Originally posted by Vrazule

Originally posted by Zorvan

While AoC may last a few years, it doesn't have the complexity and depth that AO has, which is the one thing that has enabled AO to hang on to the small but loyal fanbase it has. AoC would have to pump out 2-3 expansions a year to match the content available in AO, which only has 3 expansions and two booster packs in it's 8 year total.

As far as I see it, AoC is too shallow, too instanced, and too focused on a quick trip to endgame to match AO's longevity. Even if AO were killed right this minute to shorten the time needed to outlive it, AoC would still be years short.

This is merely my humble opinion and should be taken as such, of course.

 

Any player base will remain loyal as long as the game caters to them.  Doesn't matter if it's complex or simple, hardcore or casual, sci-fi or fantasy.  Give your target audience what they want, in generous doses and they will likely stick around.

Not when new content can be beaten in less than a week, leaving them nothing to do.
 

My post is looking at the game how it is now and how it has been handled up to now. Therefore, my opinion that AoC will not last 8 years is dependent on AoC being run, and developed for, the same as it is now.

If/when that changes, then my outlook will change accordingly. I don't subscribe to the "let's fantasize how the game will be developed so we can say it will be here 8 years from now" group. I subscribe to the "based on it's history so far, no way will it make 8 years" group.

Originally posted by BrazilMerkin

Considering how cheap the box is on amazon and ebay, giving it away only says they really want more subs.

No shit!? An MMO that wants more subs? Now I have heard everything?

With all things dealing with Funcom one always needs to keep in mind " Let the Buyer Beware ". There track record speaks for itself.

Based on the history of progression, I would say this game will last at least 8 years.

The game is on the right track now, I don't have any problems seeing it last 8 years. What makes me think so is that the new content added is better than what was there at launch. The added zones are more fun, like Ymir's pass and Tarantia commons. If they keep this up and adds more stuff like this then AoC will have a long life. New leadership saved the game.

Originally posted by Barteaux

Based on the history of progression, I would say this game will last at least 8 years.

WTF does that even mean?? Link please.

Can't predict atm, waiting for shutdown of DFO first. As long as DFO stays alive, anything is possible.

On the other hand George Bush Jr lasted for 8 years, so why  AOC won't or even DFO... All it takes to sustain something is a certain amount of people (intelligent or not) to support it.

Originally posted by BrazilMerkin

Originally posted by Barteaux

Based on the history of progression, I would say this game will last at least 8 years.

 

WTF does that even mean?? Link please.

Hehe, you need a link to comprehend that? Don't let hate blur your logic.

I hope it does.

I hope they improve on the current game.

I hope they impliment some new features, especially cross-server pvp.

I hope the expansion(s) are amazing.

I hope the population grows.

Only time will tell, as it stand I still enjoy the game but its definetly frustrating that its not even close to reaching its potential but we can hope it will in time.

Good to see the apocalyptic prediction of those F2P lovers might not be as true as they thought would be.

AoC is a MMO I respect highly and wish a good future because of their Mature approach, for going against "MMOs need to have crappy graphics" idea and it's P2P - the only money required for the full fun potential is $15/month.

How can something last when it isn't even ready yet ? 

Sorry but is AO as a free to play advert + itemshop with 5k ppl considered to be a sign of thriving MMORPG?  

Only thing AOC and AO have in common (other than the letters AO) is that both games were launched half finished - and both lost huge amount of players cause the company that developed them cared more about money than the game.  

Funcom is on the verge of bankruptcy if they dont turn things around in the next 12j-18 months.  This is just another PR campaign cause most informed ppl know that AOC could be shut down any time - without notice.  Thats a fact.

 That's a shame, as Anarchy Online is a better game, and a lie, because its a fabricated "gestimation" by their marketing trying to get peope hesistant to join a "dieing game" to think that it's actually going to last. 

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 

I think you guys are right.

And to add to what Zorv was saying, yes AO was a number cruncher with depth, and AoC is designed differently, at the same time at least in the graphics area there is a good foundation there, and whilst graphics are not everything, they do kinda draw people in. As people upgrade their PC's over time that depth can be added too. As Conan is not as much of a number cruncher but at the same time is pretty good for the casual gamer it depends on which you view as having more people over a longer time in retention but at the same time if the updates can be good enough...

 

Here's one huge difference between the two games, 1 yr after launch less than 1% of the players had a maxed toon, it took seriously dedicated, guilded player 18 months to hit the level cap, only poopsockers hit the top in less.  When the first xpac came out (territorial pvp) 3/4 of the map couldn't be claimed because not enough toons met the level req.

The biggest reason AO still has a following is simple, It's Community. It has always been so small, that by default it became close knit, there was no anonymity, the community easily policed itself. You had to team if you wanted to level, soloing to the level cap in AO was impossible for the first 3 yrs of the game. You ended up knowing everyone who played your faction, and many others from the opposition and even some folks from the other server. If you sucked at the game, or couldn't play your class, everyone knew - no teams for you - quit the game or re-roll. If you behaved like a jackass in a team, a global channel or toward any player in good standing quit or re-roll, because you'll never get a team. If you ninja-looted in a team or a raid, delete that toon right than, the whole server will know if the next 15 minutes and you will be griefed in every way possible anytime you login until the end of time. A community like that ends up distilling down to only quality players, AoC's community has as much in common with AO's as 4Chan does with a MIT Alumni meeting.  One thing is certain you never ever saw anyone from the AO community stoop to shilling for FunCom on 3rd party web sites.

It's hilarious to point to AO still running as a giant triumph, go log in and talk to those players, they will tell you the population is smaller than ever, the last xpac was another buggy grinding messes (still broken), and they resent that FC takes their subs but doesn't support them because they are focused on AoC and TSW.

I have the feeling that FC is in deep kim chee with their stockholders and the veteran campaign is their last big hurrah. Server merges brief resurgence, free trial another resurgence, veteran trial should be another brief resurgence.

If they can make it through the third quarter and put out a expansion around November/December time frame  then maybe they will be ok for another year. Problem is it is summer time which really sucks for MMO's in general, people would rather be out playing in the sunshine than sitting staring at a computer screen.

Speaking of which I think I will go throw the frisbee with the dog for a while or see if the wife wants to go for a walk.

Originally posted by Barteaux

Originally posted by BrazilMerkin

Originally posted by Barteaux

Based on the history of progression, I would say this game will last at least 8 years.

 

WTF does that even mean?? Link please.

 

Hehe, you need a link to comprehend that? Don't let hate blur your logic.

Your logic seems to be flawed ... Not Blindly Loving =/= Hate.

I am rightfully skeptical, while apparently that makes you want to hate on folks.

But please enlighten us to the historical progression.

I'm a current player, with a more or less uniterrupted sub. I still play and enjoy playing it.. but I supsect it won't last as long as AO for a number of reasons.

- the majority of MMO players these days have quite short attention spans and AOC is still lacking in content at endgame (albeit much improved from launch). Unless they can feed the players new content at an increased rate (or create an endgame that is self sustaining e.g. get the pvp / sieging working to the point that the majority of players can participate and continue to play just for the fun of large scale warfare) numbers will dwindle in the long term and even the hardcore will look for a new game because there are just not enough people to fight..

- conan is a fantastic looking / sounding game, but thats a double edged sword re longevity - it still looks fresh now (a plus) but graphics like that take a lot of people / cash to create new content for - as subs decline as the game ages, it becomes harder to justify the costs / resources involved..

- Funcom, though not quite as dead as many on these forums said (:-)), is still not in the greatest of financial positions - the game could well get shutdown for external factors e.g. Funcom goes belly up.

-Conan is a licenced property (c.f. AO, which is Funcoms IP) - I don't know the ins and outs of the deal but there are likely royalties / licence fees to pay / time based renewal options for the IP, all of which cost money - again, as subs decline, justifying the cost of renewing / meeting minimim payments becomes more difficult. OR, the licence holder could revoke the licence if Funcom fail to meet contractual targets on royalties etc (all speculation on my part but comparing to licences for IP that my company develops, not unrealistic).

So, no, I don't see AOC being around in 8 years... but having said all that, I do want to end on an upbeat note - Craig hasdone a good job of turning things around after the bad days post launch - 6 months ago, I was concerned that AOC wouldn't actually last a year and that I was wasting my time / subs and that my favourite albeit flawed MMO was going to die quickly like Tabula Rasa. Now, 6 months later I'm more bullish - it'll never be a 500K population again, and probably isn't an EVE that nearly died and was then totally reborn. But the population seems healthy enough to group play on most servers (not all - expect more mergers in the next 6-12 months), word of mouth is slowly getting more good than bad, and I'm still having a blast on my server with a good, friendly guild. If they can introduce more content / improvements* over the next 6 months and launch the expansion in a reasonable time frame (HAS to be in the next 12 months MAX imho), it will continue as an enjoyable, slightly different, niche MMO that will celebrate a few more birthdays before the servers close.

Scott

*I'm less worried about the current balancing issues post 1.05 patch - classes ebb and flow power wise - However others are more concerned and that could be a problem if they take too long

Originally posted by nicols

-Conan is a licenced property (c.f. AO, which is Funcoms IP) - I don't know the ins and outs of the deal but there are likely royalties / licence fees to pay / time based renewal options for the IP, all of which cost money - again, as subs decline, justifying the cost of renewing / meeting minimim payments becomes more difficult. OR, the licence holder could revoke the licence if Funcom fail to meet contractual targets on royalties etc (all speculation on my part but comparing to licences for IP that my company develops, not unrealistic).

I didn't think of that, I heard a lot of speculation that Matrix Online's plug was pulled  for that reason.

Some sort of periodic royalty / licence fee for the IP is likely UNLESS Funcom paid through the nose (ie paid a lot of cash) up front to avoid ongoing licence / royalty costs. Licence fees are likely fixed cost per year, royalties will obviously vary depending on profits / customer base (possibly with minimum / maximum cut off points dependiong on the deal).

Conan Properties Inc are unlikely to pull the plug as long as funcom meet their contractual requirements and as long as CPI are getting income from it... unless they feel the game is hurting the property (which was a more plausible excuse a year ago during the lauch problems than it is now). 

The flip side is it may cost Funcom money just to retain the licence (on top of support / server costs), let alone continue to develop the game / add new content. They may well have added a get out clause to return the ip at a certain point in time 'just in case' but thats a big decision for them to take this far down the line.

LOTRO, D&D online and Warhammer are in similar situations (IP wise).. I suspect LOTRO will not have a problem at all (I remember a Dev bragging about their option to renew in about 2013? and they were already considering it early on when the game was launched to some success), Warhammer might if EA are particularly hard nosed about it in terms of bottom line but I doubt it,  but D&D is interesting - it had low numbers of players and Hasbro / Wizards / TSR has a history of whipping the IP away from one developer / licence holder to another for maximum cash return. Now D&D is going sort of free to play.. i'd be interested in seeing how that works within the contract / licence fees. Obviously if the paying shop thing is a great success then Hasbro are happy / get their money but I could see D&D being shutdown sooner than you might expect if they don't pull this off succesfully.

Having read all of the above, I remembered Star Wars and the New KOTOR mmo thats coming... Lucasarts can't have been happy with the subscriber numbers for SWG but as long as the cash was coming in, no point in pulling the licence as its not as if anyone else was going to make a Star Wars MMo.. except now of course someone is - now is KOTOR seen as a completely separate IP or does it tread on SWGs toes?.. has Sony made any announcements about the future of SWG since KOTOR was announced? Or has it been strangely quiet? Its possible that the two won't overlap ie when KOTORs ready for launch, SWG will close.. neither party will say this too early as it will deprive them both of subs (announcing an MMO will close in 9 months time will discourage anyone new from trying the game / encourage burnt out hard core players to finally pull the plug on their sub). Thats all speculation though obviously but again, having KOTOR does give Lucasarts more of an incentive to find 'problems' with their contract with sony - Having an old, maligned* SWG mmo licenced to another company running in parralell to their new shiny, KOTOR might be seen as a problem - splitting the fan base, damaging the brand etc. Or they might decide that SWG is now so niche that its unlikely to have much impact / fighting Sony over the contract is not worth the effort.

NB, all of the above is speculation  - I haven't trawled through the financial reports of any of the above companies looking for nuggets about the deals - if anyone can throw more light on the specifics of any of the above, I'm happy to stand corrected

Scott

 *Never played SWG so just going on what I've read - I'm sure the current players will defend it and good luck to them if they enjoy playing it - no offence intended

Scott

Funcom had the license from Conan Inc. from early 2003 (license holders were in Scandinavia too), in 2006 they extended it to 2018 with option for another 5 years to 2023.

I suspect they paid upfront and may pay again in 10 years.

They also pay a small fee to the Publisher of AoC out of every individual subscription per month.

They also licensed out AoC to board game makers, Apparel and LARP gear too and many other things too such as Korean publishers.

*EDIT posting issues. Website error lol.

Originally posted by nicols

Some sort of periodic royalty / licence fee for ...

I thought I remembered when AOC was announced, hearing people say it was a 'good get' financially. The Howard descendants lost the rights to his works by not renewing their claim (making it default to public domain). A 3rd party stepped in and registered trademarks on the name 'Conan' and some of the other characters. In theory getting a license from them was probably very inexpensive (you are just renting the name, not the lore) by comparison than to say the works of Tolkien. I am sure the Wachowski's probably charge big for the Matrix IP useage.

Originally posted by Unfinished

Originally posted by nicols

Some sort of periodic royalty / licence fee for ...

I thought I remembered when AOC was announced, hearing people say it was a 'good get' financially. The Howard descendants lost the rights to his works by not renewing their claim (making it default to public domain). A 3rd party stepped in and registered trademarks on the name 'Conan' and some of the other characters. In theory getting a license from them was probably very inexpensive (you are just renting the name, not the lore) by comparison than to say the works of Tolkien. I am sure the Wachowski's probably charge big for the Matrix IP useage.

Howard descendants ended with Howards father. Robert's father hid his will when he died because all of Robert's work was to go to his friend. Once it was found out the friend didn't contest it and Robert's father tried to get what was owed to Robert from the various pulps.

His father than stuck all of that stuff in a trunk and moved to Ranger, TX. I think after Robert's father died De Camp and Glenn Lord had stuff Conan.

This is according to Mark Finn. I'm sure I got some of it wrong along the way.

Originally posted by Sevenwind

Originally posted by Unfinished

Originally posted by nicols

Some sort of periodic royalty / licence fee for ...

I thought I remembered when AOC was announced, hearing people say it was a 'good get' financially. The Howard descendants lost the rights to his works by not renewing their claim (making it default to public domain). A 3rd party stepped in and registered trademarks on the name 'Conan' and some of the other characters. In theory getting a license from them was probably very inexpensive (you are just renting the name, not the lore) by comparison than to say the works of Tolkien. I am sure the Wachowski's probably charge big for the Matrix IP useage.

 

Howard descendants ended with Howards father. Robert's father hid his will when he died because all of Robert's work was to go to his friend. Once it was found out the friend didn't contest it and Robert's father tried to get what was owed to Robert from the various pulps.

His father than stuck all of that stuff in a trunk and moved to Ranger, TX. I think after Robert's father died De Camp and Glenn Lord had stuff Conan.

This is according to Mark Finn. I'm sure I got some of it wrong along the way.

I started looking up the public domain listings of his work, and now i wish i hadn't. The company that has licensed the rights to FC are serious assh*les. They sue fans you use the public domain works to try to strengthen the position of the rights they do control. Gotta love a buncha assh*le lawyers who start a corporation register a trademark on a property they dont own and screw over fans to make a couple bucks. Might wanna think about the fact if you support AoC you are supporting those f*ckfaces too.

I'm kind of doubting it. Maybe if they eventually go to an f2p model like Anarchy Online did...

THere is difference between owning the material , and owning the name.

"Intellectual Property

CONAN® and/or CONAN THE BARBARIAN® and related logos, characters, names, and
distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Conan Properties
International LLC unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved.
"

They just own the name, you can go online and download R. E. Howard's books for free.

Originally posted by solareus

THere is difference between owning the material , and owning the name.

"Intellectual Property

CONAN® and/or CONAN THE BARBARIAN® and related logos, characters, names, and
distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Conan Properties
International LLC unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved.
"

They just own the name (see above .. and likeness), you can go online and down R. E. Howard's books for free.

Yes and they use their position holding the copyright on the name to sue people into not being able to use the public domain material because it contains the name.  I am guessing if these jackasses held those rights in the 70's none of the incomplete stories that were finished by people like DeCamp could not have been written (dunno if thats a bad thing personally, I was never a fan of his versions).

From what I can find, only reason these guys have the IP is no one held copyright so they registered it and now own it, it's a cheap way to get control of the material. It's Vultures playing lawyer tricks. it's lame.