AoC has a few tricks left up its sleeve.  

#1:  DX10

#2:  New itemization

#3:  The new zones, wing 3.

But after that, what can AoC do?  The "new" zones coming out have been in development for over a year.  After all, AoC was supposed to release with about double the raid content.  Instead they cut half of it and this (in Feb/Mar) will be the other half.

But if it takes you 1+ year to create 2-3 tiers of raiding, what is Funcom going to do with the next tiers?  Wait until 2010?  This game desperately needs more raid content...particularly because of the failure of AoC as a PvP centric game (witnessed by the massive merge of all the PvP servers, in terms of player population) into Tyranny and Fury respectively).  

I think you get this next patch, and then a crafting/itemization patch by May, and then AoC is stuck for a LONG time.  How it maintains subscribers then will determine if it is anything other than a niche 50,000 player MMO.

As far as I know they plan to release an explansion this year, hence 90% of their employees are probably working on that.

The expansion is slated, at the earliest, for 2010.  

I get why they would hit the expansion pack hard though.  They will market it heavily hoping to get resubscriptions.   The downside is, to put together a quality expansion pack, they are going to have to:

a)  skimp on new content until the release of the expension pack

b)  make sure that all of the core elements (crafting/itemization tables) are ready so they can design the expansion pack around it).

If they attempt to build all of that into the expansion pack, it will be a disaster, because they will be guessing about balance and other issues.

In my LIFE I have never seen a game struggle more with the basics of item design and the balance of world drops/raid drops/crafted items.  I mean it is hard to be further off.  

Whomever designed the gem crafting system and the gear progression simply had no clue what they were doing.  If that was not bad enough, it was clear that they never talked to each other either, compounding the simply awful systems they had.

Lack of content is the biggest problem in AoC, that is true. But Funcom spent the first 6 months after release to fix issues with the engine and sort out buggs so hopefully they will spend more work on the content now.

But the game wont really be great until after at least one expansion, EQ2 had the same problem. Funcom is small unlike some companies and can't spend 7-10 years to get the content working before releasing the game, and making the engine took a lot of the time.

Originally posted by Thillian

As far as I know they plan to release an explansion this year, hence 90% of their employees are probably working on that.

Actually the new head guy said last month that there were only like 3 people working on the expansion.

AOC is in a state similar to Warhammer. The only 'new' content that is getting added is stuff that was supposed to be in the game at launch.. ie  dx42, and in warhammers case, the 4 classes that were cut a month before release.

Glad to see you back Lit!

FunCom's long standing business model, is to pump out buggy, incomplete expansion content every 14-16 months to give their MMO a shot in the arm. They usually have fixed 80% of the new bugs by the time they launch a fresh new set of em. The remaining 20% usually get to live on sometimes forever, giving the game 'character', and becoming  something for the vets to school the n00bs about.

I kinda wish Godager hadn't left now, I'd love too see the AoC fanboi's reaction when he pullled an inevitable 'Shadowlands' style revamp on AOC trying to bring new players to the game. A big 180 to the game themes and switching the whole genre and IP. You woulda ended up with something like Elves and Dwarves who invade Hyborea threw a mystical dream portal on waves of flying saucers with magicaly powered lasers in half finished new playfields. A new set of mechanics photo-copied from a more popular MMO but missing a few important pages as not to be total plagiarism and function as well as the original. And a whole community going 'WTF!" really loudly on the official forums as volunteer mods lock posts 10 at a time, and the Community manager telling them all how this great new vision of the game what they had all been asking for.

Originally posted by Litigator_AB

 AoC has a few tricks left up its sleeve.  

#1:  DX10

#2:  New itemization

#3:  The new zones, wing 3.

But after that, what can AoC do?  The "new" zones coming out have been in development for over a year.  After all, AoC was supposed to release with about double the raid content.  Instead they cut half of it and this (in Feb/Mar) will be the other half.

But if it takes you 1+ year to create 2-3 tiers of raiding, what is Funcom going to do with the next tiers?  Wait until 2010?  This game desperately needs more raid content...particularly because of the failure of AoC as a PvP centric game (witnessed by the massive merge of all the PvP servers, in terms of player population) into Tyranny and Fury respectively).  

I think you get this next patch, and then a crafting/itemization patch by May, and then AoC is stuck for a LONG time.  How it maintains subscribers then will determine if it is anything other than a niche 50,000 player MMO.

 

 

Do you think they will just "stop" all of a sudden after those updates?

Short term (over the next 6 months) looks very promising.

You forgot Tarantia Commons new Zone and the Crafting updates (pairs of professions) + Siege workout with suprises.

Tarantia Commons will probably have several dungeons that have been hinted at too. If your into raiding.

As for sieges maybe come to a server where there is several everyweek, did you witness the massive competition for spots after the merge and continued congestion? Did you hear about the PvP resources that will be coming in with nice loot? What about the crafting tie in's with the existing raid content? What about lots of the current gems being replaced with new ones and all the goodies that come with that crafting update.

Just over 3 weeks. Feb 23rd I am sure on that day there will be a bit more insight into short term plans, plus the regular people who credit themselves as creditable with all sort of continued predictions of doom and bust which when you think about it have never come to fruition in the past.

The way I see it is that there are plenty of things to do and introduce over the next 6-9 months. I don't think they will sit back, and I certainly don't think the game will suffer if people are making an expac which have been staffed up for.

Yeah good to see you back Lit.

You could add that they already face a problem with another facet of trust. It should be fairly clear that some people are reluctant to post their personal credit card information on Funcom's buggy account system.

First they "introduce" this feature: Conan for free

Next they put this on their "secure" conan account site: Service points for ingame items

Now we just have to wait for this "Alien Invasion in Hyboria" expansion

To me there are far too many "ooops"  problems on a site that are supposed to treat your personal information in a secure and serious manner!

Originally posted by Litigator_AB

 AoC has a few tricks left up its sleeve.  

#1:  DX10

#2:  New itemization

#3:  The new zones, wing 3.

But after that, what can AoC do?  The "new" zones coming out have been in development for over a year.  After all, AoC was supposed to release with about double the raid content.  Instead they cut half of it and this (in Feb/Mar) will be the other half.

But if it takes you 1+ year to create 2-3 tiers of raiding, what is Funcom going to do with the next tiers?  Wait until 2010?  This game desperately needs more raid content...particularly because of the failure of AoC as a PvP centric game (witnessed by the massive merge of all the PvP servers, in terms of player population) into Tyranny and Fury respectively).  

I think you get this next patch, and then a crafting/itemization patch by May, and then AoC is stuck for a LONG time.  How it maintains subscribers then will determine if it is anything other than a niche 50,000 player MMO.

 

 

1) DX10.

2) 1 new midd lvl dungeon / 2 new high lvl dungeons.

3) PVP-resources, they also sad that they will launch other pvp stuff in the other 2 borderkingdoms.

4) New itemization, new gear, new / more crafting (revamped).

5) PVP-lvl 6-10 (new sets/armors/wepons)

6) Common district, high lvl zone.

7) Wing 3 and probably ( Thoth-Amon's stronghold ).

8) House of crom ( Huge dungeon )

9) Expansion (late 2009)

10) new races / classes ?? / probably new zones for the new races etc.

11) ALOT more new stuff we havent even heard about yet.

You worry to much m8

Originally posted by DaveTT

Originally posted by Litigator_AB

 AoC has a few tricks left up its sleeve.  

#1:  DX10

#2:  New itemization

#3:  The new zones, wing 3.

But after that, what can AoC do?  The "new" zones coming out have been in development for over a year.  After all, AoC was supposed to release with about double the raid content.  Instead they cut half of it and this (in Feb/Mar) will be the other half.

But if it takes you 1+ year to create 2-3 tiers of raiding, what is Funcom going to do with the next tiers?  Wait until 2010?  This game desperately needs more raid content...particularly because of the failure of AoC as a PvP centric game (witnessed by the massive merge of all the PvP servers, in terms of player population) into Tyranny and Fury respectively).  

I think you get this next patch, and then a crafting/itemization patch by May, and then AoC is stuck for a LONG time.  How it maintains subscribers then will determine if it is anything other than a niche 50,000 player MMO.

 

 

 

1) DX10.

2) 1 new midd lvl dungeon / 2 new high lvl dungeons.

3) PVP-resources, they also sad that they will launch other pvp stuff in the other 2 borderkingdoms.

4) New itemization, new gear, new / more crafting (revamped).

5) PVP-lvl 6-10 (new sets/armors/wepons)

6) Common district, high lvl zone.

7) Wing 3 and probably ( Thoth-Amon's stronghold ).

8) House of crom ( Huge dungeon )

9) Expansion (late 2009)

10) new races / classes ?? / probably new zones for the new races etc.

11) ALOT more new stuff we havent even heard about yet.

 

You worry to much m8

 

You are not going to see an expansion pack this year.  You are not going to see House of Crom this year.  You are not going to see Thoth-Amon this year.  Or new races.  

Wing 3, which was supposed to be essentially complete upon release, is still not out.  How long do you think thoth or house of crom will take if two encounters in Wing 3 take 10 months to release and take years (literally) to devleop?  With fewer staff?  Hmm?

Your two new high level dungeons are a single solo dungeon which, according to TL, takes 45 minutes to complete.  The other is a dungeon like Onyx.  Same loot essentially because they haven't fixed itemization. 

So again, you are going to get:

#1:  dx10

#2:  commons district

#3:  itemization/crafting fix

After that, how long is it going to take Funcom to do anything else, given that they have taken, literally, over a year to make any new raid content?  

Sil posted on the main board about this.  It looks like you are waiting until at least April until you get Wing 3.  That's at best.  That's pretty sad.

Originally posted by Litigator_AB

You are not going to see an expansion pack this year.You are not going to see House of Crom this year.  You are not going to see Thoth-Amon this year.  Or new races.  

Wing 3, which was supposed to be essentially complete upon release, is still not out.  How long do you think thoth or house of crom will take if two encounters in Wing 3 take 10 months to release and take years (literally) to devleop?  With fewer staff?  Hmm?

Your two new high level dungeons are a single solo dungeon which, according to TL, takes 45 minutes to complete.  The other is a dungeon like Onyx.  Same loot essentially because they haven't fixed itemization. 

So again, you are going to get:

#1:  dx10

#2:  commons district

#3:  itemization/crafting fix

After that, how long is it going to take Funcom to do anything else, given that they have taken, literally, over a year to make any new raid content?  

Sil posted on the main board about this.  It looks like you are waiting until at least April until you get Wing 3.  That's at best.  That's pretty sad.

/sky falls hehe

Full BRC Wing 1 / BRC Wing 2: Poison guy Incubus+Succubus+Seruha

Chatha needs be fixed properly first before Wing 3 opens otherwise whats the point?

Seems like your a pissed off raider who would like more content? and with that statement I agree with you.

If your a hopefull person there Wing 3 might get some love in patch 5, realistically though patch 6.

logically if you think that Wing 3 was "Open" for a while at launch, then shut to fix tiers leading up, then it has had development time between then and now. First talk of House of Crom properly was in end of August, again development time, unless you assume neither as been touched at all..

House of Crom has been said to come after the current dungeons. every patch is a combination of new content and update fixes which will mean it is slated to come sooner rather than the pesimistic time line you suggest.

T3 gear is in the AoC directory on your PC in the .RDB it is already implemented but not added in so to speak.

The whole of BRC still has issues were it is easy to get knocked out of the world.

Essentially, I read as a rant for more raids. The other hand (rest of the general paying public) says fix the game first and put other things as priority. We are nearing the fixing part, so it is not going to be long before the game will cater more to new raid content. In the mean time there has been great improvement over the current raid content. Would it not make sense for this all to work first before dumping another bugged raid? Which is the position FC seem to be promoting now, 1.) get it fixed and working. 2.) not to rush out bugged content. As can be attested by many testers.

When you have 80% + of what you ask for done already internally one would assume it definately wont be a year before we see what you ask for as a frustrated cry for help.

The way I see the immediate future:

FEB/MARCH: introduction of Patch 4 (total) maybe staggered implementation, PvP resources + DX10 + plus Cradle of decay dungeon first followed by the 2 high level content additions or vice versa on live.

MARCH: see's test server updated with Patch 5 inital (re-itemization, crafting changes, possibly Tarantia Commons (another high level zone) ) and MAYBE T2 Wing 3.

APRIL/MAY/JUNE: Patch 5 release on Live prob end of APR, and Patch 6 on test server. #6 to have BRC wing 3. Reason why is that it went on the backburner because of the re-itemization patch that has to come first which was announced late last year, and the right thing to do and makes sense. There will be a lot of adjusting of T1 and T2 content after the stats upgrade also so we must be patient. Stats upgrade, I cant wait for this, im looking forward to this more than T3, because then my gear will actually mean something to me over my blues outside of raid along with crafted gear.

Scope into that somewhere PvP Levels 6-10 with new PvP gear. Commons District extra additions like Xibaluku.

I think that FC should cater more for the raiders and hardcore element moving foward, ground work is there, and some very forthcoming implementations will make finishing off the T3 stuff better for us all in the long run.

Nice to see your still playing.

 The game needs to be fixed first.

The game was very buggy at release and a lot was broken.

You cannot add new content, before you fix the essiantal bugs and broken stuff first.

Otherwise you keep adding new content to a broken game and push it into a downwards spiral with an evergrowing buglist.

It's better to fix the game first and then start adding content.

I think that is exactly what they did.

With patch 5 they going to finally revamp the itemization and thus also the stats system.

After that the most important stuff is fixed and they can start working a lot more on content.

It's annoying when you are level80 yes. But it's the only way to get the game back on the right track.

Originally posted by DaveTT

Originally posted by Litigator_AB

 AoC has a few tricks left up its sleeve.  

#1:  DX10

#2:  New itemization

#3:  The new zones, wing 3.

But after that, what can AoC do?  The "new" zones coming out have been in development for over a year.  After all, AoC was supposed to release with about double the raid content.  Instead they cut half of it and this (in Feb/Mar) will be the other half.

But if it takes you 1+ year to create 2-3 tiers of raiding, what is Funcom going to do with the next tiers?  Wait until 2010?  This game desperately needs more raid content...particularly because of the failure of AoC as a PvP centric game (witnessed by the massive merge of all the PvP servers, in terms of player population) into Tyranny and Fury respectively).  

I think you get this next patch, and then a crafting/itemization patch by May, and then AoC is stuck for a LONG time.  How it maintains subscribers then will determine if it is anything other than a niche 50,000 player MMO.

 

 

 

1) DX10.

2) 1 new midd lvl dungeon / 2 new high lvl dungeons.

3) PVP-resources, they also sad that they will launch other pvp stuff in the other 2 borderkingdoms.

4) New itemization, new gear, new / more crafting (revamped).

5) PVP-lvl 6-10 (new sets/armors/wepons)

6) Common district, high lvl zone.

7) Wing 3 and probably ( Thoth-Amon's stronghold ).

8) House of crom ( Huge dungeon )

9) Expansion (late 2009)

10) new races / classes ?? / probably new zones for the new races etc.

11) ALOT more new stuff we havent even heard about yet.

 

You worry to much m8

 

all bug free and balanced correctly huh? every time they implement any changes to the game they break more than they fix. how can you possibly be excited knowing they're fixing to "try" and make changes to the game?

Originally posted by URMAKER

Originally posted by DaveTT

Originally posted by Litigator_AB

 AoC has a few tricks left up its sleeve.  

#1:  DX10

#2:  New itemization

#3:  The new zones, wing 3.

But after that, what can AoC do?  The "new" zones coming out have been in development for over a year.  After all, AoC was supposed to release with about double the raid content.  Instead they cut half of it and this (in Feb/Mar) will be the other half.

But if it takes you 1+ year to create 2-3 tiers of raiding, what is Funcom going to do with the next tiers?  Wait until 2010?  This game desperately needs more raid content...particularly because of the failure of AoC as a PvP centric game (witnessed by the massive merge of all the PvP servers, in terms of player population) into Tyranny and Fury respectively).  

I think you get this next patch, and then a crafting/itemization patch by May, and then AoC is stuck for a LONG time.  How it maintains subscribers then will determine if it is anything other than a niche 50,000 player MMO.

 

 

 

1) DX10.

2) 1 new midd lvl dungeon / 2 new high lvl dungeons.

3) PVP-resources, they also sad that they will launch other pvp stuff in the other 2 borderkingdoms.

4) New itemization, new gear, new / more crafting (revamped).

5) PVP-lvl 6-10 (new sets/armors/wepons)

6) Common district, high lvl zone.

7) Wing 3 and probably ( Thoth-Amon's stronghold ).

8) House of crom ( Huge dungeon )

9) Expansion (late 2009)

10) new races / classes ?? / probably new zones for the new races etc.

11) ALOT more new stuff we havent even heard about yet.

 

You worry to much m8

 

 

all bug free and balanced correctly huh? every time they implement any changes to the game they break more than they fix. how can you possibly be excited knowing they're fixing to "try" and make changes to the game?

Last 3 patches were very good - not sure if you tried them out - Ymir's went down a success. History shows that patches recent in are of a better quality than before.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Originally posted by URMAKER

all bug free and balanced correctly huh? every time they implement any changes to the game they break more than they fix. how can you possibly be excited knowing they're fixing to "try" and make changes to the game?

Last 3 patches were very good - not sure if you tried them out - Ymir's went down a success. History shows that patches recent in are of a better quality than before.

I think this is the most bothersome part of anyone posting here with their opinions. All the recent patches have NOT had issues, but instead have improved the game in many ways.

The patches cannot fix the game for those who do not like the style of the game, but this old outdated information of patches "breaking" stuff just is not true anymore.

Wish the troll info from the older posters who have not played since launch and still call the company Failcom could get weeded out.

"That's pretty much the case, forums are notoriously unforgiving and just love to generate misquotes to torture you with a later dates when it comes to setting specific dates In general terms though I can say that for wing three we are getting into vague but promising 'soon' territory I am not promising anything but we are working towards it being available during the update cycle that is currently on the test server."

"As for beyond that we will let you all know as soon as there are firm plans. The items and statistics update is our focus for the next couple of months I am sure, and it is the foundation that will allow us to craft better raid content in the future."

From the game director.  That's all I know.  It seems reasonable, however the point stands that the game will probably not be producing significant amounts of trekkable content on a regular basis for some time.  I also heard that an expansion has been put mostly on the back-burner.

Also, please stop suggesting it will go the route of completely different theme, alien invasion expansion.  Such ideas scare me.  I really don't want to fight an invasion of mystical dwarves and elves from space, my favorite part about AoC is its low-fantasy, non-LotR style.

Originally posted by Eten

Also, please stop suggesting it will go the route of completely different theme, alien invasion expansion.  Such ideas scare me.  I really don't want to fight an invasion of mystical dwarves and elves from space, my favorite part about AoC is its low-fantasy, non-LotR style.

Since Gaute tucked tail and ran, I think the only place you will see those scenarios going down is with action figures in his bath tub every night.

Originally posted by Eten

Also, please stop suggesting it will go the route of completely different theme, alien invasion expansion.  Such ideas scare me.  I really don't want to fight an invasion of mystical dwarves and elves from space, my favorite part about AoC is its low-fantasy, non-LotR style.

I am sorry - I was just joking about aliens because it is clearly a mistake/error on the account page.

(The image is not a fabrication . It showed up under "Paid services" on my AoC account - And I have never played AO)

I don't play AOC, and I think Avery goes waaay overboard with his support of the game (though he seems much more level headed and informative lately.  You've been doing a good job recently IMO Avery.)

With my psuedo disclaimer out of the way I can say this much:

AOC was horrid when it released, and I saw the tsunami of disaster approaching.  When I see the water receding for miles and miles, I run far and fast the other way, rather than stand there and wait for the impending disaster.

The first couple months of patching were disastrous, plus the amount of negativity received from the fans due to the blatant lies of some of the dev team really crippled this game.

More recently however, I can honestly say I believe the game is moving in the right direction.

There was a point in time where pretty much the only positive support for AOC on these forums came from AmazingAvery.  Now there are many more people saying positive things about this game.

Like I said earlier, I don't play AOC, I never have, and most likely never will. I do, however, think this game is finally getting back on track and should be an enjoyable game for many people as long as they keep up with the improvements they've been making.

Granted, take my opinion with a grain of salt, because like I said, I've never played the game, and can only form an opinion from other peoples comments, the trends of said comments, and updated information on the progress of the game as a whole.

For you AOC fans out there, I'm glad to see that things are looking up a bit!

I have said this many times but I don't really see the DX10 as being a huge issue one way or the other. AoC has more than acceptable graphics in DX9 and although I admit I have not logged in to the game in several days the DX10 is not all that anyway. The vegetation movement is extremely fake and the performance is terrrible. The water effect is pretty good but to me the performance hit was not worth it. I mean will you really pay 15 bucks a month to stare at pixilated water?

As far as the new content I have a feeling a lot of what has been added in the last few months was being worked on pre release and just was not finished enough to be in the initial release. let's not forget Funcom is a small company and they have already had one or two sets of layoffs. Cranking out content is not as easy as snapping your fingers and saying I want. SOE and Turbine are much much larger and whip out new content every few months yet I don't see their subs breaking the 800K mark. MoM gave LoTRO a nice boost population wise but you gotta figure that MoM took 18 months and damn near added more content and area than AoC had after 5 years of development.  The quarterly free updates that added areas such as Forochel and Evandim were much smaller.

The OP is right. AoC really does not have much going for it except it's PvP and pretty graphics. I don't think FC can crank out new content in the amount needed to retain current palyers or attract new players. No matter how good a job that FC does all I can see is a slow slide to CoH and Vanguard population levels. Luckily though ther is not anything due out in 2009 or even 20010 that will give it any competition in my opinion, so FC does get a break there. What they may get is a slow recycle of people who played at launch and quit,  I would venture to say that is what is happening right now.