| 58 posts found | |
|---|---|
|
When people start complaining about their job, it's time they look for a new one. I promise you, your boss starts looking at other people to fill your spot the first time you open your mouth about being unhappy. better hope you find a new gig before he finds a cheaper, qualified person with a better attitude. His complaints about feedback makes me /facepalm, they ignored all the feedback they got about volunteer forum staff not doing a proper job. The paid forum managers let the FU go back to wow type fans run amok on their boards and banned / censored anyone with honest critiques. And now they realize their forums are just asshatz making noise?? how the F did they not see that coming. The game has a few pockets of nice mature experienced MMO players, you'll never catch them frequenting the official board. The community staff really did a deplorable job at cultivating a forum environment. No one with half a brain bothers posting on it. Even worse, the lack of coherent feedback complaint makes it obvious that none of the development team actually play the product regularly. If they did they wouldn't need the forums to dictate direction of the development cycle.
His whole blog rant is massive failure no matter how he tries to explain it away.
why is your signal to noise ratio so horrible? better look to yourselves funcom, you control every single word on your board ... |
|
|
Sabradin
 Hard Core Member
Joined: 11/24/07
-------------------- |
Originally posted by Aercus
You have absolutely no clue what so ever, do you? There is a large difference between socialism and a social democracy.
Thats like a liberal in new york who surrounds themselves by only liberals and consideres themselves a "balanced moderate" - ah this thread is derailing its about the company; they got bruised because of their country's tax policy. Bottom line. If you don't choose to accept that inyourface fact well I cant shove it down your throat and you wont eat it, your loss. |
Originally posted by Sabradin
You mean the 28% corporate tax rate we have in Norway, compared to 35% in the US? If Norway is a socialist country, the US must certainly be communist. :) |
|
Originally posted by Sabradin
Thats like a liberal in new york who surrounds themselves by only liberals and consideres themselves a "balanced moderate" - ah this thread is derailing its about the company; they got bruised because of their country's tax policy. Bottom line. If you don't choose to accept that inyourface fact well I cant shove it down your throat and you wont eat it, your loss. If you think taxes alone is the reason they move then you are absolutely clueless about Norwegian economy. :) |
|
|
This is what I had to say to Craig on his on blog. Maybe he'll get the message this time.... Have you ever considered that the player you were communicating with was simply reflecting the stance your development team has taken with the game? The efforts you have made are of course not small or insignificant however they are also not in line with what the community has wanted and needed to remain viable. Broken Sieges are unacceptable! A guild bank of 50 slots shared by 100 members is unacceptable. A component of the game where only 25% of players max can participate because of the game mechanics is broken and unacceptable. The message you have consistenly sent is that you are listening to player feedback and you are patting yourself on the back because you are doing a good job implementing it. Were that reality, and the case the game, would be growing and not losing subscribers steadily. Funcom has the best marketing department of any game company anywhere, you don't lose customers with that value proposition unless the product doesn't meet with the level of expectations that the marketing set. Simply put Craig you are selling Green Oranges and calling them Orange. Your consistent message to players is that because some of us are color blind the rest of us who are not color blind simply have to live with the fact that not everybody wants to play the game the same way. The majority of your former subscribers are not stupid. They know Green Oranges when they see them and Funcom is selling Green Oranges. What we don't understand is why you don't know that you are selling green oranges, why is that feedback which should be very obvious not getting back to you about your product? Further, were it the case that the game was compelling to play, fun, and rewarding in all areas at all steps and complete with "meaningful polish" then players would have stuck with it after the free trials. We all know exactly where the game is, and how the free trials went, we know why they failed to keep the majority of those who tried the game for free. What we don't know Craig is why you don't know this. We don't know why you guys after 550 days have not expanded the guild banks, which has been nearly universally demanded or discussed and approved by the community since the first week of launch. But the message we hear from the dev team is that you are constantly reviewing player suggestions....and implementing them. Why you haven't sped up the updating process and aligned development much more directly with what players have asked for on the forums. We don't need 3-4 months between patches, we also don't need updates which were strongly not liked on testlive and put into the live patch anyway and ended up driving away players because of the "new mechanics". It is you who said those players that post passionately about their game are passionate and committed, however the majority of your design decisions and game mechanics don't support those players which is why you have mutiny on the forums and a community which does not value Funcom whatsoever.
One more thing, given that you've been doing this for the last 15 months and pretty ineffective at improving the product to the point where it becomes a growing product rather than dying. You might consider stepping aside and giving another developer a chance to bring the expansion to fruition. Since you haven't taken any of our suggestions to heart for real in the past I have no indication or inclination that you'd do that, but for God sakes man, is this to be the peak sum of your life's work? I certainly hope not. The time to move on is now before the expansion. |
|
|
I was going to post a long and on topic post, but Im not. When people refuses to see things as more than black and white they dive into ignorance on purpose.
I wonder why people aren't asking Ghostcrawler and the whole Blizzard leadership to take their hats and leave, i mean, the wow official forums are just as the aoc one, a giant pile of whine. Every class forum has people complaining that their class is the worst etc. And ghostcrawler has over and over again said the same things in posts to individuals on that forum as Craig did now in his blog.
I wonder, how does it feel to walk around with so much hate for a bloody game, a gamedeveloper and a gamingcompany? God it's sad....
|
|
|
I can help with this if you want. Although you should keep in mind that we will never do everything that every player wants. Just visit this link here - http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&func_id=1109&table=PUBLISH&template=news_features_game&selected=1109 This has a summary list of all the things changed up till Update 5. A lot of those things have been requested by the player base that both the Game Director and the team gave focus. Including fixing a lot of the client/server side crashes, memory leaks, filling the gap in content at mid-level, revamping the gem system, fixing crafting, improving the RPG system along with increasing itemization, giving more class focused updates, adding a veteran system, focus on guild with guild renown system and even a focus on giving PvPer's more content with PvP towers. All of these have been signed off, pushed to live and given focus. Things that the entire team as well Craig have a heavy hand in doing. More so with the GD because they're the ones who finally say "Ok let's do it!"
Sieges work they are not exactly broke. There are reports of siege crashing and we have reduce the amount of crashing up till 5.6 that's on test live now. We will continue to work on it as much as possible because we have given it focus. Subs really have nothing to do with anything here I think. I thought we were talking about what hasn't been done? :D Classes are a picky subject and something I think fits with Craigs blog the most. I can't think of another game out there that doesn't have class imbalance issues with their players. We try to concerns and issues like this as serious as possible and that is why we have started more class focuses. If you haven't seen one then look at the recent update notes. The recent Conqueror class focus was something we did based on Advocate feedback. You can thank the volunteers for that one and the next one up on Assassins.
I would have to say things have been going up. I mean a lot of the updates really speak for themselves. We had a time where crashing and memory issues inflamed the forums. We set a focus and addressed it. We also had content gap issues around the same time for players trying to work their way up to level 80. We set a focus and addressed it. We again had a time where itemization, crafting and even more armor diversity was a huge issue and we addressed it. The list is very long on things we've done based on feedback and developer input that we've focused on. Now we're at a point where players want more PvE and PvP content as well fixes to things like playfield crashing (Sieges/Raids) and we are focusing on it. We have the Iron Tower up for 5.6 then Guild Renown, Tier 3 Raiding, and PvP Tower system (if you love king of the hill and objective based PvP that's open ground to all then you will love this) on the way to address the player bases concerns. Let's not mention the Expansion that is almost here that will add even more content for all to enjoy.
Not too sure I know what you mean unless you're saying every update since the start has been failed ideas because I beg to differ and I think the responses in the thread also do so. ;)
Glen ''Famine/Soulwish'' Swan  |
|
Originally posted by FC-Famine I would gather the poster is saying that Craig has been in charge of AOC for about 15 months and has delivered things but not the things the majority of the community has wanted and the populations in steady decline show that. GET IT YET? |
|
|
LordBonzey is not getting it. YOUR opinion does NOT matter.Why may you ask? Because you are unable to respond in a constructive and adult manner. Because you fail to see there are more than one side to the issue. Because you fail to see that others might disagree. Because you fail to see that your opinion is not a fact. Because NO ONE listens to or answers loud, rude, and obnoxious people Are you even playing the game? |
|
Originally posted by Frobner
Agreed and I'll add to it, that one of their problems is that they refuse to acknowledge this. This leads to people who don't know better to believe that the game they're playing is the game as it was intended, and thats what makes it hard for the devs to complete development because the things they put in to complete the game look like new things to the people who've gotten used to the older broken systems because they never acknowledged the game was launched incomplete. |
|
Originally posted by Aercus "Factually you are wrong, Aercus because being customers or potential customers our opinions and what drive those opinions are absolutely at issue. Lets use Chess as example. The game is played on a board of 64 squares between two opposing armies, represented by pieces white and black. Age of Conan is a lot like a chess set that didn't come with all the pieces. Lets say both black and white are missing their queens that will be DX10 which we didn't have for the first year. Both sides are missing a rook, this can represent the lack of mounted combat. White has 3 Bishops, but black only has one, this represents the massive yet still unbalanced nature of the game in respect to classes. ranger see cloaked targets ability which nobody else has, and the general caster superiority, and the long term demise of the DT class. Also there is a square on the board which was cut out so if you move to it your piece falls through the world never to be recovered. (Guess) Now after a 18 months of talking to the devs on forums via surveys both community and company sponsored, they are still unclear about what the game needs and how to add the value necessary to it to bring back players who've been burned and who don't trust funcom. The majority of the community quit the game and left early on, those that came back didn't stay because Funcom didn't deliver the missing pieces. They also had Fat head Erling telling everybody lies over and over and over and talking up the game like there was nothing wrong or missing. I'm not being a child about it, clearly I'm writing as an adult who was burned by the product and the development team because their sworn word was that they were producing the product that we were requesting. I ask you today very simply, has the guild bank been expanded to allow more than 50 items to be inserted? Be it a stupid issue or minor need, a pawn on the chessboard of what AOC needs, but it a community/player requested feature which has been asked for since the first week the game launched and Funcom pretends they don't know about it.
My opinion that Funcom is not being successful with AOC is based on the facts that their winback free trial was a failure the first time around and will be a failure once again because they have not added and tweaked the game in order to add the value necessary to improve it to the point that people want to pay for it and play it, in the numbers that would indicate a growing and stable population. That is a fact! It is also fact that Craig has been in charge of the mess for the last 15 months and though he's made changes and seen things done, the trend for AOC over the last 15 months has been one of decline not rise. That is a fact! It is my opinion that he should step aside and that is based on the performance of the game over the period he's been in charge as well as the decision making he's been apart of in regards to server contractions which took months too long to do, and in the priority of development which isn't where the majority of the community wanted it to be, and also the lag time between improvements.
As for being loud,... " he said in a very soft whisper. For being rude... Fuck you, this game cost me $100 and ended up being a total waste of time. For being obnoxious its a free country where I come from, and my country invented the internet so STFU. |
|
|
I understand the concern but the entire community (this means everyone) has not asked for expanding guild banks. Fixing bugs, adding more content and addressing the siege issues are generally the top concerns in the communities. We did submit the extra slot suggestion to the development team though. We included the requests for extra character slots as well. Hopefully in the upcoming updates we can receive some more final words on the subjects.
Understood but that's not just with the siege system and more with the supporting systems with the playfields. We've added some changes to it that have reduced it but not completely. That's why I've said there is a focus on it. We do hear the community here and want to address it as much as possible. Hopefully 5.6 will help reduce the amount of issues there. If not, we will of course address it more. I wish we could magically snap our fingers and fix every issue instantly but we can't. It will take some time to address the concerns within the game.
The point here is that it wasn't getting enough attention till we took a look at what things we needed to fix according to our customers. When the big changes happen, the developers as well CM's turned things around and got it fixed. This is a prime example of how things were being addressed from what the community wanted. Things don't go according to plan and when we don't address the top concerns then this is what happens. So we acknowledged this and fixed it because that's what was needed in our players eyes like yesterday. ;)
I believe ranking and decals will get some love in the coming updates but guild taxes and build orders may not. I haven't heard too much on build orders but the taxes is surely one of the top requested features. I will try to check on that some more with the developer but generally when there are focuses on systems (guild for this example) then more features will come in with them. I can't say much on the more details just yet but I hear you there.
That's understandable to say but I will have to disagree with you. That's why I made the initial post and why I wanted to at least post a reason why. The current counter-argument from some of the posters here is that all the bugs and changes we have made were too slow. Yet the point is that we weren't focusing on those top community requests. Now with the changing of the guard we had to restructure and focus on the things we needed to focus on. This is when you saw the memory issues, crashing issues and etc addressed. The other response here is that the things we're doing now is not what the community wants. You can say that if you only read the suggestions you want to read and only pay attention to one community. Remember, we have more than the English US and EU community to handle. We also have the German, French and Spanish communities to consume as well. Even then, the amount of posts compared to the amount of players only makes up 10% of the current player base. Hence the player surveys we keep emailing. Nonetheless, take what's going on now. We have the 5.6 update coming and the upcoming updates on the way. The current update on testlive includes the Veteran Reward System. This system alone has been request very hard for many months. This is not something we added out the blue. It's something the community wanted. The next change is the Iron Tower. Again, a lot of players want more high-end content and story. This addresses that. The next change is Tier-3 Raiding. As above, the same thing applies, more content, content and more content! Then lastly we have done some more fixes to sieges/dungeon to try to reduce the amount of crashing that affect them. Seriously though, I rather enjoy reading you input here. That's exactly why I post on the MMORPG.COM forums. It's very important you tell us what we are not doing but it should be understood that there is more to the community than what's on the forums. You have the in-game community too who don't give us feedback at all. It's important we take things step by step in order to ensure we are on the right track. Not to mention convey that the track is not a super fast ride. Content is not easy to add weekly and the same applies to major concerns or issues like crashing/etc. Cheers!
Glen ''Famine/Soulwish'' Swan |
|
|
You are still not getting it LB... |
|
Originally posted by FC-Famine
You lost me here Subscriptions is the YARD STICK in which Craig is judged.....nothing else really matters ( as I'm sure you know) You can make sieges run properly, balance classes perfectly, turn water into wine....whatever. But if that number doesn't change...it will mean nothing. Plain and simply--nothing else matters....yes it's very Black or White. EG: Subs good------No Subs; Bad....... Money Good...No Money; Not Good. So what hasn't happened? The game is in a state where it has actually "de evolved" due to poor decision making by the GD (see patch 1.05 and the murder system for details). The brand hasn't progressed. It hasn't improved. It hasn't even maintained it's subscriber base, It hasn't stayed relevant. Since these things haven't happened...If I were the CEO... I'd launch him like a lunar probe. You want to defend Craig?.... Be My Guest. Ironically, it may be your job that becomes a victim of his poor decisions.
|
|
|
Sabradin
Hard Core Member
Joined: 11/24/07
-------------------- |
Originally posted by Crashloop
Thats like a liberal in new york who surrounds themselves by only liberals and consideres themselves a "balanced moderate" - ah this thread is derailing its about the company; they got bruised because of their country's tax policy. Bottom line. If you don't choose to accept that inyourface fact well I cant shove it down your throat and you wont eat it, your loss. If you think taxes alone is the reason they move then you are absolutely clueless about Norwegian economy. :)
Don't exaggerate the fact thats not what I said |
Originally posted by Sabradin If you think taxes alone is the reason they move then you are absolutely clueless about Norwegian economy. :)
Don't exaggerate the fact thats not what I said
Good thing they are not moving to the US at least, the 35% (communist) tax rate would surely finish them right off! Not to mention the higher aggregated payroll tax, the higher salaries, the expensive legal framework, the less efficient workforce, and vastly more paperwork and red tape.
|
|
Originally posted by Aercus If you think taxes alone is the reason they move then you are absolutely clueless about Norwegian economy. :)
Don't exaggerate the fact thats not what I said
Good thing they are not moving to the US at least, the 35% (communist) tax rate would surely finish them right off! Not to mention the higher aggregated payroll tax, the higher salaries, the expensive legal framework, the less efficient workforce, and vastly more paperwork and red tape.
Can you please take a discussion about Communist, Socialist, Capitalist systmes or tax rates, and other monetary fiscal and govenmentary facts and figures off the forum and to the private messages. Nobody needs to read about that. Please. |
|
I find myself having to agree with Blackwell on this. With that said, I believe that Blackwell is mistaken in his concern that Famine may lose his job due to Craigs miscalculations. |
|
Originally posted by FC-Famine
The reason they dont offer you help anymore is because these suggestions don't make it into the game, and should they on make it in its not until after those folks have already quit, so it doesn't seem timely. What the hell good is a hot fresh pepperoni pizza if I order it for lunch today and get it 3 months from now in the middle of the night? You guys also mis-prioritize issues all the time. This guild bank issue for example has been way more of an issue that the stupid NPC vendor in the tradepost but you chose to fix that one first. Of course I know it needed to be fixed but my point is that mechanics should take priority over cosmetics in a game that already looks beautiful but lacks substance. So don't blame your customers for your failures. Your customers didn't cause you to launch before you had the game done, or execute design decisions after launch which are limiting your appeal to potential, previous and current customers. You guys are doing that, not the players. If anybody has an interest in seeing the game improved it is the folks paying for you and you better stop fucking forgetting that Famine.
So if an issue was on the forums, had more than say 40 pages of threadage in a single thread and more than 400 posts would it then be worthy of consideration by the develoment team after 18 months? I'm curious as to where you guys draw the line and just how a team of 100 folks working 40 hours a week can fail to not address this concern when it first appeared immediately after launch. I know there are thousands of suggestions that have been made but those that keep recurring, keep coming up over and over should those not be addressed? This is exactly what the bank issue is. Lack of completed voice overs is another issue which evidently which will never be done. Sieges which are sometimes unplayable because they crash any wheres from 1/3-2/3 of the time not 3 months from launch, or 6 months, or a year later but a year and a half later and the best pill you got for us to swallow is you wish you had magic to fix it? The reason you are wishing you had magic is because you are absent a leader with the ability to effectively turn this project around. Say it with Famine and Craig you can jump in here too at any time... The reason customers are leaving is because we have not turned this product around. It is not because of the alignment of the stars or external market forces. It is not because customers don't know about what AOC is, or the history of AOC, or because customers do not know the current state, it is because of our actions at Funcom, the decisions we made, conditions we launched under, the pace of our development, and the CURRENT STATE OF AGE OF CONAN, which is shameful. That is why 95% of the people who have ever played Age of Conan no longer play. I didn't want to rip on you guys but everywhere I go online I see flash ads for AOC and I see new free trials, and I read the Ten Ton Hammer exclusives and I see the total disconnect of the development team led by Craig and I see how absolutely clueless of a manager he is in terms of implementing suggestions in rapidfire that this community has hand fed them from the beginning. Have a look in your suggestion forum you know that forum where the in game community helps you out or at least trys. Give the threads that have over 300 posts some priority let me see if I can help you guys out. I'll give you the 5 most recent threads which have heavy discussion. Maybe there is even some agreement by those discussing on what you guys should do. Hmmmm lets see here...
Page 2 of the thread list. Colluseium idea... 430 posts thread started July 11 2008... forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php Page 4 More Better Armor and More Better Mature Content 312 Posts June 3 2008 forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php Page 4 Alternate Combo System 800+ posts May 27 2008 forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php Page 18 Guild Management Tools May 23 2008 forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php Page 20 Charcter Slot Expansion 927 posts June 13th 2008 I think you guys did boost the character slots after a year. Couldn't do that while you still had 75% or 50% or 25% of the player base still around? I mean come one, pace of improvements. Seeing the common theme yet? You guys say you dont get feedback from players in game. Thats because the guys left are simply more inclined to not care whether or not you implement because the rest have left. Statistically speaking. forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php Page 23 Female Characters need sexier clothing 513 posts started June 9 2008 forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php And another one on the same type of thing... 300+ posts For a game played by 93% guys they sure are concerned about what the women wear right? Can you say crossdresser? forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php So in closing are you guys even aware you have a suggestion forum?
|
|
|
Sabradin
Hard Core Member
Joined: 11/24/07
-------------------- |
Originally posted by LordBonezy
Don't exaggerate the fact thats not what I said
Good thing they are not moving to the US at least, the 35% (communist) tax rate would surely finish them right off! Not to mention the higher aggregated payroll tax, the higher salaries, the expensive legal framework, the less efficient workforce, and vastly more paperwork and red tape.
Can you please take a discussion about Communist, Socialist, Capitalist systmes or tax rates, and other monetary fiscal and govenmentary facts and figures off the forum and to the private messages. Nobody needs to read about that. Please.
Thank you. Only in relation to the company does anything like taxes mean anything to this forum. The topics themselves take to another forum. |
Originally posted by Sabradin
Don't exaggerate the fact thats not what I said
Good thing they are not moving to the US at least, the 35% (communist) tax rate would surely finish them right off! Not to mention the higher aggregated payroll tax, the higher salaries, the expensive legal framework, the less efficient workforce, and vastly more paperwork and red tape.
Can you please take a discussion about Communist, Socialist, Capitalist systmes or tax rates, and other monetary fiscal and govenmentary facts and figures off the forum and to the private messages. Nobody needs to read about that. Please.
Thank you. Only in relation to the company does anything like taxes mean anything to this forum. The topics themselves take to another forum.
My point is we dont need a flame war started by pseudo economics or 1st year poly sci students in a MMO game forum when we are busy setting Funcom straight and the general public about Age of Conan. Thanks :) |
|
|
AmazingAvery
 Age of Conan Advocate
Joined: 1/16/07
Only a fool hates that which he knows nothing about |
Originally posted by Vespers
Just picked up on a couple things in the above posts which I think is ultimately steering the conversation progressively away from the original topic and in to the realms of trying to justify one thing in to meaning another by some loose linkage. (I would also like to see Vespers back all those claims he makes, as right now they are just claims and not factual. "no adequate subscriber base", "nor has he suceeded in bringing in a substancial number of new subscribers", " to the less than 80K that is currently playing the game". Where is the middle ground in these statements or is it presented in an either yes or no fashion just because it conforms in some way to other opinions presented in the past on the game?) You would have to be silly to think that the game was not made to make money. On that thought process, stockholders would value the health of the company on a multitude of things with subscribers being one of them, but is most definately not the be all and end all. You think many stockholder would read Craig's blog and then read what Blackwell says and understand his reasons for it in this post and previous and simply think, oh wow this guy has to go. Gimmie a break.. The simple fact that you guys are trying to push the fact that because the game doesn't have a massive amount of subscribers and that people left for the same reasons of you it is ok to lump the game in the fail bucket. Your wrong in my opinion. You're reasons might very well be valid and just but using the above to try and justify it is wrong. Just because religion 'A' or mmorpg 'A' has X amount of subscribers makes it fun, right or worthy. By the same token just because religion 'Z' or mmorpg 'Z' does not have 'A's numbers doesn't make it not have these things either. Why do people chose A or Z? Why do some people fail to see all the other letters in the alphabet? Using sub numbers to re-inforce a decision either way, that suits your own opinion on matters lessens points made not strengthens in my opinion. Your putting points across without backing them up. What was it Craig said? "It seems that it isn't ok to disagree anymore. If you don't share an opinion then you are wrong"? Trying to lump things as "Black" and "White" and not understanding there is a middle ground which Craig did point out is called "Common ground" is just not wanting to take the blinkers off. I definately think some people here refuse to take the blinkers off and look at the bigger picture just because they can't bring themselves to see things differently or maybe they just don't want to. Whose knows, I just know that some people here have an opinion that theirs and the outlook is that it is the only opinion that matters, it is right, no matter what anyone says, but they ignore reason. This is the exact Black and White situation that Craig is talking about in his blog. Simply put it is a refusal to see things another way. Just like the guy in the blog who brought the topic up essentially in the first place. Craig says; "there are many that seem to think the best way to argue for their opinion is to detract from the other opinion rather then to support their own, and whenever their particular interest isn't the focus to complain about the others being pointless because they don't personally share that preference." Have we not seen both sides of this in the thread already? We have the chat regards to location you are, government types and the change again to suggesting people will be fired and employment changes. Is this the Black and White Craig means? have a think about that for a minute. I really think that in the opening post Blackwell just goes whole hog for the extreme, trying to justify a blog by the game director of a game that Blackwell doesn't play and really, really, really, dislikes to suit his own opinion. This is an opinion carry forward in nearly all posts here. Of course he is entitled to that opinion and those things I just said are completely recognised and at the same time I can respect that opinion but laughably disagree with the premise the post was made upon and well pretty much everything else that came after. This is just a point of course, we can share opinions and it is ok to disagree and keep on topic. I have scope to read into the Common Ground though, it is not all "Black"...."Well". When we talk Age of Conan it is constructive feedback that devs rely upon. This is to better the game for the players and community. If you want to be a part of a community but not be a player than respect is needed for both sides. In fact I think the first part of that last sentance is idiotic if that non player has no interest in being constructive. You guys have that "scope" too. So what about the people that play the game and enjoy it, is it too hard to respect that is their decision and premise? Why does everything have to conform to that Black or White opinion and then have no common ground or acknowledgement. Why does it have to be about subs ignore the fact that there are plenty of people out there enjoying the game as it is? Of course everyone has an opinion about changing things for the better. Why is it time for a change Blackwell? (as you said in your first post) Do you really have a secret passion for Age of Conan? Or is it that it is widely regarded that Craig has done a good job for the game. I am just curious. Lord B is obviously passionate that he felt that all of his requests to the developers have not been implemented in the way he sees fit (thats ok to feel like that) doesn't mean to say you was not heard. Sure it is ok to put across points, and I am not arguing on the whole that what Lord B is saying is not right, just the way he goes about it. just like last fall with the fail blog post and another 6 months paid up later same thing again. There are things called priorities though, and the people who make the game are paid to get those in order based on collected feedback and sometimes those particular things might not be top of the list. Any scope to understand that? Plenty of people like the game for what it is, a game. Plenty of people play the game and like it a lot. Plenty of people played the game and didn't like it. Plenty of people played the game liked it and left because they wanted more. Funcom obviously likes feedback from always asking for constructive feedback, sending out surveys and publically asking people. Advocate program is place is a good example. Pages and pages of feedback have been given and acted on collated from the community and delievered on to the desks of those making each part of the game (or most, so far). I think this thread proves what Craig said in the blog: "If you speak to players about what they would most like to see from developers it is almost inevitably more communication; and that is something I strongly believe in. However much of the will and motivation for doing so can be drained by the behaviour like that described above. In many ways if the developer feels that they just can't win on any given topic they are less likely to interact. They feel that way because rather than wanting to engage on the topics that can be discussed or when they want to ask questions they can find themselves on the defensive about things that shouldn't even need defending." (Can they meet you half way Lord B? any room for that?, or you agree should be fired for doing (the possibility) for more important updates that may not be to your liking, but to the bigger pictures?) Yes or not situation brought up, no room for common ground given by the OP, no room for discussion. When I read here ont eh boards it is apparently it is all 80k subs, fail devs, Xfire says this, population on servers are this, failed in job, murder system failed. You think FC want to come communicate when there is no room for manouver? Let alone no proof that this, this and this is accurate. Bravo for Craig to sticking to his guns and interjecting and communicating with the community and having an opinion on balance and PVP and PvE and then having someone digress with a sentance that doesn't help them in any way. (reason in blog was mentioned) EDIT: typo's New Tarantia Commons DX10 - DX 10 Goodness - |
|
Fair questions. I know what thread you're referring too because it's on the US forums. Yet the point I'm trying to highlight here is the game is more than just the US players. For me, 400 posts is a good thread to really take some notice but 400 people compared to the entire player base is very small percentage too. A good example here is the server merger thread. This is a thread that both ended up on US, EU-EN, DE, FR, and even SP. What we do just for the US reflects all regions because we are all the same in-game community but with different needs. Speaking on the thread you're quoting here. We've added and going to add 50% of the suggestion (may be more) into the game. I believe the only things that I can say we haven't done or I know of us doing is the guild tax and extra space in guild banks (although the original idea is not for extra space). Extra character slots, more bank space and even more inventory space are all major changes to the database. It's not the same as a simple vendor that holds a set amount of goods per server. That's because it takes major support from the database and even hardware side of things. It's also taking major risks to the stability of player data that comes into the game. Thus we can't just can't add such suggestions quickly and sometimes can't add them at all due to hardware or even software limitations. This is the hardest concern to address for any community manager I feel. How can you convey to players that not every MMO uses the same hardware, software, engineering and etc? Then how you can convey that something is simply not possible with the amount of resources on the table?
You have a right to your own opinion and I respect that. I'm not saying your right or wrong here. I just wanted to show you that we are here and reading your input. We won't please everyone and that's alright too. Thanks for the input LordBonezy. Always a pleasure. :)
Glen ''Famine/Soulwish'' Swan |
|
|
Sabradin
Hard Core Member
Joined: 11/24/07
-------------------- |
Originally posted by LordBonezy
Good thing they are not moving to the US at least, the 35% (communist) tax rate would surely finish them right off! Not to mention the higher aggregated payroll tax, the higher salaries, the expensive legal framework, the less efficient workforce, and vastly more paperwork and red tape.
Can you please take a discussion about Communist, Socialist, Capitalist systmes or tax rates, and other monetary fiscal and govenmentary facts and figures off the forum and to the private messages. Nobody needs to read about that. Please.
Thank you. Only in relation to the company does anything like taxes mean anything to this forum. The topics themselves take to another forum.
My point is we dont need a flame war started by pseudo economics or 1st year poly sci students in a MMO game forum when we are busy setting Funcom straight and the general public about Age of Conan. Thanks :) I figured thats what you meant. Sometimes facts are hard to digest and we tend to Funcom WAS/is hurt by the taxation which is why they opened a studio - "In addition to strengthening our North American presence, the new studio will take advantage of the great incentive programs offered by the Québec region, incentives that makes Montréal one of the most cost effective locations in the world for developing MMO games. This will in turn allow us to better balance our costs, making it possible for us to continue to expand our investments into the MMO segment"* We should get that straight. No need to delve into the textbooks on this. A general (public) education should be enough. |
Originally posted by Blackwell99
We are in an age when pleasing everyone is just not possible, in fact if you offer a product that tries to please everyone, you will obtain the opposite results.
The way to go now is either niche, like Darkfall and Fallen Earth, or focus on a particular audiance, like Bioware is doing with SWTOR.
AoC is neither fish or meat. |
|
