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To Funcom haters...
VincentG85
Member Posts: 14
Joel Bylos (TSW Lead Content Designer): There is a long catalogue of lessons learned but perhaps the ones that are most relevant to people who are "gun-shy" after AoC:
We try to maintain the consistency of content across the entire spectrum of the game, rather than the uneven polish that Conan launched with.
We have a much more mature engine, which was responsible for many of the complaints in AoC. We have years of bugfixes done on the game engine.
Shameless plug: I'd also like to encourage anyone who has doubts about Funcom to revisit Age of Conan. The game is free now, and I think just playing it demonstrates the commitment that we as a company make to titles we release. We are not "fire and forget" developers, we care about the worlds we create and we strive to continually improve upon them.
Comments
I'm sorry but blaming engine for problems that they had with LACK OF CONTENT is plain BS. Content isn't created by coders, it's totaly different people. Problem wasn't even polish, it was pure lack of content all together when you get closer to level cap. Funcom has history of rushing games out before proper full game experience.
Yes, TSW has much better start but it has also lot less resources due AoC failure. And yes, TSW has got totally BS critism on this forum but thats same for every game here. Personally Funcom was good company before AoC but how they lied and managed whole AoC publishing I have lost all faith on company. Fanbois and Funcom just have to deal the fact that disappointed AoC fans are going to throw them on rotten tomatotes and TBH they deserve it.
I have nothing at all against AoC, I think the citys are breathtaking. I'm looking forward to Secret World, and role playing a Dragon.
I'm with this guy. Cept i'll be playing the vastly superior illuminutty professor 2: electric boogaloo.
Many people had huge performance issues, even to the point of being unable to run the game. As I read it, I think he's trying to address both issues. Maybe not the best choice of words, blurring lack of content with a lack of polish, but I get the impression that's what he means when he refers to consistency across the spectrum of the game.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Those are two different points he's making. He didn't blame the lack of content on the engine. He was just saying the engine had a lot of issues when AoC launched and they've had years to optimize and fix it. The comment about consistency of content is in regards to the lack of content AoC had at later levels on launch. Tortage was full of content and polished, everything after that was buggy and grindy.
AoC had a terrible launch and Funcom knows it. It's fair that you don't trust them or whatever but if you're going to rage on something at least comprehend what you're reading first.
Eh your both merely minions and fodder for me and my templar minio... I mean breathern yeah breathern. We'll take the brunt of the force the Darkness has while you two widdle it way, before we step aside allowing it to rend you into shreds, before then felling it ourselves to reign over what remains as the true leaders as well as bringers of the light of failth to the people.
For me with funcom different dev team means the past is irrelvent as this team is not the aoc team, and the lead is different with a vary good title that he had worked on. Base your wish to play n the title's devs not producer and distributer, or you are just selling yourself short by looking over a great title as well as devs for a bad past history by a different team as well as the company.
Results speak louder than words. We got our fill of words prior to AoC's launch.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Is it mentioned anywhere that they are going to change their atrocious customer service practices? How about whether or not they are going to apologize for fraudulently enticing people into buying Rise of the Godslayer before going F2P? These are my main concerns.
Nah, Funcom had roughly 50MUSD in cash a year after the AoC launch and has gotten 25MUSD from investors since then. In addition AoC is actually bringing in money (AoC is not cash positive over it's livetime, but has been cash positive for the last two-three years).
Funcom is spending most of the money on TSW, and they moved most of the developers from Norway to Canada where they get a tax break equal to about 37% of the salary. Wages in Canada is way less than in Norway. This adds up to Funcom getting two people in Canada for every one they had in Norway.
TSW also started out with a working engine, unlike AoC so they have had much more money to spend on doing things right, and not adding them in the last minute.
TL;DR Funcom is using more money on TSW than on AoC and using existing tech and get more developers for the same price.
I'm just downloading AoC. I left 2 months after its release and want to see if its accomplished something.
And I liked AO back in 2005-06, good game.
Hope up for TSW
I will never buy another funcom product at launch. They excel at hyping their games. I will never forget AoC pre-launch. I dont even pity the blind sheep that will get drawn in pre-TSW launch. They deserve exactly what their going to get, and thats suckered out of their money. A fool and his money is easily parted. Funcoms record is abysmal, AO and AoC. They said they learned from AO's launch pre-aoc launch, but people will be fooled, its a never ending cycle.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
I dont have anything against Funcom as such, but they have made some very poor decisions in the past that I hope they have learnt from.
AO was(and is) a great game but they really screwed up the launch...
AOC was a pretty good game, with some different ideas (combat) but again, they screwed up the launch, and the Voiceover that stopped after tortage was a terrible idea
Hopefully they will have learnt the lesson and not release before the game is ready. From the comments in the OP they seem to have learnt the lesson about "uneven polish", but it does worry me that they are using the same game engine they used for AOC... i wonder how it will stand the test of time?
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Trust no-one
It will take a miracle for me to buy a Failcom game at launch. This game is getting way overhyped and can't possibly be what some people are hoping for.
I understand people who got burned on Funcom earlier dont wanna buy the game at launch, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me etc....
But i think its wrong to say that Funcom themselves are overhyping this game. Anyone that has followed it should know its far between updates and the devs seem pretty down-to-earth about the game's features. They have said what they will try make the strong points of TSW (Story/World, classless progression, 3 factions).
If there is anyone overhyping the game its the media (and from that the fanbase) who after their tryout in december (i think it was) said it is ''going to take the world by storm and set new standard for excellence in gameplay'' etc...
Personally im interested in this game, i think you guys are right about funcom stuffing up so many times, but looking at everything that they have done for this game it looks like it will be good. Now im 50/50 about getting it a launch because it can fail but it might be great.
I never played a funcom game before, TSW does have my interest peaked. But I am glad people hold companies accountable for a bad product.
Maybe I should hold off a bit before taking the leap of faith. I know it will be a cold day in hell before I buy any EA game again.
But Ragnar Tørnquists record isn't abyssemal with The longest journey and Dreamfall.
I agree.. WHy go back and forth with a discussion, he promisse this but we are afraid of this... and so on and on..
Let's see how it goes. We will know in about 3 months time how the game launches. If it is good, sure let me test it.
The Ultimate Breakdown
My biggest worry about TSW is EA not Funcom. EA is an evil corporation who only cares about maximizing profits at the expense of any sort of quality and everything they touch goes to shit if will make the executives a little more money.
From my experience Funcom is a very good developer. Sure Funcom released AoC in a bad way but they stuck with their product and continued to release patch after patch which eventually improved their game into one of the most pollished MMOs out today.
I believe Funcom has laerned their lesson with AoC and wont release TSW in the same state and evne if they havnt we can atleast be sure they wont just dump the game and move on to the next project.
Even tho AO and Aoc had less than successfull launches (and thats putting it mildly..) I for one will be getting TSW at launch. My reason for that is simply that Funcom atleast tries to make something different and be innovative, Funcom isnt perfect but atleast they deliver interesting stuff.
They burned me once it wont happen again.
Reading all these endless "attacks on Funcom because of the AOC" never made sense to me, even though i played AOC for 2 years since launch. Maybe because my gamaplay stule was different so i never felt any lack of content , nor did i see better (in terms of quality) content anywhere else. Classes balance, PVP mechanics, cheaters - those were main complains, but PVE part of AOC was great. Probably the best quality of content among MMOS up to date.
AOC wasn't perfect, but it's a mong few i could actually play. In most other games - dumb combat mechanics is a deal killer for me so Secret World is probably the only MMO of such format i really wait to see in the sea of titles with outdated mechanics and graphics.
Just for their effort on the design part, i will buy it at launch.
Playing: League of Legends!