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Mythic beats Funcom - Free Trial
openedge1
Member Posts: 2,582
Not exactly an easy trial to get, and not a very good one...but a trial all the same.
This will make starter areas on certain empty servers in WAR look busy for those interested in buying the game...and AoC wallows away with no trial, and no customers coming unless they get cracking.
After the silly little bugs, DX10 being a bust (too many issues still exists for it to be pushed to live), and still no trial...
Sure is hard to stick up for a game that does not want to succeed.
Comments
Looks like you are seeing the light. Look a little further and you will find the truth!
In my opion Funcom's AOC may be looking at f2p in the not to distant future. Im sure we will see some sort of trial soon, weather its before more resignations at Funcom who knows.
MAGA
Sadly the fancy trial is only for people paying fileplanet money.
Looks like you are seeing the light. Look a little further and you will find the truth!
Too bad I would rather play AoC than WAR, which in my opinion was crud (as well as AoC was at launch)...
AoC NOW is a much better game to play, but really needs to get on the ball and make some decisions (like after I have seen DX10, they just need to drop that feature period)
But, there is no doubt...no matter how limited the trial, it will bring in more scrips.
Why should funcom push out free trials now? Would it not be better to do so when Dx10 is out and itemization patch is out as the itemization patch will quite possibly change a lot of the gameplay. Pushing trials out can go both ways, if the game isn't good enough people ain't going to get a new trial to test it with next patch. And seeing one of the mayor things people were saying was bad was in fact itemization it don't make any sense to throw out trials now, if they want to win back the ones who left it's better to do so when they have fixed the itemization patch so that the ones who left just for that reason will see a change.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
Looks like you are seeing the light. Look a little further and you will find the truth!
Too bad I would rather play AoC than WAR, which in my opinion was crud (as well as AoC was at launch)...
AoC NOW is a much better game to play, but really needs to get on the ball and make some decisions (like after I have seen DX10, they just need to drop that feature period)
But, there is no doubt...no matter how limited the trial, it will bring in more scrips.
Dx10 shouldn't be dropped, but it should in no way be rushed out. It can stay on testlive 6 more months or be released together with the expansion for all I care. As long as it is as good as possible when it gets released.
What funcom needs to do before trying to win back old customers is make sure the issues people mentioned for leaving is addressed. Like technical issues, content and the itemization. Technical issues have been to a great extent fixed, content has been added and after the itemization patch most of the major issues people had have been addressed and thus it will be easier to get more players to come back.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
http://www.funcom.com/funcom/frontend/files/CONTENT/Funcom_Q308_presentation_2912.pdf
Free trial offers –both digital and physical distribution - Q4 2008 –Q1 2009
My guesstimate: After 1.5?
It is preferable not to travel with a dead man.
I think that your guesstimate will be the pretty correct.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
Why should funcom push out free trials now? Would it not be better to do so when Dx10 is out and itemization patch is out as the itemization patch will quite possibly change a lot of the gameplay.
The way I see it is AoC has been out a good 4-5 months before WAR, yet WAR is launching with a Free Trial first.
What exactly does that say for the development of AoC?
Do not get me wrong, as I think people would enjoy AoC more...it is the fact that WAR beat them to the punch, and gearing up for their live expansion, I honestly think it could be a major blow to Funcom and AoC.
The difference is people are not complaining about Mythic lying, or screwing them over...instead they feel the game was not ready...and trials are the ticket to show people it is..
AoC must STILL not be ready if free trials are not going yet.
Well I dont see the reason to rush free trials now as servers are packed since merge.
What I would do diffrently is not opening fresh start servers until come back program and free trials system.
Most likely they wanna have DX10 and Itemization patch ready before they start to do it.
Futilez[Do You Have What It Takes ?]
Why should funcom push out free trials now? Would it not be better to do so when Dx10 is out and itemization patch is out as the itemization patch will quite possibly change a lot of the gameplay.
The way I see it is AoC has been out a good 4-5 months before WAR, yet WAR is launching with a Free Trial first.
What exactly does that say for the development of AoC?
It can say a lot of things, it can say they want to make sure their product is as good as possible before doing such a thing, it can also say that WAR is geting desperate to get more customers. No matter what the real reason behind it is people will be able to make up their own meaning of this as they see fit. A hater will see it as funcom sucks and are unable to do the right things a fanboy would see it as a sign that funcom don't need to do it yet. Funcom will at some point need to get the winback program out and free trials, but seeing they are revamping the itemization in the game I do understand if they delay free trials until the itemization patch is ready.
Do not get me wrong, as I think people would enjoy AoC more...it is the fact that WAR beat them to the punch, and gearing up for their live expansion, I honestly think it could be a major blow to Funcom and AoC.
I have tried WAR twice, and tbh for the ones who like AoC WAR is no threat at all. WAR have become better, but it still have many of the same issues as it had at launch for me. I find the game utterly boring, the AI to be a complete and utter joke, and PvP to be only ok. I like the fact you can get xp by doing pvp, but it doesn't make the game good when there is so many other bad aspects of the game I don't like.
The difference is people are not complaining about Mythic lying, or screwing them over...instead they feel the game was not ready...and trials are the ticket to show people it is..
AoC must STILL not be ready if free trials are not going yet.
Maybe AoC isn't quite yet ready for free trials, but don't you agree they should make it ready first before they try to get more people? Mythic and EA are both interesting companies, I remeber a dev video where they were talking about how awesome and grindfree crafting was in WAR. And how you could add things to make unique potions. Well it seems like on launch crafting was still a grind, the unique feature wasn't that "WOW" andThey also promised this and that and they didn't quite deliver.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
It's funny listening to the fans in this thread. Aren't you the ones saying the game is great? That things have completely turned around since launch? Now you are saying the game isn't even ready for a free trial?
So if people pay to play the game, you think they will say it is great? But if they don't have to pay, then somehow they will be disappointed with the game?
If you can't recommend the game for a free trial, how can you expect people to pay for the game?
I would be careful about pointing out faults by EA/Mythic. Funcom is guilty of twice as many lies. But, I do not want to argue Funcom stuff here. I am just really worried that AoC is going to tank even further once the trial goes widespread, and Funcom will still be fixing little issues like it being Midnight every time a customer logs in...silly really.
And believe me...if they wait for DX10, after what I have seen on TL? Then yes...they might as well go Tabula Rasa on us.
I'm using one of my buddy keys now to check out how things are and frankly, not playing that much. Having to do Tortage again and even then getting out just seeing the same 3 starter areas. Vets won't come back unless they can re-activate their old accounts and fire up their old characters. 7 days of redoing the beginning of AoC isn't going to convice a vet. Also on a buddy key I have no access to OOC/Regional Chat nor can I send /tells though that may be a bug. So its not doing a whole lot to convince me to come back. If no welcome back trial comes after they launch DX10 itd be hard to see any future interest.
Why should funcom push out free trials now? Would it not be better to do so when Dx10 is out and itemization patch is out as the itemization patch will quite possibly change a lot of the gameplay. Pushing trials out can go both ways, if the game isn't good enough people ain't going to get a new trial to test it with next patch. And seeing one of the mayor things people were saying was bad was in fact itemization it don't make any sense to throw out trials now, if they want to win back the ones who left it's better to do so when they have fixed the itemization patch so that the ones who left just for that reason will see a change.
It's good enough to charge people a monthly fee to play, so um...
This.
WTF happened to the legion of people who came back to a perfect game 6-9 months after leaving and everything was fixed and is just amazing now and worth paying subscriptions to and worth posting a new thread to tell the tale?
********************************
For War...this is more of a pilot program, they let the gamespy or whatever people try the game in open beta too....AoC will probably botch the mergers anyway and lock players in Tortage like Beta and make them pay money to download the client.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
Problem with AoC is the game was woefully incomplete at launch. I don't mean buggy, I mean incomplete. There was so much half finished stuff all over the place. Quest givers who had no quests, places you could see but not go to cause of invisible walls, bare-bones chat and market interfaces, etc... The problem became worse because they had no test server at launch either so basically they were trying to complete development in a live environment. People started getting angry. FC didn't want to admit stuff was incomplete so when people started to complain about stuff instead of saying, "wait, its not done" they said, "Ok we'll change." So now they're changing the scope of the game while they are trying to fix it all in a live environment. This of course just led to a buggier and more frustrating experience for players who had to play not knowing if AoC would ever meet its pre-launch hype, but frankly because FC seemed to be making up new things, couldn't even be sure anymore what the game was supposed to be like.
Its no surprise that as we close in on a year after launch the game is not considered to be in a state to lure new subscribers with a free trial.
Oooh... 13 posts on his first day here with the name "Darkfall01" and dissing AoC.
Obvious Trolls are Obvious.
Oooh... 13 posts on his first day here with the name "Darkfall01" and dissing AoC.
Obvious Trolls are Obvious.
It's funny listening to the fans in this thread. Aren't you the ones saying the game is great? That things have completely turned around since launch? Now you are saying the game isn't even ready for a free trial?
So if people pay to play the game, you think they will say it is great? But if they don't have to pay, then somehow they will be disappointed with the game?
If you can't recommend the game for a free trial, how can you expect people to pay for the game?
Ooh, 515 posts with many months here with the name "Bruticus_XI" and dissing AoC.
Obvious Trolls are Obvious.
Hint: If you can't offer a logical response to the argument, don't say anything at all.
a) why do people care about dx10? dx9 looks great, way better than the engine being used for most games. especially in the animation department. there are a lot of games in this thread with REALLY buggy animations and interface issues.
b) funcom isnt going anywhere. the BEST thing they ever did was let godager walk out. hes a fantastic designer but he was always a walking calamity in any kind of a production role. hes just not a manager. Morrisson is a fantastic manager. a proven track record for results and hell, hes not even had the job 6 months and just like when he took over anarchy online, huge things, quality things, happen fast.
liam gallagher once said "its not about selling records, its about being real". the same applies to the gaming industry. personally i dont give 2 craps what the most popular game is. 90% of all mmo's out there are the same exact game with a different skin anyway. im kinda digging what aoc brings to the table gameplay wise.
it may not be for everyone, but then again, neither is your mom.
Games i'm playing right now...
"In short, I thought NGE was a very bad idea" - Raph Koster talking about NGE on his blog at raphkoster.com
FC will not do free trials untilk they are sure they will garner at least a 10% retention from said trial.
Just out of curiosity does anyone know if FC is stil charging a fee to DL a buddy trial? If so I would have to say they are penny wise and pound foolish as the old saying goes.
In regard to WAR, I could really give a damn myself. I tried it for a couple of hours in the open beta phase but could not get into the graphics style and the overall game world. It may or may not be a good game but it just wasn't for me. Might surprise some here but I prefer AoC over WAR if I had to pick one or the other.
Oh and I agree with the poster above me. AoC looks great in DX9, DX10 is not all that much better. There is a thread in the LoTRO forums with 2 movies one did in DX9 and and the other in DX10. The water and shadows are better in DX10, but the DX9 is still a great looking game. Same with the AoC DX10. Other than the water and some fog effects, the DX9 is just as good.
I miss DAoC
Oooh... 13 posts on his first day here with the name "Darkfall01" and dissing AoC.
Obvious Trolls are Obvious.
It's funny listening to the fans in this thread. Aren't you the ones saying the game is great? That things have completely turned around since launch? Now you are saying the game isn't even ready for a free trial?
Assumption on your part. Show me where I stated I was "pro" or "against" AoC at all?
So if people pay to play the game, you think they will say it is great? But if they don't have to pay, then somehow they will be disappointed with the game?
If you can't recommend the game for a free trial, how can you expect people to pay for the game?
Ooh, 515 posts with many months here with the name "Bruticus_XI" and dissing AoC.
Obvious Trolls are Obvious.
Apparently, my statement to "Darkfall01" flew WAY over your head.
Hint: If you can't offer a logical response to the argument, don't say anything at all.
Your "advice" hasn't stopped a vast majority of the AoC trolls from posting.
both games need to put out free trials to get some new blood in. its imo one of the best ways to get new players to try out your game. i think age of conan needs it more than warhammer cuz they have less subs but really both games need it pretty badly
Yeah, if you don't have the discs they charge you 2.99 to d/l the client but you get 3 extra days (10 instead of 7) but as I said earlier, if your a vet, you're not going to enjoy doing tortage again and you're not going to see anything new anyway during the trial unless you power level.
EA has higher expectations than Funcom. Simply put. WAR also has more pressure being EA labelled.
AoC is ready to play now, worth the money each month imo. Servers are at decent levels.
WAR wasn't worth past the 1st month for me. Might try it again in the future though.
AoC is not ready for those people that left because they wanted DX10. Fact. When DX10 comes in and maybe before or just after Patch 1.05. I guess we will see a staggered trial launch. Most likely free digital distibution via the regular sites for a period of time.
They may just wait till Easter (April 12) at which point DX10 will be out, Patch 1.05 will be nearly ready to go (hopefully) at which point those people on the trial will see a nicely times new patch to launch with a whole high level playfield area coupled with the massive re-itemization project. Will be giving a good reason to stay subbed.