Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
8 years of broken promises
octa
Member UncommonPosts: 245
May 20, 2008 was a day that will live in infamy. Age of Conan was released broken, bereft of many features promised. The company went on to blame its customers for many of these problems; I believe it was Gaut himself that claimed the lack of participation in the beta server was the cause of so many bugs making it through THEIR QA onto production. It was a galling accusation that left me dumbstruck. Were these developers so disconnected from reality?
My view of the gaming industry and MMOs was forever changed for the worst. I spiraled into a depressive realization that my industry heroes, the champions at Funcom that claimed they were flipping the MMO genre on its head and making a WoW killer, were nothing but charlatans. Funcom was more interested in their bottom line than meeting their promises. Innocence was lost that day.
I learned that year:
- Erling Ellingsen is a liar.
- MMOs are released blatantly unfinished with no apologies to that fact
- Little is learned at Funcom when they repeat their launch failures two games in a row.
- History tends to repeat itself when bad management is involved.
- Beta tests are a marketing tool and have little to do with balancing and finding issues.
There was a glimmer of hope for a time. The game was a visual splendor and the skill based melee combat was a breath of fresh air. But where was the blood coins? The sieging? The mounted combat? The bar room brawls? The DX 10 support?
3 months? Then 6 months? The next expansion? When would the failed promises end?
They abused and misused our trusts. For the most part we let them. Now we pay the price; the industry was changed forever. The consumers are no longer in control.
But, I do hope the current state of Age of Conan is a lesson learned for any others wishing to sell us their snake oil. This company continues to be a tumor in the industry. Limping along with bad licensed properties. I look forward to their eventual demise. This is the result of a business objective solely concerned with short term gains.
I will never forget what they did. I will never forgive what they did.
Comments
You are posting some laughably bad content, please desist.
That was eight freaking years ago? Find a game with an Engineer class and play that. Maybe it can help you build a bridge...........And get over it.
Because it feels like you are really hanging a lot on a "video game".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
We must remember so that the suffering of thousands of people wasn't in vain - so we can make this a better world, one game at a time.
You are posting some laughably bad content, please desist.
There is no statute of limitations in the MMORPG world. "Remember the Combat Upgrade!!!"
Yeah...SOE/Smedley can still suck it, and by association so can DayBreakGames.
~I am Many~
You played the game for 8 years, I don't think you are entitled to a refund. You want them to fix the game now? What good will that do? 8 years later FC finally releases their "WoW Killer" to the deafening sound of...........
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Missed your annual "this cancer of the industry is still there" thread at the anniversary a month ago, seemed you forgot to post it - which would've been quite a contradiction to the whole "I will never forget what they did. I will never forgive what they did." shebang.
Glad to see you just skipped a month for some reasons. No year should pass by without the usual "n+1" years octa thread.
See you in 2017!
Imagine how it would be if they tried dating!
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Future games like TERA showed how action combat could be done well.
To me, Warhammer was much more innovative, but got much more slack, unfortunately.
If I had a game in beta I would demand beta testers to file atleast one bug a week minimum if no bug is filed you lost your spot as a beta tester.
I have no intention of lamenting it forever, though.
Never came into its own, and just another complete failure that could have been.
End of story.
I played from launch +3 years - no break.
Best Classes and best Raids - oh and we had the new thing called balanced PVP.
No mmorpg even comes close to AoC.
But we're talking about promises here. The primary broken promise was that this was supposed to be about meaningful open world PvP.
That never happened - and the focus quickly turned to trivial "WoW" PvE.
I lost interest at that point.