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Elikal 7/01/08 12:27:49 AM
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Advanced Member
Joined: 2/09/06 |
It's Vanguard all over again. Not that AoC is like VG, and the problems of AoC are different, but the rest is the same all over. I was in both betas, and we "told you so". Did it lead to anything? No. Like with Sigil, apparently Funcom was running out of money, so they had to release it. About half a year too early. Thats all fine and nice, I had patience with Vanguard almost a year. I will have patience with Conan, but prolly not that long.
The Number One BIG FAULT Sigil made and now Funcom does too, is NO COMMUNICATION. If you have bugs and missing features, TALK about them! SAY, ok this and that isnt working right yet, we are AWARE and we plan to do X, Y and Z in this time schedule. (We dont need DATES, a simple order of priorities would suffice!) We heard nothing about anything like this from Sigil until SOE took over. Far from praising SOE, but at least they TOLD us whats wrong and whats in store. Hopefully Funcom learns BEFORE they have to sell Conan to SOE. I really do. WHY dont they get it that communication is the PROBLEM NUMBER ONE? If we know we are heard, if we know what they work on, if they react to us, we can be patient. This change of patch time is just one more nail on the coffin. I dont know what they hope to gain with silence. *shrug* Isnt there ONE single person at Funcom who TELLS them? There are promises not fulfilled, features not complete, TONS of things not working or not understood by the players. There are MANY MANY things we should talk about, and not ignore until only a hardful of die-hards are left! Gawd after Vanguard I really hoped never to see all that again... fanboi flamewars, denial until its all ashes... all the same. I really, really hope those guys turn the tide. I am so sick of this same, stupid, needless circle of falling into the trap of bad communication. I really mean this to see AoC saved from falling into a tiny niche. I am working as a journalist, and I have my experience in dealing with companies and trying to get information out of them. What we must keep in mind is, that Funcom is no welfare organization or a religious order devoted to truth. In Age of Conan two intersts meet: the interest of Funcom to make money and the interest of the customers (us!) to have a good time. Now for a MMO customer, unlike other one-time products you buy and go with, a MMO is an investment of the customer. He pays a monthly fee in the ongoing things, and since he doesnt know in detail what the higher level will bring or how the company will evolve the game, it is a highly based in TRUST of the customer. A MMO is not a train, where you know exactly where you are headed. You know, some time you will be level 80, but what will you have seen and done, what will you have experienced? In a MMO that is much more open to change and uncertainty. So few products are that much of an investment in faith in the company like a MMORPG. It is as if you enter a train, and you know it will travel from east to west coast, but you dont know the speed, the route or the exact date and place of arrival. You dont board that train for the arrival place, you board it for the experience of the travel. Now when this company tells you, you are going to see this and that place on the jounrey, and you aren't, you rightfully ask "hey, you told us we are going to see the Grand Canyon and the Niagara Falls, where the heck are they?" - then I guess it is justified that customers want some answers, IF they are getting their promised vistas and WHEN. Now sure, if the company has troubles to deilver the promises, which is apparently the case, they want to keep selling their product, so they wont tell outright about faults, but as with most other companies trying to hide their shortcomings, such things ALWAYS backfire. Sure, you keep customers a while longer, sure you get some more to buy your product, but someday, somwhere the bomb drops, the knowledge spreads and the longer you wait communicating the deeper the fall of the company. Its always the same story. Now the MAIN problem of computer program companies is, there are usually MODERATORS, which basically moderate and have little or no authority to talk about whats going on, and you have tech guys, who need their main time programming and usually spent their personal spare time filling the info gaps. What especially gaming companies did not yet grasp fully, is the installation of "spokesmen", speakers who are informed about the going ons and have a job to spend the majority of their time to give well informed answers. What he does not do is, answer to single threads so much, but scan the forum and then release regular sum-ups answering about the questions. Usually you get the same questions over and over anyway, so the best thing would be to make a weekly sticky or such, where one guy whose sole purpose is to scan the forum and be in tough with the tech guys to give INFORMED ANSWERS. He still doesnt make promises or exaxct dates, but he can give you info about whats going on, where the train is headed asf. Any good company's success is HEAVILY based on their good comminication, and a commnunication expert can well tell things going on withouth putting too much ash on his head. I have experienced companies trying to hide going ons all too often. Trust me, it ALWAYS backfires, basically because they delude themselves that they can remedy the problems faster than they actually can, kinda overestimating their own speed and underestimating the customers abilities to find out. The result is in business almost always desaster. What this is all about is that Funcom must realize communication improvement is in THEIR long-term monetary interest! I cant say 100% how much they really answer, some things are said in US forums and spread as rumor - like the new patch times. Another TERRIBLE communication faux pas. Some minor mod says about new patch times solely in one language forum, and the rest only learns from hearsay, after HOURS of waiting for the Monday patch. Sorry, but thats just desastrous communication which needlessly creates more frustrated players. There must be ONE communication responsible person, gathering all the various complains and reacting to them in ONE PLACE open to ALL in a weekly publication, so we stop being dependent to forum digging and hearsay. I cant think thats so difficult to organize. |
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Wolfenpride 7/01/08 1:19:28 AM
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Hard Core Member
Joined: 7/28/06
You kill the Joe, you make some moe |
Ill have to agree with you on this Amazing post! Hopefully future companies will see these mistakes previous others have made, unfortunately its unlikely to happen :( |
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Pugofcrydee 7/01/08 1:37:28 AM
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Novice Member
Joined: 5/19/08 |
Many people in beta came here to tell you rapid fanboys what AOC was really like but no one took any notice. When beta tersters and many others came here knowing we would break the NDA and get banned , we were accused of being trolls who were making it up. <modedit> |
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Ghist 7/01/08 1:39:40 AM
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Advanced Member
Joined: 10/21/06
http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/186176/page/7 |
Funcom is too busy hyping to be helping its player base. |
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AmazingAvery 7/01/08 1:44:02 AM
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Age of Conan Correspondent
Joined: 1/16/07
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his brother. |
Originally posted by Pugofcrydee
Right fucking here mate, loving the game including all its minor bugs, in an in game alliance with more people totaling more game votes on this site just on one server whom are all having a great time overall. You sound like you speak for everyone, guess what, you nor I don't. Subscribers do. Guess what I was in beta too, telling people what a game you think will be like 12 months before launch doesn't equal end product, thats why NDA is there. The Op is right in some ways though, more communication is needed. <modedit>
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The views expressed on these forums are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of mmorpg.com |
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AmazingAvery 7/01/08 1:53:50 AM
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Age of Conan Correspondent
Joined: 1/16/07
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his brother. |
If Funcom were to have a twice weekly update, in line and extra to the twice weekly patching currently going on, this would go a long way I think. The thing is then you would have people harping on about why this wasnt done in the first place. OP is right in his thinking though on the whole. <modedit> |
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The views expressed on these forums are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of mmorpg.com |
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gestalt11 7/01/08 2:06:38 AM
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Elite Member
Joined: 5/17/06 |
If they communicated the actual state then their initial sales would have been lower.
If Funcom had been honest and forthright instead of dishonest would I have subscribed instead of not subscribing? Me probably not, but I could see maybe some people subbing and waiting for some features to be implemented or functional.
However in the end that is only good for about 1-2 months. And since there is no way AoC will have all the missing features in that time they only had one option; lie like dogs. Especially since, as has been demonstrated, you can string a fanboy a long for quite some time. The only problem with stringing fanboys a long is that usually creates a rabid hateboy. However since they chose to lie they have essentially already crossed that bridge anyway. Lying and hype will generate quite a bit of hate. So they might as well milk the fanboys as long as they can. No downside to it really. |
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Reklaw 7/01/08 2:54:53 AM
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Elite Member
Joined: 1/07/06
Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves. |
Shame that some people seem not able to visit or read the official forums, else this whole topic is kinda useless. I mean we all can see the multible copy/past complaints on the official forums that already are pending in things to fix or are talked about in known issue's, yes there are issue's that not talked or have gotten a responce from FC, but realize there is much more going on behind the scene's then the public even needs to know. These day's certain people simply want to know it all where in most cases it's allot better for them to NOT know it all and let those who are working on it work on it. Now a day's with so many unexperiance'd gamers coming ot this genre we do see a hugh degrade in people's perspective, i mean i have read plenty of post from Elikal but i do not recall one post that showed he had any form of patients with Vanguard, even before the game hit live he was already complaining about so many things, that i wonder why such a person keeps "waisting" his time on things he knows he disklikes.
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LondonMagus 7/01/08 3:25:01 AM
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Hard Core Member
Joined: 3/10/08
Existence is random! |
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