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"Improving and expanding Age of Conan continues with relentless force"
BearShammy
Member Posts: 240
The title says it all. It is a quote from an interview with Trond Arne, CEO of FUNCOM, that got posted by the gaming site Gamesindustry today. www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/funcom-s-trond-arne-aas
Read it, it is a good read and I in particular like how Trond undelines that AoC will continue to get massive development resources at least through out 2009. Ooohhh Glory. I love it.
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Comments
That is a really good interview. Brings up issues and resolutions that we can see now and confirmed ongoing to correct and improve. Staffing up next year too
Great interview, if they can deliver what they promise next year, i for one will give this game another shot next year and then a lot of my friends who like playing with me will also try it out again, we basically left as there was no end game content in the game back in september.
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Not one single piece of news in it,, all the same regurgitated sounds bites they have been spewing for the last 6 months.
Depending on your view and what if anything at all you were expecting.
This seems quite true especially the re-visited interest seen on these boards of late.
"Trond Arne Aas: We have seen little or no effect on our player base that can be tracked back to the launch of these games. Naturally there is always a slight dip whenever a major MMO comes out as MMO players traditionally wants to try out whatever new is appearing on the market. After some time, however, players usually go back to what they call "home". I think one of the strengths Age of Conan has is that it is quite different from the other MMOs out there in terms of graphics, setting and general gameplay, and I believe many are playing Age of Conan because it’s different from what they usually play. "
Hope you will find all the info in one place now
and obviously it aimed at people who have an interest in the games welfare..
Depending on your view and what if anything at all you were expecting.
This seems quite true especially the re-visited interest seen on these boards of late.
"Trond Arne Aas: We have seen little or no effect on our player base that can be tracked back to the launch of these games. Naturally there is always a slight dip whenever a major MMO comes out as MMO players traditionally wants to try out whatever new is appearing on the market. After some time, however, players usually go back to what they call "home". I think one of the strengths Age of Conan has is that it is quite different from the other MMOs out there in terms of graphics, setting and general gameplay, and I believe many are playing Age of Conan because it’s different from what they usually play. "
Hope you will find all the info in one place now
and obviously it aimed at people who have an interest in the games welfare..
I love how he said there was no dip, but there is always a dip, but there was no dip.
In a way I am certain that quote is true. 90% of the players left long before the Warhammer or WotLK launches.
The elevator drop free fall was way before a 'dip' could happen.
"We are very happy about the work Craig Morrison is doing as the new game director, and I think players will agree that things have taken a very positive turn the past few updates we have done to the game. "
Yep i like this part, havent played since this guy took over but after reading the patch updates i can see that he has put in more stuff in 2 months than Godager managed to do in 5 months. To me this is a positive sign of things to come next year and i can also see that Funcom can appreciate that this guy has taken a broken, flawed game that had a lot of potential and is trying to put things right.
They keep talking about their damned expansion to me 2 major things need to be implemented if they want a lot of the subscribers to buy their expansion, It has to be sandbox rather than instanced crap that we were seeing and also they need to sort the merges out asap...
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Great Interview and great to hear something from FC's CEO for once. Quite different from MJ's infentile rage that we hear on daily basis. Good to get reassured that the FC machinery still will force through relentless AoC development. Yipikayeeaa mthrfckr!!! No wonder we are getting swamped with new content. lol.
I have always liked Trond ARne. He seem to have his stuff lined up and ready to go.
that is the same massive work force that managed to implement 5 pvp ranks and a mid lvl instance+zone in 7 months right?
that statement alone is slap to the face.
after a few hundret forum posts of asking when T2 W3 would be opend and t3 implement (yeah it only took a few hundret posts to get a statement) that after 6 month ingame (wing 3 or the main hall of brc is in since brc was released, complete with bosses it just wasent opend) that they were working on it and it wouldnt be in the update 4 and probably not in 5. Heck course they cant find time for that, they still need to add stuff that was promised at release. After we were, somewhat, pissed because of that, the CM replied and im Quoting here that "small buisnisses (like funcom) cant afford 2500 developers like blizzard (noteworthy that blizzard is developing 3 Mayor games, 5 AAA releases, with that beside WoW) because we dont have 11m suscribers (wow patch team is ~ 75-120 ppl at least since the last statement i found) so they just dont have the recources to patch it earlier.
I didn´t read anything about DX10 in the interview and they´re going to release an addon?????First they should add the promised things that they should've adden in the official version cause in this way noone will ever buy that addon.......
Heh, where to start...
First, AoC had a lot of problems at launch. That means that they had to divert everything to fixing issues with existing code and content. I imagine it is only 2-3 months since they started shifting their forces over to new development again.
Second, the pipeline for new content is long. What this means is that it takes a long time before an idea can be seen in the game. Just think of all the work that have to go into design, artwork, sound, new gameplay requirements, internal testing and external testing before something can be seen by the players. When they moved everything they had over to fixing the mess AoC was at release, that left the pipeline dry.
Third, Funcom is only a medium sized developer with a hard-pressed economic situation. They have two MMOs running, another in production and several casual MMOS and probably other projects going as well. I can guarantee that WOW will get a lot more content the next year than AoC though, simply because that is a more succesful game and they can spend more cash on producing the content.
And on raids, yes I would love to have seen wing 3 and T3 raiding open as well. But it seems the raid people after having fixed T1 and T2 (wing 1/2) raids, only now is working on these. Lower level content was more important than raids: People will never see the raids if they don't go through the rest of the content. Also at this time it's no more than 10 or so guilds worldwide that has completed all existing raid content. While frustrating for those that they are at the end, up until now I think it was a fair priority to not focus on new raids
DX10 is on the test server already (with bugs), so going out to live as soon as it's ready. Probably mid January or something like that. The expansions is for next fall
you realize that the post has no point?
i know they had to "fix" things, if you can call it that. May have something to do with having only a few months in beta instead of a year.
Mid lvl content is useless ase a second a hole right now. it would have been nice 5 months ago. heck ymirs pass was planned for august. now preaty much everyone has 4-5 lvl 80s and the miniscule number of new players can enjoy solo questing for a month instead of grinding 2 days to get to lvl 80.
nice development decision, i guess that was at least 1 nail in gautes cofen.
Raid content is as buggy and exploitable as it was on release. there has been some diffrence but it is still a mess. and i dont know what server you are playing (rp maybe) but there were at least 10 guilds on our server alone clearing t2. we cleared it (exept sabazius) within 10 days. of course by now there are maybe 5 raid groups left on the server, thats including random raids.
wing 3 of T2 is in game the bosses are there they even have scripting and loot. no long pipeline there. and releasing a trainwreck isnt an excuse to none existing content.
you have to come to the concluision that there are so many problems with the database, that were cause to so many exploits (gold duping in ea, item duping for months, the gem duping exploit the pvp exploit etc) that they will be fixing this for years. hell they did that with AO too.
they soled over 6 million copies (if im not wrong) so they had their shot, and they blew it. i dont care if they develope 10 games. im paying for aoc. and looking back since release, they destroyed crafting, patched battlekeep pvp from bad to worse. nerfed items to hell (including epics), added 5 pvp lvls and an anti griefing system. added 2 blue armor sets and a midlvl zone and dungeon.
you know why you dont patch any midlvl shit in after realease? cause the fucking pipeline is to long so when your shit is done it dosent matter anymore.
i have watched hunderts of people leave aoc because of the lacking endgame content. it startet around 3 weeks after the brc release. we had 3 raid groups at the time and after cleaing brc people startet droping aoc because there wasent anything to do left. and that hasent changed since.
Please tell me your server and which 10 guilds have cleared T2. Only after they buffed it of course. Tier 3 was only reachable as an exploit, the content there is obviously not complete even if the remainder of the T2 sets are there.
As regards to sales, they sold around 800k copies, but yea that should be enough to have released a better game. The state of AoC then is old news though, everyone knows it.
What is interesting at this point is what they have done afterwards. I think it was more important to fill the level gaps with good content and improve the existing pre-80 content before moving on to more raid endgame. Of course you as the badass hardcore raider you are don't care about anything than the highest xp/hour until you are at the raids. You are not the majority though, the majority quit long before that.
Also they did not destroy crafting. Crafting was crap, and gems were broken. They have since introduced at least some interesting crafted items, even if the crafting system itself is broken and boring.
The T1 raids and T2 up until Chatha is not "as buggy and exploitable as it was on release". The quality varies of course, but overall it is working well and is quite decent raid content.
The guy should be thrown in jail for fraud. If this clown was a broker selling stocks and gave such misinformation, he would have lost his license and thrown in the pen. How anyone running Funcom can come out with a statement about anything and expect people to believe him is astounding.
Hey there
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
Hey there
Hey there! Hows the funcom kool-aid?
Hey there
Hey there! Hows the funcom kool-aid?
And please explain to me what Kool-aid is? :P
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
Hey there
Hey there! Hows the funcom kool-aid?
And please explain to me what Kool-aid is? :P
Clinton tried this tactic.......... it didn't work then either............ "could you please define sexual relations........."
Hey there
Hey there! Hows the funcom kool-aid?
And please explain to me what Kool-aid is? :P
Clinton tried this tactic.......... it didn't work then either............ "could you please define sexual relations........."
So because some guy on the internet uses a slang or word I quite don't understand what he means by saying I shouldn't ask then?
Because kool-aid is a product but I doubt it is the product he refers too..
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
Hey there
Hey there! Hows the funcom kool-aid?
And please explain to me what Kool-aid is? :P
Clinton tried this tactic.......... it didn't work then either............ "could you please define sexual relations........."
So because some guy on the internet uses a slang or word I quite don't understand what he means by saying I shouldn't ask then?
Because kool-aid is a product but I doubt it is the product he refers too..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool-Aid
"The earliest known use of the term in its figurative, non-literal context (that is, outside descriptions of people actually drinking real Kool-Aid), is from a 1987 quote about former Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry in the Washington Post.[2][3]
The term is derived from the 1978 cult suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple, persuaded his followers to move to Jonestown. Late in the year he ordered his followers to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Flavor Aid laced with potassium cyanide. (Those unable, such as infants, and those unwilling to comply received involuntary injections.) A camera from inside the compound shows a large chest being opened, clearly showing boxes of both Flavor Aid and Kool-Aid.[4] There is also testimony from criminal investigators at the Jonestown inquest stating that there were "cool aid" [sic] packets there.[5] It is unknown whether these are a reference to the Kool-aid brand packets from the trunk, or simply a generic use of the more popular brand for the product. In what is now commonly called the "Jonestown Massacre", a large majority of the 913 people later found dead drank the brew. (The discrepancy between the idiom and the actual occurrence is likely due to Flavor Aid's relative obscurity, compared to the easily recognizable Kool-Aid.) An earlier usage than 1987 can be attested at least as early as 1982 in the film "The Slumber Party Massacre" by Amy Holden Jones. In the scene where Valerie 'Val' Bates prepares Kool-Aid, she offers a glass to her sister and says "As the famous Jim Jones once said: 'should have been drinking Kool-Aid'".
The saying "Do not drink the Kool-Aid" now commonly refers to the Jonestown tragedy, meaning "Do not trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side," or "Whatever they tell you, do not believe it too strongly."[6] Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly is known for using the term in this manner.[7]
Having "drunk the Kool-Aid" also refers to being a strong or fervent believer in a particular philosophy or mission — wholeheartedly or blindly believing in its virtues.[8][9] During the administration of George W. Bush, military officials further refined this usage, joking that the truest believers drink the Kool-Aid before a meeting, not after it.[10]
This expression can also be used to refer to the activities of the Merry Pranksters, a group of people associated with novelist Ken Kesey[citation needed] who, in the early 1960s, traveled around the United States and held events called "Acid Tests", where LSD-laced Kool-Aid was passed out to the public (LSD was legal in the U.S. until 1966). Those who drank the "Kool-Aid" passed the "Acid Test". "Drinking the Kool-Aid" in that context meant accepting the LSD drug culture, and the Pranksters' "turned on" point of view. These events were described in Tom Wolfe's 1968 classic "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". However the expression is never used figuratively in the book, but only literally. [11]"
With the resources we have available today in finding information yes asking the question you asked is like Clinton asking the questions he asked. Took me 3 seconds to find the above passage and link lol.
Edited to Add: Highlighted the context it was used in for ya.
In that case Funcom don't need a kool-aid the work they have put into the game speaks pretty much for itself. :P
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
"Trond Arne Aas: Similar to most other MMO companies operating in the market we are not disclosing this number"
He should have said. " Similar to most other MMO companies that have below expected levels of subscribers, we are not disclosing this number".
The fact is that every game ALWAYS produced numbers when things were going well. In one breath, this guy throws out that 1M boxes shipped to retailers, and then says he can't talk about subscribers? UO published the 250k number at it's peak, but once it started to fall, it never announced numbers again. Same thing with Warhammer.. they threw out a couple numbers the first week, then when things collapsed, they stopped releasing numbers.
Blizzard (also a publicly traded company) has announced subscription numbers 3 times already this year.
The other interesting thing he didn't say is that subscribers have been increasing since the new guy took over. He said there have been some positive things happening.. but failed to answer the question and say that more people are playing. It's basically what we all see (and xfire shows)... the % loss of players has drastically gone down since August, but AOC is still losing numbers every week.
No matter how much they patch and "improve", the game is rotting at it's core. They can't even figure out how to merge servers for crying out loud. The crafting/gathering is mind numbing simple. PvE, except 1-20, is boring and repetitive. Rraids are broken, unbalanced and exploitable. Heavy instancing destroys any immersion, there is no problem with zone instancing but every zone having instances just kills it. Combat system, while giving the impression of beeing something different at the beginning, just gets annoying after some time. The guild cities are useless. PvP is exploitable and pointless using an archaic good/evil alignment system. I fail to see how this game is innovative in any area except the shiny graphics. The problem is that graphics alone will not save the game. They openly admit that DX10, while on test servers, is still broken and not all areas use it or need MORE development. Everything about this game is half-assed.
I did like the game, like i do single player games that i can play once to see everything there is. Playing it for a longer time is pointless due to no content or incentive. Leveling an alt is like playing the same crap all over again. In this day and age AoC does not even have different starting areas for the classes/races. How backwards is that?
Good luck in 2009 for those still hoping.
Exactly my thoughts on the game. This is another fine post the fanboys/correspondants will choose to ignore. The game is mediocre at best....but with core elements of the game either broken or unfixable, it will always be an average game. The people who come on here and say how fantastic AoC is, are probably the same people that sit by there chimneys on the 24th December waiting for santa claus. Both being as likely as the other.