just like craig had to save AO he has to clean up the mess left by certain ppl at FC.. ;)

it will prolly hold a decent pop but it is never going to get 800k subs again, FC is trouble? mayb.. but just looking at the stocks (there is a serious financial crisis going on now.. dont xpect the stocks to go up anytime soon) aint enough.. only time will tell what happens to FC but after reading this game letter things SEEM to be going in the right direction

I've heard about 50 times now from funcom and fans that the game is 'finally turning in the right direction and listening to the players'. I heard it during beta, heard it the day before release, I heard it at release, I heard it after release with the 'weekly patch schedule', the so called pvp patch and state of the sieges and directx 10 and horrible official forum moderation and booting of Guate and once again with the new Game Director. Whoohoo its finally turning in the right direction now guys! really THIS is the one!

AoC stock is in the gutter, servers being merged, features printed on the box still not in and who is to say if they will ever be. All but the most arrogent and hardcore fans have moved onto other better games. AoC got stale after 2 weeks and after many months of release still doesn't offer anything of substance to come back to. Take this rotten horse off life support already and let it die.

Sorry there are too many better games out there and more coming yet this year.  Many of the AoC players were hesitant to buy War after the debacle with AoC.  With the minimal issues with War, people are now leaving in droves for War.  Why try to pvp in AoC, when War is designed for that and is a much better game?  Funcom has far too many things to correct to make it fun at end game.

Count on server merges first of the year.  It will be the only thing that Funcom can do.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

1 US$ = 5.73 Norwegian kroner, FC at 4.90 NOK = $28, When it gets to (1NOK if it ever does) then you will be looking at $6 a share.

You've got it backwards. The Oslo Bors lists stocks in NOK. The stock is currently about eighty three cents a share. Since the company principals still own most of the stock the company is in no danger of a takeover. It does hurt their ability to borrow against future earnings.  It doesn't mean the company is broke or in any danger of going broke.

Originally posted by DeaconX

So many people are so completely unappreciative of the game they have in AoC it seriously disgusts me.  No it's not perfect, and although I HATE it when I see someone say 'go back to WoW' it seems to be all I can think of when I see so many lil babies whining so damn much and doomsaying left and right.  Working towards a great game and perfecting it, tweaking it, takes time and passion.  If you think FunCom is just out to screw you, than you've got your head so far up your own ass you must be too used to the smell of your own bs.

Game developers are in it for the passion.  It's not easy work, they aren't rock stars, the money is either just OK or great depending.  Either way, they're trying to find what works and obviously not trying to be a clone but something all on their own - which I think they've don't quite well with and can keep working on.

AoC deserves better than it's beging treated in my opinion... but people will always find something to bitch about and mob mentality rolls over like nothing else on the internet.  This is one of the best MMORPG's out right now by far - yet people would rather flock to the clones.  What's that say? Guess we players don't deserve attempts at progress and diversity in the MMORPG genre.  Bring on the clones...

 

BTW - Agree with Todeswulf.

QFT.  I usually do not get involved in these kind of discussions but I find the whole thread ridiculous.  Funcom has a guy who seems to have his head screwed on straight and is going to improve the game and everyone is still not happy. 

Age of Conan has alot of cool things going for it, like the combat system and graphics for one.  Sure it has problems, but there is nothing that is game breaking.   And those of you who think that they are game breaking.  Well you obviously have not been in the mmorpg scene very long. 

Ulitma Online had alot of bugs(to the point where some people tried to start a lawsuit) and Everquest had some major technical problems that made it unplayable at first.   Yet here we are, UO is considered an icon and Everquest became so popular for a long time that it was known as Evercrack.
 

I love it when I see everyone saying how Funcom screwed them, ruined their life, shot their dog, burnt their house, etc. etc.  AoC has been out barely over 4 months.  Give me a break.  It would be different if it was f'd up for over a year.

Again you people must have not been playing mmorpgs for very long.  Because lacking some features and content, plus having a few bugs is far from horrible.  Most of the professional reviewers seem to agree.  You really do not see a bad review anywhere here -

www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/927504.asp

 The fact is some players will never come back, some will and AoC will attract some new players in the future.  They will also get a boost when the new Conan movie comes out.  Will it ever be WoW like in population?  Of course not but they can still have a healthy population and be financially successful.

But I guess you can never make some people happy.  As awesome of a launch that WAR has had and as great of a game that it is, you still have people bitching about that too.  Of course lets not forget WoW itself.  The most successful game of all time and tons of people still bash it.

Yea, Honestly, I am hesitant about buying War.  My son bought it, i'm playing a character on his account until I know for sure.  So far what I can tell is that War is better than AoC in the fact that the combat model is far greater than AoC could have hoped for.  Sure AoC has a different combat model, but I don't think that's going to save AoC now.  I honestly don't know what FunCom can do.  And regardless if they fix AoC to release quality and bring out DX10, I don't think it matters now at this point.  I wouldn't even classify AO and AoC in the same area, because AO was not too well received by the general public, but I still like AO beause it truly did rock the MMORPG market at the time.  AoC, nothing was rocked.  Sure it had a good 700k launch, but if you design a game for longevity, AoC wasn't designed well.

Originally posted by Arthineas

 

I love it when I see everyone saying how Funcom screwed them, ruined their life, shot their dog, burnt their house, etc. etc.  AoC has been out barely over 4 months.  Give me a break.  It would be different if it was f'd up for over a year.

Frankly I've never understood the mentality and I hope I never do. It's fifty dollars a cautious gamer never would have spent in the first place. Complaining about it endlessly and sneering at people who enjoy the game or rooting forthe company to fail is incredibly petty. If you like the game play it, if not move on. Life is too short to spend being bitter about chump change.

Well, we could all look at it like that aside from the fact that Funcom promised a lot of things on launch and never delivered.  Sure, you could say most companies do this, but the point here Funcom ( I don't use FailCom) messed up bad.  All the 'Bois out there can revel in their game that has hardly no people in it.  Say what you want about AoC "I logged in and there was a whole lot of people".  After the PvP patch, i'm sure a few people came back but it wasn't staggering.  Funcom has a LONG time to go still in order to get a functioning product.  AO when launched was not exactly release quality.  Funcom's first attempt at a MMORPG.  Ok I can deal with the bugs.  But on AoC launch, Funcom focused on all of AO's faults and forgot about the others and I think this is where Funcom failed in this attempt. 

The way I personally see it is AoC is dead and again even if Craig fixes the problems it will still be dead.  Craig can't fix the human factor.  So this new Expansion for AoC they will release sometime next year will flop and any MMORPG they produce will flop.  This is how the ball rolls downhill.

Who is whining?  I bought a product that said it would have certain types of content.  Upon installation, said content wasn't there.

Mr. Morrison may indeed have an excellent track record.  Sadly, though, what AoC could have been from the start will now probably reach fruition a year from now.  I've already moved on to an excellent game that I enjoy tremendously.  At this point in time, it would take a miracle for Funcom to ever get any of my money for any of their products.

Originally posted by todeswulf

I love how folks that more than likely either still live off their parents Income or Work at the local Gamestop can say Too little to late game over  like it will have any relevance over the future of this game.  last time I checked AO still had a healthy popoulation, AoC will be fine. 

Too little, too late.

I don't live in my parent's basement nor do I work at Gamestop.

Funcom made some huge mistakes launching the game the way it was...

Yet, I also know that if I had to "watch" a game down the road, that AoC is the one, and not the backwards looking WAR, boring LOTRO, old in the tooth EQ2, or the very broken Vanguard.

The potential for fun exists more in a product where the engine is built to last, and a game that tries to shake up the norms of MMO's by trying something different with combat and story.

Funcom needs to expand content and itemization, but the game is not broken, as I can run it beautifully at 60FPS, with no crashes or graphical lag compared to several of the above mentioned games (every single one of them...LOTRO, EQ2, Vanguard, WAR all run like hell)

So, if you want a game that is built to last, then support AoC. If you want a game that still has old school mechanics and runs like crud...then by all means, support the other games.

Don't expect the genre to change one iota though by purchasing the old mechanics ...look forward and support games that try to advance the genre...

Originally posted by openedge1

Funcom made some huge mistakes launching the game the way it was...

Yet, I also know that if I had to "watch" a game down the road, that AoC is the one, and not the backwards looking WAR, boring LOTRO, old in the tooth EQ2, or the very broken Vanguard.

The potential for fun exists more in a product where the engine is built to last, and a game that tries to shake up the norms of MMO's by trying something different with combat and story.

Funcom needs to expand content and itemization, but the game is not broken, as I can run it beautifully at 60FPS, with no crashes or graphical lag compared to several of the above mentioned games (every single one of them...LOTRO, EQ2, Vanguard, WAR all run like hell)

So, if you want a game that is built to last, then support AoC. If you want a game that still has old school mechanics and runs like crud...then by all means, support the other games.

Don't expect the genre to change one iota though by purchasing the old mechanics ...look forward and support games that try to advance the genre...

99% agree.  1% being that LOTRO has played flawlessly for me ever since BETA in January.  It just always ran very smoothly for me - and despite it being fairly run of the mill, it has a great community esp. on Landroval.  Still, it wasn't nearly what I was hoping it would be - I would've done the franchise much more 'realistically' kind of like how Age of Conan feels and plays out rather than so ... 'Family Channel'.

All these things should have been in at release. I bought their shitty game and paid 1 month. They had their chance but blew it...

Luckily Darkfall is here and I won't ever have to buy play one of these instanced pve mmorpgs that promise "brutal" pvp - but in reality is just the same old rehashed pve mmorpg with instanced pvp minigames.

Originally posted by KhaelSan

All these things should have been in at release. I bought their shitty game and paid 1 month. They had their chance but blew it...

Luckily Darkfall is here and I won't ever have to buy play one of these instanced pve mmorpgs that promise "brutal" pvp - but in reality is just the same old rehashed pve mmorpg with instanced pvp minigames.

Oh jesus. Your in for a wake up call.

Originally posted by KhaelSan

s just the same old rehashed pve mmorpg with instanced pvp minigames.

Uh...what game did you play again? Must not have been Conan.

I think if you did, you picked the wrong server!

AoC announces server merges are upcoming, can I call it :).

Are you saying AoC doesn't have instanced pvp / zones?

The only thing innovating about Conan were the graphics.  Everything else was rehashed.

If shiny things make you happy, AoC is for you.  If you want substance, look elsewhere.

AoC was a really neat looking SINGLE player game that just happened to be online.  Until they make HUGE changes to the way XP is done and how grouping is done in the game there is no reason for me to bother coming back.

I am glad to hear that some of the much needed changes are finally starting to come.  5 months too late for me but those hardcore punishment addicts still playing at least get some refreshing news.  The lack of groups killed it for me.  The lack of anyone in the low level content kills it for any new players coming to the game.  The rediculous PVP settings ruins it for pvp players trying to make a new character.  The griefing = good mentality ruins it for old players who want a challenge in a fun environment.  I'm hard pressed to think of much this game got right.

I'm playing Warhammer and it's superb.  Everything is working fresh out of the box.  Grouping is a blast.  PVP is a blast.  Guilds function well.  RVR is working great.

Amazing how much fun a "polished" game can be when compared to a POS put together too quickly with little to no thought for the player base.

Failcom is making progress now that they have lost 80% of their player base.  Too bad it took that for them to open the eyes and see the reality.

Originally posted by todeswulf

I love how folks that more than likely either still live off their parents Income or Work at the local Gamestop can say Too little to late game over  like it will have any relevance over the future of this game.  last time I checked AO still had a healthy popoulation, AoC will be fine. 

Someone enlighten me when less than 15k players including both subs and the larger population of free players became an example of a healthy population?

Healthy for a second (third?) string MMO that's seven years old and isn't named Everquest.

Originally posted by Tendrin

Healthy for a second (third?) string MMO that's seven years old and isn't named Everquest.

UO is 10+ years old, isometric, 2D, and still has over 100k subs.

AO is more like fourth or fifth string.

There is a massive trend in the way that he is speaking anymore. First, its we are working on more content, and we need to tell you this every time we speak! Then, they change it up just a litle bit with oh and its a lot so we need to play test it more, but don't worry it will come out. After saying that, he went into PvP system changes...the "changes" were outlined in the first PvP patch that didn't come out on a pvp designed game for several months. This almost makes you feel good what they are doing, and then you realize they have been promising it forever. To complete this feeling, they go into something esle that has been on the forums to shwo they read something on the community. Even though this is a big subject that needs to be addressed, being server merges, how many other critical things needed to be fixed and were just left alone? Server merges aren't that complex if you build the game with that in mind somewhere. WAR did the opposite, there were server splits within two weeks becasue of overflow...yes too many people on their servers. I am not trying to advertise there, but what I am trying to say is there is so much that wasn't ready yet, I wish they would've done just a few months (6) more of beta before they released.

Amazing that doesn't matter how hard Funcom tries to take care of AoC content, changes, bug fixes, etc that people still bitch and whine.

I knew the game wouldn't be like all the hype, no game ever is.  So I went into the game with that expectation.  In that respect, I am happy with the game and still having fun with it.  Besides the "purdy FX", it brought fun back into melee combat.   No more auto-attack mash a special ability hotkey every X seconds like other games.

I was disappointed the voice overs disappeared after Tortage, but they started to add more.  I'm sure voice work requires more time than just coding, not to mention more bytes.

I'll say though that I was a fan of Conan before the game.  I read all of Howards books, more by other authors and I even liked the cheesy lore-flawed movies.  So I'm probably a bit biased in favor.

Too late, having a blast in WAR, much better game at the moment.  Wish the best for those who stay on.

Too bad AoC had to be yet another MMO launched without robust content, PvP balance, and a stable desktop client.  When will they learn?

Actually the content was pretty robust, it's just they underestimated how fast some would level.  So a small percentage hit the cap within an week and started crying about how bored they were.  I have no sympathy for them, in their race to be the first to cap they missed out on a lot of good content.  However, Funcom didn't sit on their heels they tweaked and added more content after launch anyways to help address them.

Client was stable for me, never had a single crash or sound/video glitch.  Servers as a whole were stable at launch, didn't suffer from WoW's early problems of long queues, crashing and "stuck while looting" bugs.  Course the wide variety of PC hardware setups can lead to Player A having no trouble and Player B having nothing but trouble.

As for PvP balance, I believe that is a myth.  No game will ever truly have "balance" since someone, somewhere at sometime will complain that Class X is OP or weak.  Every single MMO out there that has any kind of PvP element has people complaining about class balance.