General Discussion

Resigned? Bullshit, he was fired and everyone knows it.

I don't know what to make of the "news" on this site anymore. Stradden why not report accurately instead of just reprinting press releases. Geez.

These devs just don't get it, they always over promise and under deliver. When will MMO developers learn that the majority of MMO players don't have the patience to play un-finished and buggy games.
 

Originally posted by dhayes68

To all those who re-sub thinking now things will be different. Don't be a sucker!

Granted things may indeed be different but has FC earned that trust? Wait until the game is proven to have been improved before you give FC more money for another marketing ploy.

Don't forget the power of free play to lure people into giving another shot down the line.  EQ1, DAoC, and even the stillborn AutoAssault rolled out free play by activating all unpaid/suspended accounts in order to give disgruntled or otherwise lapsed subscribers a chance to come back in and see the changes at no cost.

Once new guy comes in and makes some serious changes, FunCom would be stupid not to do this, considering all the players like me who let their subscriptions lapse.  Few may pony up $15 to check out the changes down the line, but a week or two of  play at no financial risk to the player could bring back many more..

I'm thinking of all those level 80 toons in limbo who would suddenly have something to do in the game...

Originally posted by Snivius

Originally posted by dhayes68

To all those who re-sub thinking now things will be different. Don't be a sucker!

Granted things may indeed be different but has FC earned that trust? Wait until the game is proven to have been improved before you give FC more money for another marketing ploy.

 

Don't forget the power of free play to lure people into giving another shot down the line.  EQ1, DAoC, and even the stillborn AutoAssault rolled out free play by activating all unpaid/suspended accounts in order to give disgruntled or otherwise lapsed subscribers a chance to come back in and see the changes at no cost.

Once new guy comes in and makes some serious changes, FunCom would be stupid not to do this, considering all the players like me who let their subscriptions lapse.  Few may pony up $15 to check out the changes down the line, but a week or two of  play at no financial risk to the player could bring back many more..

I'm thinking of all those level 80 toons in limbo who would suddenly have something to do in the game...

Trying Free-play after many changes would be sensible. Re-subbing within a month of this announcement would be foolish.

Mr. Gaute Godager should have never been in front of AOC after the mess he did with Shadowlands, what the hell was FC thinking. At least now thing might get fixed.

 Resigned?  lol, sorry that word has another interpretation in business speak for executives, to us ordinary folk the word is FIRED!

And rightly so!

The problem with that is, it  does not solve the connumdrum that the rest of the development staff is faced with, how to save this game with so many of his goofy ideas heavily embedded in the game.

Originally posted by airborne519

Originally posted by Alienovrlord

PR and others can try to spin this in a postitive light all they want but it doesn't change that this is what you see in response to a poor product.    Successes don't have this kind of thing happen. 

This guy was one of the reasons I stopped following AoC in spite of all the cool-sounded features they hyped.    The interviews and videos of the developers inspired no confidence in me that they could pull off what they claimed.     I was less familiar with the other devs but they didn't convince they could either.    If this new person has proven themselves on other games, then that might be what AoC needs. 

It is true this can only help AoC but none of this should come as a surprise to anyone.   The signs of this were clear enough during the game's development if you listened to the dev interviews. 

 

Well stated, you never know, they can turn this game around if they actually try. Hell, even SWG at launch (worse launch than AoC) eventually turned it around.

SWG eventually turned what around?  The game bled subs because it was broken and missing important game systems at release.  The first game revamp caused a jump in cancellations because it didn't fix and complete the game, it replaced it with a broken attempt to copy WoW.  The second game revamp apparently caused the cancellation servers to crash as more than 100 000 people are said to have quit when the game lost most of its professions, much of its content, and all player progress, as SOE attempted to completely redo the game in 3 months, to copy features from both WoW and Battlefront.

One of the hottest topics currently about this game is what to do with all of the empty servers.  SWG has gone from bad to worse, and from bleeding subs to mass exodus.  I can't imagine what you mean by saying the game has turned around.

The dutch are real stubborn people. Glad to see he's gone and it will make the game better.

Originally posted by googajoob7

Originally posted by xtravert

Originally posted by ILOVEFUNCOM

Actually AGE OF CONAN has about 500,000 subscribers that is not a failure and Gaute left for his own reasons and he may have not been the best for the game but he certainly was not the worst so you can pretend AoC is going to die but how can it be dead when it has 50 servers and 500,000 customers???

 

Where do you get the 500k from?  Funcom won't tell us how many subscribers they have.  How would you know?

 

i m guessing it was proberbly what he heard from someone in game . every smaller mmo i ve ever played is full of people who think its the best game ever . most actually do have something to offer though i would say to be fair to them .

The fact is that FunCom, at Leipzig announced their sales and subscription figures.  Age of Conan sold over 800,000 boxes worldwide and, as of the end of the second quarter (that's 30 June 2008) more than 415,000 paid subscriptions were still active.

Third quarter subscription numbers should be available around 10-15 October 2008.  Whether FunCom decides to release those or not, time will tell.  However, knowledgeable, informed sources estimate third quarter AoC subscriptions to dip well below the quarter million mark (250,000).