This is usually a good sign, really. It means they have some bugs and such and they ARE working them out and willing to sell it later in order to have the game polished before release.
As you saw from the press release, we've decided to delay the game until March 25, 2008. As you all understand, this is obviously one of the hardest decisions we could've made as a company, but this is done to ensure that you all the get the best possible experience when the game is done next March.
While we have seen that the overall reactions to our game has in general been extremely favorable, we as a company can only go for the best possible experience for our users. We are a MMO company, and we know that the only thing which matters when building a long-term community is the quality of the game. When our beta testers have come back to us with concerns in a couple of different areas, we have therefore been listening. The feedback has especially been on the entry barriers to the game, and how people are learning and coping with the combat system in the first few hours of gameplay. While most are having a fantastic time with it once they learn it, we also see that it is new and different to a lot of people, and that it takes longer to get into than what we have anticipated. This means that we need to ease the barrier, and make the first few hours of gameplay more accessible.
After careful consideration we have therefore decided that this must be improved for the overall good of the game. We are now putting considerable extra efforts into improving the game, despite the fact that a whole world is raving about the qualities of what we have shown them. It was not an easy decision to make, but we felt it was necessary, both for you and ourselves.
We would also like to point out that the pushback does not affect the beta. General beta is currently ongoing, it will still go on in the weeks and months to come (and escalate) and invitations will continue to go out. As a part of this, rest assured that Funcom will continue to listen to our beta testers, who are an invaluable source of honest feedback, and that we together will create a special game.
A lot of you have shown an incredible amount of patience with us through the production process and we appreciate it tremendously. These next few months will give us time to deliver to you what you want as bad as us; a great MMO game.
WAR will be released first and will take alot of the unwanted kids that might otherwise strayed to aoc while the mature audience will have even better game to play on march.
if they need the extra time to develop then they have fonud a few bugs they need to work on.. its a long time i was hoping for a release before xmas but there we go..
Being a WAR fan I really hope you guys ignore the troll. The animosity between WAR and AoC is retarded and needs to stop. Both games look to be excellent and it is possible to like both.
Both games will come out at around the same time and there is plenty of market to support both of them... waving around the fanboy epeens does nothing to promote either game.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Being a WAR fan I really hope you guys ignore the troll. The animosity between WAR and AoC is retarded and needs to stop. Both games look to be excellent and it is possible to like both. Both games will come out at around the same time and there is plenty of market to support both of them... waving around the fanboy epeens does nothing to promote either game.
Support both? Maybe. But that both will have over 500k subs, when release at the same time? Never ever. Dont forget, they both target not a niche audience, they both targeting the whole market, and no question about it, it will be hard for both games. Or did you have ever seen a release of two good mmos at the same time, which have done both very well? I am at least not. And by they way, for all other games releasing in this time frame, too.
Being a WAR fan I really hope you guys ignore the troll. The animosity between WAR and AoC is retarded and needs to stop. Both games look to be excellent and it is possible to like both. Both games will come out at around the same time and there is plenty of market to support both of them... waving around the fanboy epeens does nothing to promote either game.
Support both? Maybe. But that both will have over 500k subs, when release at the same time? Never ever. Dont forget, they both target not a niche audience, they both targeting the whole market, and no question about it, it will be hard for both games. Or did you have ever seen a release of two good mmos at the same time, which have done both very well? I am at least not. And by they way, for all other games releasing in this time frame, too.
I think your expectations are way off. Not many P2P MMOs have ever reached 500K let alone initial subscriptions. Everyone hears WoWs numbers and they do not realize how out of sink they are to the rest of the market. Both games should have over 75K in the first month and over 200K in the first 3 months. Those are successful MMO numbers. I expect both to reach around 350K - 500K after a year... again very successful anything over that amount is gravy for the companies.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Ok.. no doubt, both will have over 75k subs. I agree with it. But to be honest, i expect a lot more subs for war. It is WoW 2, and will be the next big success, when i look at the hype all over the world.
Do i think both will have over 350k after a year? War most problably.. AoC.. maybe. But however.. we will see.
And the main point i have at the moment.. i really guess, that the production costs of both were most probably higher than for almost any other mmorpg before, so it could not enough to have just 200k. However, this is just my guess, and could be wrong.
Ok.. no doubt, both will have over 75k subs. I agree with it. But to be honest, i expect a lot more subs for war. It is WoW 2, and will be the next big success, when i look at the hype all over the world. Do i think both will have over 350k after a year? War most problably.. AoC.. maybe. But however.. we will see. And the main point i have at the moment.. i really guess, that the production costs of both were most probably higher than for almost any other mmorpg before, so it could not enough to have just 200k. However, this is just my guess, and could be wrong.
I completely agree that WAR will have more subscribers... it is more attractive to the casual gamer. I can see the initial cost being higher for the development but I don't think it would be by much. If both can maintain subscribers for 1year around the 300K mark they both should prove profitable enough to make the companies happy. Most MMOs now can stay afloat with 100K subscribers... while the development may cost more the bandwidth and server costs will be more comparable to todays market. If anything is would push of profits by a few months.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
NOOOOO!!!!!! I have been waiting for a pvp mmo for ages and AoC is soooo CLOSE! now DELAYEDDDDDDDD. My life is destroyedddd. 2008??? omfg
Hrhr.. i have not played a mmorpg since almost 2 years.. so yeah, i am on your side. Will even release one good game this year, or is 2007 almost the same crap year like 2006 with no release worth to mention? (and no LotRO and Vanguard are not worth mentioning)
Good question! Maybe changing something about the graphics so that you don't need a dx10 card to play it? I know that'd be a barrier for me
My guess is that the graphics end of things plays a role since gamers are reluctant at best to even touch Vista, so the game has to be solid on dx9 or it won't do as well in the market as they likely hope.
I also look at that as possibly meaning that after a lot of testing people think it's taking too long to get through the initial 20 levels of single player before the game opens up as an actual MMO. If that portion of the game takes too long then it will also likely turn a lot of potential subscribers away. Again, just another guess of course.
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
I was confident for the end of October release, so when I just woke up and read this on the my guild forums I was:
1st. Oh WTF etc etc then
2nd After a few mins, I released that this is a good thing for quite a few reasons.
Funcom DOES listen to the community (esp Beta testers) and constructive crititism.
With everyone on here ranting and raving that its going to be like VG the extra time will help to make it not so.
Can anyone whing / whine now that they haven't had enough BETA time (compared to other games) with the release now March 25th 2008?
Looks like AoC is going to have 7 more months plus of General Beta now
If feedback is because of the nature of the game, especially at the start - easing people into it makes sense more.
All those people saving for a new PC or an Upgrade can now get more for thier money and new technology coming out.
This is a "Games for Windows" title, so 7 more months of optimizing isn't going to do any harm is it, especially when you consider Vista if you have it.
Its forward thinking to make the "best game you can" so if it takes a delay to do that then so be it.
Where is the Troll who says Funcom is in financial trouble now? To be able to continue developement for an additional 5 months doesn't say trouble to me.
Release date is now 5 days before my 30th Birthday, I know what I can splash out on!
Been waiting for this game long enough, few more months doesn't bother me THAT much.
We get another 5 months worth of information now!
I just want the game to be the best the company can make, I want it to flourish and be a success. I'm kinda sad that it won't release this Autumn but its not like its not coming out!
I was confident for the end of October release, so when I just woke up and read this on the my guild forums I was: 1st. Oh WTF etc etc then 2nd After a few mins, I released that this is a good thing for quite a few reasons.
Funcom DOES listen to the community (esp Beta testers) and constructive crititism. With everyone on here ranting and raving that its going to be like VG the extra time will help to make it not so. Can anyone whing / whine now that they haven't had enough BETA time (compared to other games) with the release now March 25th 2008? Looks like AoC is going to have 7 more months plus of General Beta now If feedback is because of the nature of the game, especially at the start - easing people into it makes sense more. All those people saving for a new PC or an Upgrade can now get more for thier money and new technology coming out. This is a "Games for Windows" title, so 7 more months of optimizing isn't going to do any harm is it, especially when you consider Vista if you have it. Its forward thinking to make the "best game you can" so if it takes a delay to do that then so be it. Where is the Troll who says Funcom is in financial trouble now? To be able to continue developement for an additional 5 months doesn't say trouble to me. Release date is now 5 days before my 30th Birthday, I know what I can splash out on! Been waiting for this game long enough, few more months doesn't bother me THAT much. We get another 5 months worth of information now!
I just want the game to be the best the company can make, I want it to flourish and be a success. I'm kinda sad that it won't release this Autumn but its not like its not coming out!
Some of the whining you are talking about was constructive reasoning that went against the rabid fanboys. I hope the other thing this does is show you that being a little more open minded can cause less strife and more discussion. There were many that hoped to see this delay myself included. An October release was clearly going to end badly for funcom just like AO.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by atziluth
Some of the whining you are talking about was constructive reasoning that went against the rabid fanboys. I hope the other thing this does is show you that being a little more open minded can cause less strife and more discussion. There were many that hoped to see this delay myself included. An October release was clearly going to end badly for funcom just like AO.
Actually the trolls were arguing for argument's sake (Financial Citations etc etc). Crititism is good, but flat out attacks from all angles isn't. I would like to think I am more open minded that the "guy next door" - Hence my "Bug" post just the other day.
There are specifics that are being worked on not an overall new game. What was there was good, but the feedback was it needed refining and revamping more.
The changes we are making to the combat system are not a "dumbing down" in any way. We are tweaking the GUI/interaction system pretty heavily, but the fundamentals and mechanics are staying the basically the same.
Additionally, the changes to the overall interaction with the combat system are allowing us to extend the implications of combos and multiple situational combos in more advanced ways that were not very practical with the old system. In the end, this will probably end up with a more intricate high-end gameplay experience than currently, even though our goal is to tweak the system to make it easier to learn early in the game.
Many of the learning-curve changes will not have a dramatic effect later in the game, as we are simply phasing some things in over time in addition to the control tweaks. Generally speaking, I like the control tweaks far better and they are a nice iteration on the existing system.
I was enjoying the existing system very much, however it did have a couple minor flaws in addition to being a little hard to learn. Experienced usage of it was generally quite fluid, as I was very comfortable with it in my playtests by now--however the testing did expose many things we could tweak or improve in small ways. The changes incoming are more a collection of many, many small tweaks than they are a "revamp", so to speak.
This didn't really have anything to do with gamepads or such like that, it was mostly other issues that have lead us to look at tweaking things further. We view the combat system as the critical point of the game, and are working extremely hard to make sure it is simply as good as possible before release.
I'm actually not going to comment on the reasons or decisions in regard to the delay. It's really not my area and I'm not really the person in a position to answer those questions. Please direct those inquiries to Pharamond.
I was just trying to clarify some questions in regard to what changes to the combat system were being implied and reassure people that the system is not being "dumbed down" from our goals.
That's funny, though not surprising. Everyone that wasn't blindly trumpeting this game knew about this months ago. A few weeks ago, wasn't Funcom saying there were no problems at all with development that would impact the release date? Everything was on schedule? That all the systems were in and finished, and they were just in the tweaking stage?
That everything they weren't showing was because they want to 'save some of the secrets for an exciting release' and not because the game wasn't finished?
Was that all just more lies? How do you go from 'practically finished' to 'we need 5+ more months to develop?' in just a few days?
Why the hell do you think everyone's been asking for funcom to provide proof of these systems? No its not cause they are trolling, its because we know it isn't done.
Fanboys need to wake the hell up and stop rationalizing everything bad that happens. Their own hype has adversely affected their brains. When funcom thinks that they can shove anything out on the market regardless of quality and the fans will eat it up, they will do so. Which is why fans hurt this game without even realizing it.
I agree this delay is a good thing. Funcom could have released it unfinished and tricked people into buying it, like they did with AO, but they didn't. Maybe all the people asking for proof made an impact on their decision, since that tells them their previous sales techniques would not fly. I'm just glad I could do my part to make AoC a better game at release
Actually the trolls were arguing for argument's sake (Financial Citations etc etc). Crititism is good, but flat out attacks from all angles isn't. I would like to think I am more open minded that the "guy next door" - Hence my "Bug" post just the other day.
Lol - you fanbios in AoC have weak and sucky trolls compared to us in Darkfall. If you handed this kind of information to our trolls we would be on page 21 by now.
Edit: Wasn't AoC delayed due to DX10 (or so they say) when it happed to be released in the time of WoW/BC ? Now they are publishing near WAR release. Does that mean they are taking on WAR for real ? Sounds like tactics more than ingame issues to me...
--- And when we got more women on the team, it was like No, no, no. We need puppies and horses in there. John Smedley, SOE
Comments
Isn't WAR slated for release at around the same time now?
I think around same time......but you better off getting War. It's gonna be the better game
.
- Flame shield on!!
This is usually a good sign, really. It means they have some bugs and such and they ARE working them out and willing to sell it later in order to have the game polished before release.
forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php
As you saw from the press release, we've decided to delay the game until March 25, 2008. As you all understand, this is obviously one of the hardest decisions we could've made as a company, but this is done to ensure that you all the get the best possible experience when the game is done next March.
While we have seen that the overall reactions to our game has in general been extremely favorable, we as a company can only go for the best possible experience for our users. We are a MMO company, and we know that the only thing which matters when building a long-term community is the quality of the game. When our beta testers have come back to us with concerns in a couple of different areas, we have therefore been listening. The feedback has especially been on the entry barriers to the game, and how people are learning and coping with the combat system in the first few hours of gameplay. While most are having a fantastic time with it once they learn it, we also see that it is new and different to a lot of people, and that it takes longer to get into than what we have anticipated. This means that we need to ease the barrier, and make the first few hours of gameplay more accessible.
After careful consideration we have therefore decided that this must be improved for the overall good of the game. We are now putting considerable extra efforts into improving the game, despite the fact that a whole world is raving about the qualities of what we have shown them. It was not an easy decision to make, but we felt it was necessary, both for you and ourselves.
We would also like to point out that the pushback does not affect the beta. General beta is currently ongoing, it will still go on in the weeks and months to come (and escalate) and invitations will continue to go out. As a part of this, rest assured that Funcom will continue to listen to our beta testers, who are an invaluable source of honest feedback, and that we together will create a special game.
A lot of you have shown an incredible amount of patience with us through the production process and we appreciate it tremendously. These next few months will give us time to deliver to you what you want as bad as us; a great MMO game.
Thanks,
The Funcom Team
Isn't WAR slated for release at around the same time now?
I think around same time......but you better off getting War. It's gonna be the better game
.
- Flame shield on!!
WAR will be released first and will take alot of the unwanted kids that might otherwise strayed to aoc while the mature audience will have even better game to play on march.
I like it.
gutted and happy i guess...
if they need the extra time to develop then they have fonud a few bugs they need to work on.. its a long time i was hoping for a release before xmas but there we go..
Being a WAR fan I really hope you guys ignore the troll. The animosity between WAR and AoC is retarded and needs to stop. Both games look to be excellent and it is possible to like both.
Both games will come out at around the same time and there is plenty of market to support both of them... waving around the fanboy epeens does nothing to promote either game.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Support both? Maybe. But that both will have over 500k subs, when release at the same time? Never ever. Dont forget, they both target not a niche audience, they both targeting the whole market, and no question about it, it will be hard for both games. Or did you have ever seen a release of two good mmos at the same time, which have done both very well? I am at least not. And by they way, for all other games releasing in this time frame, too.
Support both? Maybe. But that both will have over 500k subs, when release at the same time? Never ever. Dont forget, they both target not a niche audience, they both targeting the whole market, and no question about it, it will be hard for both games. Or did you have ever seen a release of two good mmos at the same time, which have done both very well? I am at least not. And by they way, for all other games releasing in this time frame, too.
I think your expectations are way off. Not many P2P MMOs have ever reached 500K let alone initial subscriptions. Everyone hears WoWs numbers and they do not realize how out of sink they are to the rest of the market. Both games should have over 75K in the first month and over 200K in the first 3 months. Those are successful MMO numbers. I expect both to reach around 350K - 500K after a year... again very successful anything over that amount is gravy for the companies.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Ok.. no doubt, both will have over 75k subs. I agree with it. But to be honest, i expect a lot more subs for war. It is WoW 2, and will be the next big success, when i look at the hype all over the world.
Do i think both will have over 350k after a year? War most problably.. AoC.. maybe. But however.. we will see.
And the main point i have at the moment.. i really guess, that the production costs of both were most probably higher than for almost any other mmorpg before, so it could not enough to have just 200k. However, this is just my guess, and could be wrong.
I completely agree that WAR will have more subscribers... it is more attractive to the casual gamer. I can see the initial cost being higher for the development but I don't think it would be by much. If both can maintain subscribers for 1year around the 300K mark they both should prove profitable enough to make the companies happy. Most MMOs now can stay afloat with 100K subscribers... while the development may cost more the bandwidth and server costs will be more comparable to todays market. If anything is would push of profits by a few months.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Well i´m interesed in AOC and WAR and i will try the first one launched.
Those who REALLY wanted to play AoC, still will, and the possibility that they'll love it will be 5 times bigger.
I'm disappointed
Hope AoC not gonna be like STALKER(many years of developing and crap in the end)
NOOOOO!!!!!! I have been waiting for a pvp mmo for ages and AoC is soooo CLOSE! now DELAYEDDDDDDDD. My life is destroyedddd. 2008??? omfg
sigh
Hrhr.. i have not played a mmorpg since almost 2 years.. so yeah, i am on your side. Will even release one good game this year, or is 2007 almost the same crap year like 2006 with no release worth to mention? (and no LotRO and Vanguard are not worth mentioning)
Good question! Maybe changing something about the graphics so that you don't need a dx10 card to play it? I know that'd be a barrier for me
My guess is that the graphics end of things plays a role since gamers are reluctant at best to even touch Vista, so the game has to be solid on dx9 or it won't do as well in the market as they likely hope.
I also look at that as possibly meaning that after a lot of testing people think it's taking too long to get through the initial 20 levels of single player before the game opens up as an actual MMO. If that portion of the game takes too long then it will also likely turn a lot of potential subscribers away. Again, just another guess of course.
I was confident for the end of October release, so when I just woke up and read this on the my guild forums I was:
1st. Oh WTF etc etc then
2nd After a few mins, I released that this is a good thing for quite a few reasons.
I just want the game to be the best the company can make, I want it to flourish and be a success. I'm kinda sad that it won't release this Autumn but its not like its not coming out!
Some of the whining you are talking about was constructive reasoning that went against the rabid fanboys. I hope the other thing this does is show you that being a little more open minded can cause less strife and more discussion. There were many that hoped to see this delay myself included. An October release was clearly going to end badly for funcom just like AO.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Actually the trolls were arguing for argument's sake (Financial Citations etc etc). Crititism is good, but flat out attacks from all angles isn't. I would like to think I am more open minded that the "guy next door" - Hence my "Bug" post just the other day.
There are specifics that are being worked on not an overall new game. What was there was good, but the feedback was it needed refining and revamping more.
-This has nothing to do with the XBox version
-We're not making it Vista only. Age of Conan will run on Vista or XP.
Community Manager – Funcom
Additionally, the changes to the overall interaction with the combat system are allowing us to extend the implications of combos and multiple situational combos in more advanced ways that were not very practical with the old system. In the end, this will probably end up with a more intricate high-end gameplay experience than currently, even though our goal is to tweak the system to make it easier to learn early in the game.
Many of the learning-curve changes will not have a dramatic effect later in the game, as we are simply phasing some things in over time in addition to the control tweaks. Generally speaking, I like the control tweaks far better and they are a nice iteration on the existing system.
I was enjoying the existing system very much, however it did have a couple minor flaws in addition to being a little hard to learn. Experienced usage of it was generally quite fluid, as I was very comfortable with it in my playtests by now--however the testing did expose many things we could tweak or improve in small ways. The changes incoming are more a collection of many, many small tweaks than they are a "revamp", so to speak.
This didn't really have anything to do with gamepads or such like that, it was mostly other issues that have lead us to look at tweaking things further. We view the combat system as the critical point of the game, and are working extremely hard to make sure it is simply as good as possible before release.
Balance Team Lead
vbmenu_register("postmenu_889982", true);
I was just trying to clarify some questions in regard to what changes to the combat system were being implied and reassure people that the system is not being "dumbed down" from our goals.
Balance Team Lead
EDIT* Another Dev quote.
That's funny, though not surprising. Everyone that wasn't blindly trumpeting this game knew about this months ago. A few weeks ago, wasn't Funcom saying there were no problems at all with development that would impact the release date? Everything was on schedule? That all the systems were in and finished, and they were just in the tweaking stage?
That everything they weren't showing was because they want to 'save some of the secrets for an exciting release' and not because the game wasn't finished?
Was that all just more lies? How do you go from 'practically finished' to 'we need 5+ more months to develop?' in just a few days?
Why the hell do you think everyone's been asking for funcom to provide proof of these systems? No its not cause they are trolling, its because we know it isn't done.
Fanboys need to wake the hell up and stop rationalizing everything bad that happens. Their own hype has adversely affected their brains. When funcom thinks that they can shove anything out on the market regardless of quality and the fans will eat it up, they will do so. Which is why fans hurt this game without even realizing it.
I agree this delay is a good thing. Funcom could have released it unfinished and tricked people into buying it, like they did with AO, but they didn't. Maybe all the people asking for proof made an impact on their decision, since that tells them their previous sales techniques would not fly. I'm just glad I could do my part to make AoC a better game at release
Lol - you fanbios in AoC have weak and sucky trolls compared to us in Darkfall. If you handed this kind of information to our trolls we would be on page 21 by now.
Edit: Wasn't AoC delayed due to DX10 (or so they say) when it happed to be released in the time of WoW/BC ? Now they are publishing near WAR release. Does that mean they are taking on WAR for real ? Sounds like tactics more than ingame issues to me...
---
And when we got more women on the team, it was like No, no, no. We need puppies and horses in there.
John Smedley, SOE