Famine, is there a particular reason that Funcom doesnt let players instantly reactivate their accounts and begin playing AOC once the player places his credit card information into the system?
I have played the majority of Western MMOs and a few Eastern/Asian MMOs and Funcom is the only one that I have encountered that doesnt allow for instant reactivation once the players credit card information is given.
Is it that Funcom needs to manually activate each account after they manually verify each credit card?
I have heard from other players that it may take anywhere from 1 hour to reactivate their account to as many as 5 or 6 days to reactivate the accounts.

A company is only as good as it's weakest link and for Funcom, that would be the billing dept and customer service depts. Perhaps focusing of improving these 2 areas would help AOC a great deal more than developing an expansion.

@OP...It sounds like you are asking for a variety of available billing options that would suit each person.
I honestly don't think that you are going to please everyone no matter how many different billing options that a company sets up. It just won't happen.

I actually believe that the DDO/LOTRO billing model is going to be the foundation for the majority of Western MMOs in the near future.
However, I would restrict the cash shop to only game features and not ingame items. For instance, the cash shops would sell additional bank slots, additional character slots, premium character classes, etc.

The only other billing model that I can see working is an itemized monthly billing model. This means that a player will pay 0.75 cents each day a player logs into his account. The billing is done at the end of each month, so if a player logs into his account every day of the month then it will cost that player about $22.50 for the month. However, the player could also choose the standad billing method of $15 a month instead of the itemized monthly billing, and he would come out ahead. Now, for a player who plays for 20 days a month or less then the Itemized billing method would be cheaper.

I just don't see the hourly billing rate taking off with Western MMOs.

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Originally posted by Eferhild
Well this will set the stage if AoC decides to go Free Play in the U.S. Which I don't wish to happen anytime soon.

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Actually, the stage was set by DDO and then followed up by LOTRO.

I would say DDO and Vanguard as well.
Although I loved the underwater dungeon of Kedge Keep in EQ1. I wish someone would create another 100% underwater dungeon in one of the newer games.

The restraunt analogy that SOE-Brasse gave was right on target.

If a person went to a restraunt and started to be disruptive and badmouthing the restraunt, the owner of the restraunt would most deffinately kick that person out of the restraunt.
If that same person went to another restraunt and started badmouthing the previous restraunt, and the first restraunt found out about it, im pretty sure that the first restraunt would ban that person from ever returning to the first restraunt.

Well, if you are determining success or failure of ROTGS as being able to bring in, and retain tens of thousands new players, then I would say that ROTGS failed. Yes, ROTS was successful in initially bringing in more accounts, but those now look to be mostly short term accounts.
Now, on the otherhand, if you are rating success of ROTGS as adding fun new content and extended playability to it's current playerbase, then I would rate ROTGS as a successful expansion.

As for Xfire, that should only be used for trending methods and not an actual account figures.
If Xfire showed their position of 40 before the expansion then it increases to 12 during the first month of the expansion then yes, AOC had a significant population growth. If a few months later the Xfire placement drops back down to 40, then yes, the AOC population has gone down to, most likely, to its pre-ROTGS account figures.

Personally, I dont play AOC anymore but I did try ROTGS. I cancelled my account due to the game not being fun to play for myself. It is obviously fun to play for other people and i'm sure ROTGS was an extreme hit for those players.

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Originally posted by Gkarn

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Originally posted by bstiff

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Originally posted by Gkarn

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Originally posted by Galdere

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Originally posted by Gkarn


Raistalin69 the rating doesn’t mean shit, Vanguard is one of the best games out on this site, come on man. If you were crying about STO, Vanguard would have made you commit suicide at launch.

 

Do any of you still play?

 

And for the other guys talking about I should have read the other threads, I did.

 

The most common gripes are these:

 

Klingon needs more content. (I agree)

 

Multiple C-Store complaints (don’t agree on any of it)

 

Being repetitive. (You know this is a MMO. Please name one MMO that is not repetitive.)

 

Lack of Content. (all new MMOs have this problem)

 

Leveling too fast (that is one of my complaints)

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How can anyone take your view on the C-Store seriously, when you start a thread based on a misapprehension about the current issue with it?
So you've been playing a matter of days having bought it in the Steam sale. When you know a lot more then you can validly come back and try and argue that there is "really nothing substantial wrong with the game" if you still want to.
At the moment you have a lack of knowledge and experience, you're making mistakes and assumptions, so best not rush in to try and to tell those of us who have been playing since the start how it is.

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Who said I have been playing a couple of days, I was in beta, decided not to buy the game until the price is good for me. I have played for a month now (fee out of my bank yesterday), which is a lot longer than people who get paid to review a game. You assumed than I bought the game for $16.00 off of Steam when I bought the game last month off of Ebay for $16.00.

 

Also as you see I have been with this site 6 years prior to you. Which might give me just a tad more credibility? And out of the years I have posted I have never whined about any game here (you can look at my older post). Each game that’s made, you either like it, don’t like it or like it for X amount of time.  If a person is stupid enough to spend tons on a new game and don’t know what they are getting into then tough shit (I am one of them, lifetime Champions)

 

Now did you come here to debate the issues or be a troll and attack the poster?

 

If you like the game and want it to succeed then fire away, debate the issues. If you don’t like STO then why are you even here?           

 

Maybe we all can get a good consensus and send the problems to Cryptic and maybe they will listen, if they don’t then don’t support them.

 

However the problems that are listed here now and in other threads are supposed to be taken care of in July (we’ll see). The only one issue I think is utterly stupid is the C-Store complaints that I have read. And those will not be addressed as the issues are resolved as they are concerned.

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 Debate the issues? If you'd bothered to look half way down the page, you'd have seen a thread with the exact same topic and pretty much the same title where you would have found the answers to your questions. If you enjoy STO fine, good for you. But why do you care that others dislike it so much?  Creating a new topic on the same subject reeks of trolling and wanting to start a flame war. I guess you figure you wouldn't have gotten as much attention if you posted in the old thread?

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You know I can look at all your post. And not one has been positive to STO. Do you still play the game?

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However, I believe that when I paid $80 for those games, that also entitled me to any comments that I may have towards the game, past, present and future. If Cryptic would like to buy me out for the sum of $80 then I will never post any comments about the game. Until that time, whether I play the game or not, I am entitled to say what I wish about this game or any other game that I spent my hard earned money on.

I realize that your comment was not directed towards me but I find it crazy that someone would presume to tell someone else that they shouldnt be posting comments on a forum just because that particular person may have stopped playing the game.

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Bards: For example, instead of clicking your songs and ballad keys, how about we play around with the concept of the class? Bards in RPG lore sing songs to encourage their allies and lend them strength so how about we make a rhythm action game out of it... Picture the scene: You and your buddies are in a dungeon and, unsurprisingly, a fight begins. So you sing your first ditty, which, instead of being a one off push of a button, requires you to keep the tune or song going, tapping the appropriate keys as they pass the line on your screen. So far so good, what if you have more than one buff you want to use? Easily done, just click your next ability and the game adds that to your current musical arrangement, but as you are keeping two spells going at the same time, the Parappa/Guitar Hero shenanigans become more complex. The more practiced you get at this, the more of a buffing powerhouse you become. Maybe we could even sing into a microphone (although this does prohibit us from playing in coffee shops).

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I would just like to see them implement the Bard class from Vanguard. Vanguard let each Bard have the ability to compose their own songs. That way the Bard would have their personally created and named song for whatever situation came up.

Unless there is a firm release date on the official AOC web site, all of the dates we are seeing on other sites are just placeholder dates.
I promise you that the game will not release in 3 weeks(May 11th)though. They only just found a NA publisher a few days ago. How long do you think it will take them to create 50K+ game boxes and then ship them to stores. A lot longer than 3 weeks.
Funcom will ship the game only after it is 80% bug free or they risk getting slammed by their critics for releasing a bug-ridden expansion. That is not something they want, under no circumstances, considering what happened at AOC Launch a few years ago.
Funcom will also take at least 60 days to hype the release date once they officially announce it on their website.
Funcom isnt stupid. They have done this many times before and they now know the folly of rushing a release date without proper preparation.

So, stop quoting unofficial release dates otherwise you are in for a lot of heartache when those dates come and go and you still arent playing the AOC expansion.

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Originally posted by TSWBETAROGS

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Originally posted by Vespers

The absolute best aspect of Funcom has always been PR and it's ability to successfully hype their games. If the new expansion was coming out in 3 months then I promise you that FC would already have begun driving their Hype-Train. I predict that the expansion will going Live sometime mid-September, providing no more problems arise.

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I disagre with you. They have promissed that the expantion will be out in H1 somw thats before 30june.
 This is what Game director wrote in march
In Closing
There are exciting times ahead, with the 1.07 update, complete with the new PVP feature – ‘The Shrines of Bori’ – coming to the live servers (hopefully next week) and the expansion just around the corner, the world is about to get a lot bigger with expanding horizons and we are all anxiously preparing to see what you al
http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss&utm_content=front_page_news&func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=3197&table=CONTENT
[Mod Edit] 

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Yes, and we ALL know that FC is famous for keeping their promises.
I really hope that the expansion comes out in 3 months but I seriously doubt it. FC cannot afford to release an expansion that has anything missing or is bug-ridden. People will rip the company apart if they do because of the fiasco with the game launch of AOC. If the release date was coming soon then they would have said "Sometime this spring" or "Early Summer for a release" but instead they said "Just around the corner". That is PR speak for "It will be awhile yet for the release but try to stay excited about it"

The absolute best aspect of Funcom has always been PR and it's ability to successfully hype their games. If the new expansion was coming out in 3 months then I promise you that FC would already have begun driving their Hype-Train. I predict that the expansion will going Live sometime mid-September, providing no more problems arise.

If anyone has an extra beta key, I would love to get into Dawntide Beta as well.
You can reach me at kellieleblanc@comcast.net
Thank you.

Carbine, a sub-company of NCSoft, currently has a super top-secret, very hush-hush MMORPG in development that looks kind of similar in certain aspects to the Avatar world.
www.carbinecentral.com has probably the best collection of information about the secret project out there. This Carbine development team has some of the top MMO developers on staff so it may be a pretty decent game if it ever gets released.

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Originally posted by haratu

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Originally posted by Vespers
This is a total Ad campaign to promote the sell of a particular MMO.
Shame on Dana for reposting this.
I assume that we can now be expecting other MMORPG.COM staff members to promote other various MMO advertisements as well, as singling out one specific MMO to advertise for would be seen as favortism.
This so called review is nothing short of Ad Spam cleverly hidden in the reviewer's personal opinion of the game. In any other instance of Ad Spam, it would have been deleted and not reposted as news by Staff personel.

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So none of the other posts in the 'news' section are professing the features of a game? The link from the OP was to AoC section, and it was announced in the news section like almost every other game.
 

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Again, this is not a review, but a blatant advertising scheme.

From the article refered to by the OP:

"So, other than free trials, what is Funcom doing to try to boost their player base? Well, they've also placed an increasing series of discounts on their recurrent subscriptions: three months (20% discount), six months (30% discount), and twelve months (45% discount). The rate discounts are nearly double what the multi-month service savings used to be. A twelve month subscription works out to be about $8.25 per month USD. Your Veteran Points are earned upon payment for the duration of your subscription, so you can use them immediately to improve your gaming experience with a variety of social, mount, pet, and enhancement rewards. Shortly after discounting all prices, FunCom decided to sweeten the pot with additional perks that add even more value than money savings, although this deal is only good until December 1st, 2009. Extend your membership for three months and get guaranteed beta access to Funcom's new supernatural MMO "The Secret World". Extend for six months and receive an Epic Nemedian Helm (usable at level 40) for each of your Age of Conan avatars that grants a 10% increase in gained experience while worn. Extend for twelve months and your account will be granted a FREE download of the "Rise of the Godslayer" expansion upon its release sometime in the first half of 2010."

This is a total Ad campaign to promote the sell of a particular MMO.
Shame on Dana for reposting this.
I assume that we can now be expecting other MMORPG.COM staff members to promote other various MMO advertisements as well, as singling out one specific MMO to advertise for would be seen as favortism.

This so called review is nothing short of Ad Spam cleverly hidden in the reviewer's personal opinion of the game. In any other instance of Ad Spam, it would have been deleted and not reposted as news by Staff personel.

Let's say that NCsoft actually did what they said and banned 27,000 accounts. You people do realize that these Botters will simply buy another copy of the game and start a new account.
Ok, so 27,000 x $40 is almost 1.1 million dollars. Do you seriously think that NCsoft didnt plan this?
Once these Botters get new accounts, NCsoft will let them go about their botting business for another month or so and then they will mass ban a whole new batch of them yet again and make over a million dollars yet again.

Folks, NCsoft is in business to make money and these tactics prove that they are good at it.

Yes, I have played Aion since beta and I like the game but I am realistic about what is going on here.
Well, at least I will get a week or 2 before the Botters are back at full strength so I may as well enjoy it while I can.

I have had a similar situation in the past. I clicked on a resub by mistake and promptly called the MMO company(it wasnt FC) and was told I wouldnt be able to have a refund. However, since the resub hadnt went into effect yet, and since I hadnt benefitted from any goods or services from the future transaction, Visa fully refunded my money.
I dont know about what is right by law or what is wrong by law, only that when I have a problem with credit charges, Visa always comes through for me.

THAT, my friends, is good customer service.

Funcom may want to pay attention to Visa's customer relations, because if they did, they would still have the OP as a happy customer instead of a lost customer who will not recommend the game to people who asks about it.

[quote][i]Originally posted by Raltar[/i] [b][quote][i]Originally posted by Blurr[/i] K I'm gonna pick on your points about EVE. Don't mean to be nitpicky but EVE is actually a pretty good comparison because it's probably the closest thing we've got now to what STO will be like, as far as space combat anyways. [/quote] Blurr, as I told that other guy, comparing STO to EvE is like comparing Pong to Doom. STO has THREE ship types. EvE has probably more than FIFTY and thats assuming you devide the ships in EvE up into groups based on what skills are required to fly them. Its like comparing Pong and Doom. They may both have "projectiles" of a sort, but it doesn't make them the same kind of game. STO and EvE both take place in outer space and thats where any logical comparison between these two these two games would end.[/b][/quote]

Dude, STO has ALOT more than just 3 classes of ships:

Light Cruisers
Miranda  Class
Centaur  Class
Soyuz Class
 

 Science Vessel

Nova Class
Aurora Class
Quasar Class
 

 Escort

Saber Class
Rapier Class
Ushaan Class
 

 Cruiser

Constitution Class
Excalibur Class
Vesper Class
 

 Research Science Vessel

Olympic Class
Hope Class
Horizon Class
 

Heavy Escort

Akira Class
Zephyr Class
Norway (Oslo re-fit) Class

 Heavy Cruiser

Constellation Class
Stargazer Class
Dakota Class
 

 Long Range Science Vessel

Intrepid Class
Cochrane Class
Discovery Class
 

 Tactical Escort

Defiant Class
Vigilant Class
GallantClass
 

 Exploration Cruiser

Galaxy Class
Celestial Class
Envoy Class
 

 Deep Space Science Vessel

Luna Class
Sol Class
Polaris Class
 

 Fleet Escort

Prometheus Class
Phoenix Class
Cerberus Class
 

 Battle Cruiser

Sovereign Class
Noble Class
Majestic Class
 

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Originally posted by nihce
Dude, you play aion. Lemme ask you a question - if you got tired of coca cola would you buy coca zola if it was the same price and exactly the same taste only name changed. Don't come here laugh at us untill you drink coca zola ...

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I maybe wrong but are you comparing AOC to Aion?

I played Aion for a month and rarely did I see any bugs. Gameplay was pretty lame and grindy but it is extremely polished.

It has been a LONG time since I played pre-CU SWG but I seem to remember that all of the classes were not balanced at all. For instance, I had a wookie CH who walk up and tame a baby Rancor. After awhile of that baby rancor growing up, I was able to easily solo a whole nest of adult rancors with using nothing but my pet rancor. Combat Medics were just as bad with their poison attacks, or pistoleers who would continuously pistolwhip or even smugglers who would continuously keep knock-down on his target. Most class types had some unintentional exploit. Back then, everything was easy-mode.