All Posts by Alan0n

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Originally posted by Alan0n

Few weeks back Funcom said with alot of comitment that there would be no server mergers.  Now it sounds abit diffrently... 

http://www.r1ft.com/age-of-conan/hell-froze-over-an-interview-with-erling-ellingsen/

Daedren: How are the current subscription and server numbers? We’ve hear rumors of server merges and severe population declines on some servers. Any plans for these?

EE: I’m not at the liberty to discuss subscription numbers due to the fact that we are a publicly traded company. The latest number we announced was the 415.000 customers per August 14th. We will certainly do what is necessary to entertain a healthy community of players on the servers, and if we decide on doing anything such as server merges we will make sure to notify the playerbase when we can. Right now I can not give you any definite plans on this, though. We do, of course, register the feedback we’re getting on the forums and we’re taking it into consideration.

One thing said one week - totally diffrent the next.  Typical for Funcom isn't it ?

 

 

Good lord, you read into things way to much. You don’t like funcom, we get it. But its either ignorance, or the hate that makes you not able to understand simple statements.

 

ADD version for you: No merges, when they do, they will tell you. But they have heard the requests for it from the player base.

 

Oh you forgot - they will tell you "when they can".
 

Funny how some ppl still actually can't read between the lines....

Originally posted by Malickie

Very typical... however, it's a much better answer than the last official one.  I'd prefer they merge down to a few core servers than continue along the path soe did with swg after the nge fiasco. It might screw some players out of cities, what good is a city on a dead sever though?

What good is a city on a full server ? ..

Originally posted by Estrus

Would you prefer they do nothing just to make some rabid fans happy at a financial and stbility loss?  It's better they do what they have to keep things stable.  It IS a business after all. 

Then they should not make statements like saying they are gonna be closing the most populated servers for new characters so that other servers will have some.... 

Yes ... They said that...

Few weeks back Funcom said with alot of comitment that there would be no server mergers.  Now it sounds abit diffrently... 

http://www.r1ft.com/age-of-conan/hell-froze-over-an-interview-with-erling-ellingsen/

Daedren: How are the current subscription and server numbers? We’ve hear rumors of server merges and severe population declines on some servers. Any plans for these?

EE: I’m not at the liberty to discuss subscription numbers due to the fact that we are a publicly traded company. The latest number we announced was the 415.000 customers per August 14th. We will certainly do what is necessary to entertain a healthy community of players on the servers, and if we decide on doing anything such as server merges we will make sure to notify the playerbase when we can. Right now I can not give you any definite plans on this, though. We do, of course, register the feedback we’re getting on the forums and we’re taking it into consideration.

One thing said one week - totally diffrent the next.  Typical for Funcom isn't it ?

http://keldek.com/?p=7

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

In case you missed it when you log into the came and it patches up and then comes to the screen where you log in, at the bottom in the box for the past two months it said that they hope to bring a bigger update every 2 weeks instead of every week. So there was an update 6th August <13 days diff> to August 19th <9days diff> to August 28th <18 days diff> to pending 16th Sept big patch. Guess what the average for that is 13.3 days, looks similar to the every two weeks notification I got. Even with the slight pushback for the PvP patch the average is every two weeks. Since Aug 6th, go back further than that and it gets better.

On here is that message below the log in:

Oh really ?

Tell that to Famine ?

And maybe you can give us info on what has been in these patches since August the 6th?   How big were they ?  1mb ?

Bump

Still same problems.

http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/warhammer-online-age-reckoning/338780-ea-support-every-body-who-dont-have-key-post-here.html

Stay away from EA

ALot of ppl in huge problems atm with codes

NO info even on how to get support

http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/warhammer-online-age-reckoning/338780-ea-support-every-body-who-dont-have-key-post-here.html

Well - I was just reading in the newspaper this morning about a company in my country (Iceland) that has fallen 80% on the stockmarket.  It is effecting the company in major ways since the stockprice is part of the value of the company.   So basicly the value of this company (EImskip - transport company) is now 80% lower than it was few months ago. 

There are ongoing emergency meetings on how to prevent the company going bankrupt.   

You can read about it yourself if you dont belive me. 

http://www.eimskip.com/

http://www.eimskip.com/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-683/

So to say everything is just fine with Funcom is a lie.  But lies is what Funcom is about anyway.

Ye - Thank god for WAR and M back in MMOs.

Games like AOC and WOW are everything but MMO atm. 

OFC the extra M can somtimes bring bad sites.  But at least ppl have options now. 

I think its a fair question and one that is beeing asked on the official forums now. 

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=165886

Are patches now weekly or monthly ? 
The answer from Funcom is weekly - but the facts tell us montly.

But again - the Funcom staff has no problems in keeping up the lies.

Glen 'Famine' Swan
I don't see us doing 1 patch a month. I do see us sticking with the bi-weekly plan set in place however.

Oh really...     Again - How long since last patch ?

Alot of ppl having huge problems with Pre-orders atm from EA stores.  Not getting their headstart codes and there is absolutly zero help service.

Look elsewhere if you want to get into headstart.

I dont think some ppl will ever get it.

The game launched unfinshed - Trying to fix it up afterwards with double speed does not work. 

DX10 was supposed to be in the game at launch - If it would have then more time would have gone into other matters.  Like content...

And same would have happened if the content would ACTUALLY have been in the game at launch.

We are still at the stage of 5 months ago.  Same problems - same things lacking. 

That is the fact.

And the Patch was delayed once again. .... 

lol

And Mrbloodworth - they are not adding anything.  They are yet again TALKING about adding things sometime "soon".   You know - there are now 3 months since PVP was supposed to be in.  Now they just talk about soon and ppl hope it will happen this year.  But most likely it wont.

I find it quite ironic - that the feature that was supposed to be in the game at launch is now waved around by Funcom as the next big thing in gaming....

But its more horrific to think that the game has been lacking content since launch and Funcom spent most of the time working on improving graphics instead of what is really needed. 

But its sad to think of all the players that are already having to play in low graphic settings cause of bad engine performance and then having to listen to EE talk about DX10 that willl just make it even worse...

Good job Funcom.

Originally posted by Azrile

The stock price dropping really doesn't effect the game directly. ( I mean the day to day movements of the stock price).

Here is how the stock price does effect the company

1.   Employees are paid partially in stock options.  If the stock is tanking, that means that a portion of the employees 'salary' is now worthless.  This is a huge morale issue.   How would you like to get a pay statement every week and it include a portion that you know is worthless.  When those secretaries at google and microsoft were become millionaires from their stock options, how 'happy' do you think their workplace was?  The opposite is true at Funcom... not only are they seeing their work get trashed by players, but they are making less and less every week.

1a.  Hiring becomes more and more difficult.  For the past few years, funcom could hire people and say 'you own part of the company'.   Answer this.. if you were getting hired by Funcom today, would you let stock options be a significant portion of your salary? No way.. you'd demand cash.  Companies without terrible stock prices can offer stock options as compensation, therefore saving themselves money (by not having to pay cash salaries).

2. The company can not do a secondary stock offering.  Companies that have a decent stock price can do stock offerings as a way to raise money.  This is a way for them to raise money without going into debt.

3.  Remember, Funcom is a public company that is beholden to it's stockholders.   Stockholders want a company that is profitable.  The people at the top of Funcom are going to be forced to cut expenses drastically.  This means devs, QA and support people.   The people at the top of Funcom know how bad things are.. they have probably been cutting QA and devs the past 5 months, which is why you see such buggy patches and 'no content' patches.

This is my point.  It really doesn't matter what devs are saying when its obvious that the company is forced to take action to cut costs.   That will effect the future development of this game.  There is no way hiding that.  Everyone with half a brain can see that by now. 

This is important factor to know if ppl are looking for longterm MMO game to play atm.

Funcom stocks have now gone down by 80% from the 20th of May.

Source

My question is simple. Should ppl not expect this to effect the future of AOC ?  

For me it puts the future of the entire game into huge doubt.  Based on that alone - Im not gonna be spending my time building up characters for longterm progress.

Update on the stocks

Going under 8 NKR now.

And ppl are STILL SELLING like no tomorrow.

over 18% fall in 4 hours.   PPL are fine to say everything is just fine.  But it doesn't mean that everything is fine...

No matter what ppl are arguing about.  The stocs just took another dive today (-13%) and under 9 Nkr.  the stocks are now getting close to 50% LOWER value than they were when the company went on the stockmarket.  

Maybe the company will be able to turn it around.  But I guess even the investrors can figure out that 49 half empty servers that cost loads of money to maintain + big releases from other MMOs will hit the revenues really hard.   

No matter what FUncom is promising atm - AOC is no longer their priority.   Cause it simply will not make them money - they will keep on loosing money.

PPL stil waiting for codes. 

I hope we can have a serious discussion about this method of launching MMO games - since its obviously relying on smooth and effective distribution system.  Sadly the launch of WAR can not be considered to be come close of having that system.

EA have now closed headstart sales - NOw its just to hope those that dont have keys yet get them before headstart is over....