With the first month of a game, you can tell it will either live or die or just stagnate. A lot of it has to do with how the company deals with the launch, AoC i never got into during beta and i found it to be subpar at best. So it lead me to cancel my preorder as it wasn't for me, though my understandings of the launch were quite bad.  It was sloppy and rocky from the get go, only getting worse is it snowballed.

First impressions are everything in this market, if you fail a launch, you fail the game.

Instead of comparing the games, try comparing the companies instead. You will understand a lot further as to why one is where its at and why the other is so uncertain.

Originally posted by Aori

With the first month of a game, you can tell it will either live or die or just stagnate. A lot of it has to do with how the company deals with the launch, AoC i never got into during beta and i found it to be subpar at best. So it lead me to cancel my preorder as it wasn't for me, though my understandings of the launch were quite bad.  It was sloppy and rocky from the get go, only getting worse is it snowballed.

First impressions are everything in this market, if you fail a launch, you fail the game.

Instead of comparing the games, try comparing the companies instead. You will understand a lot further as to why one is where its at and why the other is so uncertain.

 

You're absolutely right, the first month does tell a lot. It tells us that Age of Conan is a hugely successful game with a large following and a dev company that has gone to great lengths to ensure that a good number of the game-breaking issues that plagued it throughout its Beta are no longer there in the retail version (something you acknowledge you have no personal experience of). Sure there are still plenty of bugs, and there are features that were promised at launch but have been delayed, but it obviously isn't enough to deter hundreds of thousands of players. Whether Funcom can turn this strong beginning into a dedicated following hangs in the balance of their ability to fix and add to their creation quickly and regularly, something they have shown a strong commitment to so far.

Funcom certainly have not "failed" in any sense of the word... if anything they are the victims of their own success, and are having to deal with a huge number of unforeseen issues arising out of the unexpectedly high number of players in this game. Age of Conan may not be perfect or even 'finished', but it's nonetheless a lot of fun for a lot of people and has certainly proved to be a strong contender for the 'runner-up' title. No challenge for WoW perhaps, but certainly not another Vanguard having to be put down by the side of the track either.

to some guy who was talking about amazon: im so sorry i find an official press release more convincing then some internet stats of A SINGLE website, and maybe that website may be used a lot in UK or USA, but not here...

1 Million boxes shipped, from which they get 700k subscriptions, 30% to 40% retention, that is a nice solid MMO base to build from.

I agree with much of what you say Greek_matt, but none of the problems people are complaining about are a result of "unforeseen issues arising out of the unexpectedly high number of player"

If the game only had 10k players the sieges, crafting, dungeons, lack of quests, itemization, etc would all still be there.  I think Funcom was all to aware of the problems in the game which is why they did not lift the NDA prior to the game launching. 

I'm not sure that Conan is a huge success or that MMO players are just desperate for anything to play right now.  There has been a very long drought of games over the last few years. 

700,000 players have created accounts for the game thats nice and all but HOW MANY ARE ACTIVE??

i know mine is not active so i guess thats 699,999 active it i know of. anyone eles wanna share if their active or not and find the real number of ACTIVE ACCOUNTS. not CREATED ACCOUNTS

Originally posted by Daffid011

I agree with much of what you say Greek_matt, but none of the problems people are complaining about are a result of "unforeseen issues arising out of the unexpectedly high number of player"

If the game only had 10k players the sieges, crafting, dungeons, lack of quests, itemization, etc would all still be there.  I think Funcom was all to aware of the problems in the game which is why they did not lift the NDA prior to the game launching. 

 

I'm not sure that Conan is a huge success or that MMO players are just desperate for anything to play right now.  There has been a very long drought of games over the last few years. 

You may well be right (and I certainly agree that the 'MMO Drought' will have had a big impact on AoC's numbers). On the other hand, it could be that Funcom was forced to divert its dev resources away from the missing/broken features you listed and into solutions to cope with a far greater consumer base than they'd originally envisaged. I'll admit I have no idea how their coding cycle or Project Management worked, but it doesn't seem so unlikely to suppose that when they got the first real inkling that they might have a major hit on their hands they panicked a little and shifted focus more to coping with the masses and less to fleshing out the details they'd originally planned.

Hello, I am from the german Fraktion and I just have to say :

in germany the game is only available in a "cutted" version (*), 5 final moves are not available, when i read the german forums, many of the german players buyed a german key and a UK - key, because the UKversion is uncut, and upgrade their accounts to uncut. Finally most of them just buyed 2 versions , to use /claim for the ingame items.

1 player - 2 keys , i dont know how many german players are existing :)

(*) these 5 final moves are prohibited by german law for youth

thx, for reading, greetings

I don't think the game selling lots of copies created unexpected problems for Funcom or that they didn't know what those problems were when the game launched.  That is why they kept pushing the game back.  We could speculate that they moved devs to some other area, but it is more likely that it just takes loads of developement time to complete the areas that are missing and the devs are still working on it.

Originally posted by Giddian

Originally posted by Lichbane

Originally posted by Vortigon

Funny, I can't find a single PC gaming chart with AOC still near the top.  Guess they are referring to old charts to make it sound better.

 

I hope so because for every bug they fix, the seem to introduce two more; it's AO all over again.   I've cancelled my account and am going to revisit in 12 months.  Hopefully FC will have settled down with the patch frenzy and the game is stable again ... and they have a decent amount of content to cover all levels.

 

Originally posted by teratya

Cancelled mine 2 weeks ago, and went back to Vanguard. Glad I did too.

Ditto.  I think AoC was the best thing to ever happen to Vanguard.

I am an AoC Player and have been pissed over the stupid comments about how Vanguard is getting ALL these subs from AOC. I decided to Load up the game after a year of not wanting to even look at it. 8 1/2 hours of patching {With a 15X2 Connection} and it seems to be the same old cookie cutter EQ2 wanabee game that I Left.  Every time you go to log in it takes 15 to check files. What a Drag
 

I have to laugh. A Ghost town game compairing itself to a game that dwarfs it by a mile, because of some issues. Its like looking at a Chihuahua trying to take on a Great Dane

So if you perfer Vanguard, More power to you.

Vanguard = EQ2? LOL Hardly. You can actually explore and not have to deal with instancing in VG.
 

As for AoC dwarfing VG, or any other MMO for that matter, I dont think that is possible when AoC gives you about as much room to explore as one gets in a 1 bedroom studio apartment. Where as VG has a world so large you actually may not get a chance to see it all. The harvesting and crafting in AoC pales in comparison with VG as well.

Was gone from Vanguard for a year and with a new rig, and being able to crank up the settings on VG, it is now, as it was when it launched, the best looking MMO out there.

Keep coming back people, it is well worth it!

Originally posted by teratya

Originally posted by Giddian

Originally posted by Lichbane

Originally posted by Vortigon

Funny, I can't find a single PC gaming chart with AOC still near the top.  Guess they are referring to old charts to make it sound better.

 

I hope so because for every bug they fix, the seem to introduce two more; it's AO all over again.   I've cancelled my account and am going to revisit in 12 months.  Hopefully FC will have settled down with the patch frenzy and the game is stable again ... and they have a decent amount of content to cover all levels.

 

Originally posted by teratya

Cancelled mine 2 weeks ago, and went back to Vanguard. Glad I did too.

Ditto.  I think AoC was the best thing to ever happen to Vanguard.

I am an AoC Player and have been pissed over the stupid comments about how Vanguard is getting ALL these subs from AOC. I decided to Load up the game after a year of not wanting to even look at it. 8 1/2 hours of patching {With a 15X2 Connection} and it seems to be the same old cookie cutter EQ2 wanabee game that I Left.  Every time you go to log in it takes 15 to check files. What a Drag
 

I have to laugh. A Ghost town game compairing itself to a game that dwarfs it by a mile, because of some issues. Its like looking at a Chihuahua trying to take on a Great Dane

So if you perfer Vanguard, More power to you.

Vanguard = EQ2? LOL Hardly. You can actually explore and not have to deal with instancing in VG.
 

As for AoC dwarfing VG, or any other MMO for that matter, I dont think that is possible when AoC gives you about as much room to explore as one gets in a 1 bedroom studio apartment. Where as VG has a world so large you actually may not get a chance to see it all. The harvesting and crafting in AoC pales in comparison with VG as well.

Was gone from Vanguard for a year and with a new rig, and being able to crank up the settings on VG, it is now, as it was when it launched, the best looking MMO out there.

Keep coming back people, it is well worth it!

 ~ sigh ~

I wasn't going to get drawn back into the whole "Vanguard is better' argument but your post borders on the ridiculous. For many of us (myself included) the reason we left Vanguard in droves had little to do with not being able to run the thing on our system (which I could), but having to endure the boring gameplay and ugly graphics knowing that it was running more or less as intended.

For those of you who believe that exploring wide open spaces and enjoying glorious (empty) views is what truly makes a great MMO, why not strap a pack on your chubby backs and take a walk out into the wilderness for real? It's healthier and it's way more realistic. For those who love to Craft and constantly bemoan the lack of a good, indepth crafting system, join a night class and learn how to craft something for real. And as for anyone who measures their skill at diplomacy by the size of their deck (sic), it will come as something of a shock to discover that any MMO can contain diplomacy if players have the desire (and the skill) to execute it. These things are all distractions, mini-game fillers and time sinks to give the illusion that somehow the game has more to offer than it actually does. They don't help to transport you to another world, they're just poor imitations of the world we already have.

Now I'm certainly not saying that AoC is a perfect game, far from it, but for me it offers a much greater level of immersion, interest, action, story and artistic beauty than the sad, empty, gigantic world of poorly-animated polygonal Pez-dispenser-headed mannequins that is Vanguard.

OK I'm done. Now if I could just find my fire-retardant jumpsuit...

700,000 accounts? That is really good going... I wonder how many are active?

I like how they selected their words, "more than 700,000 HAVE made an account" and not "more than 700,000 active accounts.

Funcom blows, AoC blows, Gaute Godager blows you know what

I really had high hopes for AoC. Another disappointment. WTG

I had a subscription for AoC and cancelled it after about 6 days because it was so buggy and unplayable because of fps glitches  I would rather play CoH and CoV... which I still do. I find CoH and CoV better than AoC, WoW, and Guild Wars... Weird, huh? 

Originally posted by Red_panda

I had a subscription for AoC and cancelled it after about 6 days because it was so buggy and unplayable because of fps glitches  I would rather play CoH and CoV... which I still do. I find CoH and CoV better than AoC, WoW, and Guild Wars... Weird, huh? 

Now I know your lying. When I first started AoC I had an 8600gts 256mb card and could get 40 to 50 fps in the game. Since then I have upgraded to a 8800gt 512 and am now getting 70 to 100 fps depending on where I am.

The fact is unless you had below an 8 or high level 7 series cards you should not have been getting bad fps. If you were playing with one of the cards below what I stated then that is YOUR problem not the games fault.

Originally posted by khartman2005

Originally posted by Red_panda

I had a subscription for AoC and cancelled it after about 6 days because it was so buggy and unplayable because of fps glitches  I would rather play CoH and CoV... which I still do. I find CoH and CoV better than AoC, WoW, and Guild Wars... Weird, huh? 

 

Now I know your lying. When I first started AoC I had an 8600gts 256mb card and could get 40 to 50 fps in the game. Since then I have upgraded to a 8800gt 512 and am now getting 70 to 100 fps depending on where I am.

 

The fact is unless you had below an 8 or high level 7 series cards you should not have been getting bad fps. If you were playing with one of the cards below what I stated then that is YOUR problem not the games fault.

 

 

The funny thing is, you're most likely lying. Or, you had your settings VERY low and he had his high. I have an 8800GT 512mb card 4g ram quad core 2.7ghz vista64bit and I got no where near what you are getting. I had everything max with bloom DISabled. Shadows were on.

Gratz to Funcom!   They're off to an excellent start.

Now they just have to keep up things going in the patches/customer service department. 

This is the new age of MMORPGs, no longer are these games a tiny niche market only bought by masochistic hardcore players.  

MMORPGs have finally grown up.   And it's about time. 

Originally posted by gtwhalley

Originally posted by khartman2005

Originally posted by Red_panda

I had a subscription for AoC and cancelled it after about 6 days because it was so buggy and unplayable because of fps glitches  I would rather play CoH and CoV... which I still do. I find CoH and CoV better than AoC, WoW, and Guild Wars... Weird, huh? 

 

Now I know your lying. When I first started AoC I had an 8600gts 256mb card and could get 40 to 50 fps in the game. Since then I have upgraded to a 8800gt 512 and am now getting 70 to 100 fps depending on where I am.

 

The fact is unless you had below an 8 or high level 7 series cards you should not have been getting bad fps. If you were playing with one of the cards below what I stated then that is YOUR problem not the games fault.

 

 

The funny thing is, you're most likely lying. Or, you had your settings VERY low and he had his high. I have an 8800GT 512mb card 4g ram quad core 2.7ghz vista64bit and I got no where near what you are getting. I had everything max with bloom DISabled. Shadows were on.

Turn the damn shadows off and watch your FPS shoot up. That is your problem

I had settings on low and shadows off... the card if have it the equal to a series 7 nvidia... and the fps still sucked. And I checked my rig and everything was fine, I even uninstalled then reinstalled it and I got no improvement. so i have no idea what is going on 

Originally posted by newborn

Scream all you want, but in the end you haters all knows this game will reach 10million active sub within a year and top WoW then let's see your whines.

OMG. What are you? Some sort of super fanboi?