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Lets give this a shot after a year of time to polish itself :)
Warjin
Member UncommonPosts: 1,216
I'm downloading the tryout after over a year for the first time.
OK before I start, I listed the reasons why I never tried this game in the past until now and I'm sure It's also the reason for many others as well.
1.Main reason was the system specs, WAAAYYY to high for It's time, not counting the 30 gigs HD space It hogs up.
2.I was to caught up in WoW, Yes WoW, I mean It was the middle of BC no game was going grab me from Outland at the time.
3.Other peoples Options, Really, If the game isn't WoW then all else sucks, Well that's was the mind set of 99.999999999% of all WoW players at that time. I mean GOD forbid they change the combat system to involve person skill over face rolling. In the Post WoW Mmo industry here's the mind set, "If It isn't a WoW clone It's no good, If It is a WoW clone It's no good" Dammed If you do Dammed If you don't.
OK, so above where my main reasons for not trying AoC a year ago. As for others lets not forget the "BIG" reason for many, many players for not playing other then my main reasons, where/are the age requirements, I mean really there no way in hell I'm buy this game for my 10 year old son to play lol any respecting parent will not let there kids play AoC no matter how much they beg, So on that note Here's a "GUESStament",a GOOD 20/30% of the player base couldn't play because of age. Sounds about right to me, look at WoW, kids for the most part make up well over 50% of there player base, with a few pockets of adults that play and most with there kids like myself.
Comments
Excuse me, AoC's combat requires skill? No dear sir, not even those "MMOFPS" with characters that actually got huge hitboxes and most abilities have huge AoE radius require skill(it's more like a dance of hypocrisy when you make this kind of combat).
I'm sorry but a AAA developer cannot release a shitty unfinished MMO and expect people to return.
Imo the game failed and now will settle for 100k subs forever.
If AoC was developed by an underfunded indy developer then maybe more people would have understood but Failcom has more than enough cash to release a quality game.
I expected more from a developer that created the Masterpiece Anarchy Online.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Well only one way for me to find out and that's to test It for myself, but I'll keep those thoughts in mind and try to take note when I try this game out in about 6 hours.
I love when people make totally ridiculous claims with no basis whatsoever.
Tell me one game that is stucked with the same amount of subs "forever". The market is changing every day, and each game is either going up or going down. AoC might increase in subs after expansion, but as well might come down. Claiming it is stucked with 100k subs forever is just absurd.
REALITY CHECK
I love when people make totally ridiculous claims with no basis whatsoever.
Tell me one game that is stucked with the same amount of subs "forever". The market is changing every day, and each game is either going up or going down. AoC might increase in subs after expansion, but as well might come down. Claiming it is stucked with 100k subs forever is just absurd.
So you actually think AoC will return to is Release form of 800k?
People don't forget and even less forgive a AAA developer enough to give them a second chance even if they offer a free trial.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
I love when people make totally ridiculous claims with no basis whatsoever.
Tell me one game that is stucked with the same amount of subs "forever". The market is changing every day, and each game is either going up or going down. AoC might increase in subs after expansion, but as well might come down. Claiming it is stucked with 100k subs forever is just absurd.
So you actually think AoC will return to is Release form of 800k?
People don't forget and even less forgive a AAA developer enough to give them a second chance even if they offer a free trial.
Ok your only counter-argument was to say "So you expect it to get back to 800k and 'beat wow'"?
It's not only black or white. There are many more options in between you know.
After the expansion it can easily end up with 150-200k or even 300k. If then they manage to bring in some free to play model for certain zones and pay for additional ones (the game is instanced afterall) it might go above 300k. But as well, the expansion might turn up badly and AoC can go below 100k to 50k. We can speculate.
You claimed it is stucked with 100k forever which is absurd.
REALITY CHECK
I love when people make totally ridiculous claims with no basis whatsoever.
Tell me one game that is stucked with the same amount of subs "forever". The market is changing every day, and each game is either going up or going down. AoC might increase in subs after expansion, but as well might come down. Claiming it is stucked with 100k subs forever is just absurd.
So you actually think AoC will return to is Release form of 800k?
People don't forget and even less forgive a AAA developer enough to give them a second chance even if they offer a free trial.
I actually agree with Trill...the subs are not staying the same, they have always been going down.....actually there was a huge drop in players recently and Funcom is projecting fewer player. So the game is still driving away players and people who retry it as this is the second free trial and both have failed to gain new players as stated in the financial report and the lower revenue projections for next quarter.
Also 100k subs would blow my mind...Funcom should post 100k subs and claim victory today because this title had that but not anymore.
@OP a lot of people gave it a shot a few months when there were free trials and win backs and the game lost players...this game has nothing special aside from graphics, Funcom should focus on fixing mechanics, gameplay, and content. It also looks like the expansion will be released to early as a response to AoC's bleeding of players.....that move seems to be the nail in AoC's coffin.
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
I love when people make totally ridiculous claims with no basis whatsoever.
Tell me one game that is stucked with the same amount of subs "forever". The market is changing every day, and each game is either going up or going down. AoC might increase in subs after expansion, but as well might come down. Claiming it is stucked with 100k subs forever is just absurd.
So you actually think AoC will return to is Release form of 800k?
People don't forget and even less forgive a AAA developer enough to give them a second chance even if they offer a free trial.
Ok your only counter-argument was to say "So you expect it to get back to 800k and 'beat wow'"?
It's not only black or white. There are many more options in between you know.
After the expansion it can easily end up with 150-200k or even 300k. If then they manage to bring in some free to play model for certain zones and pay for additional ones (the game is instanced afterall) it might go above 300k. But as well, the expansion might turn up badly and AoC can go below 100k to 50k. We can speculate.
You claimed it is stucked with 100k forever which is absurd.
Tell you what If AoC ever breaks the 300k mark Ill eat my own shit, record it and put it on youtube.
This is how much I know AoC is shit and will always be shit to anyone but the 50-100k hardcore conan fans in the game.
Send me a forum mail when they officially release those numbers k?
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
The AOC melee combat isn't exactly innovative BUT its more interactive and interesting to play than just a single click style combat system. Unfortunately FC, in their infinite wisdom, decided not to put in a similar concept for casters. Which is a shame for those of us who enjoy that playstyle.
The crafting / harvesting / economy system is sorely under-developed, and unless I'm mistaken it still is (I haven't played AOC for 4 months). FC don't consider it as a "mini-game" (that is straight from the devs mouths), which is a shame because it could have stolen ideas from other games to make that part of the game more interesting.
Sadly, end game has still to be largely addressed. There are some nice group dungeons which (unlike WoW) have interactive traps in them for groups to overcome. There's not much to do at L80 when solo'ing. Raiding has been screaming out for Tier 3 now for almost a year. Unfortunately the itemisation project that FC had to undertake with the game set it back at least 12 months in development. Which has obviously had a knock-on effect to the other parts of the game that require attention. Whether T3 will attract players back when it (finally) releases is a sure bet, but whether it keeps players playing for longer than a month is unknown.
The game world takes some getting used to. Ignoring the fact that it's instanced (which in itself doesn't bother me), the zones are spread apart. So changing from one zone to another zooms you across the face of the country. FC seem to not want to develop this part of the original game but instead make sure that the expansion doesn't do it. At least they took note for the expansion.
On the plus side, FC finally got rid of the larger quest-less gaps in the levels. So leveling is now a more complete experience. Some of the zones are very nice, the music is awesome too. Although it does get a little repetitive at times. The group dungeons during leveling are particularly nice such as the Sanctum of Burning Souls and the Amphitheatre in Ymirs Pass.
In conclusion, I believe that AOC is a natural progression from WoW for those who are bored with Blizzard's game. So sure give AOC a try. It's certainly different, although under-developed in a lot of areas. Areas which FC seem incapable or unwilling to change.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
I love when people make totally ridiculous claims with no basis whatsoever.
Tell me one game that is stucked with the same amount of subs "forever". The market is changing every day, and each game is either going up or going down. AoC might increase in subs after expansion, but as well might come down. Claiming it is stucked with 100k subs forever is just absurd.
So you actually think AoC will return to is Release form of 800k?
People don't forget and even less forgive a AAA developer enough to give them a second chance even if they offer a free trial.
Ok your only counter-argument was to say "So you expect it to get back to 800k and 'beat wow'"?
It's not only black or white. There are many more options in between you know.
After the expansion it can easily end up with 150-200k or even 300k. If then they manage to bring in some free to play model for certain zones and pay for additional ones (the game is instanced afterall) it might go above 300k. But as well, the expansion might turn up badly and AoC can go below 100k to 50k. We can speculate.
You claimed it is stucked with 100k forever which is absurd.
Tell you what If AoC ever breaks the 300k mark Ill eat my own shit, record it and put it on youtube.
This is how much I know AoC is shit and will always be shit to anyone but the 50-100k hardcore conan fans in the game.
Send me a forum mail when they officially release those numbers k?
I'm sorry, how old are you? Why am I actually talking to you? I hope the rest of the readers got my point if you couldn't.
REALITY CHECK
I love when people make totally ridiculous claims with no basis whatsoever.
Tell me one game that is stucked with the same amount of subs "forever". The market is changing every day, and each game is either going up or going down. AoC might increase in subs after expansion, but as well might come down. Claiming it is stucked with 100k subs forever is just absurd.
So you actually think AoC will return to is Release form of 800k?
People don't forget and even less forgive a AAA developer enough to give them a second chance even if they offer a free trial.
Ok your only counter-argument was to say "So you expect it to get back to 800k and 'beat wow'"?
It's not only black or white. There are many more options in between you know.
After the expansion it can easily end up with 150-200k or even 300k. If then they manage to bring in some free to play model for certain zones and pay for additional ones (the game is instanced afterall) it might go above 300k. But as well, the expansion might turn up badly and AoC can go below 100k to 50k. We can speculate.
You claimed it is stucked with 100k forever which is absurd.
Tell you what If AoC ever breaks the 300k mark Ill eat my own shit, record it and put it on youtube.
This is how much I know AoC is shit and will always be shit to anyone but the 50-100k hardcore conan fans in the game.
Send me a forum mail when they officially release those numbers k?
Precisely, if AoC reaches over 300k numbers, I'll eat my own shit too. Please send me an e-mail when the numbers are offically released.
the only way it will get up to 300k again is if the expansion is free.
After a few months it surely will be free for those who will let's say resubscribe for 3 months.
REALITY CHECK
I love when people make totally ridiculous claims with no basis whatsoever.
Tell me one game that is stucked with the same amount of subs "forever". The market is changing every day, and each game is either going up or going down. AoC might increase in subs after expansion, but as well might come down. Claiming it is stucked with 100k subs forever is just absurd.
So you actually think AoC will return to is Release form of 800k?
People don't forget and even less forgive a AAA developer enough to give them a second chance even if they offer a free trial.
Ok your only counter-argument was to say "So you expect it to get back to 800k and 'beat wow'"?
It's not only black or white. There are many more options in between you know.
After the expansion it can easily end up with 150-200k or even 300k. If then they manage to bring in some free to play model for certain zones and pay for additional ones (the game is instanced afterall) it might go above 300k. But as well, the expansion might turn up badly and AoC can go below 100k to 50k. We can speculate.
You claimed it is stucked with 100k forever which is absurd.
Tell you what If AoC ever breaks the 300k mark Ill eat my own shit, record it and put it on youtube.
This is how much I know AoC is shit and will always be shit to anyone but the 50-100k hardcore conan fans in the game.
Send me a forum mail when they officially release those numbers k?
I'm sorry, how old are you? Why am I actually talking to you? I hope the rest of the readers got my point if you couldn't.
It doesn't matter what your point is. The fact is that Funcom should have never released a unfinshed product. Players expected more from them and the low population that AoC has is a good thing. It shows them how not to release a mmo and maybe the next MMOs they release will release in a finished state.
With as much competition in todays market noone is going to give you a second chance.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
That is your assumption. The market works a bit differently tho. You have to realize, that except WoW and EVE, all games losed majority of their "customers" that bought the original box. Even Aion - based on xfire activity - dropped by 75% of the activity at the release day (and it's been out for only what.. 2-3 months?) AoC dropped by 90%, WAR 90%, and I can go on. Just check it out by yourself.
There's been lots of customers that jumped into MMORPG genre that previously managed to finish a single player game within a few weeks or a month. These sort of players will never be as loyal as you think, and quit game early. The loyal playerbase is actually that 10% which we can see in AoC or WAR. That however doesn't mean, that with strong expansion and solid marketing campaign, AoC couldn't jump back to 300k for a while and then slowly decline (down back again to around 80k), until the next expansion.
REALITY CHECK
My issue is that AoC has clearly gotten better since it's release yet the games population is around 75-100k with no indication of climbing.
That alone should show Funcom that it's make or break time at release.
People don't forget. Honestly im surprised more don't agree with me, yourself included we shouldn't support games that release like that. It's not like Funcom is some poor indy company.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
My issue is that AoC has clearly gotten better since it's release yet the games population is around 75-100k with no indication of climbing.
That alone should show Funcom that it's make or break time at release.
People don't forget. Honestly im surprised more don't agree with me, yourself included we shouldn't support games that release like that. It's not like Funcom is some poor indy company.
People do forget and actually they barely remember what's the name of the company behind. We are not talking about the minority that visits forums regularly, but about the majority that doesn't. They jump on every bandwagon going on. If what you said is true, people should abandon Turbine for good, because of their fiasco around Asheron's Call 2. Fact is, people hardly know it nowadays.
It wasn't Funcom's developers who decided to release it at its state. Funcom has its investors and it is publicly owned company since 2005. They were pushed to release early just like WAR from EA, Vanguard due to lack of funds, etc. I have no hard feelings against Funcom developers which actually bothered to make a game unique in some aspects.
I don't expect releases to be perfect. I am not a console player and I never will be.
REALITY CHECK
While obviously every game gets declines and aion had one too xfire is useless to show statistics with.
Let's see:
As you can see from the number of users there is only say what yeah 5.6k users that use aion while playing pretty accurate to use as statistic..
While obviously every game gets declines and aion had one too xfire is useless to show statistics with.
Let's see:
As you can see from the number of users there is only say what yeah 5.6k users that use aion while playing pretty accurate to use as statistic..
That is pretty good and it is holding stronger than AoC and Warhammer...during free trials AOC spiked up to 2k users per day and now it is back down to 600 recently. The big thing is it seems fewer players picked up Aion than the other two and it lost a smaller percent so far ----IMO it is do to the longer leveling curve.
LOTR which I though was supposed to be a lame MMO on par with pirates of the caribean actually gained Subscribers. Guildwars seemed to do the same thing.
-----------------
AoC and AIon are about to get subscribers stolen from the new Final Fantasy MMO and then all of them will get subs stolen from Guildwars and then KoTor...and after that it looks clear. AFter Aion, I'm good on MMOs till Blizzard creates a new one...as Blizzard seems to understand how to create "Content" now in the forms of raids and instances unlike every other MMO.
--------------------
Funcom spent to little time bug fixing and did it to slowly when they had opertunity to save the game:
A steller PvP system that is also fun would have saved the game.
Faster implementation of itemization patch.......let's be honest, the top players are loot whores.
ENDGAME stuff....they should have just thrown in whatever they had planned for the expansion if it was a dungean.
Fix sieges......Aion and Warhammer have sieges and they both worked well enough compared to AoC today.
Class mechanics.......revamp to optomize for PvP and PvE and then do steady balance patches.
------------------------
I'm one person but I could plant all that in a week and the 100 or so employees they claim are working on AoC original and expansion could have easily knocked it out in 3 months.
-----------------------
If Funcom can move over 200k boxes of the expansion and can announce that they have over 150k subs the following quarter I will never post anything about Funcom again because I will have lost all hope in MMO players. However, do you think players will by this buggy low content expansion after they hear reports from beta testers if they were burned on the original?
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
This is way off.
1. Aion at release had 80k hours played. And now has 25k. Which is around 70% loss.
2. Age of Conan at release had 25k hours played. Now around 2500. Which is 90% loss.
3. Warhammer had around 30k hours played at release. Now around 2200.
LOTRO doesn't matter, they offered lifetime offer worth of 12 months of subscribtion, so it's easy to assume most of the hours played is made of lifetimers.
REALITY CHECK
You can't use hours played......just use unique users per day.
majornelson.com/archive/2009/11/17/live-activity-for-week-of-nov-9th.aspx
www.zap2it.com/tv/ratings/zap-nielsen-weekly,0,4143049,results.formprofile
Video games and Television use unique viewers and it is even more important in video games.
I was one of the first level 50s in Aion I played 18 hrs a day the first week along with many and watched people play less and less as that is not sustainable. I play 4 hrs a day now and I'm solid, about the best geared atm and I'm close to being 100% golds...just need to finish a quest line and PvP a couple of days na.aiononline.com/livestatus/character-legion/search
I leveled this game...people put way way more hours into the leveling here than the other games for some reason. I'm speaking about the top players, the ones ahead of the curve.
Don't mind the guildtag I left the number one guild after the recruited a bot.www.aionsource.com/forum/triniel-east/88699-empyrean-management-love-botters.html
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
I dont get what you are comparing, but again it seems completely rubbish (no offense :> ). Indeed even if people kept their subscribtion open, their activity probably generally went down since release. The same applies to AoC. It's not just a perk of you or solely Aion.
Xfire shows hours played, and I know Aion had 80k hours played at release while AoC had 25k at release. Aion lost 70% of hours activity, and AoC lost 90% activity. While Aion is out 2 months, AoC is out for a year and half. You said AoC had higher activity on release, which obviously was wrong assumption if we compare the xfire activity of both.
REALITY CHECK
Hours are worthless...X fire states users per day and since I understand statistics and you and other AoC advocates seem to be at a loss.
X fire gives the users per day, I'm not sure why it goes by hours playedbut no other rating system uses hours played for good reason. When comparing MMO populations just do a daily check of users...just like the other two ratings sites,,,,,the television one uses a method just like X fire.
I know AIon in asia charges by the hour or something, maybe if Aion in america did AND AoC charged by the hour...but they do not.
---------------
You are trying to say Aion had more players and that isn't true to my knowledge as AoC and Warhammer moved record boxes and needed way more servers than AIon. You are also saying AoC kept way more activity so that works to my advantage but is not true:
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
I think you all are full of sheeeet...
1. Who cares how many damn subs a game has..its pointless to make any type of assumptions...because ass-outa-u-and-me..
2. The only thing that matters to the player is their own opinion of the state of the game..is it fun for me, do I like how my toon scratches him/herself, Are there enough players to make me feel comfortable..
Every time I see people on here whip out thier pocket calculators and epeens, it always brings a smile to my face because really...you are basing all your numbers on half-ass and no-ass data that could be true/ deflated/ inflated, until you have true support for your numbers...why even bother?
AoC has a lot of nice things in it...does it appeal to me..no, I love the necro class but after I played a few to max, I got burned out and went elsewhere...Is that Funcom's fault, yep but guess what, its happened in every game I have played to date..but that is me.
Releasing unfinished game - Every damn release is unfinished...you think they just whip out expansions out of the blue? Normally the 1st expansion has things that never made it to release so they get "included" into the expansion.
I have played 90-95% of all the beta / release of every major mmo...guess what they all had problems/bugs/crashes/unfinished parts.. so before you start bashing a game on just those type of things be aware your loved game had the same damn issues..
You know you are old when the dev's on the games you play are almost young enough to be your grand-kids.
You are terribly wrong in two things.
1) I am not AoC advocate.
2) Xfire does show hours played. Aion has currently around 30k (but by average it is around 25k - which is a 70% loss since release where it had 80k). While Age of Conan has 90% loss from 25k hours played to 2500 hours played. Where Aion has been released for 2 months, AoC was released for a year and half.
http://www.xfire.com/genre/mmo/massively_multiplayer_online/
notice the bar above between Title and Rank. Yes it states "Hours" and I was talking about hours solely.
REALITY CHECK