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AmazingAvery
 Age of Conan Advocate
Joined: 1/16/07
Only a fool hates that which he knows nothing about |
forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php and EU forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php Silirrion Letter from the Game Director - October -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For this month’s letter I wanted to talk a little about the community, what we are doing to help promote the game and what you can do to help! There have been lots of initiatives that have started over the last few weeks and days so I wanted to take the chance and go through the new programs and what they can offer you! Recruit a Friend… With the update today and the launch of the veteran rewards we are also starting a new recruit a friend program. Linked in with the great new value subscription rates you can earn yourself some nice rewards and even free playtime by getting your friends to join you in Hyboria! You can find all the details over on your account page. Opinions, Information and you… The more eagle eyed amongst you will also have noticed that we have been doing more player surveys and questionnaires. This is something that we will continue to do on an ongoing basis. As we start to think of what future developments we can plan for your opinion is always important. Information as to what is in the works and where we are currently at is also an important element of ensuring the community is up to date with the current developments. You will have noticed that the community teams have now started giving regular weekly updates every Friday with an update from the production team as well as any other relevant information. There is also a lot of information that is mentioned in forum replies and in interviews and other articles but they aren’t always the easiest to find. To this end we are launching a new community driven section of our websites that we are starting testing today. You can find it here and discuss it on the forums here. This portal is designed to put all the latest news and updates, and indeed previous ones, at your fingertips in an easily searchable and categorized way. The community team is actively seeking your feedback on this new addition so make sure you check it out and let us know how you think it can be improved! As a previous community person myself I see this kind of interaction as vital to the development of the game. We won’t always agree with any given opinion, but finding out what different types of player desire in the game is always worth finding out! Volunteer Program… I also wanted to give a mention to the volunteers in the Followers of Asura. Community support and the volunteer systems have always been a key part of our games. Having gotten to work with some of the volunteers down the years, and even meet many of them at annual gatherings and conventions I cannot express enough how much I personally appreciate the fact that these dedicated players give up their own valuable time to help our communities and support them. They really do a wonderful job and add that extra dimension to the online experience when they are able to provide assistance to their fellow players. The Followers are also recruiting at the moment for new volunteers. If you would like to volunteer a little of your time to help the Age of Conan community you can follow this link, where you can also find a lot more information about the program and volunteering. What’s coming up… Of course there is also the game updates to consider! Now that the 1.05 cycle is drawing to a close we shift our attention to the next major update cycle. We are currently hard at work getting the first builds of 1.06 ready for internal testing. Providing all goes well there we hope to deploy the update to the test servers for your feedback and opinions within a few weeks. We are now focusing on the new Guild Renown feature and the new Tier Three raids encounters. We will be running several initiatives one the test servers during the testing to ensure you get your chance to have your say! Internally we have a major focus on the expansion content, and the first closed beta testing phases are in progress now. We are currently working through the second and third iterations of the first three playfields and all the content that comes with them. There is a lot involved in the expansion and you’ll start to see more glimpses of it over the course of November, in fact those sneak peeks have already started with the first set of exclusive new screens released to MMORPG.com, keep your eyes out for more in November! We are also planning on revealing much of the Korean version of Age of Conan in November with our partners at Neowiz culminating in the GStar show in Busan late in the month. I am really looking forward to getting to visit our gracious hosts again and to get to show more of the game to Korean gamers! The Spooky Season… Last but by no means least I hope you are all enjoying the new seasonal content. I really like when we get the opportunity to drop some things in there that are just for fun. The new items and rewards for content like this might not have epic stats or be an ultimate status symbol, but they are every bit as appealing, at least to me, so hopefully they will also raise a smile or two as you have some fun with the night of lost souls! See you in haunted Hyboria this weekend! New Tarantia Commons DX10 - DX 10 Goodness - |
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"in few weeks" - LOL they will have 1.06 ready for test live by the time majority predicted expansion launch. That game is dead (burst in tears) |
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Originally posted by AmazingAvery
This is great. But let me see if I have an accurate state of AOC given I don't play at the moment. Sieges are still broken, which is to say not fixed entirely, the 1.05 patch which has been out for well since June, and 1.06 is just now oh wait, in a few weeks about to hit test servers, where it will fester for a good month and then be released in 2009 or 2010? So you'll have waited about 6 months from one update to the next right? Oh and they are working on the Expansion, rather than delivering updates to the current product or features, or fixing sieges. Yup ok I think I got it. |
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Originally posted by nihce
6 months between major updates. That is pathetic development speed. Its like they aren't even pretending they are not shutting this game down within a year. |
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damned if you do, damned if you dont |
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Originally posted by LordBonezy
6 months between major updates. That is pathetic development speed. Its like they aren't even pretending they are not shutting this game down within a year.
It's obvious they are lacking manpower, you can only do what you have the capability to produce. That shows CM knows how to at least manage his staff according to what they can handle. You know I don't play AOC anymore never even made it to end game. I do feel though it is one of the better mmo's on the market today. It's a shame things didn't work out better for them and the game. I mean I got a few months of fun out of the $50 I spent. I knew when I picked the game up it was meant to play like an RPG, not an MMO. Maybe that contributed to the fact I wasn't overly disappointed with the game. What would you like to see happen with AOC? I mean you obviously have some form of concern over this game. Otherwise why continually post about it? DO you want the game and developer to wither and die? Would you prefer the game improved? For every minute You are angry , You lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson |
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Originally posted by Malickie
It's obvious they are lacking manpower, you can only do what you have the capability to produce. That shows CM knows how to at least manage his staff according to what they can handle. You know I don't play AOC anymore never even made it to end game. I do feel though it is one of the better mmo's on the market today. It's a shame things didn't work out better for them and the game. I mean I got a few months of fun out of the $50 I spent. I knew when I picked the game up it was meant to play like an RPG, not an MMO. Maybe that contributed to the fact I wasn't overly disappointed with the game. What would you like to see happen with AOC? I mean you obviously have some form of concern over this game. Otherwise why continually post about it? DO you want the game and developer to wither and die? Would you prefer the game improved? Thats a good point. I would love to see the game fixed to be more functional and practical. I would love to see sieges fixed and improved. Expanded to be a 2X-weekly event for a guild which defends the battlekeep at their time of defense, and I'd like to see all levels of players able to participate, and I'd like to see a system a mercenary system where players from other guilds or not in a guild can joing a queue so that there is always a full siege full roster of attackers and defenders, as well as a wide variety of players able to participate in them. It would have several positive effects, including cutting down the ganking, and improving the offering of the game. I would like to see the bank expanded so that it is possible for players to actually use it effectively, you know even 100 slots would be much more of a functional bank than 50 when used by 50 players or 100 in a guild. The other thing with the bank is that I'd like to be able to autoarrange items, have each be sorted by a column, particular type of item, be it potion, harvested raw material, or weapon or armor. It would be great if the bank were expandable for larger guilds too, or that you would have more than one, i.e. using the different buildings of the guild city to store things. There have been so many stupid issues in regards to items and storage that it just boggles the mind that they skip this simple fix. We also need to setup a tax system, something where guilds get a set level of taxes on their income, or when they spend their income. That way you can build funds easier, its not really on the par with other needs but its 18+ months from launch and was in at one time. Having an adjustable rate would make it easy to be competitive with other guilds constantly driving each others rate lower or adding benefits some other way to compete. It would also bring a guild together by bringing contributions made by the guilds efforts to the forefront. I would also like to see the guilds get some fucking customization ability, be able to have a custom symbol or name or artistry on the walls of the guild city, be able to build the buildings in whatever order, be able to tear them down and harvest the materials, I'd like to be able to customize ranks of the guild members, and set privilidges because you shouldn't have everybody in your guild with the same set of permissions however you need to have everybody be able to invite new members and access the bank. If they can't why have a guild, why have a bank? You should also be able to keep kicking rights at the top tier and same with some other rights which the game just is not setup for depthwise. I would also like a PVP building in the guild where we can duel, and not have to boot someone from the guild and then bring them back in for a duel, thats just bs. It would also be cool to have a betting pit in the cities, where you could fight and everybody could place bets, a UI system which would match players bets and handle the money exchange automatically. I would like them to finish some of the 1000s of unfinished voiceovers, I'd like them to polish other things in the game and improve areas which are sparse and add some things which were not there the first time around but really I would like them to get the mechanics of the game, like in sieges fixed. They also need to drop the amount of resources needed to get a T2/T3 city, and make harvesting less of a fucking drag. They ought to give us other opporunities to harvest materials without having to acquire them all via harvesting, why not gamble for some of those as well, or havest damaged battlekeeps after a siege. There are lots of creative ideas they just simply ignore. Of the consquence system, which is totatlly bullshit, I'd get rid of every guard in the game. Then I'd bring in a system where the 5 guards spawned in the game in only the most heavily ganked res pads dynamically and only on PVP servers. So if an areas becomes a gankfest worse than elsewhere, for that time, and until the next worst time something happens elsewhere the guards act as they do. However usually they won't be there and usually they won't help unless you are end up repeatedly gank in the same spot near a res pad or a lot of PVP in the area by a particular res pad is occuring. I'd also do away with murder point system because it is stupid. What I would implement is the murder-killer bounty system. Suppose you have a beef with someone because they are being an ass. Put a bounty on their head. This gives the medicine right back to the dick by calling every other dick on the server to their attention, and letting them earn some coin for their griefing. Why not make it more than just a copper or silver or gold payment, how about making it so you could earn resources, say 50 wood killing said player 5 times. You'd have some players in the market for PVP where they are rewarded with contracts in this type of system where they can go out and help police the server by knowing who is creating a gank problem and who is just having some fun wrestling in the mud. Players right now have no idea what the history of the player is they PVP save their K:D and thats pretty much it. Suppose you had a system where everybody on the server was able to see the bounties and take an interest in killing some bitch who keeps messing with you in trade for some compensation. I think that system would work awesome, and it would take the NPC guards out of the equation because they suck anyway. A contract killing service in this game would keep a lot of the amateur ganker wanna be griefers in line a lot more often and for those that want the adventure or just dont give a shit, let them suffer their consequences with a real consequence system. I understand the need to get a new product out the door and try to save their company but they need to stop and think for 5 minutes, why are they in life support mode? Because of the decisions to rush the last product out the door and lie and sell something they didn't have to sell. Do I think they are going to fix AOC? No. Do I think they are doing the exact same thing with the new product. Yea. |
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Every so so often Craig goes into this--"we are listening" mode. But as the posters above have pointed out--these kinds of statements have "zero" credibility, when the sieges are still virtually unplayable. When people read these" Community Updates"--I guarantee you Sieges are the first thing everybody scans for (Fan or critic). It's the sieges that make or break AoC. We all know this, So when will Funcom come out and say flat out...."The 1999 Dreamworld engine just simply makes it IMPOSSIBLE to have reliable sieges on a regular basis." Make no mistake...if it's not possible to fix sieges (ever)...Funcom MUST know this reality as we speak, even if they claim they don't. You don't think the developers don't know if sieges are fixable to the point of reasonable reliability? If it was possible--it would have happened by now. It might be a complex matter---but they aren't building a time travel machine or inventing the next Internet, and that game engine is 10 years old...How complex can it be--What ...you need the world most Elite Computer Scientists to work on Anarchy Online's old engine? If it was possible to fix...why is Craig avoiding addressing the topic? With an issue this important to AoC they should be addressing it with a Community Update EVERY WEEK. but they aren't.........in fact.....they avoid they topic. You know why........? Think "can't" BUT...here's a pet..Happy Halloween You see, its great when they "say" they are doing surveys and what not...but "listening" and" talking" isn't what AoC players are buying these days. They lost that luxury --longtime ago. Only results count when it comes to FC. Who here has any faith that Godslayer won't cause a nuclear-code explosion within AoC? Plus with Craig-the-community-guy calling the shots...and his history.....BOOM! Hyboria all over the place. / mushroom cloud That's going to put on quite a show-lol.
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You've touched on exactly why I rail against Funcom. You have a game that is broken yet still takes six months between patches, while the company works on both an expansion and a brand new game. If I tried to listen to what Funcom actually said I would literally feel like the cat that keeps chasing it's own tail "I think our development cycle compares favorably to the rest of the industry." really Craig? Who could you possibly comparing your development cycle to I recall patches for WOW and LOTRO within two months of new content and those games rarely were patching to fix game breaking bugs which is what AOC SHOULD be doing but of course they are not. And the one thing I didn't fully consider that you pointed out is sieges are so important that it would be pretty catastrophic if they admitted they could not fix them reliably which again points to half truths and lies being told all to squeeze out every last cent they can get out of folks who if they knew this would not sub. I don't look at FC with the same amount of disdain as I do SOE I actually kind of pity them because they just tried to play with the big boys and probably found out they are not equipped to. |
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AmazingAvery
Age of Conan Advocate
Joined: 1/16/07
Only a fool hates that which he knows nothing about |
Guys I just want to point out that the expected date for 1.06 to come through was always November. This is something known for months now. For clarification 1.06 is built up of lots of different things. From the looks of it parts will be broken up and released in installments instead of one huge patch. This will mean that they are still on course to release a portion of 1.06 by end of year to live servers. FC have been quite clear in this area not promising anything and giving updates. Things that have changed recently were job cuts at HQ, which didn't impact AoC in a massive way. I would think that the news there would be negligible. So for those really wondering, nothing as far as 1.06 has changed from expected implementation to test servers for a few months now. Why does this bother ex players? I see no reason why it should as the information is not any different from what was said throughout summer at the conventions. New Tarantia Commons DX10 - DX 10 Goodness - |
Originally posted by Blackwell99
I don't give one lick about Sieges. Try to make fewer assumptions just because its important to you. I'm sure the stuff I care about you couldn't give less of a darn about either, its how life works. |
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Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt, Mr. Avery - you see, the problem is that it was predicted for 1.06 to hit live in november/early december. Now, we will maybe have 1.06 in late november on test - that means january at best for live |
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Originally posted by AmazingAvery
So you dont think its more than a little ridiclious to have major updates 6 months apart? I mean thats only 2 a year Avery. WTF? |
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I loved the latest patch, some of the best fun I've had in an mmo.
Looking forward to some pvp-lovin' next month. Just about a month between patches isn't too bad tho. |
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WotLK is about to launch its 3rd major content update, meaning 3 tiers of pve and pvp content in a year, while AoC's latest patch is still fixing Vistrix and BRC, rofl. |
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AmazingAvery
Age of Conan Advocate
Joined: 1/16/07
Only a fool hates that which he knows nothing about |
Originally posted by nihce
I can not find or remember any wording that will definately say the whole of 1.06 will be released on live in nov/dec. All I know is that there were predictions and in short term goals for this period. forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php July potential split patch up forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php - no specific dates (july) forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php - "We are working to have it there as soon as possible so we can start testing on the features and content for that cycle, the first focus will most likely be Guild Renown alongside some of the T3 encounters." So and also in relation to what lord B was saying above; they listened and are looking at simmering down the patch so not all at once if this works better. This way you end up with Tier 3 update, Renown update, Border Kingdom - PvP Tower update, seperately. Making folks happier and giving impression lots is coming in chunks, rather than waiting a few month for one massive one. The way I see it the servers have been updated 18 times this year so far. We have had 1.4 + 1.5 and looks like some of 1.6 by end of year. So 2.5 times of large patches including many welcomed things like a whole zones and several dungeons and group instances, city life revamps, massive class updated and refinement, and itemization update to name a few. Tons of stuff. New Tarantia Commons DX10 - DX 10 Goodness - |
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Well for definite, if my memory serves me correct, I remember FC member saying that 1.06 will be out before xmas. |
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Well, I think that 1.6 being released in December 2009 is just wishful thinking. Bear in mind that no boss for tier 3 has yet been tested on testlive nor any new pvp content. And it takes about 2 months of testing, at least. And also bear in mind that Funcom has never tested NEW pve raids on testlive before (as it concerns AoC), testing 1.6 is a whole new dimension and I am almost sure that 2 months of testing is not even close enough for a patch of this scope. For example, WotLK has already put 5-6 bosses out of 13 on testlive concerning tier 10 (Icecrown Citadel) and a new 3-winged 5-man dungeon, and the patch will probably be released at the end of December, if all goes well. And their latest fix concerning Vistrix yet again really worries me for the remaining players - will tier 3 need fixes for 2 years, then? |
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Originally posted by Krewel
Yeah and compare blizzards staff to FC's. Then compare the funding behind the two companies. Then compare the earnings between the two companies. Honestly this is the epitome of comparing apples to oranges. Compare the patch cycle between WAR, AOC, SWG, VG:SOH, FE or EVE online. You will notice you're far more in line with a reasonable comparison. For every minute You are angry , You lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson |
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F2P MMOs evolve faster than AoC. |
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Originally posted by Krewel
Was this a serious response, or are you simply trying to stir the pot? Honestly, it seems that you're trolling. Show me a free to play game aside from ddo, that is anything more than an asian grinder with decent production values, I might not think so. However I am not quite sure, such a game exists. For every minute You are angry , You lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson |
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Originally posted by Malickie
Yeah and compare blizzards staff to FC's. Then compare the funding behind the two companies. Then compare the earnings between the two companies. Honestly this is the epitome of comparing apples to oranges. Compare the patch cycle between WAR, AOC, SWG, VG:SOH, FE or EVE online. You will notice you're far more in line with a reasonable comparison. And yet they expect players to pay the same monthly fee as WoW. Honestly if companies want to stop being compared to WoW they need to stop charging the same price for less content. |
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Originally posted by Oddbot And yet they expect players to pay the same monthly fee as WoW. Honestly if companies want to stop being compared to WoW they need to stop charging the same price for less content.
I agree, since when is AOC implementing on the scale of or with the quality WOW is? I have never played WOW but obviously they have a much more successful playerbase than AOC. If FC was charging less monthly they would probably have more players around but only to a point. They need to supply a better product not increase demand by lowering their cost. |
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Originally posted by Malickie
Yeah and compare blizzards staff to FC's. Then compare the funding behind the two companies. Then compare the earnings between the two companies. Honestly this is the epitome of comparing apples to oranges. Compare the patch cycle between WAR, AOC, SWG, VG:SOH, FE or EVE online. You will notice you're far more in line with a reasonable comparison.
Just for the record, AoC actually charges 15 eur per month, while WoW 13 eur. So for 2 euros more I get ten times less content and ten times slower development process. Not my kind of logic. And so what if they don't have enough resources? They're on the same market, same "ball park", the same is expected of them. I would accept a major content update every 6 months, I would compromise that much, but I as a paying customer simply cannot and will not accept the fact that for 15 eur per month I get no pve-content upgrade after more than a year. No, I don't call pve-content adding mid-level dungeons and one level 80 dungeon after a year. So, why shouldn't we compare one subscription-based MMO to another? Saying that Funcom has less money and "ability" to do what Blizz does only convinces me further not to play the game. I mean, imagine Funcom saying that - "pay 2 eur more and we give you less". As I said, I left in October 2008 when I was already bored with BRC (even though I didn't get to see the whole raid then, ofc. The raid is just inherently boring, really lame design and encounters compared to WoW, imo) and extremely dull raids like Vistrix, Kyliki and Yakhmar (most of them didn't work properly then). And after more than a year still no tier 3, the game is still struggling with basic stuff like mid-game content (ok, that is finally out of the way, yay) and class/stat redesign. I don't know, if someone finds a slower MMO when it comes to development, please let me know, I would really like to know the number of people playing that game. |
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Originally posted by Oddbot And yet they expect players to pay the same monthly fee as WoW. Honestly if companies want to stop being compared to WoW they need to stop charging the same price for less content. Yes, as does the rest of the games I mentioned. I can not say I agree though, considering wow is a five year old game. I would not expect to see the same amount of content. You are basically saying no game released recently should charge the normal fee associated with this genre. With that logic the price should scale with the amount of content a game offers. Meaning wow itself was overcharging in the beginning. For every minute You are angry , You lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson |
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