Funcom Lied About AoC Sales

[Tessera]

So guess what..? Funcom has sent me YET ANOTHER offer to come back and play for free. And naturally, they are hoping to suck me into buying their lame expansion pack. And as a part of the deal, they have actually GIVEN me the entire expansion... but I gotta pay for it if I wanna access certain parts of it. It took almost an entire hour to download. Well, whoopie..!!! Another free trial from Funcom, for AoC veterans. I feel so loved. What are we up to now... something like seven free trial offers in the past year..?  :laugh:

So naturally, I said "Sure, I'll go poke my head in again for free." Why not..?


And here is what I found:

(1) The graphics in AoC are still buggy as hell... almost as bad as they were on launch day. I'm running brand-new hardware that far exceeds ANYTHING that was available back when AoC first launched, and yet the overall framerates still suck... the video randomly stutters and freezes every ten minutes or so, even when my character is not moving. And textures still fail to load properly on a regular basis... particularly when logging in or changing zones. That bug has been in this game since BETA and they have NEVER fixed it... not in TWO YEARS.

(2) The chat window is still unreadable in most situations... and the overall suitability of the chat system is essentially just as horrible as it was back on launch day. Seriously... no change in chat functionality AT ALL, even after two years of "exciting new enhancements" by Funcom.

(3) The post-80 game has been augmented by an alternate advancement system that looks as if it was more or less ripped off directly from EverQuest. And it also has a "feature" that is very much a rip-off of Eve Online. Because here's the best part about Funcom's new AA system: you don't actually need to work towards obtaining any of those AA points. You don't need to EARN anything at all. Just click on the AA ability that you want, and then select "Time" as the way of "earning" that ability. And then, log off and go do something else for two days. Go visit your grandma... go find yourself a real girlfriend... or whatever. When you come back two days later, SHAZZAM..!!! Your toon will magically have a new AA ability... no actual gameplay required. No need to work for it... because Funcom is handing out candy for free. Anything to keep miserably bored post-80 players from canceling their subscriptions, eh..? FUCKING PATHETIC EZ-MODE BULLSHIT.

(4) The new zones from the expansion look pretty. They even have bird people in them -- kinda like the Arrakoa bird people in World Of Warcrap. Aside from that, there is nothing remarkable about the expansion at all and actually, it is just as repetitive and uninspired as the plain-vanilla game. No wonder Funcom is offering free trials in yet another effort to lure people into paying for A BORING GAME with an EQUALLY BORING EXPANSION PACK.

(5) There is still no improvement in high-end raid content. I asked several fellow level 80 players if any of that had changed significantly in the past year or so. All of them emphatically said "No, but they did add a bunch of pretty new uber gear." Well, yay. I guess this explains why all of the level 80's that I spoke to were all standing around in Khemi and picking their noses: because they had nothing else to do.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: they gave me a free "drinking cape" as a reward for coming back. Except that I already had one, for being a member of the beta community. Well cool... so now I have two, I guess. Except that I never even used the first one, because it's lame. It just lets your toon get drunk for free. Yay. I suppose that item would have been significant, if Funcom hadn't cut drunken tavern brawls out of the game right before release day. But they did... so it isn't. Just more silly hype for the kiddies that ultimately amounts to... nothing.

It is clear that Funcom has been putting their last gasp behind this lame expansion pack of theirs, in the fervent hope that it will somehow resurrect Age Of Conan and keep Funcom from going bankrupt. Well... good luck with that, Funcom. Instead of spending the past two years hiring COMPETENT developers... and fixing what was already miserably broken, misguided and inadequate about AoC... you have instead invested whatever is left of your capital into hiring some entry-level trained chimps, to forge a bloated piece of hype called "Rise Of The Godslayer." Once again, Funcom is making the same mistakes that have plagued this game ever since its release: they are placing style and hype over substance and originality... and in the end, they have achieved none of the above.

I know there is a certain percentage of people out there who think that I rant against AoC for personal reasons. I suppose to some small extent, that may actually be true. I am very angry with Funcom and the way that they deliberately sabotaged third-party mods for AoC, yes. That's no secret. But my personal anger towards Funcom does not have any bearing upon the validity of my criticisms. Either something is true, or else it isn't true. Regardless of whether the messenger is angry or not, that doesn't make it any more or less true. And so far as I am concerned, ALL of my negative criticisms regarding Funcom and their broken Age Of Conan game are legitimate and supported by factual examples. And the most damning fact of all can be found by looking at the steadily dwindling number of actively playing AoC subscribers. The people are clearly unhappy with AoC... and so far, Funcom has done little to nothing about fixing the most fundamental problems with their game. Instead, they just keep piling on more and more hype, freebies and deceptive advertising... along with a decidedly mediocre expansion pack that is just as boring and uninspired as the rest of the game.

Avoid the Age Of Conan and its parent company like the plague, folks. Just spend your money on something else... preferably something which is not a mediocre, misguided and buggy pile of fancy-looking crap.

And somebody please tell Funcom that no amount of gold spray paint is going to turn a dog turd into a work of art.  

[Tessera]

And it just keeps on gettin' better...

Age Of Conan has now been cut down to a measly FOUR servers. That's right... the community has shrunk to the point where they've cut their original 23 servers (or whatever it was -- I forget) down to FOUR. A big FOUR servers, folks..!!! That's the only way that Funcom can keep the population of each server high enough so that you MIGHT be able to find a group from time to time... if you really want one, that is.

So here is what we've seen so far, in the ongoing devolution of AoC:

(1) Numerous free offers, in a desperate attempt to lure former players back to what is still an essentially shitty, unimaginative and downright DULL game.

(2) Free levels..!!! Woo hoo..!!! You don't even need to play past lvl 30 anymore. You can just park your toon and rack up free levels... just by sitting on your ass at home and watching TV. Instead of revamping their horribly dull and uninspired mid-level content, Funcom has a better idea: you don't have to play AT ALL..!!! You get to just have FREE levels instead, if you want them. Jeezis... is anything more lame than that in the MMO genre..? A game that you don't actually need to play in order to hit the top..? Well gee, Funcom... talk about being desperate whores...

(3) Free mounts... free uber items... free everything, pretty much. Funcom can't even give this shit away... because despite all of their retarded freebies, the game itself is still a completely shitty and majorly broken mess. Just as it has been ever since Day One. I should know -- because I was there on Day One. And before that, even. Absolutely none of the glaringly borked mechanics and incredibly inferior, simple-minded content within AoC has ever been properly remedied. So no amount of free levels, free gear, free WoW-esque kitty mounts, or anything else short of free blowjobs from the female staff at Funcom is ever going to make a difference to this game's ultimate fate. But try telling that to Funcom's incompetent marketing staff... a bunch of gutless simpletons, who -all- should have been sacked back when the game was still in beta.

(4) Continued and completely unnecessary censorship. Age Of Conan is supposedly a "Mature for 17+ Only" MMO. In other words, the same level of permissiveness as what would be the norm for an R-rated movie here in the USA and elsewhere. Such as... oh, the original Conan film with Arnold Schwartzenegger, for example... which was released WAY back in the very early 1980's and it featured ten times more tits, ass, sex, blood, gore, and mature themes and dialogue than ANYTHING you will EVER find in the ultra-lame, 21st-century Age Of Conan MMO. And yet AoC launched with far less adult content than the Conan movie... and in fact, far less adult content than what was promised during the beta. And ever since launch day, the misguided, chickenshit staff at Funcom have been slowly removing whatever racy content remained. Just a little at a time, mind you... in the hopes that nobody would notice. Well guess what..? We noticed -- and it's insulting to our intelligence. It's also an out-and-out insult to the memory and legacy of Robert E. Howard, the author upon whose lusty works this POS kids' game is supposedly based. When you get right down to it, the only remaining justification for AoC's "mature 17+" rating is because it has nipples in it... because aside from those poorly rendered nipples, absolutely EVERYTHING ELSE in AoC is completely and totally geared towards barely adolescent 14-year-old virgins.

(5) An extremely poor quality and totally cheesy expansion pack ("Rise Of The Godslayer"), which was obviously intended to boost their number of active subscribers. Well guess what..? Predictably, it didn't work. As a matter of fact, I -did- predict it, come to think of it. But anyway, this is what happens when you put all of your eggs in one basket, instead of fixing the mess still leftover from all of those broken eggs that came before. Pure idiocy and ineptitude, but also very typical of the gaming industry in general. Just keep piling on more stuff... and maybe we can eventually bury all of that mess that we still haven't managed to fix.


Ya know, I keep wondering how much money Funcom has left in the bank. The value of their stock has certainly gone straight into the shitter, so they can't have very much money left at this point. And with only four servers remaining.... none of which are "full" by anybody's standards, by the way... well, you do the math.

This is what happens when you try to combine a kids' game with tits: you end up losing BOTH demographics. Adults are insulted by the lack of mature gameplay, and kids are overwhelmed and uncomfortable with the topless chicks after awhile. Not to mention that most parents wouldn't let their kids play a game with bare tits in it in the first place.

I've said this before and I will say it again. I was one of MANY people who were angrily waving our hands in the air and trying to warn Funcom about this "confused game in search of an identity" problem... waaaay back during the later stages of the beta testing period. They didn't listen to us then... they still aren't listening now, no doubt blaming their problems on ANYTHING and EVERYTHING except the obvious... and as a result, their game has been steadily falling apart ever since its debut.

[Alkanoonion]

I agree 110% I came back after I upgraded my pc and got an offer of 1/2 price upgrade to the expansion.
logged in and had to wait for updates, The game took 8hrs to update.

When I get into the game it still only gave me 40 fps when outside, and in the towns that dropped down to 12fps. The graphics / game is buggy as hell and boring.

I decided to pay for the upgrade and then the next time I logged in my account is banned.. the reason given the upgrade payment failed due to a problem with the card. I sent an E-mail to the company telling them that even if the payment failed I still payed for the core game for 2 months and should still be able to play. 24hrs later I am allowed back in and then I pay for the upgrade in the hope the game gets better.

My next gripe is that almost every 2nd time I logged in I get a message telling me that the data might be corrupted did i want to fix it..
This Game fails if a game that is 2years old fails to run on a new pc then you know they have problems.

I played for 2weeks and  then I see this offline leveling crap...What the fuck, that's a slap to any real player who earned his /her level by playing the game. I did not renew Thanks fancom

[vash2040]

I was excited when I heard about AoC then it came out. I wrote a very irate e-mail, for their why are you canceling AoC, and yet they still send me please come back letters. I'll be happy when they finally fold the company or the game or both.

[Tessera]

Just remember, folks... because of Funcom's bad business decisions, all of you got screwed out of having beautiful stuff like this in your game:




That's a super high-quality re-skin that I did of the high level Succubus (Demonologist's pet), back in 2008. It was never released, due to the direct and deliberate sabotage of the AoC modding community by Funcom. If any of you reading this are still actively playing AoC, then compare what you see here to the default Succubus. And then tell me which one looks more beautiful, dramatic and realistic. It's no contest, IMHO.

If the idiots at Funcom had worked more cooperatively with modders (like me), instead of turning into dictatorial prudes and preemptively sabotaging our re-skin projects, then AoC players would have had numerous (and harmless) texture enhancements to choose from. Which in turn would have breathed new life (and more players) into AoC. But instead, AoC has turned into a virtual ghost town of an MMO... all because of the unbelievable incompetence on the part of Funcom's marketers and directors.

So what we need now are two things:

(1) Everyone who is currently still playing AoC needs to cancel their subscriptions. Funcom screwed you -- so don't give them another penny of your money. They don't deserve it, period.

(2) We also need to create a private server package for AoC, so that all of us can set up our own servers and play the game any damned way that we please... and for FREE.

In my opinion, that is the only way to salvage AoC at this point. In fact, it is an excellent idea... and I hope some talented coders out there will try their hands at creating a fully functional AoC server.

As a matter of fact and speaking personally, I would be willing to pay a substantial amount of cash for a fully functional and user configurable Age Of Conan server packages. Yes, I am being serious.

[Alkanoonion]

Don't think I could do this one myself as I am still working on my Tabula Rasa server but I will see what I can find online. One might already be available.

[anariel]

Content should be added so not everything past Tortage is farming and PvP...

[Tessera]

Content should be added so not everything past Tortage is farming and PvP...

I agree.

Lots of things should be added... including the addition of a lot of mature content which was discussed (and in some cases,
actually tested) during the AoC beta -- but was later censored by Funcom.

This is why I said that we need a server package that is user configurable... so that we can add new scripts and modify the
game to our heart's content. Age Of Conan is a game which CAN be saved... but not so long as it remains under the sole
control of Funcom. They played bait-and-switch with their customers... initially promising us a mature, R-rated MMO based
upon the racy works of Robert Howard. But instead, they delivered what essentially amounts to WoW with tits.

Keep in mind that the Conan movie, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and released THIRTY YEARS AGO, contains significantly
more sex, violence and mature content than AoC does. There is something very seriously wrong with that... and we can blame
it entirely upon the idiotic and clueless marketers at Funcom. This is why their MMO is failing... but as I say, it CAN be fixed.

[Alkanoonion]

The only thing I could find on this was Project Faolan. web site
http://www.projectfaolan.com/  it's a emulator but could be edited for a private server.

[Tessera]

I've heard of that before... but I don't think it's working yet.   

[Kathryn19]

Oh golly gosh that succubus demo pet is absolutely gorgeous Tess.

Want!!!!

[Tessera]

I wish I could give her to you. I hadn't even finished the final details that skin (she still needs some work in the area around her hips and upper thighs).

Like I said -- Funcom screwed all of us out of enjoying my Succubus, and a lot of other very nice re-skins and armor mods for AoC.  

The best way to show your displeasure is to cancel your AoC subscriptions immediately. Anybody who plays bait-and-switch the way Funcom has with AoC does not deserve to be rewarded for it. On the contrary, they deserve to go bankrupt... and I have a feeling that they will indeed go belly-up, before much longer.

[Ratcatcher]

Oh golly gosh that succubus demo pet is absolutely gorgeous Tess.

Want!!!!

Agreed.

[Tessera]

Incidentally, you can see a silhouette of my Demonologist in the bottom panel of that Succubus montage. See her there, standing to the right of the Succubus..? Her name was "Kryssia" and she hit level 80 about two-and-a-half weeks after AoC first launched. Which I suppose makes her one of the very first level 80 Demo's in the history of AoC.

I would be a lot more proud of that... were it not for the fact that getting to level 80 in AoC is incredibly easy, so long as you don't mind grinding and grinding and GRINDING all day long. It was especially easy for a Demo back then, since they generally had no trouble when it came to soloing mobs several levels higher than themselves.

It's a shame that Funcom dicked everyone over the way they did. AoC had great potential, as what -SHOULD- have been the first major adult-oriented MMO. But instead, Funcom tried to keep the back door open to the kiddie dollars... and as a result, they ended up losing BOTH demographics. Adults don't want to play a shallow game that amounts to being WoW with tits... and as for kids, many parents are too prudish to allow their kids to play a game that features partial female nudity.

What Funcom should have done was to stick to the adult themes exclusively... and then count upon gaining a niche market of loyal adult players. But like most people in the business world these days, their greed blinded them to what could have been a much more successful route than what they foolishly decided upon. Would AoC have ever been as huge as WoW..? Well, no... but it sure as hell would have been a lot more successful than it is right now. Of that much I am quite certain.

We need to develop our own private servers for AoC. That is the best way to save it from total extermination at this point, as well as restore it to being the adult-oriented MMO that AoC always SHOULD have been. If we can get a project like that happening, then I will be more than happy to re-texture many of the character models, as well as re-do quite a bit of the armor and clothing.

Funcom may not be very loyal to Robert E. Howard's vision of Hyborea... but I certainly am, and I will be quite willing to do my part in converting AoC into a worthy representation of that vision. And no, that doesn't just mean "more nudity." It means adding the gritty adult themes and concepts that are consistent with the original series of Conan books.

But first, we need a server package.

[Ratcatcher]

But first, we need a server package.

I'll start looking. 

[Tessera]

LOL... once again, Funcom is extending yet another "Please please PLEASE come back" free offer...



So umm, how many free offers has that been, in the past year or so..? I've lost count. A dozen..? I can't even remember anymore.

Do people who are successful and making money give away things for free..? Hardly. They do the opposite... they jack up the price.

Well, I have a response to Funcom and their latest offer of free AoC gameplay...



How clueless can these assholes be..? We told them how to fix their sagging sales three years ago. Hell, I even offered to re-skin all of their player character models FOR FREE back then. I made that offer directly to Funcom, right there on their own official forums. Told them that I wouldn't even charge them a penny for my services. Well, they ignored us, they mocked us, and they eventually banned us from their forums. "Out of sight, out of mind," eh..?

Well, guess what..? You're losing, Funcom. Badly. Now hurry up and declare bankruptcy, so the rest of us can have yet another huge laugh at your expense. AoC could have been a wonderful new MMO for adults. But instead, Funcom opted to turn it into an idiotic (and BORING) playground for teenaged masturbators. Congratulations on your business sense, Funcom. Now please -- go away.