Funcom Lied About AoC Sales

[anariel]

Or how about this:

Imagine raiding with a bunch of people who hardly ever played their class, because they took advantage of Funcom's new "auto-level" crap..?

Are those people going to know how to play their class..? Will they perform expertly during your raid..? Or is it more likely that they'll be totally clueless and end up having to be carried by everyone else in that raid..?

The AoC community is gonna be suffering with a shitload of unskilled slackers in the high levels soon.

Tess, the situation with Eve Online can be compared in a way, because Eve Online doesn't have character levels: you level up skills, but the game has been balanced since the beginning for the people to be leveling skills while offline. And none of those skills (if I remember right) are active, all are passive.

About what you say, that crisis of people actually knowing how to play... Well, I stopped raiding in WoW before the Dungeon Finder was implemented, but hell, I raided with people who didn't put a foot on a instance before lv 78-80... they leveled with quests, or in some cases, they used the "linked account" option to begin play at LV 60 right away... and we better don't start speaking about ebayed characters, or power-leveled ones... Things reached a level of absurdity when a hunter was using a shot which does little damage but tons of aggro, and when he got the aggro he began running in the opposite direction of the tank... keeping firing, of course; when asked about why he didn't used Feing Death he answered with a "what do you know about hunters?" or something like that... And I won't begin to talk about the lv 70 warlock in the 2nd expansion who only had the imp and the voidwalker as pets... or the lv 60 paladin in vanilla without the ressing spell (you needed to do a quest in a castle full of worgen to get in, but a lv 60 you could at least go and solo it!!!)... Oh, and the fire mage nuking Al'Ar with fireballs was hillarious...

[Alez107]

Does the retail price still include 1 free month? I can give it a try. Also, If I recall correctly, they are porting the game to Crapbox 360, do you guys think they can somehow connect PC and 360 players in the same realms? It would be interesting.

Im still on the game and if you are trying it out give me a private message..

********

Now that theres an offline level thing there actually are alot of noobs in high level and in my oppinion its stupid that people don't even do the Keshetta etc. and can just level from 70 to 80 in 10 seconds..

But Tess the game is not dying this week there has comed many new players (some idiots) and alot of veteran to the server where I am..

One more thing imo the Godslayer asian style is just that Funcom gets alot of chinese players in the game,but it doesent bother me really atleast if they don't come to the europian servers.

And  when someone says that they butcher the classes, they really aren't they are making them more stable and i know i have been playing the game a loong time..

I have already preordered the expansion and i am really hyped about it and its going to be exiting for a new kind of roleplaying.

[Kandid]

That's very kind of you, but I'm not playing it.

[Alez107]

And after that, just go away for two or three months, without ever once logging into that character. And guess what you will find, when you come back several months later..? Yup, you guessed it: your new toons... characters that you have never actually played... will have magically leveled up all by themselves.

Not quite like that Tess, Im at the game and I know what kind it is,Its like this:When you log in to the game there is a new bar in your character screen and every  5 days you get one (offline) level and you press your char and press to give the level to it,I am NOT saying this is a good idea I didin't like it at all  and i don't know where you have gotten this kind of information but its not like you said at all.


By the way for the 6 bucks for age of conan I have gotten an expression that in the expansion you get the original game with it so if that is true its not a half bad idea to sell the old copies of the game if the original is with the expansion,but i am not sure of this at all but if this is true its not a bad price for the original game and an expansion now that the game is running good without bugs and have many new large zones and instances,just saying...

[Alez107]

And heres the fact..

The expansion will launch on May 11th and will be available both through retail and as a digital download. In retail the expansion will come in an all-new packaging that includes both the expansion and the original game, allowing new players to quickly get up to speed with all the new content and gameplay. The retail product comes bundled with a new social pet as well as a package of virtual items to welcome new players to Hyboria.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/108/1085805p1.html

And in the game cover it also says "includes the original game"

[Tessera]

i don't know where you have gotten this kind of information but its not like you said at all.

Here ya go:

"The new feature kicks off by giving each active account four levels which can distributed to any characters above level 30. Every four days, an additional level will be added to your offline leveling pool, again enabling you to bump up one of your post-30 avatars. The levels accrue regardless of whether you actually log into Age of Conan every four days, provided you maintain an active subscription."

So what I said was correct: so long as you keep paying them money each month, Funcom will give you free levels every four days. Nobody in their right mind would ever make an offer like that, unless they were desperate to keep people from canceling their subscriptions.

Incidentally... how can you say that AoC is not dying, when they started out with well over TWENTY servers and now, they're down to what... five in the USA..? Six..? It seems that every time I take a look at the official AoC forums, they're announcing another server merger.

If you're seeing a bunch of new faces on your server, then it is no doubt because of another "free 30 days" promotion. Funcom seems to run that promotion every few months. And after those people check it out for 30 days, almost all of them will quit... just like they have after all of the other promotions.

[Alez107]

So what I said was correct: so long as you keep paying them money each month, Funcom will give you free levels every four days.

This is what i also said,but in your first post it sounded to me that the whole thing was largened more.

Incidentally... how can you say that AoC is not dying, when they started out with well over TWENTY servers and now, they're down to what... five in the USA..? Six..?

If you're seeing a bunch of new faces on your server
And after those people check it out for 30 days, almost all of them will quit... just like they have after all of the other promotions.

Yes about a year ago the servers were merged in europe and that was then now with the expansion and bugs fixed people are coming back and actually staying,in here there haven't been merges in a year and in my opinnion and what I have seen the people that are there are staying.

What I saw with the facebook and twitter thing yes it is pathethic,I do not know what is the status of the company now but it is getting better.Now with the Funcom blackmailing gamers back with deleting chars,Im not sure sounds like an hoax to me since I took a half year brake and i didint get any threats and neither did my brother who played last a year ago.I don't know about this and I would want to get proof before I belive these kind of things.

[Tessera]

I don't know about this and I would want to get proof before I belive these kind of things.

So do some research. 

[anariel]

That's hard, Tess. How can you research if Funcom really deletes characters? Asking in the 'net will get you a phalse response (either Funcom's people reply to you that yes, they got their characters deleted, or you make them realize the fear can actually work... and then they'll delete some characters just to prove their point). Truth is, it's not in their best interest to delete the characters, because well... if I ever have the feeling of playing some WoW again, and when I log (using obviously some "free time sent to you by a friend") if I see all my characters got deleted, then I'll be logged enough time to fill a ticket asking them to restore my account fully if they truly are interested in keeping me as a customer for the whole company and send me a confirmation to my email. And if they don't, well, I still do have the old games made by Blizzard and I don't have any real reason to buy anymore.

[Tessera]

That's hard, Tess. How can you research if Funcom really deletes characters?

Because Funcom SAID they were going to do that. They made that particular announcement
quite some time ago. It was included in one of their regular newsletters for AoC subscribers.
They still send me those newsletters, even though I'm no longer a subscriber.

[Alez107]

So do some research.  Wink

Nope,you told us about this so in my opinnion you should do the research since you posted that in here.

And your first post is 4 months old and i haven't heard about this much and i think that they have lost the idea,as I researched the blackmailing I found out that the deleting is to level 20s and lower only I am not defending Funcom if they actually are deleting peoples chars but below 20 would not matter to me.

[Tessera]

Nope,you told us about this so in my opinnion you should do the research since you posted that in here.

Why..? Did you forget how to Google..?

No matter. I'll Google it for you:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=Funcom+delete+characters&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=a537d44c67dd0bd9

There... that should give you lots of stuff to read.  


And in a related bit of news, you might also be interested in this article:

http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2009/01/05/story5.html

The article is dated approximately one year ago and it describes the fact that Funcom is rapidly running out of money. Their stock has likewise been devalued so severely that I really don't expect Funcom to hold out much longer. Which would make me very happy, actually... because companies that misrepresent their products, the way Funcom misrepresented AoC, deserve to be put out of business.



And to think that I once offered to re-skin AoC for free. What a waste. 

[Alez107]

Code Select Expand

And to think that I once offered to re-skin AoC for free. What a waste.  Roll Eyes

This is one of the reasons i like you, you can do a hell of a job in making nude women *thumbs up* Stupid that they wouldn't let you...

Yup,now I know this is true but still under level 20 not as big of a problem but still a problem...

With the money as I said before yes they are/were running out of money I do know this and this shows in the lack of professionality in GM and delay of the customer support,But as I said there is a large possibility that Funcom will rise back from its feet since they have fixed bugs new zones and instances  and the new areas in the expansion like I said that its a big + that the expansion has the original game,and I do hope that Funcom won't fail since it is a enuiqe game and if they would not do such stupid things AoC would be dominating MMO industry.

[anariel]

That's hard, Tess. How can you research if Funcom really deletes characters?

Because Funcom SAID they were going to do that. They made that particular announcement
quite some time ago. It was included in one of their regular newsletters for AoC subscribers.
They still send me those newsletters, even though I'm no longer a subscriber.

Yes, they said it, what I meant was if they really deleted the characters, and how to make sure the people "making noise" about how their characters were deleted are not Funcom's employees. Or in other words, how do we know for sure it's not only a scare tactic, and that they had no real intention of deleting a single account?

You know, at least before the company goes down, they could release the code for the server... so anyone could make its own AoC server and play to its heart's content (and add a NPC to allow you to auto-level from 30 to 60 in a single click instead of grinding).

[Tessera]

...how do we know for sure it's not only a scare tactic, and that they had no real intention of deleting a single account?

Does it matter..? It's still a slimy tactic.

[Tessera]

Here's a related post, copied over from the members-only area of this board. It has to do with censorship in Age Of Conan, as well as a response to an inquiry that someone made about my own fully-nude textures for AoC. As many of you know by now, those re-skin projects were sabotaged by Funcom. And no... their excuse back in 2008 about it being some sort of "DX10 glitch" is not true. There is no question that Funcom deliberately altered their game engine so that player-made texture mods would not function. But here... let's take a look at what Funcom screwed everyone out of:



PS...

This skin texture was the best of the bunch:




Ultimately, I had planned to make the other two races look as good as the Stygian girl that you see above.
She was the one that I started with, so her skin was the most finished of them all.

Does anybody else think it's ridiculous that the R-rated Conan movie from 30 years ago had more sex and violence in it than a 21st century game that supposedly has the same 17+ rating..?

On the one hand, AoC is rated for adults.... right there on the box, and right there on the entry page of their own official web site. As a matter of fact, you need to affirm that your age is 17 or older before you can even enter that site. But at the same time, AoC has clearly been dumbed-down for kids and almost all of the mature content has been censored from it. So basically, we have a kid's game that features tits. That's it... just tits. Everything else in AoC is no more risque` than World Of Warcraft. Funcom is essentially (and knowingly) selling tits to children.

When you think about it that way, Funcom is actually FAR more perverted than those of us who were demanding authentic Howard-esque adult content in AoC. We were simply adults who expected that a game for adults would feature... ya know,... some adult content here and there. Not everywhere... just in the places where it was appropriate and authentic. Meanwhile, Funcom is trying to sell their game to kids -- by luring them with bare tits. Now tell me who is being twisted and inappropriate..? Because it sure as hell wasn't us. We wanted an authentic game that was worthy of the Robert E. Howard name that Funcom has shamelessly (and unjustifiably) splattered all over their ads full of bullshit and hype. But what we got instead was... basically... WoW with tits.

[anariel]

There are other options to make a game "adult", Tess. And I think AoC lacks them too. I mean evil plots to take the world, human sacrifices to dark gods (quite common in the Conan comics), unleashed demons, tragedies, monsters, humans turned mosters, gruesome decisions made by Conan, etc...

Personally, I couldn't care less for the nude mods in a Conan game. But if the only reason such a game is rated R is that, then call the game "nude babes and barbarians" instead of "Conan"... Of course, nudity would be a plus, but if it becomes the only reason...

Like you said, funcom has been encouraging children to smoke and drink in the bathrooms of their school just because it seduces them to do something forbade by their parents. Quite pathethic to do something like that to feel like a rebel... But also fitting for this generations.

[Tessera]

There are other options to make a game "adult", Tess. And I think AoC lacks them too. I mean evil plots to take the world, human sacrifices to dark gods (quite common in the Conan comics), unleashed demons, tragedies, monsters, humans turned mosters, gruesome decisions made by Conan, etc...

I wasn't just talking about nudity, anariel.

I brought up nudity as an example, but it is far from being the only issue.
During the AoC beta, many of us were expressing concerns over all sorts
of mature themes which were being weeded out of AoC by its developers.
And after the game officially launched, we were likewise raising numerous
issues on the official AoC forums. In almost every case, we were rebuffed
by the AoC staff and essentially told to shut our mouths and stop bitching.

Please do not assume that I have a narrow viewpoint. Nudity is nice and it
most certainly belongs in any game which is supposedly based upon the
works of R.E. Howard. But nudity out of context... which is essentially
what you will find in AoC... is nothing but a shameful marketing ploy.