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Age of Conan: Product Director Speaks on Fileplanet Open Beta
Funcom Product Director Jorgen Tharaldsen speaks to MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood about the Fileplanet Open Beta. In this interview, Tharaldsen addresses a number of the rumors that have circulated since the Open Beta announcement.
Ever since their open beta was announced, Norwegian development company Funcom has come under fire from fans of their upcoming MMORPG, Age of Conan, and the criticism has had very little to do with the content of their game.
advertisement The complaints stem from a decision to partner with IGN’s Fileplanet for distribution of keys to their beta. In order for players to qualify for an AoC beta key, they have to be the proud owners of a premium membership at Fileplanet (which costs $5 per month for a year). While many has applauded a beta through Fileplanet, is has also led players to feel as though they are paying to participate in a beta and that Funcom has done this in an attempt to a) draw in extra funds for the game and b) to disguise some kind of failing in the game itself.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with Jorgen Tharaldsen, the Product Director for Age of Conan about the beta and the choices that were made:
“First of all,” Tharaldsen began in response to a question about Funcom charging for their beta, “I think it’s very important to point out that Funcom has not charged anything throughout our beta process, including the 20.000 keys on Gamespot last weekend, the many, many thousands of keys given to Eidos or the tens of thousands of people we have selected through the ongoing closed beta.”
The Product Director went on to say that “running the Age of Conan beta is and will remain an expense, as it should be for us as developers. The focus for us when running a beta is to get invaluable feedback from as many testers as needed, helping us to get ready for launch, not to make money on it”. He also outlined more on this “It is correct that Fileplanet requires you to be a paying member to get hold of the Conan beta, as well as many other things, but as far as I know they have far more members than the 50.000 keys we make available. For them, I would think that things like the Conan beta is an important stimulation for their members.
In terms of the decision to go with Fileplanet as the distributor of the beta keys rather than either going through a free access website or distributing it themselves, Tharaldsen told us that while they very much wanted to offer an open beta, it was crucial for Funcom to be able to “focus on the game, the closed beta and the launch, and not on the infrastructure related to the Fileplanet Open beta.” He went on to tell us that download speed was a consideration in the decision. After all, the client itself is a hefty 13Gb in size. “I know of hundreds of gaming sites around the world, but I do not know of anyone able to do this better than Fileplanet. We have been working with them for many, many years by now, we know they have a great infrastructure, and that they handle MMO betas in great ways.”
So, why not just go with a free Torrent download?
“To that I can only say we were one of the first gaming companies to start Torrent distribution a few years ago with Anarchy Online, and of course we know a lot about Torrents, but setting up this for such an event would have served to make us lose focus right before launch. It would not have helped any of us, and running Torrents are about a lot more than just letting the world do it themselves. It needs a lot of work to get it right, and ensure good speed and a smooth customer experience.
When asked whether the company could handle a 50.000 player beta by themselves, and whether not doing so is indicative of the company not being ready for launch, he stated ”we are of course ready for much bigger numbers, both on the servers and for distribution. We already have infrastructure in place for serving around 600.000 players on launch day.”
From there, I asked Tharaldsen if there was any financial incentive at all in distributing the beta through Fileplanet and while, as stated above, he told us that the Conan beta was a needed expense to get feedback on the game, he did outline the benefits to choosing Fileplanet beyond their reliable download speed and prior relationship:
“We are just a few weeks away from launch, and when moving into the final push beta stage it’s important for any MMO to ensure a final push attention as well. In my experience most all MMOs these days use the last few weeks for a more marketing orientated beta process, and Fileplanet seems to be the #1 gaming site in that regards.
Speaking of content, I asked Tharaldsen to address the growing concern that only allowing Fileplanet beta players to progress to level 13 indicates a lack of faith or more serious problems in the game beyond that point and that the company is trying to hide it until launch.
“We have nothing to hide,” he answered, “in fact, I have heard from so many testers that the game gets even better as you move beyond Tortage.”
While Tharaldsen tells us that the reason for the level 13 cap has nothing to do with the quality of the game beyond that point, the decision was indeed carefully planned beforehand. He told us though that it was a question of story rather than a question of quality that prompted the cap.
“We have made an MMO with a very different production approach than most of our competitors, including putting more money and time into story than you have seen before. Stories are about emotions and experiences, and we want as many as possible to have a great emotional journey when we launch.”
“We have therefore found a point in the game which will allow you to get a deep taste of the game, allow you to: play solo, group and multiplayer, test all of our classes, all the interface, emotes and other aspects of the game. It doesn’t take you days to get to this point, true. It was never intended to, but it will give you a fantastic overview of what to expect (perhaps even with a couple of surprises, we shall see;). At the same time, we get to stress test what we need to stress test, giving us both automated and personal feedback, and enough time to fix any stress issues popping up. The testing of content for higher levels is happening on different servers, also with tens of thousands of people involved, and this will go on until launch.”
When asked if Funcom could have done anything else in regards to this open beta issue, he stated that, “Looking back on this I think that if we had called it simply ‘Fileplanet beta’ instead of ‘Open beta’, many would have reacted differently. ”
Tharaldsen ended off the interview by stating that the team at Funcom is “incredibly proud” of their work on the game so far and that while they are looking forward to the launch and getting players into the world, they are also going to use the remaining weeks before launch to “crunch and get ready for the big day”.
THX
EDIT: Link doesn't work
EDIT2: Now it does
The link to the article seems broken.
[Edit]: Fixed fast hehe
You guys are way way too quick for me.
When we put up an article, there's like a 30 second overlap before the link works. I'm always stunned at how fast you guys are able to find it and post about it.
As one of the one hundred AoC Fileplanet Beta key winners, I have but one question. Did I read the article correctly . . . 13 GB client? Good Lord, it will take me a week to download that sucker!
~Hairysun~
A bunch of lame excuses from Funcom. Paying to beta test is retarded. I call shenanigans.
"We really wanted to have an open beta, we just didn't care about it".
Which of course means that they really didn't want it.
What still bothers me is the nonsense about being able to patch 600,000 players on opening day (or maybe 400K on opening day and 200K three days later), but not able to support a staggered 'full client' client download for 50,000 people over a period of 2 weeks. It's not my field of expertise by any means, but it sure sounds like a load.
I assume that you have people in charge of managing this. What are those people doing right now, since you're so confident that you can handle the load that's 8 times as many IPA's as you would potentially have on launch day?
He's eiher being lied to or lieing himself. Either way, it doesn't speak well for the company he is fronting.
AO had a horrendous launch as I recall. We'll see if this is any better.
As a fileplanet sub (for two weeks at least) you should get 250K-300K downloads. Take 13-15 hours on average.
As far as the article, it wasn't overly interesting. At this point, I am surprised they said anything at all unless they've actually seen pre-order cancels mounting and are attributing it to the way 'OB' is being handled.
The part where FC mentioned previous beta pushes for this game not costing a cent seemed rather silly to me. If he was trying to defend a service requiring payment, mentioning 'other' occasions that didn't cost would only server to alienate people who didn't get a chance to try the earlier attempts.
*shrug*
I hope 'some suprises' includes a patch that takes the level cap off or at least bumps it a little higher once the first crush of players rolls through. In any case, I'll be playing to 13 or whatever with the enjoyment of knowing I can play on the 17th without impedment.
I feel for the guy, his team is busting there humps and the lard ass idiots that live in their Mom's basement and could not get a job beyond Pizza Hut actually are given the credibility to question them.
That's why I would never dream of game design as a career. Enterprise software designers work less hours make more money, and when they are called into question, it is from a professional...not some mouth breathing fry cook with no life.
+1
I could be wrong, but normally the programming guys, the ones who should be concentrating on game design and programming are usually not the network guys.
Had I been the admin, I would have loved for a 50k user test to confirm that my predictions that my work could hold 600k were right and let me pick up any bottlenecks etc that might be there and I not know about it.
Maybe, funcom is having its guys wear more then one hat.
It's the nature of the beast.....everyone today wears more than one hat. Take me for example. I am a project manager for a largish medical software developer; I also handle certain aspects of the enternal testing process in regards to load balancing over Wireless WAN's. Two years ago there was an engineer to do that job, but cost cutting measures have made us more lean and mean.
Any way you look at it the OB was badly handled by Funcom. Personally I see a company that is not used to the major leagues and Fileplanet came to them with a super proposition and they were out negociated. They gave away the rights to the open beta without fully realizing the consequences (IMO of course). Usually you will see a company give a number of keys to a site like Fileplanet but keep control of the event to be invite more serious testers to get the maximum of data.
Not wanting to waste personnel is a nice theory, but how many man hours are wasted by having a different client for each event that has to be supported and patched ? Hmmm.....
As for the level 13 limit, it is very scary, I don't think it is a question of the game not be ready for toons higher than level 13, but more a very linear progression with minimal replay value. As an Altaholic, this is the scariest part of all and has made me reconsider getting the game for launch. I now think I will wait and see how the launch goes and what the reviews say on PVE leveling.
Ok, I can understand that but that seems like an odd thing to do in the MMO business. Considering that even Mythic before the EA buyout kept the departments seperate and didn't expect the programmers to handle network issues, if funcom wants to compete with the big boys like Sony or Blizzard, they better get their organizational skills together.
The level 13 limit bothers me too, the fact that it was said that by that level we can get a good feeling for what the game is also bothers me. Most MMO's don't even get out of the tutorial until about that level.
As a person who has payed for an Open Beta in 2002. I have to say a paid Beta is a whole lot better then a free-loader beta. You get a nice stable server, good support from the staff, and you don't have people constantly asking you for stuff. I think a fileplanet open beta is pretty much the norm now.
Lack of clear thinking on Funcoms part. It seems to me thy just wanted to get what THEY wanted to get and had a completly blind eye to how potential subscribers would react.I hope other decisions reguarding AOC aren't handled in such an inept way.
( and NO...I will never pay for a chance to beta test a companys product)
So the children are all upset they have to pay for a membership. Don't worry mommy will pay for it, if you cry and whine a bit.
LOL....great post. Love it.
That being said, I don't think you have to be a professional to question other trades. What people have said is valid, it seems inconsistent to say that we can handle 600K subscribers day 1, but can't handle 50,000 people downloading the game.
What's strange is that they addressed it all. The answer from the dev actually make the whole thing look worse. Sometimes a 'no comment', and letting the product speak for itself is the best policy.
So speakth the troll. . .
Isn't that the case and come judgment day it will.
Summary of what I got out of it.
Sorry, we should have said "FilePlanet Beta" and not "Open Beta". It won't happen again. Also, the FilePlanet Beta will only allow you to get to level 13 because we feel it serves our needs and at the same time gives the players a taste of what the game has to offer without giving away a cool part of the story.
IMO, nbd. All games are a crap shoot. Beta rarely lets you do more than get a feel for the game anyway.
This is such a stupid non-issue that players have made into some kind of soap opera. The only people complaining about this are those that think a beta of any kind is really just a trial, like they owe you somthing. When its not.
Be warned, most future open betas are going to be just like this. So get the crying out now, it’s not going to change.
Right now, I am more concerned with how the beta is going. Are the people involved actually testing the game, or is it the same retards that get into every beta for the last couple of years and not fill out one bug report unless it is to say thier favorite class is too weak, or this skill sucks, etc....
I don't care how people get into beta as long as the test the fricking game. I am so fed up with the pissing and moaning of the stupid things like, fileplanet beta, Fileplanet has been doing beta giveaways longer then half of you have been playing these games.
I disagree with the game designer making excuses for why they used Fileplanet, it only made Funcom sound like a bunch of incompetents, when my 13 year old daughter can upload 30 gigs of movies and music to torrents in a few hours, then Funcom could handle a 13gb game client in the time they have been working on all of this.
His excuse on not really wanting an open beta! yea! Focus on testing! don't focus on releasing the tard plague upon the lands of AoC just yet. It will all come in good time. Right now focus on getting the game right, so it's not another failure like everything else that has been out.
Pretty sad that with all the WoW haters I see making post, WoW is still one of the few lasting MMO's while the rest slowly perish. I say this, and I don't care for WoW
1. Very Mature Post
2. I work implementing an ERP project with a budget of about $3 billion
3. The reason your company has 'cutbacks' is probably because it puts narrow-minded people like yourself in positions of authority.
Jeff Hickman really inspires me with confidence in his game, his entire attitude just makes me think he knows what he is doing. The guy from 38 Studio's seemed like the rookie (which he was) but I think 38 has some good foundation building going on. The funcom guy did scare me though, it was like he wasn't sure what to say.
The five dollars a month isn't a significant factor for me.
What stops me from using FilePlanet is a history over the years that has led me to believe that FilePlanet and Gamespy load my system up with tracking software without my consent. It is my loss, and I believe FunCom's loss, and certainly Gamespy and FilePlanet's loss of my business, that I no longer trust these companies to respect both my information and other property rights to the point where I refuse to use them wherever possible.
Consequently any beta that uses these companies for their file distribution will not have me as a participant. Its their business decision to use these services, its my cause-based decision to not use these services.
interesting viewpoint to say the least with some color of truth im sure. but not all those who question decisions made by game companies are lard asses, live in their mom's basement, and work at pizza hut.
me for example im quite fit lol(toots his own horn) have my own 2 bed room apartment in manhattan, freelance for both a Production company, and a indie game dev company. so I believe my "professional background" has some clout and credbility unlike some fry cooks. I ask certain questions or "highlight" certain anomalies within a individuals comments, on what they are doing and whether or not their behavior or comments are questionable at best.
i think its best to always question, never take things for face value. when something doesnt sit right to you, question it, but question it based ont he merits of the facts provided. The problem with this situation dealing with the beta, that if they can handle 600k, at launch (roughly 2weeks and 3 days) but werent willing to handle the initial 50k they could of provided "seeds" via torrents which would of solved the issue with possible download issue. whats that say? laziness? something deeper? inner conspiracy with FP to promote paying subbers? lol hardly im sure, but once agian another question to list.
in the end everything about this beta was suspicisous and makes people question the overall hype of the game. me I would of loved to test the game. but i wasnt going to pay FP in order to do so. it doesnt sit right with me as a consumer to pay for a unfinished product, that is like me buying a car that has no wheels. the manufacturers say theyll send the wheels at a later date when they are finished. either way the acts, behaviors, comments, and all were questionable at best and worth investigating or at least putting a maginfying glass to scrutinize it.
From there, I asked Tharaldsen if there was any financial incentive at all in distributing the beta through Fileplanet and while, as stated above, he told us that the Conan beta was a needed expense to get feedback on the game, he did outline the benefits to choosing Fileplanet beyond their reliable download speed and prior relationship:
“We are just a few weeks away from launch, and when moving into the final push beta stage it’s important for any MMO to ensure a final push attention as well. In my experience most all MMOs these days use the last few weeks for a more marketing orientated beta process, and Fileplanet seems to be the #1 gaming site in that regards.
lol you should probably answer a question especially when it's going to be ripped to pieces by your 'fans' lol, and if you don't plan to answer it for any reason, you should atleast say as much so you don't seem to dodgy and tactful
seriously tho, i'll be playing this game on the 20th and hopefully loving it, but that interview seemed clipped and filtered, and if answers werent removed then Jorgen Tharaldsen isn't the right person to be doing interviews with websites even associated with players. Oh you're right jorgen tharaldsen, it is about launch attention, that is very true. Unfortunately your choice of how to get that launch attention seems questionable.
Personally I am just as glad to let other people beta test the game. I have pre-ordered, I'll get the three day head start, and as long as most of the bugs are ironed out by then I'll be happy as a clam. Yes, I would love to start playing the game now, but that's not the point of beta testing. Beta testing is a great big pain in the neck sometimes, if you are doing it right. This so called open beta is more of just a stress test and don't be shocked when on day one, when you all log in at the same time, the walls come crashing down. If it doesn't it would be the first in my expirience that didn't. You be lucky if you see the level 13 cap before the beta is over, as you'll be playing in maybe 2 or 3 hour windows while the devs and techs set about fixing whatever problems arise. Believe me it's not gonna be happy funtime I got to play before everyone else land. Those of us who remember AC beta know that downtime is inevitable, and the frustration of being all jacked to play the game, yet not knowing when, or even sometimes if, the servers will open back up is worse than just waiting for the game to open to the public. While I am playing some other game to pass the time, the people in beta will be sitting staring at the message board or forum waiting with baited breath to be ready for the exact moment it opens back up. Then as you all rush in...it'll crash again. That's not saying anything bad about the game, it just is the way it is. Then you'll be mad and bitchy and say all kinds of things about how terrible the game is, even though what you are expiriencing isn't a true reflection of what the game will be like when they open up all the other servers that they have been holding back until release. Oh yes. I've been there. I was kinda hoping that with the mature rating we'd see less of this, but alas that doesn't seem to be the case.
Why are they going through Fileplanet for the beta? So that they can, at least somewhat, verify people's ages. Remember that this game, unlike many others before it, has a M rating, so they can't just let anyone download it. Everyone who is going to play this game when it releases is supposed to be an adult...so how about we start acting like it?
Not meaning any offense, and not pointing fingers, just saying what I feel needs to be said.
Let the people at Funcom do their job. For those of you who are in the beta, remember that you are there to help them, not criticize or nitpic.
What a bull. I stopt reading after that they justify charging for the beta. That they ask for OB well okay. But that they justify it with saying that "They never charged for the normal beta" is just plain stupid. Beta's are a cheap way for a company to find bugs. The PvP weekend was pure for promotion, and had NOTHING to do with a beta.
Funcom, way to go.
Looks like your mommy is already paying for it. Did I guess that it right? How much whining did you do?
Well said Grimfall.
- are a masochist;
- don't care;
- have no clue what the hell happened;
I don't see much whining going on here. In fact, most arguments presented here and on other forums are mature and meaningful.
Took me overnight with the Fileplanet downloader on a good cable modem connection. And if you really got a key -- go read the email they sent you and you'll see instructions to load it up. You can even patch it (but not log in) as of today.
I'm a fileplanet member *anyway* before all this, so I went and got myself a beta key, but may I say the process SUCKED. They want to you load up their Comrade application (like xfire, but lamer) to get updates as to when keys would come available. And then you had to reload the beta page every few minutes or the keys would come available -- and be exhausted -- within a few minutes.
I'm a consultant, and work from my home office, and could sit listening to a work related podcast while mashing reload every 30 seconds -- and it took me 2.5 days to get a key. If I had paid for a FP subscription just for a chance to torture myself for the chance at a key -- I'd be pissed.
Shava
I somehow doubt that the 'gold version-to-release version' patch will be anywhere near the size of the full beta client (with restrictions) download that people have to endure with the fileplanet beta.
If it's 1/10th the size, aka 1.3GB, then provided they have the same bandwidth upon release with fileplanet, they will have to move data to 10x 'fileplanet beta testers'. Besides, they have already divided their future subscribers in 3 (non-equal) parts:
And that's without counting the difference in dates between EU and US release.
One last thing. This isn't the first time I read the 600.000 number. And in this occasion as in the past, the number was related to the infrastructure to sustain a player base playing the game. I don't think it's very clear that they will sustain a similar infrastructure for patching as well. In any case, it's not very clear if it's the same case fore both.
@ OP
Interesting article, although FC responses are very weak and did not really justify their recent moves. one of the biggest flops in their response is how they brushed off Torrents as a method of distribution. So far, Bit Torrent technology is the best way to distribute large chunks of data between large number of clients - traffic is not centralized but is shared among the network of those clients that are downloading data. The load on main server would have been reduced by a great deal.
FC reply? Going torrent would make them loose focus... what? How would uploading a torrent to a simple installation package would make them lose focus? If your client is 13 gigs or more, then torrents are the only feasible option here. Unless of course you have money to pay for huge spike in traffic.
Open beta? Well, technically they don't charge for it. but hey, If I sell you something but make you give the money to my brother, then technically, im not selling it but giving it away. If the only way to get to OB is to pay for it, then it doesn't matter who takes the money, its PAID to play. They should PAY qualified testers to test their product, and not rely on someone who is bored and has money to "test" their product.
Imagine a new car that you just bought and found out that it was never tested professionally, but rather someone with money wanted to show off his friends and paid to "test" it. Would you feel comfortable knowing someone like that tested your car?
I also work as a software engineer for a Telecom company, and I'm currently developing a new billing software. No way in hell would my boss allow me to let someone off the street to test the program. The only way to find bugs and fix it is if someone professional does it. The only time we employ public help is when we need to test networking and server loads for traffic - to identify and fix bottlenecks.
yes, most companies do employ this paid open beta method, and look where it led them (cough Vanguard cough).
I had not thought of that, good point.
This interview does not give any on spot reasons for limiting gameplay to 13 lvls. In fact - considering 13 gb download it does exactly the oposite.
Conclution - Funcom is obviously limiting "fileplaned" open NDA beta for a reason.
“We have nothing to hide,” he answered, “in fact, I have heard from so many testers that the game gets even better as you move beyond Tortage.”
So tell me Mr. Tharaldsen. Why are ppl downloading 13 gb gameclient from fileplanet just to play 13 lvls - and paying for it ?
And about "many testers" - I heard from "some ppl" that they think Mr. Tharaldsen might be gay. But I made them sign NDA so ....
There is nothing open about this beta. Its limited playable full download client - that "testers" are paying for. And as stresstest ? That is a joke. First 13 lvls will keep ppl intrested for less than one day.
There is nothing positive coming out of this. You will hear that when the reviews from the 50k "testers" will start flooding in - based on the fact it takes 3 hours to lvl to 13 - and ppl had to pay and dl 13gb client to do it.
Ofc its a joke
Let me put it this way...
Read the article again. Notice where there is a talk about allowing the developers time to focus on the release of the game. Then think of your "idea" about making a "new" game with first 13 lvls... Your 1.3 gb client.
Thats just bullshit. If they need that kinda stresstest they can put together a 1mb client and ask the testers to run it.
And again - read this
” He went on to tell us that download speed was a consideration in the decision. After all, the client itself is a hefty 13Gb in size. “
Ofc ppl are dling the full gold version. Get real - its 13 gb of 13 lvls that can be reached within 3 hours.
Some bird whispered to me that lvl 22 is the record for 3 hour gamplay - after chara wipe.
To jimmyman99:
If I read what you wrote right, you're claiming that pretty much any kind of public beta testing is more or less useless unless done by professionals. I don't necessarily disagree with you since pretty much everything, besides the heavy traffic load in real world conditions and the unforeseen glitch, can be found by professionals, given time and numbers.
I think that they had hoped for a "give files and let Fileplanet worry about distribution, while we only reap the results of the open beta". I don't know if it's working as planned. I do know that if it was some other company, they'd bury their heads in the sand and wouldn't talk about it at all.
One last thing about torrents. Personally I don' t like them. Given the choice I'd always pick the ftp or http download. Torrent equals low quality download as far as I'm concerned and as far as my own line can sustain. I do understand the need at times. Maybe in a parallel universe where P2P networks did not congest internet traffic forcing providers to limit the speed, it would have been a good choice. As it stands now, it's the lowest quality download method one can provide over the internet.
To Alan0n:
I was rather skeptical about the reception of the PvP weekend and it proved to be well received in general.
I will wait again before daring any proclamations for the reception of the Fileplanet beta as well.
You may be right and in the 13GB there is more than just the Tortage area. It does give them the opportunity to open up further the levels if they see fit at a later point, something that they wouldn't be able to do if they had gone with the bare minimum. Besides, the more you limit the client, the more chances you have to create bugs that would not be present in the unrestricted version.Im not gonna buy this any more expensive than I bought it - but again - a small bird whispered the word "memory leak". So that might be good reason why players are not really playing the game for more than 3-4 hours at the time with many diffrent loading screens.
But hey.. there is nothing to hide. "testers" will get full taste of the 13 gb client in first 13 lvls. Or ? ...
Give any reason why its not open ended ? Any ? One ? 13 gb ? 13 lvl? Reason ?
Keep asking yourself.
I can think of one but if that was true, they would have to limit the client to level 20, not 13.
my concern with this Fileplanet beta is that it only goes up to lvl 13. MOST games you dont get a feel for the actual game, since the noobie area is usually the most polished area, trying to entice a person in. This is where my problem comes in. If Conan does well, thats great, but what if the noob area is very polished and great, but once you get out of it, it's buggy, imbalanced, etc?
As far as i recall, lvl 13 doesnt even get you out of the starter area (which i remember seeing is up to lvl 20). So by that logic, you basically aren't seeing the game, but an instance which is designed to promote a game. How many games have you played where the noob instance is great...but you get to lvl 20 or 30 and the game just dies? That's my concern atm with the beta (not even mentioning performance issues which may occur in non instance noob zones)
1. A 'Beta' that is restricted to the Tutorial, Trial, Newb zone (lvl 13 max) is NOT a 'Beta'.
2. An 'Open' Beta that is restricted to folks that have paid subscriptions to a DL service, and even then are only randomly selected, or able to get a key if they are Twitching the Site, is NOT 'Open'.
3. An Open Beta 'Test' that happens AFTER the software has gone to production is NOT a 'Test' of the game.
This is simply a gimic that does nothing but provide hype and advertisement. Maybe a stress test of how the servers are going to respond on opening day.
You folks that were not there for the Anarchy Online debacle do not recongnize that ALL the stuff you are seeing now is exactly the same sort of MO that Funcom pulled with AO.
So, just be ready for a less than stellar experience at launch.
And yes, for as long as folks keep posting about this great 'Beta', I will keep posting that it is NOT a Beta. It is just a scam by Funcom that they used to quiet their critics some time ago and mask the true state of the game.
I think there playing it pretty smart doing the 13 level limit. It gives the players little bit of the story line without giving it completely up before the game comes out. Also it gives you more chance for trying different classes and testing them all out. Maybe even giving a nice 13th level PVP bash as one of the surprises. As for the fileplanet paying for beta crud, I dont really care it will tend to keep a bunch of the babies out of it and ruining it for others or funcom themselves.
i just cant get it into my big thick skull why people keep complaining about they "have" to pay for the beta.
You are not paying for the Beta your paying for a faster way to download patches,games,stuff thingy ect.
it just happens that inclued into all this there is a chance that you might be lucky enough to also enter the beta of certains games, In this case AOC.
if it is so bad to pay for that service then...dont? noone is forcing anyone to pay for the beta, your buying a service that inclued the chance of beta testing games, not AOC specific.
Also the gaming studios are not required to make an open beta, it is just an "easy" and simple way to quickly get 10.000+ people to stress test your network, just be happy that they do give us a chance of helping them and for us a chance to get a sneakpeak at a game.
so in the end: Quit whining about paying for a beta because your not, and quit whining about this not being an open beta because they are not required to give us one.
i will have to go with the few folks that also notice that more questions are raised due to this interview. though reading some of these posts and the stereotypical examples that come from all the "experts" is amusing.
simply put, things "I" disagree with (regardless of counter arguments). charging for download, charging for early play. marketing to be sure and the companies that have the keys are more than free to do what they want.......just not with me (grin), again my dollar and two cents on that.
i am going to try the open beta,..................when the email from the regular aoc site sends me one, i wont pay. as for the game and my playing schedule, TTL is 5 months 29 days away, plenty of time for them to fix everything that is going to be broken come (my) launch time, adj any major character flaws etc, etc. it is after all, only entertainment, and there are plenty of other things to do.
You are exactly the type of gamer I am referring to; if you weren’t, it would not have pissed you off enough to spout back your bitter tears. Three billion my ass, the only thing you implement is a deep fryer.
/point
/laugh
pffft I dont like Fileplanet at all now before it was totaly FREE FREE to get into a FREAKING beta jeeez.
I think people whining about charging for the beta are acting ridiculously and their accusation is baseless.
Funcom isn't charging for it -- the keys were reserved exclusively for fileplanet subscribers. Existing subscribers already saw value to the service and for them the key was a perk. People running out to subscribe just for access and then complaining that they aren't getting value for the service because they only wanted the key....are silly. The key is a perk of the service as a whole -- if they didn't do research before making the purchase, well the old saying holds true: a fool and his money part quickly.
Whether it is called an open beta or a fileplanet beta is meaningless.
Man, if that ain't BS then I don't know what BS is...
"It needs a lot of work to get it right, and ensure good speed and a smooth customer experience."
Publishing a torrent "needs a lot of work to get right"?
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Who is this guy trying to swindle, cavemen? My grandma?
well fileplanet download manger is total crap
notan excellent way to distribute 12gb file sthe least for the past 4 days i wastrying and got barely 2gb installed
blessed are the people who put a 1 file download link on the web Was able to download in less than a day
The download manager had me downloading at ~150KB/sec. I killed it and selected another link and was getting 600+KB/sec. I guess the only thing it's useful for is resuming downloads? Anywho, it downloaded over night. It was 12.5GB in size and over 20GB when installed. Crazy.
Torrent files, so easy, a caveman can do it.
If bandwidth and management costs were the primary motivators for FunCom deciding to outsource then why were all of the Technical Beta Testers -- who already have the General Beta Client installed and patched-up, ready to go -- not promoted to General Beta?
I wish they would have put the "play to only level 13" somewhere on the Open beta page. It would have been nice to know honestly.
I think that what this really comes down to is a miscommunication. I agree that this largely comes down to player expectation of what an Open Beta means colliding with tremendous excitment for the launch of this game. I know that my girlfriend and I are so stoked on Conan that we can hardly wait to play it. Knowing that other people are playing it right now in closed beta and that other people will be playing it soon in open beta kills us. The 17th seems like an eternity away. But what Funcom owes us is not the opportunity to play now, but the opportunity to get their game right at launch, in whatever form that takes.
The product we paid for, or will be paying for, doesn't come out for another 2.5 weeks. Just because we preordered, just because we want to play now, just because we feel like we'd make good testers, doesn't mean that we deserve to be playing the game in some form of beta right now. And that goes for any of us. They already have a group testing mid and end-game content called closed beta that they're hosting 100% internally. As a result open beta through Fileplanet going farther than early levels would start being redundant. The game needs to test their launch capabilities, which means maintaining a massive number of Tortage instances being created as people make and remake characters that they plan to take up to high levels. The download has to be the full client because building and testing something they won't be using for launch doesn't do them a bit of good in catching and fixing potential bugs.
As for having to pay for the beta, well, yeah, it's frustrating. Like I said, I want to play now too! But while it would be easy to call foul play on Funcom for using a term that has historically not required payment in many of our experiences, it actually does make sense. Having Fileplanet host the download means that Funcom's customer service and network staff can focus on in-game problems rather than dowload problems specific to the open-beta. For Funcom, the difference comes down to whether they get 50,000 testers and don't have to worry about managing the distribution, or getting 50,000 testers and having to dedicate a team to focus on in-house distribution, a team that would otherwise be working on improving the game. From the perspective of a company trying to make the best product they can make by the 17th, it's a no-brainer.
For those of you who would truly be willing to give up on AoC altogether simply because, like the majority of us who will have to bide or time with other activities until the 17th or the 20th, we didn't get selected to play 13 levels of a pre-release, unfinished, version of the game, you might want to take a step back, take a deep breath, and try to deflate your egos a bit. Funcom is a business, and they've done what they felt made the most business sense to create a product that people will want to play and involved as many potential players as they felt was necessary in the process. Hosting the beta through FilePlanet is not about you, it's not an attack on you, it's not disrespecting you, your wants, or your needs. This is about Age of Conan and what is right for Funcom to make it a good game by launch. I would love to see more people show the ability to be grown-up enough to accept that.
Regardless about what you think of this "FilePlanet Beta" (it certainly, by definition, isn't Open Beta), it is just one more sadness that does not point to a smooth launch but, more and more (as someone said above in this thread) like FunCom, in spite of what they've said to the contrary recently, have *NOT* learned much since their embarrassing disaster with the Anarchy On Line launch which was so painful it lasted more than six months after AO'srelease and when the dust settled nearly everyone had left AO to play DAoC and EQ.
What was sad is the eerie resemblance of FunCom's MO RE: AO and AoC. Both blockbusters, out-of-the-box innovative and sadly, promise a lot, changed/removed much of what was promised and delivered little at launch.
Age of Conan, most clearly, now less that 3 weeks from going live, is not and, in spite of what assurances FunCom gives us to the contrary, will not at all be ready for release on May 20th.
I'm not pre-ordering AoC, nor will I buy AoC right away (if at all). My vast experience with this game clearly shows it is very prudent to wait until at least late June - end of July and then relook to see how AoC is doing.
The only people whining are the kids unable to spend a measly $15 for a sub and who just wanted to "play" the game before it's released. 90% of them would never be playing the game upon release and now are just flooding nonsensical bs because they didn't get to try out a great game for free.
Get over it. The game is already running smoothly and this is really just their final hoorah to test things out.
Good for Funcom! I have always thought that the majority of "beta testers" were nothing mroe then a brag-fest for school kids on recess. Glad they're making it exclusive to Fileplanet members. "open beta testing" is a joke as it stands and I would like to see less of it made availble in the future since it does noting to improve a game.
Honeslty, why are the brats so upset about not trying a game that's not ready?
Thank you for proving my earlier point.
How many different "features" did you run through prior to griping that you can't level higher? Did you notice any bugs? Did you report them? Did you try to grind levels out as fast as possible? Any text errors?
Look at the bright side most of you have something to troll about for the next month now! Doesn't that make you excited?
um I havent even got in game yet since the servers arent up till the 1st of may.
I was wondering if the 13 level cap was to keep some of the actual content secret. Maybe unlike other MMOs maybe the story line of the PVE is actaully good and want to keep it secret till launch. It could be for the reasons otheres have said about the game not being full finished, but I would like to think they want people to actualy enjoy the PVE story line instead of doing it because its the only way to lvl up.
its just an interesting disappointing decision, I mean isnt the current level cap 80 or something? thats about 10% of the game. I mean you dont even get off the newbie isle before 20 (from what i read).
Like i said I wish they would have made it more clear I went through all the pages a second time for the sign up and NO WHERE did i see "play up to level 13 only".
to me thats borderline false advertisement and nearly a scam.
Are we all forgetting that Funcom is a business ? They are not making a game as much as making a product that will get a lot of money.
As a businessman myself, I applaud their smart moves and many of them are most likely due to investors being on their back for the last 4 years while it has been in development. I'd assume the FilePlanet gathering is a good faith gesture in order to get some additional upfront income. They want to squeeze us for all that we are going to give us, and you would ALL do the same thing if you were in their position.
Picture you are the CEO of funcom, or better yet an investor that has had money on the line for the last 4 + years. This is how the real world works people.
You can make sooo much money even before the product is launched.
Pre-orders are a joke, but people buy them. 5 dollar eary access fee is a joke but people buy them. FilePlanet subscription is a COMPLETE joke, but people buy them. However ... the worst is the collectors edition. Why the hell would you pay an extra 40 dollars for a map and some cheesy in game junk ... but people buy it.
Heres how it works - at board meetings people come up with ideas and say "Would People Buy It ?". Which means that if there was not a market for it, that it would have never happened.
To those who are complaining - you are living in the world that you created. Its called Reaping What you Sew.
Great Job to the Marketing, Branding, and Launch team of AoC. I praise your business skills - I'd offer my services as a consultant, but its obviously not needed.
yet if this was SOE you know that rabid haters would be all over.
Frankly, being in consulting, i think Funcom is doing a HORRIBLE job at instilling confidence among its potential buyers, while do a great job in promoting
So Mr Janitor/Implementation Manager, how much do you think it costs to implement an ERP across 120 countries and 300 legal entities and 8000 users, $50K? That's what, twice the biggest budget you ever had?
Another key to leadership that you're obviously lacking is to know when you don't know something, and not just keep on getting deeper and deeper into your obviously embarrassing ignorance.
Make sure you don't mix the recyclbables with the trash again.
Would it be fair to say that you are more of the competitors point of view?
Personally I try to keep up with this, but reading through the myriad of children's screams about how unfair this is, or how Funcom is involved in a master conspiracy (waiting for the UFO theories), and how unethical Funcom is, makes it impossible to actually get a balanced view on this. While the children (well the immature adults at most) keep screaming it really reduces the credibility of any posts on that side of the issue.
I support FC and am tired of the complainers over this small fee.
If you can't handle 8 bucks how can you handle a monthly fee?
There are enough free games out there should be no complaints.
Running servers are not cheap.
it must make you feel good inside when you lie on a forum about video games. I know it makes me feel good!
<---Points to the Mature rating on the game again and futher reiterates that the primary reason for using fileplanet as an intermediary is for age verification purposes.
I was hoping this would be a mature game with mature players, but after some of the posts I've been reading I am sadly disappointed. What the hell are you all complaining about? That you have to be a fileplanet member to assist in the stress testing of funcom's servers? It's not going to be a lot of fun you know. Crashes will be a daily occurance. Your characters will all get wiped before the three day head start. Most of the time between now and the head start will be sluggish at best as they will be trying to fit everyone into one or two servers to see what kind of a load they can handle. It's not about finding miscelenius bugs in the code anymore, they've done that part already. Now it's just about stress testing the servers. Seeing how many people they can have in one area, which is why they have the level cap, so you won't be grinding xp and spreading out. This isn't about marketing or bug testing, it's about a controlled stress test.
What the hell are all you people whp pay for beta crying about?
YOUR NOT BEING FORCED TO PAY.
I didn't sign up, I am not in beta. I refuse to pay for a fileplanet account to try a game.
I'm not pre-ordering, infact I'm not giving up one cent unless I can try it for free. I have many doubts about this game.
Stop whining about paying for beta when you act like lemmings and just go along with it. If your really against it, simply don't support it.
Would you rather Funcom concentrate on the game or divert resources to assigning keys and handling distribution? As much as you may hate it, Fileplanet is the best distribution method for something this size. They regularly handle betas distributions and are geared up for it.
Stop being such a tightwad and hand over $5 for one month. So you might have to make a lunch for one day rather than buy it at the local cafe/canteen?
This is exactly what we all should be doing. Cause quite honestly - atm Funcom has delivered nothing but promises - and tales of features that are not even in beta yet - JUST TO SELL SOME EXTRA COPIES.
For true Conan fans - go look at the AO history and what happened at release.
For players playing another MMO atm - don't chancel ur subscritipion.
For players wayting for new MMO game to play. Wait - dont spend anything unless u want countless Vanguards to show up in the MMO future.
Devs of MMOs have been allowed now to talk big words without delivering anything. Does the MMO comunity want that in the future?
I didn't read all the comments, but you guys realize you can get a free subscription to Fileplanet if you have Comcast broadband right? That's how I got into open beta, it's pretty easy actually.
OMG, this is why I stop going to the official forums ... cry babies all over the place.
I have reason to be very confident that this game will do very well, in spite of all the doom sayers and cry babies out there
Oh and you guys need to calm down.
In utter dissapointment and disgust for the responses given, I have cancelled my pre-order.
GG Funcom.
Short answer, Yes.
Exactly! Furthermore, let me add what It looks like to me "give files and let Fileplanet worry about distribution, while we only reap the results of the open beta AND earn a quick buck on a side while claiming this is free and all". While there is nothing wrong in earning a quick buck, the fact that they hide that under the "open beta" cover is that makes other people pissed. If they wanted to earn a quick buck, let them have real open beta, and then have a week of release where only those who pre-paid or bought collectors addition would be able to play. But wait, they already have that! Early access is exactly what it is - an early way to make a buck. So why make a buck of something that is not supposed to be paid? Well... greed basically. And since greed is negative, it calls out negative response from people.
All in all it comes to semantics: most people assume that OPEN BETA is available for everyone who meets the criteria ( valid email, active participation on forums, community leaders, guilds, etc). Financial situation is NOT the criteria that would normally be considered for OPEN BETA selection.
I respectfully disagree. I do not understand what you mean by "low quality download". BtTorrent is by far the fastest way to distribute large chunks of data between large numbers of clients. While FTPs and HTTPs MAY be better (sometimes) in terms of constant speed - the sheer size of the download multiplied by the number of clients makes distribution very very costly for the developers. And you would have to distribute it in stages too. Imagine one hundred thousand of people simultaneously trying to download 13 gigs of data. That would cause havoc on the server and would overload it or would make speed extremely slow.
Unfortunately ISPs are limiting P2P networks because of the same reason - it is way to effective, traffic is just huge, people are actually USING the service they paid for.
Not a single question as to why tech testers were passed over when they already have the client installed. The entire "interview" was softball.
Very good point!
If FC really wanted to distribute their client and really did want to get the BEST help to test their product, they would hire those who CARED about AoC - fans, active posters, guilds, people who actually WILL play and test, and not someone who paid for FP premium account, who never heard about AOC but who got a key to join in and who may never actually get passed the login screen or even download it (13 gigs anyone?)
Its just unfair to the fans. Its sneaky and hypocritical and greedy. That about sums it up how I feel about all these shenanigans. Some may call this "whining", I call this "WTF, some trying to trick us and lie to us. We are not idiots."
2 Weeks beta is on the 1st mate, thats 2 DAYS
If they really cared about the beta, they wouldn't take advice from a bunch of upset F2P open beta kiddies.
Double post.
I don't know why people are so angry about not being able to get into open beta. You gotta remember that Funcom made Anarchy Online, and if you played AO at launch you'll know not to ruin your AoC experience by buying the game at launch.
Just wait for trial and see if this is the MMO for you.
Now as for the interview, well it worries me that he sounded more like a Politician.
So I will not preorder AOC and will see what the gamers are saying before purchase.
As for the article, this is one of those situations that you're going to like or hate. On one side of the coin you have a solid base in which people will try the beta and for better or worse have a stable server to play on. I say stable because 50k players for a MMO is rather minor. It also keeps kids off the beta that are only trying to play a game for free because for one reason or another, cant play games online with a pay subscription (Think of titles like Cabal or flyff). from that point of view, a fileplanet beta seems VERY nice.
At the same time it also cuts off a huge playerbase, creates oppertunities for the public to create ideas of the game not being up to expectations and a view point that the company has something to hide.
In the end, both sides are right. It's a nice chance for the 50k who are fileplanet members but it still shows that Funcom might not have their act together. After all for those of us (like myself) who played AO during its infancy stage know first hand just how badly Funcom dropped the ball. After all, when promised a huge story arc and all we got was a static dungeon with Pumpkin people with scyths it makes you wonder what the devs were thinking.
What i'm curious about is if Funcom will start toating their next mmo while this one congeals and call this one a failier. That was some classic mmo gaming moment if I must say so myself.
Holy crap, I haven't seen
like this for a long time. Some of you really need to just sit back and reflect upon how childish you are behaving
How is this such a big deal? I was all set to sit back and wait for release/pre-order day and let those who choose to subscribe to FP carry on. As it turns out I was lucky enough to win the comp.
All i will do is wait till the game is launched and wait several weeks/moth until first patches are done! I will not order or even preorder that game.
Let others do the testing.......
Sorry, but whe i read such speaks i really get upset. Damn need to make money quick :-(
Quoted for truth.
The way I see it the reason for 13 level cap for open beta trial is geography: You are not able to leave Tortage, so you do (or at least should) not need the content that comes after Tortage. So basically what we are getting is the pvp weekend client with full Tortage and no autolevel-to-20-script. (Whether or not there is more content in the client is a whole other thing.) A client like that will let Funcom stress test a zone without having to worry about people spreading too thin. First part of destiny quest should give one a good taste for the AoC story and character development, after all this is beta and not free trial.
As for the whole Fileplanet angle... it is silly. If you do not have Fileplanet subscription and do not wish to pay for one do not take part in open beta. How hard can that be? Yes it could have been handled differently, but it is Funcom's game and they are allowed to handle the beta as they see fit. Again, learn live with it.
The only bad thing about the Fileplanet beta I can agree on is the horrible way Fileplanet chose to distribute the keys. Forcing people to either run their faulty comrade program or camp the signup page is just too much and I have expected much better from them. So my disappointment (even though I did get my key) is fully on Fileplanet side.
You know it doesn't even matter if im mad... as i was planning on going to war in the future, but at least i wanted to buy this game to try it out... but not anymore. When a gaming company makes a stupid move, ill let them know....
You guys HAVE to realize what the hell you all just did to your game. You just killed your game(and every good gamer and good dev knows this) via YOUR BIGGEST FORM OF ADVERTISEMENT (word of mouth anyone?) by limiting it by using fileplanet as a "wheel of chance via paying" method, and then making excuses.. and THEN showing that your beta is limited via levels? huh? how close is launch? I was under the impression that it was soon...
Talk about red flags flying. If i was one of these other dudes that had a pre-order, i'd cancel it right now. Then try it out or research it later... way too many red flags that just flew... but thats just me..
My two cents for what its worth.
Edit and a side note: And what is this about you not letting people that beta tested last phase play?... IF its true, then thats a pretty low thing to do if you ask me.
You do realize that if you pay for a fileplanet account, you are not guaranteed a beta key right? 50,000 does not equal the total number of people the use thier services I assure you. To me its kinda a shady way to distribute keys. Well, in my opinion.
After I read that ” He went on to tell us that download speed was a consideration in the decision. After all, the client itself is a hefty 13Gb in size I skim read the rest ...... yup I was right they wanted to make some money off of the beta.
THANK YOU! Your wrote very eloquently what I have been thinking as reading this thread.
I am a fileplanet subscriber and have been for a long time. It allowed me to get various demo/files/etc much faster than other sites and so on. AoC Beta Key is simply a perk as are the other beta invites I have gotten just for being part of fileplanet. I have found it to be worth the subscription. *Shrug* I personally believe the company has every right to distribute 50k keys however they please. Course they could always just let everyone in, and servers crash, game is laggy.... and then everyone runs away whining about how bad the game is. The point here is they want stress testing on a controlled level.
xXSeraphielX
I'll play because there is nothing else out right now that is worth a damn and LoTRO is getting boring. Also I had a lot of fun at the PvP weekend and want some more. Sorry for those of you who don't want to play a 60 dollar game anymore. If its totally horrible I lose around 75 dollars for the game and first month. I make more than that in a couple days and I am a student lol!
Its not about advice, its about testing. OB is for testing unfinished/unpolished product. Its a paid (usually) process, paid TO the testers... except in a gaming world, where OBs seem to turn around and testers pay to the developers to test their games.... WTF??? Its like going to a clinic to be a blood donor and pay for it. Or getting your nuts hit with a baseball bat and.. paying for it!
I dont see much
going on here. I see mature arguments and counter-arguments. I am actually very pleasantly surprised at the low number of flames or childish behavior about FC and their OB decision.
Ok, imagine you are an avid fan of a football club. You go to their plays, you even attend their trainings. They notice you. You help them by getting coffee, drinks, moving furniture... small stuff. They know you by name now, and they promise you to give you all season ticket (theres only one ticket available).
Now, how would you feel if you would see some hotshot rich boy who just happend to have a grand in his wallet paying for their uniforms and grabbing that ticket you dreamed about? Unless of course the coach told you if you were to give 1500$, then the ticked would still be yours. Would you just shrug off and go home? Or would you rather be pissed? Sure, they didnt do anything wrong. They needed uniforms. And technically, you arent being FORCED to pay for it. Its your choice. How would you feel?
Ok for all the people saying why didn't Funcom just host the file themself its only 50k people, they say they are ready for 600k to patch on launch day.... Currently the patch will be 400mb. the full client is 13gigs
13 gigs divided by 400mb comes out to like 32.5.... 32.5x50000= 1625000
For all those who don't see what i am getting at here... 50k people downloading a 13 gig file is like 1.6 million people at launch day... it would be a mess on there servers with the addition of people they have in beta downloading the patches and trying to actually play the game. They sent the file out to a server farm that could handle the load, that server farm decided to charge for its useage... that isn't really funcom doing that, its fileplanet.
I understand alot of folks wana play the game, but tell me how is the fileplanets beta at 5 dollars different then preordering a game and canceling it cuz you didn't like it? Costs you money either way.... Gaming companys do not HAVE to have an open beta they do it cuz its a nice look for the public... Do not try to say things like "they owe it to us" or "this is crap we shouldn't have to pay to play a beta" cuz honestly.... would you guys just prefer there was no public beta at all?
Do you guys HONESTLY believe that Funcom are making money off the Beta? It's the standard Fileplanet subscription fee .... not a fee to play the AoC Beta?
You lot need to get some perspective and stop being such a bunch of cheap arsed parasites who just want to play a game for FREE for a month.
LOL, love the cut of yer jib. Nice retort to the negatrons.
However, they "the consumers" have the power to make or break a game. They may live in their mamma's basement but they are hardcore slayas when it comes to felling mmo giants. David and Goliath man, (lard ass) Davids and Goliath man.
Regards
Melmoth
This.
While you're math is right, it still doesn't explain why they didn't torrent out the beta client.
In fact, seeding out the torrent from the login servers / game servers is great way to stress test the bandwidth of a server.
Oh, and it takes like 10 minutes to set up. If that's too hard for FunCom, I'm worried about what would happen with a real technical problem. :P
to be honest i get the feeling these deals with file planet will be the way of the future when it comes to open betas . personally i cant see the point in paying a years sub just to get to play the game a few weeks earlier than everyone else . if think the more important issue if they go down this route is to offer a weeks free trial on release to everyone . if they dont do this accusations that they have something to hide will be levelled at them . already these forums are full of people doubting thier pc will actually play the game .a badly handled release can effect a games popularity .
the strange thing is we all know these simple facts but sometimes the people who market mmos are totally clueless to them .
I personally would not play any game that was only available from Fileplanet.
1. Fileplanet requires that you register. Giving your personal information to a third party for a one off download is asking a lot.
2. AFTER obtaining your personal information, you then find out you cannot download without paying a fee for a service you may not use again.
3. In addition, when I recently tried to download an old MMO, I found out after further investigation that the game was actually no longer available for download even though the MMO official site said it was available from Fileplanet. Luckily, I had not paid the $5.
"" if think the more important issue if they go down this route is to offer a weeks free trial on release to everyone . if they dont do this accusations that they have something to hide will be levelled at them . ""
Will never happen. For the same reason a free download will likely never happen. They want/need that initial box purchase to help offset the cost of development. Thats why free trials are usually started months after release. Even if they arent trying to hide something I just dont see it happening.
Haha can't believe people are whining about a open beta, be glad that they even have one. This new generation of MMO players should just stick to their xbox or counter-strike and quit ruining MMOs with your whiny attitudes.
This is not a trial, this is not a privilege, it's a beta. If anyone feels like canceling their pre-order because of this go ahead, just one brat less playing the game.
Sorry mate, I see it differently, I see page after page with posts from spoilt crybabies who are canceling pre-orders, not buying this game and prophocising the downfall of AoC simply because they wont get to PLAY it for free.
As you rightly pointed out earlier open beta is for testing, testing how your network will handle large amounts of traffic and to see if there are any nasty bugs as a result of a higher population than closed sessions. Open beta is not, as some people seem to think, a consumer right nor is it a genuine oppertunity to play the game for free to decide if you like it or not. Granted some games have used a genuinely open beta as a way of generating a consumer base before launch, Funcom haven't, big deal!
People complaining about being "mis-sold" this because of the unannounced lvl 13 cap need a reality check or to seek psychiatric help.
It is in my opinion that Funcom made a smart move here by sub letting their client distribution to Fileplanet. I do not subscribe to the service myself, but have used it before and in this case had the fortune to win a VIP account, the system works flawlessly. It seems only reasonable that Fileplanet should get something in return, which they did in the form of the exclusive rights to the keys for this "open beta".
as are some of the people that play them by the looks of your reasoning
Can't people just be honest here? Just own up to the fact that you are throwing "hissy fits" because you wont get to play it early.
edited typo.
Bah...Kids !!!! Grow up..Nothing in life is free
YOU ARE NOT FUNCOM, it's their choice, it's their multi million dollar project, and they can do as they please with it..
Besides, fileplanet betas has been like this before, you will have to be a subscriber..It may or may not be bad choice from Funcom, but it's their choice, simple...
When did you last try GTA IV for free ? The whole game ?
Or Crysis or Bioshock or Oblivion ???
You didn't you bought them anyway...
So, what's the diffrence ?
There is no diffrence at all..
Well, AoC is a MMO, but in the purchase you will get ONE MONTH FREE playtime, One month is more than most people even play the above games..One Month should be enough time for you as a customer to deiceide if the game is good or bad....
See, you buy all sorts of games without getting a FREE LOOK at the entire gameworld or how the game may or may not run on your computers..
And it's NOT that AoC cost's more than the above games, it costs as much as them..
It's not that you are signing a contract with the devil when you purchase AoC, you will not be bound with that game forever...
And, If you pre order, it's up to YOU..And if you cancel for these reasons you are just very unmature and childish..Or you are on a tight leech with your parents money....
This is just SOOOO Stupid, Grow Up Kids
What I find funny is fileplanet has done this many times before for many different games and you have to be a subscriber to get the keys. I have been a subscriber for 5 years so this was nothing new to me.
I downloaded this client at speeds of up to 850kb a sec. I was a tech tester and took longer to download that client. It was larger though.
I see nothing wrong in what they have done to distribute the client for "open beta" which by the way they said all along they would never have a open beta. So I do believe they just worded it wrong causing the kids to cry and the bashing to start.
Good luck see you all in final as I already preordered just from what I saw in 3 hours of the tech test.
Well done on completely dodging the are you being paid by FP for them to host it?
That is all this ever was about making money of a beta.
Anyone else notice all the fanbois with like.... 12 posts are coming out of the woodworks? Quite interesting if you ask me. I think its funny that some of you think that they aren't getting money out of this deal. You are stupid. I really hate to say that, being positive most of the time, but you are. They ARE making money off this... not directly, but its being given to them by fileplanet due to some pre arranged agreement.
As for the comment about fileplanet always doing it this way, you are wrong. Please get your facts right before posting. More than 85% of the time the only thing you need from fileplanet to join a beta is a free membership. If they were trying to go by age validation, this way would be just as legit as the paid method. So why use the paid method again? OH.. thats RIGHT... money...
Sorry, I don't buy it. testers shouldnt pay to beta test, its actually the other way around. But since people love games, most are happy with just a chance to play it for free... and gain knowledge.
Bad move funcom, bad move.
Yeah the people putting themselves on pedestals, complaining about the complainers.. I always loved that stuff. "Rawr I'm more mature, sorry if I'm missing the real point, you guys suck for crying."
I can't say that I'm planning on playing AoC, nor have I followed that closely, but I can say that I understand the concern from the fanbase because a lot of what I see is very unconventional in comparison to games I've followed (beta'd) through the development process. Sure its Funcom's product to bury in whatever way they choose, nobody is arguing that, but if people are unhappy because they feel they are entitled to more.. well then its apparent that someone is making mistakes. People can call it crying if you want, but it won't make it go away.
I pre-ordered AOC few weeks ago (getting the Rhino) But yeah I got told i would have to download the client for the pre-orders earler start thing lol by the time i've downloaded it using fileplanets crappy free servers it will have been over lol Fileplanet when it comes to hosting things rarely host a european download they seem to favor their us servers so we us euro's suffer terrible downloads.
Please don't play.
If you feel that you have been snubbed by Funcom's choice to use fileplanet to dispense keys to the open beta, by all means just don't play. Cancel your pre-orders. Say 'Hell no, I won't play your game.' You can show them just how wrong they were to snub you by not giving them your money.
If you all do that then I am sure I will have a much better time playing the game.
The devs will have a much better time not having to listen to the miriad of complaints that you otherwise would have burried them in because you got beat by such and such a class and want them to nerf it, or you feel that your class needs 'sum luv'.
Please, just don't play.
There are plenty of other new games coming out soon for you to play, you don't have to play this one. Maybe Mythic will have an open beta that they'll let everyone in, though I wouldn't hold my breath. Maybe Chronicles of the Spellborn will too. Who knows? Who cares? When you make a game, you decide who can beta test it, until then it's not your choice. I don't care what arguments you have, or how you shout DOOM from the ramparts because you think the game will fail just because it alienated you few jackholes.
Save your money. Don't play this game.
I'm sure we'll all be happier without you.
holy crap, many replies.....
anyways oh well, i'll wait till this game has been released and i've heard good enough opinions from people playing it. I somehow don't expect much from this release, too rushed at some point, too many delays just doesn't match well in my book.
Oh well in a month or so i'll know whether or not i should buy this game.
I hope the fileplanet beta goes well.
It's amazing how many people forget that they were never promised or guarenteed beta access and that all they really have to do is wait a few weeks to hear reviews on the game. I personally don't buy a console game, regardless of how much of a fangirl I am of it, until I've read reviews of it. So why should MMOs be any different? You don't hear people freaking out because they didn't get a chance to play GTA4 before they shell out $50+ for it...
It is my personal opinion that Fileplanet is a giant, smelly truck load of bullsh*t...they charge for any "special beta" that's coming out, and try to pinch pennies out of everything.
At one point, Fileplanet had a beta for subscribers only, the beta was for like, 4 days or something, and yet, if you did a little searching you could find a 14 day beta for the same game for anyone, so not only do they rip you off with an absolutely crappy premium service that doesn't offer much except the CHANCE of some special beta, but they also rip you off by offering sub par betas.
And have you ever tried dealing with their tech support? I can get more fricken help calling India...
Ok, now if you could so kind as to tell me the winner of next wednesdays 17:05 at Ascot I would be greatful
If not.. shut up.
Why exactly would Fileplanet pay Funcom money and not the other way round? Funcom went to Fileplanet requesting a service, service being the distribution of massive load of data for the open beta test. If Funcom went to anybody else, they would be expected to give money to the data distributor, not the other way round. If Fileplanet feels that they are mitigating some costs by the advertisement and possible temporary increase to subscription numbers, then they would probably cut down on whatever they requested Funcom to pay them.
If anything, a good deal from Funcom's side would mean paying nothing for the distribution and handling of the massive amount of data. In any other case, they would have to pay somebody (either outsiders or their own employs & equipment) to achieve the same result.
People actually believing that Fileplanet is paying Funcom sounds a bit far fetched.
I don't pay to play a beta. I don't care who gets the money. I only pay for a finished product.
But waiting another month isn't going to kill anyone so complaining about not getting to play the game early isn't justified.
What is justified is the worry that other developers (not Funcom) could look at this and figure that there are people out there still willing to pay to play a beta. They might think that rather than letting Fileplanet get the money, they can get it instead. The outcry from this will make those future developers think twice about it.
I agree that Funcom should have called this something like the 'Fileplanet Member Only Special Trial' or something. With the limited content, it really sounds more like a marketing thing than part of their actual development cycle and that's fine, they just needed to be more clear about it.
Did anyone notice the FC rep worrying about 'customer service' if they used a torrent? In a beta you don't have customers, you have TESTERS. Customers have a right to complain about bugs, but if testers are not ready for bugs, lag and all the rest then they shouldn't be signing up for a beta-test, even at this late date.
That's just another sign that this is really a marketing gimmick. There's nothing wrong with that and most people expect it from companies but Funcom should have been clear this was really a free trial for Fileplanet Members.
Am I the only one that thought that was nothing but pure SPIN throughout that interview?
The fact remains that you must pay someone to do someone else's work for them, that makes no sense at all to me as a beta tester. AoC has lost my business because of this, and I would go to say I'm certainly not the only one that feels this way. In fact I would go as far to say their player base has been cut in half because of this move...only one little word would have made a big difference.
-Ethnine--Phorsoth-
LOL yeah right ! You made me laugh good there, half player base wont play because it's a pain to get int the beta.....
To answer the original question, would have been simplier to just send key via email to those who register themself for the beta. I don't remember how long ago i registred for the beta, never ever got any invite from Funcom, only the newsletters from time to time.
I thought I'd also add that it's not really an "open beta" when the majority of the keys they give out ARE to FP which sucks balls
In other words:
Funcom is not getting your money. They deferred the capital costs to Fileplanet; in exchange, presumably Fileplanet gets more members. Funcom does not profit from beta testers in this arrangement.
It still may suck that we have to pay money to get a chance at OB but Funcom isn't charging us that fee.
I think they would have been far better off putting a couple double-sided dvds in a sleeve and sell them in stores for $5. I didn't mind paying $5 to try out LotR and if you buy the game you get your money back...
You can only get up to level 13 what do they expect you to accomplish? All they will do is continue to work on the game and milk the fanbois with the Fileplanet subscription.
OK a few things in that interview/press statement really bother me. And no I'm not a basement dwelling fast food employee, nor do I have unreasonable expectations of wanting a free beta, etc etc. But I do have a good deal of experience in the business world, enough to note a few statements that really really raise red flags for me.
[quote]“running the Age of Conan beta is and will remain an expense, as it should be for us as developers. The focus for us when running a beta is to get invaluable feedback from as many testers as needed, helping us to get ready for launch, not to make money on it”. [/q]
Make money on? Sorry but in one breath he states that they expect the beta test to be an expense. But they mechanism they choose to use is pushing a huge amount of that expense off on the beta testers themselves, not on the producer.
they went with Fileplanet, not because they would make money on the deal, but rather because it would minimize Funcoms costs for managing the Beta test. Fileplanet assumes all of the infrastructure, networking, distribution and marketing costs for the Beta. Instead of billing the producer, they cost is instead passed to the testers via making it exclusive to Fileplanets premium service. In turn Fileplanet sees a surge in paid annual subscriptions (full year payable at subscription) without having to guarantee that the payee will even get one of the 50k Beta keys in play.
Sorry on any level it just seems smarmy, and bad business practice.
This one also bothers me'
[quote] In terms of the decision to go with Fileplanet as the distributor of the beta keys rather than either going through a free access website or distributing it themselves, Tharaldsen told us that while they very much wanted to offer an open beta, it was crucial for Funcom to be able to “focus on the game, the closed beta and the launch, and not on the infrastructure related to the Fileplanet Open beta.” He went on to tell us that download speed was a consideration in the decision. After all, the client itself is a hefty 13Gb in size.[/quote]
Ummm? Sorry but as others have pointed out. If you can't handle 50k users downloading the complete client at this stage of the game, you are NOT ready for prime time. Funcom already has a huge problem in this area. While AO eventually evolved into a deep stable and compelling game. It was nearly killed at release because of massive infrastructure issues. The Beta is to test the network capabilities, infrastructure, and to season the networking staff, as it is to test the internal game elements. Failure to properly test the infrastructure means a repeat of AO. the earlier stress test did not inspire confidence in the companies readiness to handle the load. Outsourcing the beta Client distribution and management does not improve this.
[quote] Speaking of content, I asked Tharaldsen to address the growing concern that only allowing Fileplanet beta players to progress to level 13 indicates a lack of faith or more serious problems in the game beyond that point and that the company is trying to hide it until launch.
“We have nothing to hide,” he answered, “in fact, I have heard from so many testers that the game gets even better as you move beyond Tortage.”
While Tharaldsen tells us that the reason for the level 13 cap has nothing to do with the quality of the game beyond that point, the decision was indeed carefully planned beforehand. He told us though that it was a question of story rather than a question of quality that prompted the cap.
“We have made an MMO with a very different production approach than most of our competitors, including putting more money and time into story than you have seen before. Stories are about emotions and experiences, and we want as many as possible to have a great emotional journey when we launch.”
“We have therefore found a point in the game which will allow you to get a deep taste of the game, allow you to: play solo, group and multiplayer, test all of our classes, all the interface, emotes and other aspects of the game. It doesn’t take you days to get to this point, true. It was never intended to, but it will give you a fantastic overview of what to expect (perhaps even with a couple of surprises, we shall see;). At the same time, we get to stress test what we need to stress test, giving us both automated and personal feedback, and enough time to fix any stress issues popping up. The testing of content for higher levels is happening on different servers, also with tens of thousands of people involved, and this will go on until launch.”
[/quote]
now this one may be legit... you never know. But it can just as easily be a load of unadultered bullcrap.
Sorry but those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it. For those that remember the abomination that was Asherons Call 2, you might remember that the initial level 1-20 Human lands were in fact a well developed and fleshed out area, and did seem to indicate a fun game. It wasn't until you hit the later areas that the stench of doom began to sink in, and the total unreadiness of the product became apparent. Almost all MMORPG's launch with reasonably well fleshed out starter areas and lower levels. but these arent stand alone games that you expect to be playing for a month or two. the typical player will be spending the vast majority of their time beyond that level 13, and if they can get their easily in Beta, they will be beyond it inside of a month in retail release. So 99% of the content that the players will actually be playing at launch will be completely untested under load. (Hmmm sounds more and more like AC2)
I am not saying that AoC will be a bad game. It may be fantastic. All I say is that recent interview, based on some of their actions regarding the Open Beta have raised some red flags in my mind (and hopefully others as well). Personally I will wait and let others do the Beta testing, probably through a few weeks of release, before I even consider laying out money on this one.
Luckily I will be travelling for business during the month of June and will let others finish the beta test for me as well. I have to admit, though, I wish I could pay $6 to each of the 'stop whining' geniuses on MMORPG.com to get them to just shut up. It was never about the money, it was about the way they treated their potential customers. Why is that such a nebulous concept to grasp?
It doesn't matter who I'm paying. I am paying someone to beta test a game.
And idiotic "fanboism" is the primary reason MMO companies conduct themselves the way they do. That article a testament to the opinion (by the company) that a fanbase is full of amoeba brained morons (and do their best to prove it) who will believe just about anything. Certainly, they’ll jump to the rescue when any doubt is shown by anyone with a thought process. Because their “game gods” and “second coming” of a game can’t do wrong. Such pathetic denial when anything is remotely questioned. Even to come out with the most retarded arguments ever to grace the Internet.
Only ones so distorted in reality, and head so far in an orifice can possibly behave as such. And they are among the top major detractions of any game they so religiously embrace. Just as bad (if not worse) than any “whiner”. The best thing for this industry would be for this remnant to be done away with.
Paying to beta test?.... Do you even grasp the stupidity that is emulating out of your mouth? lol I call a broke ass mofo right here.
Why should YOU be allowed to play one of the most anticipated MMoRPG's of the year for free. Let alone 2 weeks of play right before launch? Your bitching about 5 bucks when the game will cost you 60 let alone the 15 every month...
Yeah anyone who thinks like Samuraisword makes me question general common sense in people.
Pretty sad to hate on Funcom and Fileplanet with the multitude of entertainment and service they provide. I'll say it twice people are stupid, heaven forbid they might actually THINK!!!!
The stupidity of your words is known as Fanboism.
people pre order a game that they don`t even know in which state it will be released + you are willing to pay 5$ to a third party to beta test till level 13 in a game which has 80 levels.Man you either blind or a
.
Which is the issue here. You're paying to do a job that other people are getting paid to do. This isn't a trial of the game, after all. Its a beta test, meaning you are supposed to be finding bugs and helping them finish the game for release. Its a job, albeit a more enjoyable one. That fact does nothing to remove the OTHER fact that people out there are getting paid to do what you are paying to do.
Its no surprise to me there was a backlash. Betas aren't supposed to be about playing the game...when you start thinking about the fact that you are paying THEM to work for THEM, its kinda silly.
Its safe to assume quite a few people do have a good idea what the game is like, from the PVP weekend.
But I can see your someone who likes to go out to dinner sample all the food and leave without paying.
Fileplanet sub covers the Starter Course. How many starter courses have you had before at restaurants that you have never had before? Or even the same food just done differently at different restaurants..
If you like a starter you usually eat on, if you have such a terrible experience you leave asap or finish up and never come back.
Not to mention buy the collectors edition (1, five course meal) and you get 5 free buddy keys (5 free starter courses) to give out.
But you know most people these days want everything free and to sample in entirety. Most commonly known as the 'piss and moan club'...
You know what ruined the beta experience? All these crap asian free to play mmo's that advertise all over this site in beta key giveaways. Its impossibly easy for someone to get into one of these beta's, just gives the wrong impression on so many levels to people new to the genre.
To Gishgeron:
Your assumption that people are paying to beta test is flawed in two accounts.
95% of the people (I'm generous) that usually participate in any beta, would never get a professional beta tester job, being totally under-qualified and most often, totally unprofessional. Therefore, the random Joe that claims that he should be paid to beta test, is at least hilarious. On the other hand, I don't agree with a customer forced to pay to beta test. But that is not the case here, noone is forced. This is not the buggy released version that you have to pay in order to play. You can steer away from the whole deal and problem is solved.
But I don't believe that the Fileplanet deal is a real (active) beta.
Funcom is offering a marketing spin. Yes, yes, they call it "open beta" and all. I call it free early preview and I'm closer to the truth. If it was a real beta (as in people expected to report problems as opposed to just monitor activity via debug code), I'm sure they would have probably handled it on their own. As they have already done so far, quite successfully I might add. So, those in a hurry, those that are unsure and curious, those with a Fileplanet membership and those that have $5 to burn, get to try and get a key and preview the game. And that's about it.
It's a good business deal overall. Funcom gets to pay nothing for bandwith and infrastructure distribution, while Fileplanet service gets some advertisement and some temporary subscriptions.
Lets start worrying about what actually matters, and that's the gameplay. Anything before the final release is of little consequence. We get to pay and play the released version, so that's the one that needs to be good, fun and not buggy.
And all of this text from me, mostly, just to say that I understand why people are mad. I don't care, but I understand. I agree with why they are mad, and think they have every right to be. I don't pay to work, even if the work is enjoyable and easy. If anything, I expect to get paid for my time. In MMO betas, that payment comes in the form of free time with the game. I'm one of the ones who goes to MANY betas, and posts anything I find in order to help them improve the game. I actively make sure I look for things, and help find the bugs. I sometimes really enjoy my time with the game in doing so, and feel that the free (and early) moments I have in it are payment enough.
You should not be so aggressive against those that are upset about it. Their position is fair, and it doesn't matter how many companies are choosing this route. I've seen many around here suggest that the paid beta helps keep the "free trial" players out. I think that this is wrong, and that it also keeps out the MOST serious beta testers...as they are not going to want to pay someone to do the work those guys really do. Some of the most serious testers out there really go out of their way to document things they find and make suggestions. If anything, this whole "paid beta" thing is encouraging the trial players by creating a situation where the beta really IS nothing more than a trial.
Because who really wants to pay good money to wade through bug soaked crap? AoC's beta may not be that way...but that certainly isn't what most of us assume the average beta is. We all assume that a beta NEEDS players all over the place to find things because the starting team wasn't large enough to cover all the ground or strain the code enough. With that in mind, the most serious testers are gonna stay away in order to avoid paying to work.
... which in the end makes the whole deal just a trial. I agree with you though.
Hi, Welcome to the world of the internet.
This is how the internet works : Company / Site A, using an incentive or advert gets one of their viewers to buy a product from Website / Company B. In return, Website B pays Website A a percentage of this sale.
Anyone can do this. For the "general public" (i.e not a large company or site) it is known as an "Affiliate Scheme" and Fileplanet (to use this example) pay up to $9 per new subscriber to the site that send them over.
Now, lets consider the size of Age of Conan and the amount of interest in the "Open Beta" and also how quickly the keys were snapped up. Imagine for a moment that at a conservative estimate 20,000 people bought a $5 membership for Fileplanet to get into the beta. A standard "Affiliate Scheme" payback for this would be $1 per new $5 membership paid to Funcom. So, Funcom would then have just earnt $20,000.
Now, expand that a little bit to higher signups, remembering that they (Funcom) are anticipating close to 600,000 people buying the game at launch. Remember, they may only have 50,000 keys, but 10 times that number may sign up for the chance to get them.
However, Funcom being a very popular company, the chances are they would have a prior deal in place. For example, "We estimate we will bring you at least 30,000 new signups, and have your Fileplanet advert seen by another million as the news of the beta leaks throughout the internet, therefore if you pay us $40,000 for having exclusive access to the beta keys". This would not be a huge leap (and is what most large game companies / websites would do). (Although if I worked for Funcom's PR I would have asked for alot more for this kind of access).
So, to sum up, Yes, Funcom will be doing quite well out of the beta, but... probably not huge amounts in the scheme of things (600,000 box sales... $50 each = alot of money).
Although for Fileplanet, they stand to make quite a lot out of this (alot more than Funcom) - 20,000 signups, $5 per signup = $100,000 of new business.
And this my friend, to answer your question, is why Fileplanet would pay Funcom to host the beta.
Very true Gishgeron and that what exactly makes me mad.Most of the time the opening areas are polished.What need to be tested is what lies beyond,these areas should be under stress because it`s what gonna happened when we will flood the game.If a game company is not confident enough to let his future player base stress test his content 2 weeks before launch to me it means that the game might be buggy as hell or is missing some content at mid/high levels and they don`t want bad reviews about their game thus hoping to fix things during the next 4 months after launch.I wonder if they would have been acting like that if Warhammer was about to be released a month after AoC.
To jayanti:
You're disregarding two points though.
First one is that a portion of the people that will enter the beta are already Fileplanet members. Thus, Fileplanet gains nothing additional from them. On the other hand, some people have probably singned up for Fileplanet membership with the hope that they might get in the OB, but didn't make it. Those two groups are unknown to us, but can make a difference in the perceived Fileplanet profit.
The second is that you assume that Fileplanet will distribute the retail version (maybe I'm reading what you say incorrectly). This is not going to happen as EIDOS has exclusive publishing rights. What might happen is that Fileplanet may get to distribute future standalone patches, in the same manner LOTRO is doing.
The third is ... well, related to the way they distribute keys. How will Fileplanet distinguish players that joined the service for the beta from players that joined the service for the general merits of it? Fileplanet paying Funcom for the added income from additional subscriptions implies that the distinction is very clear and verifiable by Funcom.
I'm still not convinced that Funcom is getting anything out of this deal in terms of funds.
To Ngeldu5t:
So according to this logic, LOTRO is a flop because it didn't allow unrestricted access in OB? I would expect grindfests without a story to allow unrestricted access. But lately it seems that the games with a strong backstory seem to want to prevent players from spoiling all the surprises.
This is not the first game that has level restrictions, nor will it be the last. The game might be unpolished after the starting areas, but the level restriction is not a direct indication of such a thing. It just raises concerns.
"So, why not just go with a free Torrent download?
“To that I can only say we were one of the first gaming companies to start Torrent distribution a few years ago with Anarchy Online, and of course we know a lot about Torrents, but setting up this for such an event would have served to make us lose focus right before launch. It would not have helped any of us, and running Torrents are about a lot more than just letting the world do it themselves. It needs a lot of work to get it right, and ensure good speed and a smooth customer experience."
I dont know what they are talking about....The torrents are already set up, if you are in the Real Beta you can DL directly or grab a torrent for the client. I find that whole interview very funny indeed.
the big amount of haters just leaves me guessing... why? why are there so many ppl bitching?
1. they are all trolls / they have nothing better to do then bashing a game which doesnt even interest them, if u dislike a game then why? why are u here? if i saw a game that sucked balls id turn around and look for something more entertaining. Do u all have so much free time that u are flaming at a piece of software? ur all soo funny... if it fails then thats that, what does it matter to you if u didnt like it anyway?
2. they all want it to succeed, but dont agree to choices FC makes
I have been paying FilePlanet for years, and they are well worth the money. Frankly if someone is not in a place to afford to pay for services like FilePlanet then there stand a much higher chance of not being able to purchase the game, and pay the monthly subscription rates. So who cares about them.
Having said that there are other large concerns about patching from Funcom. I have been patching the client for 18 hours now, and I have broadband. I think I am only half of the way done with the patch also. I see on the Conan forum others are having the same lousy speed. This is with 50,000 testers and not 600,000 subscribers. How Funcom thinks they are going to pull this off is cleary a
.
I preordered, but if this beta is like some of their other games beta was I might be forced to back out and return to WOW
. Already I know that large portions of what was advertised has not been in the closed beta. I remember that SWG did this also, and look how that turned out.
The part about "If they didn't do research before making the purchase" is problematic for me, since FilePlanet isn't saying whether any keys are available before you have to join.
And since I personally feel that FilePlanet is overrated, their services are crap, and the level of tracking cookies and spyware is too high (like mentioned above) I only access their site on a live cd computer which gets wiped ASAP after any browsing or download is done, any subscription to their crap is a complete waste of money.
All in all I think I'll wait for the first real trial to see if it's worth anything.
And about polished n00b areas, FunCom did make the n00b isle for the Alien Invasion expansion for Anarchy Online which didn't feel or play like the normal game (not even with all the expansions, yes I DO have a fully expanded AO account which I haven't played on for ages (When FC did the ShadowLands expansion they at least made the n00b area like the rest of the expansion, even though the rest of it still lacked the polish, quest density and testing that the n00b area had)).
Let me guess. You never leave the hourse without a tinfoil hat in case the government is scanning your thoughts?
Overall, I thought the article was pretty direct about the Open Beta and their reasons behind it.
Too many games get lost in the beta process and make the beta more about marketing than they do about control and testing.
Funcom, to me has done the best job of controlling and focusing a beta on testing, rather than marketing. And I work in Software Development.
Many people complain and flame developers when things don't go their way, in this case, a free and open to anyone beta. They question their abilities, motives, and anything else.
From technical betas, to the PvP, to the "Not so Open" Open Beta, I think and fully anticipate Age of Conan to have one of the most stable launches in this genre. In the stress tests, I didn't see any "show stoppers" as devs would call em.
I personally like the fact they limited the levels in Open Beta to Level 13. It allows them to focus on the content, lag/latency, and issues that revolve around the most used and abused area come launch time.
The goal of betas is not to let you sample and try as you please, its still to test, even in open ones. I think many people are just passionate about this game coming out, and for some people who may seem to be close, but can't get into the open beta, the last thing they see fit to do is flame the people who have created a game we all I am sure will enjoy for years to come.
But then I guess you never leave your house without posting your banking details and a complete password list on your front door?
I don't pay to test a product and make it better so a company can make more money. Thanks for playing Funcom but I will pass on your game.
lol its bull**, an open beta? its a paying beta. like they cant release the client on torrent "too much work" lol, are they kidding us?? cant they be frank at least. like i was angry with the pre order and collectors bonuses. and when i heard people saying its to stop the kids from joining lol you are browsing ign, gamespot and consider yourself a mature player?
Translation:
"ZOMG I didnt get in so i'm angry the sky is FALLING ROFLCOPTER H4XX0RZ!"
Wait till release, or grab a buddy key from a CE pre-order. You'll be thankful you did.
you're an arrogant prick you know that, just because you got the beta key doesn't mean you can bad mouth him for.
someone forgot their zoloft today
Well i think heerobya needs to appologize to vv33d for being an asshole.
1. Do you like the game?
Yes?
Ok then go buy it on 23rd may load up and enjoy and get your patches the usual way through a thing called the "community"
I hope to join you when REAL life work has bloody calmed down and I can relax.