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Atmosphere of Funcom AoC Headquarters
Goob
Member Posts: 398
I feel bad, and get somewhat sad when I think of how things must be going there. So much work, talent, and money into this game. This is such a harsh industry, they messed up and the public is thriving off of thrashing it even bloodier. I honestly feel really bad.
I just imagine the executives walking into a meeting with a picture of the FailCom logo on the projector, to talk about "how the f*ck did we let this happen?". Then the executives walk out of the room in a stiff fury and all the poor designers sit at their desks, afraid to be noticed. Themselves they likely feel angry towards those who pushed the game out the door before they could fully complete and polish their work. It's how these things go in design. Rarely do you get the satisfaction of doing something properly and to the best of your abilities. You just have to make it as good as possible within less than half the time to do it right.
And now look at their marketing plan: DEATH NEVER LOOKED SO HOT?!?!
With their sexy tattooed woman giving me a devious look? If I want to look at a sexy female while im spending time in front of my computer, FYI there are better options available, dipshits. She doesn't turn me on, she isn't even real. What turns me on is a good game. This is so embarassing, and led me to actually make a topic for once.. something I normally can't even be bothered to do.
How do you think the air is hanging over at Funcom? Do you feel bad at all, or are you just gonna be a snotty arrogant moron and say its all of their faults and you want your money back..?
Comments
I think the 'failcom' logo and stuff is basically backlash from how Funcom treated the community. Maybe their behavior works in other countries, but in North America to have people complaining in threads hundreds of posts long with no comment or maybe just a sentence or two from a rep is just not acceptable. Also, when you start going ban happy americans get angry because we are used to being able to express our opinions.
So maybe we can chalk up part of the negativity to a cultural misunderstanding. I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Also, in my opinion, the game released in poor condition. The basic problems I had with AOC were outlined by their rep today in the Jon Wood interview.
As for feeling bad for them, yeah I feel bad for the people who invested their sweat and tears into the game. Especially the artists and musicians. But who knows, maybe Funcom will turn things around and AOC will become the game it should have been. Anything is possible and although I have been a critic of several aspects of the game, I wish them well.
How do you make any kind of point or want to be taken seriously when you trash, call others names?
I feel bad for the wage slaves, artists, programers and such but I really am delighted to the COMPANY being flamed for the poorly designed and poorly supported game I paid for.
how ever you feel about funcom . be nice to think some thing good will come out of this. no company will release a game half done again . . im sure aoc will bounce back next year i hope it dose . dont want to see it fail . if the alarm bells are not rining for them there no hope for this game
The death of funcom never looked so hot!
I wouldn't feel bad they made millions, just as Vanguard and SWG, and they ended up being dis-appointments as well. IMPO I think these companies who decide to build MMO's know if they hype it up enough, they make there money back on release sales. So dont feel bad
AOC sold 800k copies at release,and most at least stayed 2 months (some had 3 to 6 month subs) so lets do the math-please someone point out if im wrong here.
AOC BOX GAME- $49.95 x 800k<----this could vary a little.=$ 39,960,000.00
Lets keep this simple, but i'm sure its more!
AOC monthly SUB $15.00 like I said lets go off the second month-due to the first 30 being free
800k x $15.00 = 12,000,000
All in total= $52,000,000.00 est.
So Don't feel bad.
Half done LOL, this same assumption was said after SWG (nge) and Vanguard, and yet we got AOC.
of cause we feel bad....most if not all the people that tried AoC really wanted the game to be a success. most people have been following this game for 2 years! but it seems they just didnt try their game out!
I am honestly flubergasted (shocked) when every week they change classes, item stats, drop rates...these are basic things. I am amazed their designers and QA department as well as the beta testers didnt find the AMD BSOD problem or the memory leak problem. These are all basic things. The concentrate on totally the wrong things and if they did listen to the aoc forum and the questionaire they put out to the customers (which i filled int and sent back as i am sure others did) then they wouldnt have made more lvl 50-60 content but would have made more end level.
There strict punishment in the wrong places, instead of holding to their name policy or stopping the swamps of guilds just PK farming at zoning points they banned people silly reasons. I really wanted this to be a hit but the pvp is meaningless so is the crafting and having to run on shader 2.0 for stability makes the game look as nice as lotro. The pve is bland and really doesnt cut it especially when the bosses drop green loot or no loot at all. And the pvp system is non existant...its too late to impliment it as everyone is lvl 80 or have a number of lvl 80s.
A good discussion has taken place here. Unfortunately you didnt have anything valuable to add, eh.
What's really bad for Funcom is that only the uninformed will probably ever buy a product from them again. Also, whenever I plan on purchasing a new game, I'll be doing my homework to compare the names of who's calling the shots with the game and comparing those names with the names of who called the shots with AoC. Some careers may be irrepairably damadged to a certain extent.
[quote] how ever you feel about funcom . be nice to think some thing good will come out of this. no company will release a game half done again . . [/quote]
thats my personal target at laest while i bash Funcom a bit.
Its kind of cyber-pillory .
those companys have more power than players got rights.
I dont feel sorry for them...why should I, when they still keeping lying.
Maybe I will when they start to show some kind of respekt.
THANK YOU for pointing that out..every time i come here and see this stupid advertisement it makes me want to throw up. It really is absolutely pathetic and as you said embarassing to sell a MMO with this tactic.
Really, i love females and i certainly dont say no when i can play around with some funbags. But if this is the way a company tries to sell their so-called next-gen (with old-crap-gen recycled AO code) MMO i am sure as hell out of there.
A month ago i already made up my mind and called this game pure and stinky shit after i tried to see some hope at the end of the tunnel but those guys constantly deliver more and more stupid and idiotic garbage to the people.
And dont get me even started on those "interviews"..a very good friend of mine works in marketing and PR and he once told me himself that this whole business is BASED on creating lies and deception only to make shit look good so people want to buy it no matter what.
If something IS good it speaks for itself..no blabbering fat guy needed!
How can any serious MMOer be attracted by such dumbass marketing, way to bite your own bum failcom.
I lolled... then I cried
Dont feel sorry for them - they are all getting paid nad many are very very rich indeed.
Feel sorry for ahe 100,000s people they shafted.
When you pay $50-60 for a mmog with 30 days to play before subscribing it is a rip off. It is only if you go on to play the game for several months wit ha subscription that you start to get value for money.
dont worry about that - they will rebrand if it gets bad.
This is all valuable experience for them and will look good on most of the staffs resumes if they go elsewhere.
I paid $50 and played for about 20 days of the first free month, but managed to log almost 2 days played into the game (lol). That's nearly 50 hours of gaming, not so bad a deal IMO. Several other games have given me less gameplay before I shelve it to never revisit the game. Just because you don't continue to play an MMO, you shouldn't discount the gameplay you had on the road to that point as hours of entertainment.
On a similiar note, it's unreasonable for someone to say an MMO stinks after they've played it for months. Don't expect too much out of these games people. They are just games, rarely are you going to find something that you can call a friggen lifestyle. It's a rare beauty that something can be replayed for much more than 20 hours.
It's this mentality (from both cases) that creates so much scorn in our community. Sometimes you just have to play a game til it's not fun anymore, then pick up another. Lessen the b*tching. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending AoC or any other failboat game. But really, we should be more accustomed to disliking new games (as our critical personalities will allow) and thrilled when something comes along that we can pour hours into for such little cost.
Games are cheap entertainment. This principle needs to be made clearer. I can spend $50 bucks on a dinner with my girlfriend once a week, and all this provides is some tastey food, a beer, and its over in little more than an hour. Of course, it spices up the relationship life instead of sitting around at home all the time, but for the same money look at how many hours of entertainment we can get out of a game. Go to the movies, spend $20 on just the tickets, and be on your way home in two and a half hours. A night at the bar? I've forked out more than $150. Taxi's, pre-game drinks, bar drinks, shots, a drink for the cutey over on the other side of the bar, like f*ck guys, games are cheap. Enjoy them while you still have time.
Dear OP, if the Funcom execs were aware enough to feel the way you think they do from your post, then this would have happened back in 2001 at the failed (deja vu anyone) launch of AO. They would have learned their lesson and the AoC nightmare would not be a reality.
I like OpGoob comments. It's really rare i can actually read some1 on forum that actually make sens.
I would have to say I always have two sides because I am going to feel both ways, I feel bad for the people who worked on this game because I think they did a fairly decent job with what they were asked to do. But I'm not going to feel bad for Gaute or Erling the bottom line is they are second rate and arrogant enough to not get that to succeed in the way in which they proclaimed they would conformity is a must they sacrificed too much to make this game the way they wanted it and it blew up in their faces *shurgs* they alone made the decision to release the game broken and cause the sad sate of this game and they are ultimately responsible for the fact that the only game they could get produced after all this time is Tortage. The graphics to this game are created and set it is up to them to get a handle on the poor customer service rep,poor patching rep,poor sense of direction etc.
But I've said this probably too many times it is just a fact of life some people aren't A-list, they can say it all they want.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
FC released something crappy. Why should I feel bad about it? Did I force them to release it? I feel bad cause I bought it and I wasted my money. What is really the point of your question?
I couldnt agree with this more. There are so many better options out there if I want to look at a hot chick and I am baffled that AoC is putting so much energy by using a fictional pin-up to promote the game when they should be using one of the most powerful and known fictional characters in the fantasy genre to do it. The name of the game is Age of CONAN so use Conan to market the frigging game you cretins.
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I feel sorry for the designers, musicians and artists, and the wage slaves. I dont feel a great deal for those in charge because they KNEW what they were doing. Its not like Funcom are a new kid on the block, and they even stated themselves that AO was a disaster in terms of launch...they wanted to improve on it, well they sold more units, but 3 months in....I see things heading the same way as AO.
Its a real pity, because in terms of combat, it is probably the best game on the market. Ive yet to see anything thats current or in development that looks as promising as AoC's melee, and combat is a central part of most MMO's. In terms of atmosphere and graphics, well its pretty damn nice as well and the dx10 version looks incredible. They should heavily promote the DX10 version.
I hope it makes a resurgence when the shininess of WAR has worn of. Tbh i dont really think the WoW expansion will matter much, your either gonna play WoW or not, a lot leave it because of its heavy, heavy time requirements. That only gets worse with the expansion
I hope it makes a comeback. If they worked hard on fixing bugs, reworkign some systems, ie crafting, and added content reasonably efficiently, I see no reason why it shouldnt be in the top 3 mmos for n.a/euro/oceania.
This is just absolutey wrong. First off. Funcom gets very little from their box sales ( $10 in NA, less in Europe). Second, they pay about half of the monthly subscriber fee just to keep the servers up ( they use a third party company to host servers).
Finally, they did not make ANY money. They LOST 8 million dollars between April and June. (when they sold the 800k boxes).
Yes, Funcom lost LESS money because they hyped the game and tricked people into buying the box.. but they still LOST money.
They are not paying millions per month in rent to 3rd party server farms.
But I agree they are losing money, their stock price says it all.
Yes, I wish they could turn this around. However there is something inside me, some anger that I can not control atm.. I was badly threatened as a customer.
I guess they did not mean to hurt anyone of us, it is just unconsciousness. The best we can do if we have some respect for human beings is to pray for Funcom to turn the tide.
I wish Funcom staff all best luck. Cos it would be a lovely sight to see them start to respect their customers/player base like they deserve, and start being honest to themself and the very ones who play their game.
Best luck!