple which are immensely populated.
It failed for me when they nerfed the boobs, then said it was a bug that was going to be fixed. And I knew it wasn't, just dev lies. And yes to this day they never fixed that bug.
So if they can't engage in honest communication with their paying customers then they fail in my book.
AOC failed the moment the developers designed it for consoles.
I'm not saying that in itself is a failure, but how they did it was very poor. The controls while marketed as a new fangled action interface was simply an afterthought when they decided 3/4 through development to market it also on the 360.
Aoc should have been pushed back a year, it would have been awesome then, rather than release a 1/2 finished product with a crappy control set. Or at the very least make the game for PC, and Port it afterward.
The game did not fulfill the expectations that its own PR department had whipped everyone into. That is the only sense in which it failed, it was a decent game at launch, just not the god’s gift to MMO’s it was hyped up to be.
IMHO, funcom failed the customer at launch.
Since then,
the community has failed AoC. It's a good solid game now but no one wants to hear that shit.
they did not fail to make a game or retain an acceptable number of subs (enough to keep it running). They did fail to reach unnoficial goals of major hit and rival to WoW (something the devs did say quite a few times pre-release).
So no i don't think it failed in the official sense.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
I disagree that it is a good solid game. It has severe flaws, the least of which is stability. Depth, focus, fun, improvement on reasonable pacing, and implementation of community requested features which is non-existent. The reason the majoirty of people who have ever tried AOC are not back, now that the game is stable is because everything else that was wrong with AOC is still wrong with it.
On one hand a game is successful if it brings in a profit but that profit needs to cover not just the monthly running costs but also pay back the development costs and borrowing. I'd be very surprised if the amount of money Funcom are making from the game is anything like the amount they hoped for and based their borrowing on, so whether AoC is making enough money to ever pay that back - who knows. My guess is no. So in that sense I think AoC failed.
I also think they failed to read the market properly. There's been sixty years of fantasy art in the Conan , sword and sorcery style. All they needed to do was copy WoW gameplay, replace the high fantasy races with human cultural races with exotic class choices from the books and then drench the whole thing with moving fantasy art - Conan style male figures, infinitally curvy females draped everywhere - teenboy heaven.
WoW has shown the sort of gameplay needed to attract vast numbers. If a game wants to compete with WoW then they need to copy it more or less exactly *except* have a dramatically different art style and there's no (western) fantasy art style that's proven itself more popular over decades than that sword & sorcery style (LotR is close behind but lacks all the flesh). No WoW clone could actually directly compete with WoW at the moment but a Conan themed WoW clone that was kept updated and continually polished would set itself up to be the next WoW once WoW killed itself with expansions as these games all seem to do eventually.
If they weren't aiming for WoW-type numbers then they won't have borrowed vast amounts and will have no problem paying it back. In which case after fixing the game up a bit they will only have failed their launch.
Wow brought a lot of people that otherwise wouldnt have been into the market to MMOs..
I would say every game now released, Aion next Warhammer Last, will have these huge initial influx in subscribers mostly those temporarily leaving WoW.
These people then work out if the game is better than WoW for them or not. AoC is a totally different experience to WoW and in many ways I enjoy it, I dont think its failed it just doesnt meet the WoW obsessed MMOer perception of what a good game is. AoC for me is great if you are a casual player you ought to try it for sure but dont expect it to last for a very long time if you are a Hardcore type of player.
It has fundamental design issues to be a Hardcore MMO
1/ 95% of the content is fast and solable
2/ they rely on people just enjoying new content rather than itemise it with hard to get MUST have gear, the approach of other MMOs wheras zones liek Ymirs Pass are just fun to do in themselves. (one maybe twice and thats the problem)
3/crafting goods are essentially not required by anyone so any attempt to fight for resources falls flat.
in my opinion this game is a blast. The most important thing about gaming is do you have fun playing what you play , AOC does for me.
Have No Fear Cohas is here!!!
The lesson being that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. But are you telling me that AoC is now a sizziling steak?
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
That right there says why they failed. Selling what...close to a million boxes at launch...and a couple months later down to a couple hundred thousand players left?
I understand many MMOs will loose a percentage of their playerbase, but I think 80percent is quite an extreme.
They failed to deliver the game they promised. They failed to keep their playerbase happy. Sure they may still be chuggin along and making money. So in that sence they didn't fail. But to the playerbase, they failed, and that is something that not only AoC won't recover from, but Funcoms future MMOs will be always eyed with suspicion to the players.
In terms of reaching targeted subscription retention rates, most definitely.
But the game keeps going, so it hasn't totally failed yet.
"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
Failed to meet expectations of most players....yes.
Failed to be as succesful as Funcom wanted...yes.
Failed as a game...its not shut down yet, so no=)
Not trying to be insulting here, but that's like saying Richard Nixon didn't fail as a President until the day he was run out of office.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
It made a profit and is continuing to make money, just failed in popularity.
Ultimately yeah I think so but I think more so that Gaute Godager failed Funcom and really made them look bad. Craig Morrison is alot better but unfortunately too much damage has been done already even with alot of fixing they did.
I would say that they have failed as much as someone still in business can fail.
The window for turn around has long expired (I would say the re evaluation was that window).
Right now in the current climate with MMO's the candle is still flickering, but once 2 or 3 MMOs hit the market and people have new and better options--it will be game over for them. At that point AoC will be a lost-leader which will push them into F2P.
The only reason that they aren't F2P now is that the expansion is not out. Mark my words.."When the Xpac comes out they will announce (almost immediately) they will go F2P."
I guarantee it!
It failed my expectations.
I cant say that its failed for funcom. If they are making a profit on it every month its hard to call it a failure.
People really need to learn what a failure really is.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
If a company aims at a niche game and borrows a niche amount of money that can be paid back with 100K subs and that company makes a decent game and gets 100K subs then it's a success.
If they borrow a niche amount of money that can be paid back with 100K subs and they get 200K subs then it's a fantastic success.
If a company aims at a game that gets 1-2 million subs and borrows the sort of money that can only be repaid if they get 1-2 million and then makes a decent game that gains 300K subs it's a disaster.
This is true even if both games are decent games and even if the second game ends up with more subs than the first. It's all about the money in being more than the money out and that includes the investment money (plus interest usually).
It's a shame, as the idea of Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta art coming alive in a game (that would run on my PC) is as cool as seeing the Shire in a game.
AOC made many mistakes, but it really failed when it excluded the one ingredient that is intrinsic to the world of Conan: player freedom. And you cannot have player freedom if you are trapped in instances and storyline quests.
The spirit of the world of Conan is in being a free wanderer, with a loincloth, a sword, and the leeway to set out in any direction within a dangerous and exciting world. Yet somehow, the dev's of AOC missed that point.
Both AOC and WAR did this pre-launch, and I think they suffered for it. Both claimed to be the best game you've ever seen basically and living up to that expectation is difficult. End result is dissapointed people, less subscribers, server merges and basically just a disjointed and negative feeling while playing the game.
A game is a failure to me if it no longer has the subscriber numbers to play as intended. Both Warhammer and AOC fulfill that condition for me. One could say they have a few servers that "aren't that bad", but every server should have enough people to play the game as intended, and I've noticed that on those "not bad" servers, it's usually still far less populated than one would like.
Main lessons from these games:
1. Finish your game before releasing it, regardless of when WoW is going to release its next expansion
2. Do not over-hype and tell people the game will be their lifelong hobby and they will never have to buy another game forever
3. If it's a PVP -focused game, do NOT release with too many servers. Can't PVP without other people.