The point is that you can buy 2 or 3 AoCs for the price of 1 expansion pack for games that are older than dirt. Because of the fact they are new, and offer more content for games that have already dried up in their content for current players, meaning that the player is desperate for anything to do, since their game is getting old? Of course the original players will buy that, no matter the cost.
Good thing AoC sold more copies in one month than the original LOTRO sold in a year...or the fact that AoC was able to chart as a top 10 selling game for 2008, while WAR missed by a hair..
Makes it much easier to go ahead and mark down the game...they call this good business sense. Cheaper copies sell better.
And really, does this matter, when no game will ever sell like WoW anyways? The moral of the story is: Some haters will do or say anything when desperate to prove their theories, no matter how incorrect?
ROFLMAO!! You know Openedge... it's like that famous saying "What goes around, comes around". So nice to see you on the other side of the fence.
_________________________________ JonMichael
Currently: AION, an MMO Beta under NDA Played: WAR, LOTRO, Hellgate: London, CoX, GW, SotNW, DAOC, EQ2, SWG, WoW, AO, Horizons, Second Life, There, TSO Beta'd: There, Second Life, EQ2, DAOC:LotM, LOTRO, Tabula Rasa, Gods and Heroes, Hellgate: London, Requiem:Bloodymare, AoC, WAR, DDO, Fallen Earth
Blackwell, usually your posts are well worth reading, and your assesment on Funcom and Age of Conan is right on spot. I mostly agree on your posts when "they" (fanbois, and I too suspect FC-employes at times) are posting obvious pr-stunts to help Age of Conan. To me it is at times just a disgusting PR-rant that further diminishes the companys chance for making the game even remotely interresting again. However, being a norwegian myself, i must speak up to what i can not see as utter nonsense from your part - this of course conserning your argument that Funcom has celebrity status in Norway, and norwegians poor english. Norwegians speaks very good english, if you want to find the true norwegian Funcom-fanboi-nutheads, then look for the well-phrased ones, cause thats where you will find them. Also, i must admit i resent the way some people dodge reasoning when they easily can attack people for lesser skills in what is not their first language - this i have seen so many times espescially towards posts made by our friends from easter europe. You are not just flat wrong about the reading/writing abilities of my countrymen, but you are walking down the road of utter ignorance. I agree if someone posts in sentences that is dead-right incomprehensible it is an issue, but do not bring a wrong stereotopy into a topic which concerns how Funcom has betrayed not only their fanbase, but continues to betraying and luring new mmo-players with false advertisement and lies. As for the celebrity status in Norway, let me point the fact that the press here has been very honest about the state of the company, and even raised new issues (concerning poor conditions for workers at Funcom, pointing out analytical reasons for why the game will fail at start and how they failed after). When i read statements like this, i get the smell of my own skeletons, and inside i get the smell of american ignorance. Keep the fight for the truth about Funcom and their lies - true. Don't mix your american-cultural-banana-milshake view on how we europeans reasons and react with stereotypical remarks that even are the wrong stereotypes. Stick to what your good at, namely revealing the lies and misconduct of the Funcom PR-machine.
Well Im sorry I offended you-and that was certainly not my intent.
All I am ever suggesting is that if you take a company like FC, and a game like AoC. With AoC being what its, and FC conducting business the way they do. I was simply trying to come to a conclusion that would justify it. National pride would be one of them.
I have nothing against Norwegians or anybody else who is from a different nation. I, myself am proudly from a country that leads the way in cultural diversity. In Canada our heritage and mind set emulates a European nation far more than the USA-although we have cultural influences by both. (Did you know that in Canada we still celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday because of our strong English heritage--It's a stat holiday and the only time of year home fireworks can be purchased).
Now, when I said celebrity status I simply was saying that they are known to be a household name as I understand it.If that is not true than I digress.
I was not trying to make-fun of anyone from a different place, and if I came across that way I sincerely apologize. I was simply trying to point out a pattern of behavior that seems suspect. I mistakenly used broken-english as a clue. I have caused you to feel personally insulted without cause.
Again, please forgive my over zealousness.
Blackwell, i am glad this misunderstanding is cleared up and gone. You seem sincere in your arguments, and of course suspicion and misinterpretations may arise, after all we are dealing with the Funcom-aparatus of fanbois and misinformants on boards like this. Now let's get back to work on telling what we believe are the truth about the Funcom-aparatus. We would'nt want Funcom start cover up their deceit, lies and misconduct to thousands of players with new reasons....like eh, the financial crisis or something. Personally my motivation for rallying against this bull-company is simple: I am a very very dissatisfied costumer, and i want to share with other costumers that the red shiny Funcom apple is only red on the outside, and it's not sweet nor sour - it's rotten, and a product that truely belongs in the trashcan. Keep up the good work. Don't let the Funcom-aparatus strangle the voice of honesty...they deserve every reality-check that's coming to them.
The point is that you can buy 2 or 3 AoCs for the price of 1 expansion pack for games that are older than dirt. Because of the fact they are new, and offer more content for games that have already dried up in their content for current players, meaning that the player is desperate for anything to do, since their game is getting old? Of course the original players will buy that, no matter the cost.
Good thing AoC sold more copies in one month than the original LOTRO sold in a year...or the fact that AoC was able to chart as a top 10 selling game for 2008, while WAR missed by a hair..
Makes it much easier to go ahead and mark down the game...they call this good business sense. Cheaper copies sell better.
And really, does this matter, when no game will ever sell like WoW anyways? The moral of the story is: Some haters will do or say anything when desperate to prove their theories, no matter how incorrect?
ROFLMAO!! You know Openedge... it's like that famous saying "What goes around, comes around". So nice to see you on the other side of the fence.
If that saying held true wouldn't AoC be out of business for being the most unethical and deceptive game company in the history of games, also wouldn't they be out of business for producing a game that is inferior to most other MMOs going by size and scope............sitting around at level cap is lame a linear experiance to level cap is lame.
Moral of the story is AoC is the worst MMO on the market atm and they have lied more than any other gaming company, wonder why they partner w/ Edios.
The last thing i heard was that funcom received 1.6 million nkr / 200k us in 2004 for the longest journey by a national videogame fund, that doesnt sound like something that would save any company of this size tbh , and especially not 5 years later. So if alandora doesnt have a answer for that may i assume that he was talking out of his arse?
While it is peanuts (USD 242.000) Funcom were subsidized in 2007 as well...
The Norwegian Film Fund describes themself as: "The Norwegian Film Fund is the Government’s executive body for film policy and handles the Government’s schemes for support."
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!! (repeat ad infinitum)
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=181239 This is anecdotal evidence but going by the remaining players zeal it isn't hard to make a logical leap for a movement in game to try to lure players back. If you will read through this thread, I have already disproven this. The fact that a thread started almost a month ago, with a total of maybe 27 replies, and mostly by those either who already had Xfire installed or will not install it due to the way the game reacts when Xfire is running...I would hardly call that a "Grassroot" movement. (PS: That thread has also been dead for almost two weeks now...hardly a motivator) Also, I'm pretty suspect of the number of returning players reports that the game is awesome now as they are all standarized and it's some random lowbie that played for a few hours and is ambigious. There was a similar request to lure people back by using the forums on the official forums and all of the sudden with the game still in a poor state aside from bug fixes everyone has seen the light, please. Hard to say. I know for a fact that many new players are in the game, asking questions, and our guild continues to grow...Also, the fact that MMORPG tracks IP when posting, it seems a little paranoid to think someone is using proxies all over the place to post under other names just to say the game is doing better...and if they are, well more power to them. I personally can tell the difference between the raff, the hate, and the better posts. There was a poll and most people left due to gameplay issues, many of which have yet to be fixed and there is still a dire lack of content. You have not read the latest polls then...there is no doubt there are issues, but I think a lot of players are also like myself in that since I left AoC back when, all other MMO's have paled in comparison, and upon return I find the game more fun to play, no issues with content (leveling is on an even keel from questing, and hardly any grind...and I am almost level 60), and I plan to stay now. Also, I'm pretty sure any gamers I play with would not put up with the PvP system, Carebare guards all over, or the PvP penalties for one moment, though they didn't come back and I realy don't know anyone who got burned by AoC that did, perhaps they are all comming from Warcraft because the PvP systems in WoW are to mature and penalties are player enforced? "This I will not argue with. But, this is also where AoC shines compared to a dedicated PvP game, like WAR. The PvE is considerably better than WAR, and the PvP requires some skill compared to say LOTRO where there is hardly any PvP that is worthwhile. For myself, I get the best of both worlds in AoC...PvE and PvP." ******************************** On that topic forum trafic is a pretty good indicater, when people come back they want to know about the game. There is not much of a community in AoC from what I gather but it's funny that class and even server forums have more trafic and posting than AoC's general official forum. So, the fact the "community" of the servers and class based questions forums are busier than General discussions about the game strikes you as odd...this actually tells me that Funcom finally got it right, and are communicating enough with their playerbase, that the need to go into a General board and chat is minimal. Also, a lot of times, this is a good indicator that players are playing more than chatting about the game. Overall, a lot of the issues with AoC is a continued hatred, even by players who have NOT returned due to stubborness, and do not know what is exactly happening. I would beg to differ with the "hate" opinions, and being an original hater of AoC, I can testify that the game has improved considerably.
A good leveling curve, more stability, better performance, and more fun to play than most other MMO's...I for one am glad I came back. Hope that helps!
I find it laughable and fanboyish, to say the least, that you would compare AoC's PvE to WAR's PvE and then AoC's PVP to Lotro's pvp. Have you played either of those games? i ask this because WAR is a pvp centric game, I know no one that plays WAR for it's pve so I dont understand why you would use that comparison. Second of all, Lotro is a pve game, perhaps one of the best on the market and I know no one that plays Lotro for its pvp mini game called Monster Play.
Let me suggest a better comparison that actually makes sense: AoC's pvp vs WAR's pvp. I think we can agree, that even tho end game is buggy at moment, WAR's pvp is infinitely more meaningful and accessible. I mean, both of those games were marketed toward pvp, however one of those actually shipped without a pvp system in place. lol
And the second revision of your comparison would be AoC's pve vs Lotro's pve. Im not really sure where to start with this one, since Lotro's endgame actually works and is complete at moment. With the exception of Wow, Lotro is easily one of the most polished and feature complete mmo's on the market right now.
So I can say, I play WAR for it's pvp and Lotro for it's pve. Easily the best of both worlds and Lotro already has DX10! Am I a AoC hater? No, but I dont believe that AoC is anything more than an average mmo, and in today's market, average will get you 100-150 K subscriptions. All this of course is my opinion.
The most misused word on the internet:
loose
adjective, looser, loosest, adverb, verb loosed, loosing. adjective 1. free or released from fastening or attachment: a loose end. 2. free from anything that binds or restrains; unfettered
The word you are looking for is L-O-S-E. YOu can NOT loose a game.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=181239 This is anecdotal evidence but going by the remaining players zeal it isn't hard to make a logical leap for a movement in game to try to lure players back. If you will read through this thread, I have already disproven this. The fact that a thread started almost a month ago, with a total of maybe 27 replies, and mostly by those either who already had Xfire installed or will not install it due to the way the game reacts when Xfire is running...I would hardly call that a "Grassroot" movement. (PS: That thread has also been dead for almost two weeks now...hardly a motivator) Also, I'm pretty suspect of the number of returning players reports that the game is awesome now as they are all standarized and it's some random lowbie that played for a few hours and is ambigious. There was a similar request to lure people back by using the forums on the official forums and all of the sudden with the game still in a poor state aside from bug fixes everyone has seen the light, please. Hard to say. I know for a fact that many new players are in the game, asking questions, and our guild continues to grow...Also, the fact that MMORPG tracks IP when posting, it seems a little paranoid to think someone is using proxies all over the place to post under other names just to say the game is doing better...and if they are, well more power to them. I personally can tell the difference between the raff, the hate, and the better posts. There was a poll and most people left due to gameplay issues, many of which have yet to be fixed and there is still a dire lack of content. You have not read the latest polls then...there is no doubt there are issues, but I think a lot of players are also like myself in that since I left AoC back when, all other MMO's have paled in comparison, and upon return I find the game more fun to play, no issues with content (leveling is on an even keel from questing, and hardly any grind...and I am almost level 60), and I plan to stay now. Also, I'm pretty sure any gamers I play with would not put up with the PvP system, Carebare guards all over, or the PvP penalties for one moment, though they didn't come back and I realy don't know anyone who got burned by AoC that did, perhaps they are all comming from Warcraft because the PvP systems in WoW are to mature and penalties are player enforced? "This I will not argue with. But, this is also where AoC shines compared to a dedicated PvP game, like WAR. The PvE is considerably better than WAR, and the PvP requires some skill compared to say LOTRO where there is hardly any PvP that is worthwhile. For myself, I get the best of both worlds in AoC...PvE and PvP." ******************************** On that topic forum trafic is a pretty good indicater, when people come back they want to know about the game. There is not much of a community in AoC from what I gather but it's funny that class and even server forums have more trafic and posting than AoC's general official forum. So, the fact the "community" of the servers and class based questions forums are busier than General discussions about the game strikes you as odd...this actually tells me that Funcom finally got it right, and are communicating enough with their playerbase, that the need to go into a General board and chat is minimal. Also, a lot of times, this is a good indicator that players are playing more than chatting about the game. Overall, a lot of the issues with AoC is a continued hatred, even by players who have NOT returned due to stubborness, and do not know what is exactly happening. I would beg to differ with the "hate" opinions, and being an original hater of AoC, I can testify that the game has improved considerably.
A good leveling curve, more stability, better performance, and more fun to play than most other MMO's...I for one am glad I came back. Hope that helps!
I find it laughable and fanboyish, to say the least, that you would compare AoC's PvE to WAR's PvE and then AoC's PVP to Lotro's pvp. Have you played either of those games? i ask this because WAR is a pvp centric game, I know no one that plays WAR for it's pve so I dont understand why you would use that comparison. Second of all, Lotro is a pve game, perhaps one of the best on the market and I know no one that plays Lotro for its pvp mini game called Monster Play.
Let me suggest a better comparison that actually makes sense: AoC's pvp vs WAR's pvp. I think we can agree, that even tho end game is buggy at moment, WAR's pvp is infinitely more meaningful and accessible. I mean, both of those games were marketed toward pvp, however one of those actually shipped without a pvp system in place. lol
And the second revision of your comparison would be AoC's pve vs Lotro's pve. Im not really sure where to start with this one, since Lotro's endgame actually works and is complete at moment. With the exception of Wow, Lotro is easily one of the most polished and feature complete mmo's on the market right now.
So I can say, I play WAR for it's pvp and Lotro for it's pve. Easily the best of both worlds and Lotro already has DX10! Am I a AoC hater? No, but I dont believe that AoC is anything more than an average mmo, and in today's market, average will get you 100-150 K subscriptions. All this of course is my opinion.
Let me add my opinion. AoC has end game City building and sieges. This has in my opinion much more depth than WARs RvR. Guilds in GvG war/combat is so much more rewarding than a zerg individuals spamfight like RvR. Let me also just add that patch 1.04 expands on this as GvG will also fight over PvP resources used to build the various keep. I like AoC because the players themselves creates the endgame through a constant fueled conflict in between the guilds.
On the PvE side the current end game Raid content is getting there pretty good now. Many of those last bosses are really tough to take out. The amount of endgame raid content is less than wanted. Fortunately will Wing 3 open with patch 1.04 next Wednesday. Tons of more T2 raid content. Also Xiabaluku and Slaughterhouse cellars are coming out with this patch. I think AoC easily has the best PvE content out there. It has a so much better storylines than what you can find in WAR. I also prefer AoC PvE before LotRO Pve but these two games are much closer.
Finally AoC in DX9 or DX10 regardless, nothing can compete with AoC graphics wise.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=181239 This is anecdotal evidence but going by the remaining players zeal it isn't hard to make a logical leap for a movement in game to try to lure players back. If you will read through this thread, I have already disproven this. The fact that a thread started almost a month ago, with a total of maybe 27 replies, and mostly by those either who already had Xfire installed or will not install it due to the way the game reacts when Xfire is running...I would hardly call that a "Grassroot" movement. (PS: That thread has also been dead for almost two weeks now...hardly a motivator) Also, I'm pretty suspect of the number of returning players reports that the game is awesome now as they are all standarized and it's some random lowbie that played for a few hours and is ambigious. There was a similar request to lure people back by using the forums on the official forums and all of the sudden with the game still in a poor state aside from bug fixes everyone has seen the light, please. Hard to say. I know for a fact that many new players are in the game, asking questions, and our guild continues to grow...Also, the fact that MMORPG tracks IP when posting, it seems a little paranoid to think someone is using proxies all over the place to post under other names just to say the game is doing better...and if they are, well more power to them. I personally can tell the difference between the raff, the hate, and the better posts. There was a poll and most people left due to gameplay issues, many of which have yet to be fixed and there is still a dire lack of content. You have not read the latest polls then...there is no doubt there are issues, but I think a lot of players are also like myself in that since I left AoC back when, all other MMO's have paled in comparison, and upon return I find the game more fun to play, no issues with content (leveling is on an even keel from questing, and hardly any grind...and I am almost level 60), and I plan to stay now. Also, I'm pretty sure any gamers I play with would not put up with the PvP system, Carebare guards all over, or the PvP penalties for one moment, though they didn't come back and I realy don't know anyone who got burned by AoC that did, perhaps they are all comming from Warcraft because the PvP systems in WoW are to mature and penalties are player enforced? "This I will not argue with. But, this is also where AoC shines compared to a dedicated PvP game, like WAR. The PvE is considerably better than WAR, and the PvP requires some skill compared to say LOTRO where there is hardly any PvP that is worthwhile. For myself, I get the best of both worlds in AoC...PvE and PvP." ******************************** On that topic forum trafic is a pretty good indicater, when people come back they want to know about the game. There is not much of a community in AoC from what I gather but it's funny that class and even server forums have more trafic and posting than AoC's general official forum. So, the fact the "community" of the servers and class based questions forums are busier than General discussions about the game strikes you as odd...this actually tells me that Funcom finally got it right, and are communicating enough with their playerbase, that the need to go into a General board and chat is minimal. Also, a lot of times, this is a good indicator that players are playing more than chatting about the game. Overall, a lot of the issues with AoC is a continued hatred, even by players who have NOT returned due to stubborness, and do not know what is exactly happening. I would beg to differ with the "hate" opinions, and being an original hater of AoC, I can testify that the game has improved considerably.
A good leveling curve, more stability, better performance, and more fun to play than most other MMO's...I for one am glad I came back. Hope that helps!
I find it laughable and fanboyish, to say the least, that you would compare AoC's PvE to WAR's PvE and then AoC's PVP to Lotro's pvp. Have you played either of those games? i ask this because WAR is a pvp centric game, I know no one that plays WAR for it's pve so I dont understand why you would use that comparison. Second of all, Lotro is a pve game, perhaps one of the best on the market and I know no one that plays Lotro for its pvp mini game called Monster Play.
Let me suggest a better comparison that actually makes sense: AoC's pvp vs WAR's pvp. I think we can agree, that even tho end game is buggy at moment, WAR's pvp is infinitely more meaningful and accessible. I mean, both of those games were marketed toward pvp, however one of those actually shipped without a pvp system in place. lol
And the second revision of your comparison would be AoC's pve vs Lotro's pve. Im not really sure where to start with this one, since Lotro's endgame actually works and is complete at moment. With the exception of Wow, Lotro is easily one of the most polished and feature complete mmo's on the market right now.
So I can say, I play WAR for it's pvp and Lotro for it's pve. Easily the best of both worlds and Lotro already has DX10! Am I a AoC hater? No, but I dont believe that AoC is anything more than an average mmo, and in today's market, average will get you 100-150 K subscriptions. All this of course is my opinion.
War's PvE was way better than AoC's ...PQs made leveling very fun, for me only EQ 1 grouping came close and not often, I always hate leveling so rush to cap. Then they had 4 endgame instances with very fun bosses, they seemed hard and challenging which was fun but I knew it would drive people away. They also had quests all over the place. War needed some raids, but AoC is never going to satisfy raiders, they take forever to produce raid content, my feeling is the AoC expansion will be delayed, add 40-80 levels and forget to add an endgame.
The one draw back is War requires a tight balanced group to do anything, but that is what MMOs are about.
Let me add my opinion. AoC has end game City building and sieges. This has in my opinion much more depth than WARs RvR. Guilds in GvG war/combat is so much more rewarding than a zerg individuals spamfight like RvR. Let me also just add that patch 1.04 expands on this as GvG will also fight over PvP resources used to build the various keep. I like AoC because the players themselves creates the endgame through a constant fueled conflict in between the guilds. On the PvE side the current end game Raid content is getting there pretty good now. Many of those last bosses are really tough to take out. The amount of endgame raid content is less than wanted. Fortunately will Wing 3 open with patch 1.04 next Wednesday. Tons of more T2 raid content. Also Xiabaluku and Slaughterhouse cellars are coming out with this patch. I think AoC easily has the best PvE content out there. It has a so much better storylines than what you can find in WAR. I also prefer AoC PvE before LotRO Pve but these two games are much closer. Finally AoC in DX9 or DX10 regardless, nothing can compete with AoC graphics wise.
Guild life in AoC is a stellar disappointment in the game. Yes, because of the logistics and time it takes to harvest resources, but also it's one of the biggest indicators the game is dropping off the cliff (on the US). To get new players to join a guild is the most "skill" based action in the game. For one, the player (if well read) will want to know a lot of things about your guild, for example if you have a city, and how many players you have, do you raid...etc Most of the Guilds on the US side are struggling with recruitment problems, and if you can't answer yes to all three of those questions the player is off to one of usually 2 big guilds. Other guilds have to form alliances-which is a joke, because when it comes to Siege time you can't tell who is one your side by coloured name indicators. And even though you may have a $5,000 pc that glows in the dark, and a Internet connection that has a 200 terabyte upload and download, not everyone does and lots of people complain of lag and disconnects-so it a real clusterf#@&; (just wait until DX10 comes out and multiply DC's by 10 during sieges and raids). The guild factor from resourcing all the way to the absolute dismal guild UI is done far better by most other games.
Guilds in AoC demand a huge and consistent population by design, and that population just isn't there, and without it..everything falls apart You can't build a decent city because you don't have enough people to make it a reasonable venture, this is especially true with higher tier cities. The resourcing system sucks, and on a PvP server if you don't have a small army with you to gather resources you aren't getting jack-squat.
So if players fuel end-game content through sieges, there must be (and is) a lot of bored level 80s
Holy crap, the walls of text are getting longer and longer How about everyone edits down their posts a bit. Could look something like this Originally posted by Blackwell99
Originally posted by Conza
Originally posted by comablak18
Originally posted by openedge1
I like AoC.
I prefer WAR and LOTR.
I prefer AoC.
I don't like AoC.
Ta daaaaaa the whole forum in a nutshell
^^^^^ = Enjoys AoC
Yea, this works pretty good. (PS: On the OP, no one really knows HOW many subs AoC has, and it is all speculation until we are told otherwise...)
Yesterday there was an outage issue with Xfire...i.e: explaining the massive drop in time...but, if you would have looked at other games, you would know this (for example look at the Guild Wars chart, the EvE chart, etc...all had a massive downward spiral...)
But, hey, nice try on all these. Being informed is key here.
Cheers
looks XFire must still issues , AoC is still down about 20% from the same day last week. 5306 on the 4th to 4339 on the 11th. A drop of almost 1000 hours in a week for a game that dies not have that many players to begin with is quite unusual. just so I would be informed I checked Warhammer and it is only down a couple of hundred hours as is EvE. Lotro is down about 7% but is at 12th place overall. AoC seems to be the only game experiencing these drastic outage issues.
Yesterday there was an outage issue with Xfire...i.e: explaining the massive drop in time...but, if you would have looked at other games, you would know this (for example look at the Guild Wars chart, the EvE chart, etc...all had a massive downward spiral...)
But, hey, nice try on all these. Being informed is key here.
Cheers
looks XFire must still issues , AoC is still down about 20% from the same day last week. 5306 on the 4th to 4339 on the 11th. A drop of almost 1000 hours in a week for a game that dies not have that many players to begin with is quite unusual. just so I would be informed I checked Warhammer and it is only down a couple of hundred hours as is EvE. Lotro is down about 7% but is at 12th place overall. AoC seems to be the only game experiencing these drastic outage issues.
Curiouser and curiouser as they say.
Indeed...oh wait....
DOWNTIME yesterday...(moved from Tuesday to Wednesday)
You are the most uninformed troll I have ever met sir.
The last thing i heard was that funcom received 1.6 million nkr / 200k us in 2004 for the longest journey by a national videogame fund, that doesnt sound like something that would save any company of this size tbh , and especially not 5 years later. So if alandora doesnt have a answer for that may i assume that he was talking out of his arse?
While it is peanuts (USD 242.000) Funcom were subsidized in 2007 as well...
The Norwegian Film Fund describes themself as: "The Norwegian Film Fund is the Government’s executive body for film policy and handles the Government’s schemes for support."
This is quite common in Norway, every company can apply for funds in different versions. When creating a company you can ask for money to get the company started. However it does require you to have a solid plan and a product people have faith in. Whena friend and myself started our first company I didn't know about all the possibilities, when I left this company and my friend who was going to continue wanted to start from fresh, and he did check the possibilities. And there was a lot of them.
The Norwegian Film fund does give out money to movies and companies that work with entertainment products. Everyone can get this money as long as their application is good enough.
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
Yesterday there was an outage issue with Xfire...i.e: explaining the massive drop in time...but, if you would have looked at other games, you would know this (for example look at the Guild Wars chart, the EvE chart, etc...all had a massive downward spiral...)
But, hey, nice try on all these. Being informed is key here.
Cheers
looks XFire must still issues , AoC is still down about 20% from the same day last week. 5306 on the 4th to 4339 on the 11th. A drop of almost 1000 hours in a week for a game that dies not have that many players to begin with is quite unusual. just so I would be informed I checked Warhammer and it is only down a couple of hundred hours as is EvE. Lotro is down about 7% but is at 12th place overall. AoC seems to be the only game experiencing these drastic outage issues.
Curiouser and curiouser as they say.
Indeed...oh wait....
DOWNTIME yesterday...(moved from Tuesday to Wednesday)
You are the most uninformed troll I have ever met sir.
Good day!
5 hours downtime from 7:01 am to 11:57 am in the US servers on a weekday and 5am till 10 am on the European servers caused a loss of 1000 hours in a game that only pulls 4 -5 K perday including prime time , uh yeah sure it did . I was not aware that those are the prime playing hours for AoC. I mean I can see it dropping the hours by a couple of hundred hours but not 1000.
BTW what excuse do you have for Tuesday the third in comparison to Tuesday the tenth dropping down 700 hours. I guess there must have been more XFire issues. You seem to be on the ball with XFire outages for someone who thinks it sucks so badly.
Also in trying to educate myself I did a quick cruise of the XFire tech support forums and could find no more issues on Monday or Tuesday than any other day, nor was there anything about it in the general forums that I could find. I am sure you have a link to back up your claims of the XFire servers being down that you would not mind posting I must have missed the obvious again. Even after doing a Google search using the terms XFire problems Monday Feb 8th, I could find nothing. help me out here please.
Yesterday there was an outage issue with Xfire...i.e: explaining the massive drop in time...but, if you would have looked at other games, you would know this (for example look at the Guild Wars chart, the EvE chart, etc...all had a massive downward spiral...)
But, hey, nice try on all these. Being informed is key here.
Cheers
looks XFire must still issues , AoC is still down about 20% from the same day last week. 5306 on the 4th to 4339 on the 11th. A drop of almost 1000 hours in a week for a game that dies not have that many players to begin with is quite unusual. just so I would be informed I checked Warhammer and it is only down a couple of hundred hours as is EvE. Lotro is down about 7% but is at 12th place overall. AoC seems to be the only game experiencing these drastic outage issues.
Curiouser and curiouser as they say.
Indeed...oh wait....
DOWNTIME yesterday...(moved from Tuesday to Wednesday)
You are the most uninformed troll I have ever met sir.
Good day!
5 hours downtime from 7:01 am to 11:57 am on the US servers caused a loss of 1000 hours , oh yeah sure it did . I would not think those are the prime playing hours in the US. BTW what excuse do you have for Tuesday the third in comparison to Tuesday the tenth dropping down 700 hours. I guess there must have been more mysterious XFire issues . By the way a quick cruise of the XFire tech support forums no more issues on Monday than any other, nor was there anything about it in the general forums that I could find. I am sure you have a link to back up your claims of the XFire servers being down that you would not mind posting I must have missed the obvious again. Even after doing a Google search using the terms XFire problems Monday Feb 8th, I could find nothing. help me out here please.
As I stated, informed trolling helps.
The date was the 9th of the outage. To see how this affected other games (always part of good research to make sure no other discrepancies exists), just take a few like, WAR which had over 1600+ hours of loss, LOTRO had over 4000+ (almost 5k) and Guild Wars had a whopping 20k hours of loss due to the Xfire outage.
Next, if we go back to the last downtime for AoC, for a 4 hour downtime they had a loss of 400+ hours. Note that this was an announced downtime of 5 hours.
Now, again research shows that Wednesdays downtime was announced for 8 HOURS. I do not know about you, but I sure do not sit at my system for 8 hours clicking login. I can assume a lot of players did the exact same thing, and decided to go enjoy that "Outisde" place, or maybe they played another game... but this could easily explain such a change in the amount of hours lost due to players not logging in.
I am not arguing a loss in time at all, as either people leave after their 30, 60 or 90 days or got a buddy key, etc..but try not to spin such large times lost into something it is not.
Because you would be wrong again.
(PS: I do not hate Xfire, and I actually use it all the time)
Yesterday there was an outage issue with Xfire...i.e: explaining the massive drop in time...but, if you would have looked at other games, you would know this (for example look at the Guild Wars chart, the EvE chart, etc...all had a massive downward spiral...)
But, hey, nice try on all these. Being informed is key here.
Cheers
looks XFire must still issues , AoC is still down about 20% from the same day last week. 5306 on the 4th to 4339 on the 11th. A drop of almost 1000 hours in a week for a game that dies not have that many players to begin with is quite unusual. just so I would be informed I checked Warhammer and it is only down a couple of hundred hours as is EvE. Lotro is down about 7% but is at 12th place overall. AoC seems to be the only game experiencing these drastic outage issues.
Curiouser and curiouser as they say.
Indeed...oh wait....
DOWNTIME yesterday...(moved from Tuesday to Wednesday)
You are the most uninformed troll I have ever met sir.
Good day!
5 hours downtime from 7:01 am to 11:57 am on the US servers caused a loss of 1000 hours , oh yeah sure it did . I would not think those are the prime playing hours in the US. BTW what excuse do you have for Tuesday the third in comparison to Tuesday the tenth dropping down 700 hours. I guess there must have been more mysterious XFire issues . By the way a quick cruise of the XFire tech support forums no more issues on Monday than any other, nor was there anything about it in the general forums that I could find. I am sure you have a link to back up your claims of the XFire servers being down that you would not mind posting I must have missed the obvious again. Even after doing a Google search using the terms XFire problems Monday Feb 8th, I could find nothing. help me out here please.
As I stated, informed trolling helps.
The date was the 9th of the outage. To see how this affected other games (always part of good research to make sure no other discrepancies exists), just take a few like, WAR which had over 1600+ hours of loss, LOTRO had over 4000+ (almost 5k) and Guild Wars had a whopping 20k hours of loss due to the Xfire outage.
Next, if we go back to the last downtime for AoC, for a 4 hour downtime they had a loss of 400+ hours. Note that this was an announced downtime of 5 hours.
Now, again research shows that Wednesdays downtime was announced for 8 HOURS. I do not know about you, but I sure do not sit at my system for 8 hours clicking login. I can assume a lot of players did the exact same thing, and decided to go enjoy that "Outisde" place, or maybe they played another game... but this could easily explain such a change in the amount of hours lost due to players not logging in.
I am not arguing a loss in time at all, as either people leave after their 30, 60 or 90 days or got a buddy key, etc..but try not to spin such large times lost into something it is not.
Because you would be wrong again.
next time you are getting yourself educated you might want to look at what would cause games to have higher than normal numbers also. The two you mentioned Guild Wars and LoTRO had inflated numbers the week before for very good reasons.
Guild Wars had a huge ingame event the first week of February, the numbers from 31 January through Monday Feruary the 2nd were all about 20K higher than the previous week or this week.
Lotro had announced their free ten day trial on 26 January, once again their numbers were running high. A drop on the 9th was expected and a normal occurance. LoTRO's numbers have been wacky for a while now due to they resumed the ten day trials and they also had a promotion going on using XFire which ended yesterday. I expect to see it gradually drop to around 8 - 10K or so on weekdays and 12 - 14 K on weekends before long.
next time you are getting yourself educated you might want to look at what would cause games to have higher than normal numbers also. The two you mentioned Guild Wars and LoTRO had inflated numbers the week before for very good reasons.
Guild Wars had a huge ingame event the first week of February, the numbers from 31 January through Monday Feruary the 2nd were all about 20K higher than the previous week or this week.
Lotro had announced their free ten day trial on 26 January, once again their numbers were running high. A drop on the 9th was expected and a normal occurance.
Ok...Then that must explain the 70k hour loss for WoW on the 9th due to special events for that game the previous week...hmm, I see no mention of that anywhere...do you?
Better yet, lets leave MMO's since you think "events" do this..
CoD4 had a loss of 18k hours on the 9th, or how about CoD World at War which had a 5k hour loss. Left 4 Dead? A loss of 2500 hours. Check out some more if you wish...but you will get the same results.
I understand you wish to be right, but you are not. Again, I state, if you need to troll, get your facts straight.
But, since you feel the need to state the fact it was special events which caused the inflation and then subsequent loss on the 9th, how about this
Ok...Then that must explain the 70k hour loss for WoW on the 9th due to special events for that game the previous week...hmm, I see no mention of that anywhere...do you?
Better yet, lets leave MMO's since you think "events" do this..
CoD4 had a loss of 18k hours on the 9th, or how about CoD World at War which had a 5k hour loss. Left 4 Dead? A loss of 2500 hours. Check out some more if you wish...but you will get the same results.
I understand you wish to be right, but you are not. Again, I state, if you need to troll, get your facts straight.
But, since you feel the need to state the fact it was special events which caused the inflation and then subsequent loss on the 9th, how about this
As an update, it still looks like some games are not quite up to snuff yet after the outage. Due to the fact that Xfire averages it's play times over a number of days, it usually has a problem correcting itself for a week or so.
Example, CoD4 is still down about 10k hours from it's previous week, LOTRO (since we believe the event for Xfire may have had some coincidence with the times, we will go back two weeks) is still down about 3k some hours..WAR is down about 600 some hours from last week, or how about that newcomer, Runes of Magic thats seems to be getting some press...down about 600+ hrs. ...and AoC is now down about 300 some hours.
I expect the weekend to put corrections into the times, and put everybody back in tip top shape, so we can start our arguments again fresh on Monday...
Ok...Then that must explain the 70k hour loss for WoW on the 9th due to special events for that game the previous week...hmm, I see no mention of that anywhere...do you? Better yet, lets leave MMO's since you think "events" do this.. CoD4 had a loss of 18k hours on the 9th, or how about CoD World at War which had a 5k hour loss. Left 4 Dead? A loss of 2500 hours. Check out some more if you wish...but you will get the same results. I understand you wish to be right, but you are not. Again, I state, if you need to troll, get your facts straight. But, since you feel the need to state the fact it was special events which caused the inflation and then subsequent loss on the 9th, how about this X-Fire Update - Posted Feb 9th '09 Seems that there WAS an update...coincidence? Nope. Cheers
As an update, it still looks like some games are not quite up to snuff yet after the outage. Due to the fact that Xfire averages it's play times over a number of days, it usually has a problem correcting itself for a week or so. Example, CoD4 is still down about 10k hours from it's previous week, LOTRO (since we believe the event for Xfire may have had some coincidence with the times, we will go back two weeks) is still down about 3k some hours..WAR is down about 600 some hours from last week, or how about that newcomer, Runes of Magic thats seems to be getting some press...down about 600+ hrs. ...and AoC is now down about 300 some hours. I expect the weekend to put corrections into the times, and put everybody back in tip top shape, so we can start our arguments again fresh on Monday... Have a good weekend Cheers
<Mod edit> " OMG. AOC has gained 4000% since last week... tons of people everywhere". The same way he picked a maintenance day from early December and compared it to a regular day from Jan to show his 55% growth that he keeps posting about.
<Mod edit> " OMG. AOC has gained 4000% since last week... tons of people everywhere". The same way he picked a maintenance day from early December and compared it to a regular day from Jan to show his 55% growth that he keeps posting about.
I would love to see that post, can you maybe link it for me? Thanks
In August my server still had 4-5 Keshatta instances up. There were a lot of people. In October there was 1-2. This was Tyranny server before merge. One of the most populated servers... if not the most.
I'd say 100-150k sounds fairly reasonable, considering the fact that publicly traded company decided to hide facts from investors and not publish details in Third Quarter Financial report. Let's see if they post details in Q4 (on Feb 28th).
Comments
ROFLMAO!! You know Openedge... it's like that famous saying "What goes around, comes around". So nice to see you on the other side of the fence.
_________________________________
JonMichael
Currently: AION, an MMO Beta under NDA
Played: WAR, LOTRO, Hellgate: London, CoX, GW, SotNW, DAOC, EQ2, SWG, WoW, AO, Horizons, Second Life, There, TSO
Beta'd: There, Second Life, EQ2, DAOC:LotM, LOTRO, Tabula Rasa, Gods and Heroes, Hellgate: London, Requiem:Bloodymare, AoC, WAR, DDO, Fallen Earth
Well Im sorry I offended you-and that was certainly not my intent.
All I am ever suggesting is that if you take a company like FC, and a game like AoC. With AoC being what its, and FC conducting business the way they do. I was simply trying to come to a conclusion that would justify it. National pride would be one of them.
I have nothing against Norwegians or anybody else who is from a different nation. I, myself am proudly from a country that leads the way in cultural diversity. In Canada our heritage and mind set emulates a European nation far more than the USA-although we have cultural influences by both. (Did you know that in Canada we still celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday because of our strong English heritage--It's a stat holiday and the only time of year home fireworks can be purchased).
Now, when I said celebrity status I simply was saying that they are known to be a household name as I understand it.If that is not true than I digress.
I was not trying to make-fun of anyone from a different place, and if I came across that way I sincerely apologize. I was simply trying to point out a pattern of behavior that seems suspect. I mistakenly used broken-english as a clue. I have caused you to feel personally insulted without cause.
Again, please forgive my over zealousness.
Blackwell, i am glad this misunderstanding is cleared up and gone. You seem sincere in your arguments, and of course suspicion and misinterpretations may arise, after all we are dealing with the Funcom-aparatus of fanbois and misinformants on boards like this.
Now let's get back to work on telling what we believe are the truth about the Funcom-aparatus. We would'nt want Funcom start cover up their deceit, lies and misconduct to thousands of players with new reasons....like eh, the financial crisis or something. Personally my motivation for rallying against this bull-company is simple: I am a very very dissatisfied costumer, and i want to share with other costumers that the red shiny Funcom apple is only red on the outside, and it's not sweet nor sour - it's rotten, and a product that truely belongs in the trashcan. Keep up the good work. Don't let the Funcom-aparatus strangle the voice of honesty...they deserve every reality-check that's coming to them.
The C
ROFLMAO!! You know Openedge... it's like that famous saying "What goes around, comes around". So nice to see you on the other side of the fence.
I guess I need to do my Jonmichael impression then...
"Why are you here...don't you play some other game that is less fun?"
ROFLMAO!! You know Openedge... it's like that famous saying "What goes around, comes around". So nice to see you on the other side of the fence.
If that saying held true wouldn't AoC be out of business for being the most unethical and deceptive game company in the history of games, also wouldn't they be out of business for producing a game that is inferior to most other MMOs going by size and scope............sitting around at level cap is lame a linear experiance to level cap is lame.
Moral of the story is AoC is the worst MMO on the market atm and they have lied more than any other gaming company, wonder why they partner w/ Edios.
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
While it is peanuts (USD 242.000) Funcom were subsidized in 2007 as well...
The Norwegian Film Fund describes themself as: "The Norwegian Film Fund is the Government’s executive body for film policy and handles the Government’s schemes for support."
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
I find it laughable and fanboyish, to say the least, that you would compare AoC's PvE to WAR's PvE and then AoC's PVP to Lotro's pvp. Have you played either of those games? i ask this because WAR is a pvp centric game, I know no one that plays WAR for it's pve so I dont understand why you would use that comparison. Second of all, Lotro is a pve game, perhaps one of the best on the market and I know no one that plays Lotro for its pvp mini game called Monster Play.
Let me suggest a better comparison that actually makes sense: AoC's pvp vs WAR's pvp. I think we can agree, that even tho end game is buggy at moment, WAR's pvp is infinitely more meaningful and accessible. I mean, both of those games were marketed toward pvp, however one of those actually shipped without a pvp system in place. lol
And the second revision of your comparison would be AoC's pve vs Lotro's pve. Im not really sure where to start with this one, since Lotro's endgame actually works and is complete at moment. With the exception of Wow, Lotro is easily one of the most polished and feature complete mmo's on the market right now.
So I can say, I play WAR for it's pvp and Lotro for it's pve. Easily the best of both worlds and Lotro already has DX10! Am I a AoC hater? No, but I dont believe that AoC is anything more than an average mmo, and in today's market, average will get you 100-150 K subscriptions. All this of course is my opinion.
The most misused word on the internet:
loose
adjective, looser, loosest, adverb, verb loosed, loosing.
adjective
1. free or released from fastening or attachment: a loose end.
2. free from anything that binds or restrains; unfettered
The word you are looking for is L-O-S-E. YOu can NOT loose a game.
I find it laughable and fanboyish, to say the least, that you would compare AoC's PvE to WAR's PvE and then AoC's PVP to Lotro's pvp. Have you played either of those games? i ask this because WAR is a pvp centric game, I know no one that plays WAR for it's pve so I dont understand why you would use that comparison. Second of all, Lotro is a pve game, perhaps one of the best on the market and I know no one that plays Lotro for its pvp mini game called Monster Play.
Let me suggest a better comparison that actually makes sense: AoC's pvp vs WAR's pvp. I think we can agree, that even tho end game is buggy at moment, WAR's pvp is infinitely more meaningful and accessible. I mean, both of those games were marketed toward pvp, however one of those actually shipped without a pvp system in place. lol
And the second revision of your comparison would be AoC's pve vs Lotro's pve. Im not really sure where to start with this one, since Lotro's endgame actually works and is complete at moment. With the exception of Wow, Lotro is easily one of the most polished and feature complete mmo's on the market right now.
So I can say, I play WAR for it's pvp and Lotro for it's pve. Easily the best of both worlds and Lotro already has DX10! Am I a AoC hater? No, but I dont believe that AoC is anything more than an average mmo, and in today's market, average will get you 100-150 K subscriptions. All this of course is my opinion.
Let me add my opinion. AoC has end game City building and sieges. This has in my opinion much more depth than WARs RvR. Guilds in GvG war/combat is so much more rewarding than a zerg individuals spamfight like RvR. Let me also just add that patch 1.04 expands on this as GvG will also fight over PvP resources used to build the various keep. I like AoC because the players themselves creates the endgame through a constant fueled conflict in between the guilds.
On the PvE side the current end game Raid content is getting there pretty good now. Many of those last bosses are really tough to take out. The amount of endgame raid content is less than wanted. Fortunately will Wing 3 open with patch 1.04 next Wednesday. Tons of more T2 raid content. Also Xiabaluku and Slaughterhouse cellars are coming out with this patch. I think AoC easily has the best PvE content out there. It has a so much better storylines than what you can find in WAR. I also prefer AoC PvE before LotRO Pve but these two games are much closer.
Finally AoC in DX9 or DX10 regardless, nothing can compete with AoC graphics wise.
I find it laughable and fanboyish, to say the least, that you would compare AoC's PvE to WAR's PvE and then AoC's PVP to Lotro's pvp. Have you played either of those games? i ask this because WAR is a pvp centric game, I know no one that plays WAR for it's pve so I dont understand why you would use that comparison. Second of all, Lotro is a pve game, perhaps one of the best on the market and I know no one that plays Lotro for its pvp mini game called Monster Play.
Let me suggest a better comparison that actually makes sense: AoC's pvp vs WAR's pvp. I think we can agree, that even tho end game is buggy at moment, WAR's pvp is infinitely more meaningful and accessible. I mean, both of those games were marketed toward pvp, however one of those actually shipped without a pvp system in place. lol
And the second revision of your comparison would be AoC's pve vs Lotro's pve. Im not really sure where to start with this one, since Lotro's endgame actually works and is complete at moment. With the exception of Wow, Lotro is easily one of the most polished and feature complete mmo's on the market right now.
So I can say, I play WAR for it's pvp and Lotro for it's pve. Easily the best of both worlds and Lotro already has DX10! Am I a AoC hater? No, but I dont believe that AoC is anything more than an average mmo, and in today's market, average will get you 100-150 K subscriptions. All this of course is my opinion.
War's PvE was way better than AoC's ...PQs made leveling very fun, for me only EQ 1 grouping came close and not often, I always hate leveling so rush to cap. Then they had 4 endgame instances with very fun bosses, they seemed hard and challenging which was fun but I knew it would drive people away. They also had quests all over the place. War needed some raids, but AoC is never going to satisfy raiders, they take forever to produce raid content, my feeling is the AoC expansion will be delayed, add 40-80 levels and forget to add an endgame.
The one draw back is War requires a tight balanced group to do anything, but that is what MMOs are about.
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
Guild life in AoC is a stellar disappointment in the game. Yes, because of the logistics and time it takes to harvest resources, but also it's one of the biggest indicators the game is dropping off the cliff (on the US). To get new players to join a guild is the most "skill" based action in the game. For one, the player (if well read) will want to know a lot of things about your guild, for example if you have a city, and how many players you have, do you raid...etc Most of the Guilds on the US side are struggling with recruitment problems, and if you can't answer yes to all three of those questions the player is off to one of usually 2 big guilds. Other guilds have to form alliances-which is a joke, because when it comes to Siege time you can't tell who is one your side by coloured name indicators. And even though you may have a $5,000 pc that glows in the dark, and a Internet connection that has a 200 terabyte upload and download, not everyone does and lots of people complain of lag and disconnects-so it a real clusterf#@&; (just wait until DX10 comes out and multiply DC's by 10 during sieges and raids). The guild factor from resourcing all the way to the absolute dismal guild UI is done far better by most other games.
Guilds in AoC demand a huge and consistent population by design, and that population just isn't there, and without it..everything falls apart You can't build a decent city because you don't have enough people to make it a reasonable venture, this is especially true with higher tier cities. The resourcing system sucks, and on a PvP server if you don't have a small army with you to gather resources you aren't getting jack-squat.
So if players fuel end-game content through sieges, there must be (and is) a lot of bored level 80s
Holy crap, the walls of text are getting longer and longer
How about everyone edits down their posts a bit. Could look something like this
I prefer WAR and LOTR.
I prefer AoC.
I don't like AoC.
Ta daaaaaa the whole forum in a nutshell
I prefer WAR and LOTR.
I prefer AoC.
I don't like AoC.
Ta daaaaaa the whole forum in a nutshell
^^^^^ = Enjoys AoC
Yea, this works pretty good. (PS: On the OP, no one really knows HOW many subs AoC has, and it is all speculation until we are told otherwise...)
/end thread
Yesterday there was an outage issue with Xfire...i.e: explaining the massive drop in time...but, if you would have looked at other games, you would know this (for example look at the Guild Wars chart, the EvE chart, etc...all had a massive downward spiral...)
But, hey, nice try on all these. Being informed is key here.
Cheers
looks XFire must still issues , AoC is still down about 20% from the same day last week. 5306 on the 4th to 4339 on the 11th. A drop of almost 1000 hours in a week for a game that dies not have that many players to begin with is quite unusual. just so I would be informed I checked Warhammer and it is only down a couple of hundred hours as is EvE. Lotro is down about 7% but is at 12th place overall. AoC seems to be the only game experiencing these drastic outage issues.
Curiouser and curiouser as they say.
I miss DAoC
Yesterday there was an outage issue with Xfire...i.e: explaining the massive drop in time...but, if you would have looked at other games, you would know this (for example look at the Guild Wars chart, the EvE chart, etc...all had a massive downward spiral...)
But, hey, nice try on all these. Being informed is key here.
Cheers
looks XFire must still issues , AoC is still down about 20% from the same day last week. 5306 on the 4th to 4339 on the 11th. A drop of almost 1000 hours in a week for a game that dies not have that many players to begin with is quite unusual. just so I would be informed I checked Warhammer and it is only down a couple of hundred hours as is EvE. Lotro is down about 7% but is at 12th place overall. AoC seems to be the only game experiencing these drastic outage issues.
Curiouser and curiouser as they say.
Indeed...oh wait....
DOWNTIME yesterday...(moved from Tuesday to Wednesday)
You are the most uninformed troll I have ever met sir.
Good day!
While it is peanuts (USD 242.000) Funcom were subsidized in 2007 as well...
The Norwegian Film Fund describes themself as: "The Norwegian Film Fund is the Government’s executive body for film policy and handles the Government’s schemes for support."
This is quite common in Norway, every company can apply for funds in different versions. When creating a company you can ask for money to get the company started. However it does require you to have a solid plan and a product people have faith in. Whena friend and myself started our first company I didn't know about all the possibilities, when I left this company and my friend who was going to continue wanted to start from fresh, and he did check the possibilities. And there was a lot of them.
The Norwegian Film fund does give out money to movies and companies that work with entertainment products. Everyone can get this money as long as their application is good enough.
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
Yesterday there was an outage issue with Xfire...i.e: explaining the massive drop in time...but, if you would have looked at other games, you would know this (for example look at the Guild Wars chart, the EvE chart, etc...all had a massive downward spiral...)
But, hey, nice try on all these. Being informed is key here.
Cheers
looks XFire must still issues , AoC is still down about 20% from the same day last week. 5306 on the 4th to 4339 on the 11th. A drop of almost 1000 hours in a week for a game that dies not have that many players to begin with is quite unusual. just so I would be informed I checked Warhammer and it is only down a couple of hundred hours as is EvE. Lotro is down about 7% but is at 12th place overall. AoC seems to be the only game experiencing these drastic outage issues.
Curiouser and curiouser as they say.
Indeed...oh wait....
DOWNTIME yesterday...(moved from Tuesday to Wednesday)
You are the most uninformed troll I have ever met sir.
Good day!
5 hours downtime from 7:01 am to 11:57 am in the US servers on a weekday and 5am till 10 am on the European servers caused a loss of 1000 hours in a game that only pulls 4 -5 K perday including prime time
, uh yeah sure it did 
. I was not aware that those are the prime playing hours for AoC. I mean I can see it dropping the hours by a couple of hundred hours but not 1000.
BTW what excuse do you have for Tuesday the third in comparison to Tuesday the tenth dropping down 700 hours. I guess there must have been more XFire issues. You seem to be on the ball with XFire outages for someone who thinks it sucks so badly.
Also in trying to educate myself I did a quick cruise of the XFire tech support forums and could find no more issues on Monday or Tuesday than any other day, nor was there anything about it in the general forums that I could find. I am sure you have a link to back up your claims of the XFire servers being down that you would not mind posting I must have missed the obvious again. Even after doing a Google search using the terms XFire problems Monday Feb 8th, I could find nothing. help me out here please.
I miss DAoC
Yesterday there was an outage issue with Xfire...i.e: explaining the massive drop in time...but, if you would have looked at other games, you would know this (for example look at the Guild Wars chart, the EvE chart, etc...all had a massive downward spiral...)
But, hey, nice try on all these. Being informed is key here.
Cheers
looks XFire must still issues , AoC is still down about 20% from the same day last week. 5306 on the 4th to 4339 on the 11th. A drop of almost 1000 hours in a week for a game that dies not have that many players to begin with is quite unusual. just so I would be informed I checked Warhammer and it is only down a couple of hundred hours as is EvE. Lotro is down about 7% but is at 12th place overall. AoC seems to be the only game experiencing these drastic outage issues.
Curiouser and curiouser as they say.
Indeed...oh wait....
DOWNTIME yesterday...(moved from Tuesday to Wednesday)
You are the most uninformed troll I have ever met sir.
Good day!
5 hours downtime from 7:01 am to 11:57 am on the US servers caused a loss of 1000 hours
, oh yeah sure it did 
. I would not think those are the prime playing hours in the US. BTW what excuse do you have for Tuesday the third in comparison to Tuesday the tenth dropping down 700 hours. I guess there must have been more mysterious XFire issues . By the way a quick cruise of the XFire tech support forums no more issues on Monday than any other, nor was there anything about it in the general forums that I could find. I am sure you have a link to back up your claims of the XFire servers being down that you would not mind posting I must have missed the obvious again. Even after doing a Google search using the terms XFire problems Monday Feb 8th, I could find nothing. help me out here please.
As I stated, informed trolling helps.
The date was the 9th of the outage. To see how this affected other games (always part of good research to make sure no other discrepancies exists), just take a few like, WAR which had over 1600+ hours of loss, LOTRO had over 4000+ (almost 5k) and Guild Wars had a whopping 20k hours of loss due to the Xfire outage.
Next, if we go back to the last downtime for AoC, for a 4 hour downtime they had a loss of 400+ hours. Note that this was an announced downtime of 5 hours.
Now, again research shows that Wednesdays downtime was announced for 8 HOURS. I do not know about you, but I sure do not sit at my system for 8 hours clicking login. I can assume a lot of players did the exact same thing, and decided to go enjoy that "Outisde" place, or maybe they played another game... but this could easily explain such a change in the amount of hours lost due to players not logging in.
I am not arguing a loss in time at all, as either people leave after their 30, 60 or 90 days or got a buddy key, etc..but try not to spin such large times lost into something it is not.
Because you would be wrong again.
(PS: I do not hate Xfire, and I actually use it all the time)
Yesterday there was an outage issue with Xfire...i.e: explaining the massive drop in time...but, if you would have looked at other games, you would know this (for example look at the Guild Wars chart, the EvE chart, etc...all had a massive downward spiral...)
But, hey, nice try on all these. Being informed is key here.
Cheers
looks XFire must still issues , AoC is still down about 20% from the same day last week. 5306 on the 4th to 4339 on the 11th. A drop of almost 1000 hours in a week for a game that dies not have that many players to begin with is quite unusual. just so I would be informed I checked Warhammer and it is only down a couple of hundred hours as is EvE. Lotro is down about 7% but is at 12th place overall. AoC seems to be the only game experiencing these drastic outage issues.
Curiouser and curiouser as they say.
Indeed...oh wait....
DOWNTIME yesterday...(moved from Tuesday to Wednesday)
You are the most uninformed troll I have ever met sir.
Good day!
5 hours downtime from 7:01 am to 11:57 am on the US servers caused a loss of 1000 hours
, oh yeah sure it did 
. I would not think those are the prime playing hours in the US. BTW what excuse do you have for Tuesday the third in comparison to Tuesday the tenth dropping down 700 hours. I guess there must have been more mysterious XFire issues . By the way a quick cruise of the XFire tech support forums no more issues on Monday than any other, nor was there anything about it in the general forums that I could find. I am sure you have a link to back up your claims of the XFire servers being down that you would not mind posting I must have missed the obvious again. Even after doing a Google search using the terms XFire problems Monday Feb 8th, I could find nothing. help me out here please.
As I stated, informed trolling helps.
The date was the 9th of the outage. To see how this affected other games (always part of good research to make sure no other discrepancies exists), just take a few like, WAR which had over 1600+ hours of loss, LOTRO had over 4000+ (almost 5k) and Guild Wars had a whopping 20k hours of loss due to the Xfire outage.
Next, if we go back to the last downtime for AoC, for a 4 hour downtime they had a loss of 400+ hours. Note that this was an announced downtime of 5 hours.
Now, again research shows that Wednesdays downtime was announced for 8 HOURS. I do not know about you, but I sure do not sit at my system for 8 hours clicking login. I can assume a lot of players did the exact same thing, and decided to go enjoy that "Outisde" place, or maybe they played another game... but this could easily explain such a change in the amount of hours lost due to players not logging in.
I am not arguing a loss in time at all, as either people leave after their 30, 60 or 90 days or got a buddy key, etc..but try not to spin such large times lost into something it is not.
Because you would be wrong again.
next time you are getting yourself educated you might want to look at what would cause games to have higher than normal numbers also. The two you mentioned Guild Wars and LoTRO had inflated numbers the week before for very good reasons.
Guild Wars had a huge ingame event the first week of February, the numbers from 31 January through Monday Feruary the 2nd were all about 20K higher than the previous week or this week.
Lotro had announced their free ten day trial on 26 January, once again their numbers were running high. A drop on the 9th was expected and a normal occurance. LoTRO's numbers have been wacky for a while now due to they resumed the ten day trials and they also had a promotion going on using XFire which ended yesterday. I expect to see it gradually drop to around 8 - 10K or so on weekdays and 12 - 14 K on weekends before long.
I miss DAoC
next time you are getting yourself educated you might want to look at what would cause games to have higher than normal numbers also. The two you mentioned Guild Wars and LoTRO had inflated numbers the week before for very good reasons.
Guild Wars had a huge ingame event the first week of February, the numbers from 31 January through Monday Feruary the 2nd were all about 20K higher than the previous week or this week.
Lotro had announced their free ten day trial on 26 January, once again their numbers were running high. A drop on the 9th was expected and a normal occurance.
Ok...Then that must explain the 70k hour loss for WoW on the 9th due to special events for that game the previous week...hmm, I see no mention of that anywhere...do you?
Better yet, lets leave MMO's since you think "events" do this..
CoD4 had a loss of 18k hours on the 9th, or how about CoD World at War which had a 5k hour loss. Left 4 Dead? A loss of 2500 hours. Check out some more if you wish...but you will get the same results.
I understand you wish to be right, but you are not. Again, I state, if you need to troll, get your facts straight.
But, since you feel the need to state the fact it was special events which caused the inflation and then subsequent loss on the 9th, how about this
X-Fire Update - Posted Feb 9th '09
Seems that there WAS an update...coincidence?
Nope.
Cheers
Ok...Then that must explain the 70k hour loss for WoW on the 9th due to special events for that game the previous week...hmm, I see no mention of that anywhere...do you?
Better yet, lets leave MMO's since you think "events" do this..
CoD4 had a loss of 18k hours on the 9th, or how about CoD World at War which had a 5k hour loss. Left 4 Dead? A loss of 2500 hours. Check out some more if you wish...but you will get the same results.
I understand you wish to be right, but you are not. Again, I state, if you need to troll, get your facts straight.
But, since you feel the need to state the fact it was special events which caused the inflation and then subsequent loss on the 9th, how about this
X-Fire Update - Posted Feb 9th '09
Seems that there WAS an update...coincidence?
Nope.
Cheers
As an update, it still looks like some games are not quite up to snuff yet after the outage. Due to the fact that Xfire averages it's play times over a number of days, it usually has a problem correcting itself for a week or so.
Example, CoD4 is still down about 10k hours from it's previous week, LOTRO (since we believe the event for Xfire may have had some coincidence with the times, we will go back two weeks) is still down about 3k some hours..WAR is down about 600 some hours from last week, or how about that newcomer, Runes of Magic thats seems to be getting some press...down about 600+ hrs. ...and AoC is now down about 300 some hours.
I expect the weekend to put corrections into the times, and put everybody back in tip top shape, so we can start our arguments again fresh on Monday...
Have a good weekend
Cheers
<Mod edit> " OMG. AOC has gained 4000% since last week... tons of people everywhere". The same way he picked a maintenance day from early December and compared it to a regular day from Jan to show his 55% growth that he keeps posting about.
Thanks
Whatever you guys did to summon Avery please undo.
FUNCOM - putting the FUN in disFUNctional !
I fear it doesn't really work.myself have even tried voodoo curses to see if he would vanish but guy is resilient as hell.
From 2008 Q2 Financial report:
800k copies sold and only 415k "customers" as of August 14th (http://www.funcom.com/funcom/frontend/files/CONTENT/Funcom_Q208_presentation.pdf)
In August my server still had 4-5 Keshatta instances up. There were a lot of people. In October there was 1-2. This was Tyranny server before merge. One of the most populated servers... if not the most.
I'd say 100-150k sounds fairly reasonable, considering the fact that publicly traded company decided to hide facts from investors and not publish details in Third Quarter Financial report. Let's see if they post details in Q4 (on Feb 28th).
For "amazing" people there's amazing button, called "block".