- The Helvetica Venture
- Experience the World of Warcraft like no blood elf fanfic has before.
- The Warcraft Eye
- In a drunken stupor is a bad time to get caught undead in Azeroth.
Age of Conan: How an MMORPG Dies
The MMORPG Age of Conan was released by Funcom right around the middle of May in 2008, probably to avoid getting steam-rollered and plowed under by the Wrath of the Lich King expansion for everyone’s favourite fantasy juggernaut. In less than a month of blistering sales fueled by desperate gamers trying to escape the pull of Warcraft, Age of Conan had gathered up over 700,000 subscribers in its muscled and well-oiled arms.
Six months later Funcom was quietly merging servers and banning anyone who talked about subscription numbers on their forums. Age of Conan is now, for all practical purposes, a walking and half-naked corpse shambling toward a dark horizon. So what happened? How did Age of Conan die?
The quick answer? It was never alive.
When you first login to Age of Conan, you’ll wake up on the shores of a lush island, overflowing with quests, voice actors, plotlines, and wonderful vistas. Even bitter veterans who wouldn’t piss out Funcom if the entire company were on fire admit that this starting zone, Tortage, is a great experience. Tortage lasts for about twenty levels out of eighty. Then, you step away from the jungle harbours and into the wide world, and that’s when Funcom shouts “Sucker!” in your face before running off laughing into the night with your money. They give you the finger the whole time.
You see, a few things were lacking after Tortage. Those wonderful vistas transform into dirt and rocks, mostly because the DirectX 10 support listed on the box isn’t actually in the game. Instead, Funcom took the graphics overhead DirectX 10 would have used, and plugged it all into the famed Realism Brownifier. That’s right, in the harsh world of Conan, real graphics are brown and dirty.
You might also discover the barren lands are short on things to do, since all those Tortage quests which brought you up to level 20 are gone. From here on out, most of your questing will involve going to the proper Place of Great Respawn and grinding mobs like you were filling up a resume to take some Chinese gold farmer’s job. The dust and dirt must be really hard on the lungs, too, since the vast majority of quest givers are mute. Voice acting, it seems, was too much a courtesy for Funcom to extend after the trial period.
But hey, at least your character isn’t wearing a clown suit like those technicolour lollipop bastards over in Azeroth. That’s true enough, but you better like that brown, realistic outfit, because you’ll be wearing something just like it for the rest of your career. Not that it matters what bonuses it gives you. Character stats didn’t work at all when the game released, and bonuses on gear were so low you’d need to twink out a full suit over a single bonus to even see a 1% increase in your abilities.
Fortunately, you’ll be able to move around those desolate zones easily enough, what with how dying and rezzing is actually a faster way to travel than going there through the game.
And you will die, make no mistake. The combat system relies on position and combos to deal your best damage, but the great part about this is that while you’re pressing the four buttons and swinging around the five attacks for your combo, the other guy just walked away from you, got into position behind you, and sank his sword into your spleen. Oh, and two classes can close in on you under stealth. Doesn’t everyone love getting ganked by Warcraft Rogues? In Age of Conan, there are two different flavours of teabagging rogues to sample and savour.
To their credit, Funcom has tried to fix the problems of their newest flagship game, but it seems whoever actually built Age of Conan has gone on to other pastures, or perhaps their next life. The remaining crew’s attempts at repairing the game can be likened to dozens of monkeys eager to help out with an especially critical moment of brain surgery. It was messy, things got broken, there was alot of hooting, and something nasty was left dripping off the walls.
Gaute Godager, the Producer and Game Director even resigned, leaving Funcom after sixteen years with the company over how the game was handled post-release. Without Godager’s influence as a unifying force, the game sunk further in the pits of hooting monkeydom.
Suckered in by the newbie zone, 700,000 souls subscribed. Faced with the rest of the game after level 20, they unsubscribed. It all lasted a bit over two months.
In the end, all that is left are guilds of gankers, hiding in grinding caves and waiting for someone to unstealth. What began among the jeweled towers of Aquilonia ends then, here in caves and dirt. And brown. Lots and lots of brown.
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You forgot the tags “Personal Opinion” as well.
A lot of what you state is very much what has happened to the game, yet, there is so much in this post that screams “Because I hated the game”…which felt like it should have been added to each line.
Suckered in by the newbie zone, 700,000 souls subscribed. Faced with the rest of the game after level 20, they unsubscribed.
Sure, a lot HAVE left the game, yet this sounds like everyone left except for the guilds.
If you would frequent the forums, you would note quite a few NEW people entering. So, it is definitely in flux right now. But, not dying, like say Tabula Rasa.
but the great part about this is that while you’re pressing the four buttons
This shows a lack of knowledge on the current game. This has been MASSIVELY changed to lower key combo’s for skills. Two keys for the majority with upgrades also being two keys, and except for level 80, stays that way. Yet, at 80, 3 key combos are the max.
Also, changes to the res pad travel is gone, more content has been added for mid level, with high level on the way. Finally, DX10 is moving to the testlive servers this month.
Opinion pieces are cool, but should be noted as such, and also that your opinion is based on the game that launched, and not how it is now.
Hey there. Thanks for commenting.
Yes, to a large degree these articles are personal opinion. Especially a post-mortem on a game. Funcom hides any real info well, so we on the outside are trying to dissect a sort of black box.
I don’t play Age of Conan. Never have. But I do keep tabs on the video game community, and those who did play the game have their concerns and reasons for leaving, and it’s those reasons which make up the bulk of, yes, this opinion piece.
Also, we agree here. This article is based on the game that was launched. Age of Conan had such promise, and it sold like hotcakes and orgasms. I would have loved for it to be great. I’m a gamer, I want more great games out there, yes? But it wasn’t. The game wasn’t finished, and would never get the chance to be finished because the vast majority of those early subscribers didn’t like paying a monthly to beta test a game that essentially ended right after Tortage. Not when Warcraft was waiting to welcome them back (with a unicorn zebra!).
Age of Conan is a lesson. Funcom promised big, delivered little, and paid the price for their mistakes. Seen Funcom’s stock value lately? So that’s why I claim that Conan was dead before it even hit the shelves. Funcom killed it in the womb.
Unfortunately for Funcom the people who financed the project forced them into an early release because NO ONE in beta said the game was ready for live. As a matter of fact 99 percent of them said if you release now the game will not make it. The lesson to be learned in all of this is if you don’t release a polished MMO people will not stay. This game was barely fit to go into beta let alone be released with well over 50 percent of the game broken or missing. It’s sad they let this game fail as it was being looked at as the next huge MMO. Funcom lied so much to try and hang on to subscriptions and in turn made it to where I will never buy another Funcom product as long as I am a gamer.
Thank you for writing the above commentary. You pretty much hit the nail on the head for the most part. I limped along to Level 77 with Funcom for a good long while, dealing with all the game’s issues. I left when they managed to make the only area of 70+ mobs (Keshatta) tougher to take down and at the same time breaking my HoX’s abilities to function (breaking fire damage). I gave it a good run but, in the end when that “new game” came out I have never been back to AoC. I had really high hopes for AoC, it’s a very sad story indeed. –Niko
Most of the concerns you brought up aren’t concerns at all anymore. Try playing the game and then talk.
Quote = “I don’t play Age of Conan. Never have. But I do keep tabs on the video game community….”
Your opinion means nothing until you have played the game. You need to play the game to understand why this game holds sooo much potential for the future of MMO’s. If you have played Wow…and then you play AoC, you will realize how refreshing it is. The game is breathtaking to say the least. Although there are still many issues present, this game is truely one of the most amazing mmo experiences I have had to date.
A lot of people have been resubscribing recently. People are leaving Warhammer and aren’t willing to go back to WOW. People are beating WOTLK and feeling that it’s just more of the same. People that had previously played AoC that had a bitter experience are once again enjoying it now that a majority of the main bugs and lag issues have been fixed.
The future is looking bright….
-DX10 is just around the corner.
-AoC is going to be the worlds first CUDA enabled game.
-Expansion pack is already being made
This game is no where near dead
Our server (Doomsayer) has had tons of new guilds form within the last 2 weeks. Guild cities are being constructed all over the place, the player base is growing again for the first time since the release of AoC.
Posting an article based of the opionions of other peoples opinions mean nothing. Write an article based on your own personal experience.
.
SHENANIGANS ! on this whole article …
Folks … come on over to the AoC forums and see what’s going on for yourself.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/index.php
There’s always going to be people complaining about a game … it’s inevitable. But overall this game rocks.
Nelson is not even describing half of the game features correctly. I’ve said enough.
-OUT-
.
Basing a game on a community….. LOL
I alo thing it funny you havn’yt actually played that game sp basic your biased against it from the get go.
LOL thanks for the laugh dude
You’ve never played the game? Isn’t that like doing a post-mortem without a body?
Things you’ve got right, despite not having played the game:
- the game is dying (although not yet dead)
- the first 20 levels are great, but content thins out a little bit after that (50-70 was bad, although they now have an extra region for that, which I haven’t tried). Endgame in particular is very thin, and yes, voice acting is essentially gone after tortage.
- It was buggy on release (memory errors, siege errors), and they have been struggling to adjust things (e.g. crafted vs dropped items)
- Combos were an issue, although I’d stress that they worked great for PvE, and it was only in PvP where their usefulness was questionable
What you’ve got wrong, likely because you’ve never played the game:
- the graphics do NOT get worse. I’d argue they get emphatically better - the mountainous regions in particular are really spectacular, and the graphics quality is the best out there for this type of game.
- Backstabbing? Really? Rogue classes will stab you in the back. Its what they do. Twas always thus, and always thus shall be.
- Grinding? If you’re grinding in this game, you’re doing it wrong. I never, ever ground in this game on my way to capping. There were always enough quests to fill out the xp progression, although at some points I didn’t have an awful lot of choice about what they were.
- The reason for the game dying is not because of class balance issues, or thin content, and certainly not graphics. The reason its dying is because they simply released too early, before they had a PvP system in place, and before they’d ironed out the many, many bugs (including sieges, which could have made the game). The game needed 3 more months in beta, and because they released too early, they lost too many players before could get those bugs fixed. Also, I reckon a lot of people left when they realized it wasn’t as stable as WoW (scope/size, finely balanced across classes and PvE/PvP, sophisticated raid content), which no release game was ever going to be. One way or another, no critical mass (at a time when tough competition arrives in the form of WAR and WotLK), game dies.
You might want to actually play a game before you post negative crap about it. 90% of what you mention is a non-issue since it’s been fixed/isn’t in the game anymore. Also, if 70% of the people running Conan were able to run it on anything but minimum graphics, the “beautiful vista’s” would, in fact, be there all through the game. DX10 will do little to change that when said machine can barely run the game on DX9.
Am I making assumptions? Yep. Sure am. But at least I didn’t post them as an article that comes across as being informed. Seriously…get your facts straight and stop going off of hearsay if you want to be taken seriously. The game is now nothing like it was at release and is, in actuality, quite better than any other MMO on the market at the moment.
It’s a sad day when drivel like this is taken as serious and well-thought-out and informative writing.
“I don’t play Age of Conan. Never have. But I do keep tabs on the video game community, and those who did play the game have their concerns and reasons for leaving, and it’s those reasons which make up the bulk of, yes, this opinion piece.”
300,000 left, 400,000 remain. Perhaps you should have looked at a few of the positive posts by the 400,000 remaining before you decided that “It was never alive. ”
I’ve never been to this site before, so I’m not sure if it is aiming to be a balanced review of video games. If it is, this article was certainly not balanced or fair in any way.
You have no bisuness posting about a game you have never played. AoC has its problems, but unless you played the game you don’t know what they actually were, how it exactly affected the game, or how quickly they actually were resolved.
FYI, ganking guilds quit for the most part. All thats left are players that are willing to wait it out, who have had fun since day one, and some die hard fans just like every MMO that isn’t WoW.
Cimmeria is the perfect example of what good things can come out of this game, as well as Tyranny (guild wars 24/7 you bet!)
Wow. Well I don’t think you could be more biased if you tried. I haven’t played AoC, but now that I have read this, I think i might.
All this from someone who has never played the game…..I have never been to the moon but I like to keep up to date with the latest developments in space exploration…that, with the greatest respect, does not qualify me, nor would I presume in all humility to compose and publish a critical statement on its current condition, as you have seen fit to do.
From my perspective as a player of the game, and I play it for at least four hours a day every day, Funcom are doing their utmost to make reparations for their errors that were present in the game when it was first released. It is recognised fact that with most games of this genre a great many of initial subscribers leave during the first few months, that is the nature of the beast.
You site the combat system in your article as being detrimental to game play, but you fail to mention that it has also been nominated for an award.
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadfeature=2484%2FMost%2DInnovative%2DFeature&bhcp=1
You, as you claim to be “informed” as to all matters concerning this type of game would I be unfair in the my judgement of you by suggesting that should have known this, why then you felt it prudent to omit this information is of great concern to me and quite frankly debases your whole argument.
I really like how you feel you can honestly review a game that you have never played? talk about biased. Also you might point out the bugs and disasters in every other MMO at launch to date. but then again you can’t face that reality. So do everyone a favor, before you attempt to butcher any other game, actually play it a month or two.
BTW, if conan sucks so bad, why are server pops rising? Why are people posting on the forums about coming back? If you really kept track of teh community like you say you would oblviously know that. But evidently you dont. therefore you harldy know jack. nuff said.
Declaring an MMO dead after 6 months, without ever playing the game is a little premature.
I sometimes wish I had a time machine to show every WoW player what WoW was promised before release, what was left out, and all the issues WoW had in its first 6 months. Then they would realize that MMO’s don’t just pop on the market 100% finished and ready to go, over time they are modified and adjusted, changed and fine tuned till they are good games. While some points with-in your article are true of the game overall the game is still alive and FC is working on those issues. For anyone thinking of trying AoC I would wait 3-4 months to let FC get a few more things fixed before trying it out.
All those who say ‘play the game’ before you write have a point, but having read the books and played the game for a while I couldn’t have put it more succinctly.
Aoc is brown. Shit brown. The icons are brown. The mobs are brown. There isn’t enough separation from the item database. The items don’t feel like rewards, they look and feel like another brown thing with a different rowid and an extra percent added onto a stat. Wow icons are shiney, sparkley and rewarding.
Metagames you take for granted in other mmorpgs are non existent. The auction house is unusable. Want to put an RP outfit together? you better like brown.
Something is fundamentally broken in AoC. The wife and I played for 2 or 3 weeks then we just lost interest and unsubscribed. It doesn’t pull you back, there aren’t enough carrots dangling in front of you - the next level or item just feels like another entry in a database.
I’ve played muds for years, nethack for days on end. Runescape for more than a year, I can put up with poor graphics, sound etc if the underlying game is good.
AoC isn’t. Its brown. Shit Brown.
Whoa…there’s a lot of seemingly AoC fanbois rebelling against the thought that someone who hasn’t played AoC can analyze the market, the community, and make a declaration of what they see.
Kind of like the old-timers who wouldn’t accept the fact that the world was round. I am one of those 700,000 subscribers who got the game, tried it, and said, “Wow..what a piece of crap.” After reading this piece, I can safely say that what the author wrote reflects my own experiences with the game. The fact that he hasn’t played the game is irrelevant. He has a good enough grasp on the game that the first fanboi to post thought that he hated the game from personal experience.
AoC is a crap game. It matters not a whit what changes, upgrades, fixes, or anything else happen now - it had its 15 minutes of fame, and worked hard to earn its title as one of the worst MMO releases ever. Couple that with Funcom’s poor business decisions and customer support, and its a crap game. In the eyes of all but the fanboi, AoC was an experience in suckage. Just deal with it.
The review was applicable 6 months ago. Today that sounds almost alien, as if you were talking about an entirely different game.
The same would be true if you wrote a review about WoW when it first launched 4 years ago. Infact, I remember the WoW launch. I spent most of it seeing the following two messages.
‘Emergency Maintenance!’
‘World Server Down’
I received a full 5 weeks of additional game time in the first TWO months of launch due to server down-times being almost constant. After the servers were FINALLY playable, they crashed almost every couple hours for about 6 months. Even then the crashes continued well into a year of the games release. They only finally stabilized after 2.0 went live for a few weeks, and since there have still been an abundance of downtimes for a few servers.
That alone, tops anything Age of Conan did in the ‘phail bucket’ however this wasn’t really looked down upon. Why? Because most MMO’s had issues then. The MMO genre wasn’t anywhere near as cleanly polished, expectations were not nearly as high. You’re completely forgetting that prior to WoW, every MMO launched without most of what it said. And nobody cared! WoW itself, launched without MANY of it’s promised features. A couple of those being…
-Battlegrounds
-Hero Classes
-Siege Weapons
-Raid Zones
-World Raid Bosses
To name a few, so lets not gut AoC for the ‘empty promises’ bit that most every MMO is guilty of. If I had to be honest, I’d say AoC was one of the smoothest MMO launches I’ve played through, along with WAR. They were both far more ‘release’ ready products than WoW originally was. You’d know that without a doubt too, if you’d been one of the early 60’s raiding LBRS thinking you were hot #@$! when you got a relentless scythe. Zomg! Epix! (Blues in reality but HEY!)
The game where Warlocks were useless, I mean, they couldn’t do anything!
Shadow priests didn’t even have SHADOW FORM… We just won’t go there.
Rogues were unstoppable killing machines who could 1 shot any other level 60 class except a warrior, in the NUDE. World of Roguecraft anyone?
Warriors were like ‘RAWR SMASH’ with the Arcanite Reaper, and nearly as overpowered as rogues.
And mages? Yeah, they had a 45 second long PvP polymorph. No DR. Coolbeans.
Using false promises as the pinnacle of your review just reminds me of WoW doing the same, ten times worse. It also had no high level content, etc for quite some time… However, since WoW the expectations are higher, and AoC did not meet those expectations. Infact, I do not think ANY MMO will except Blizzards next monster… Since in truth, they’re the only company who will have the resources, and people ot throw at completing a game to satisfaction of a player-base and being able to release it when it is ready, without budget being a ultimatum.
Funcom did well, for what they had to work with I believe. The game is still very fun, and something I’m going to enjoy while waiting for Blizzard to again.. pump out end-game content since I’ve already got 5/5 Val T7 live, and hit 2200 in 2’s back in beta on my DK. Wrath isn’t exactly being highly regarded for it’s end-game if anyone has noticed.
I played AOC until the PVP patch came out. At that time every1 was sick of wowhammer and came back to AOC and it just turned into a major gank fest. Group grinding was pretty much the only way to level at the time. But with the overwhelming number of gankers lurking around it was no longer fun.
The game was no longer a role playing game but a numbers game. The Guild with the most members wins.
While I had alot of fun in the early stages of the game and enjoyed dueling it out with other players whilst making friends to quest with, it somehow lost all meaning at level 70. Sure things might be alot better now but the ONLY way i will ever give the game a second chance is if funcom offer me a free month to see how it is for myself.
Why are you calling this mediocre piece of science fiction “a review”?
I believe most of the factual errors in your ramblings have already been pointed out aplenty by other commenters, so I won’t repeat it. Although if you want to retain any kind of journalistic credibility in the future, take the following advice: When writing about any subject, having a modicum of insight into it is helpful.
For instance, your idea of Gaute Godager’s presence as a “unifying force” is a very clear sign that despite your claims to be “keeping tabs on the community”, you are in fact entirely clueless.
I reckon Mr Godager was politely “requested” by the Board of Directors to take his hat and leave, because after running two successive games into the ditch (AO, AoC), leaving it to Craig Morisson (new, current game director of AoC) to fix them and turn them into profitable ventures, there was just no sense in keeping Mr Godager in the company. The new game director has a clear idea of what he wants the game to be - he has a vision that does not change on a weekly basis. He also seems capable of getting the design staff to do what he wants them to do in accordance with that vision - again very unlike Mr Godager.
First presenting a series of bogus “facts” about a game, and then proceeding to admit you’ve never actually played the game in question is … An interesting way of doing things, to say the least. For your sake, I hope that’s not the general modus operandi of this website.
Closing comments: To anyone playing the game, it’s not secret that it still has issues - most notably a distinct lack of level 80 content. But your “review” failed to mention any of those.
Take care. :)
“I don’t play Age of Conan. Never have.”
How can a person even have an opinion about something they’ve never tried. It’s like a little kid saying “I don’t like broccoli” when they’ve never tried it. This entire article is pointless and inaccurate.
Some of you AoC lovers remind me of the Monty Python sketch where the guy keeps insisting he’s not dead yet. You’re missing the point: It doesn’t matter what state the game is in *now* because it’s already missed it’s shot. It’s pretty simple: they pushed it out the door too early, needing to avoid the dual juggernauts of WAR (which ironically was also released too early to avoid the next one) and Wrath. They optimistically figured that a constant cycle of fixes and content additions post-launch would correct the obvious flawed experience after Tortage. They flubbed this big-time before finally starting to pull it together 6 months later.
That explains it, but doesn’t excuse it. Nelson Williams may not have played AoC but he hit it’s problem on the head and no amount of fanboy crying is going to change that. The masses aren’t going to come leaping back to AoC now, not if they fixed every single problem and turned it in to a magical blowjob machine. Combine a bad initial experience with the availability of better-known alternatives and you have Tabula Rosa redux.
Also comparing it’s launch and subsequent improvements to WoW’s launch is just wonderfully stupid. WoW’s launch had many problems but was clearly superior; we can deduce this from the simple fact that it is still around and still breaking sales records and AoC will not be and isn’t.
So… I read and then re-read the comments about how you should state that your personal opinion is also your personal opinion because something that is obviously your personal opinion being that you wrote it personally.
I must say, all you monkeys need to let go of whatever retarded notion you have in your brain, everything you state… IS YOUR OWN PERSONAL OPINION.
It can be no other way, you can’t express someone else’s opinion, though you could possibly express your own opinion of someone else’s opinion if you wanted to. But it still ends up being an expression of yourself, and thus, your personal opinion.
Also, I should note I have neither played the game nor left it, so from reading this article I saw nothing of bias in it, certainly I would have to go and see if in fact the game is mostly brown, but all in all, I’m not really that interested in games at this point in my life.
So it seems like the bias is not the author’s… seriously… RLYRLY?
Man, bunch of haters up in Conan.
You’re not interested in video games, but troll video game review commentaries? Okay, that makes some kind of sense. Let’s all start voicing our opinions, about others opinions, when we have absolutely no idea what the other person is talking about.
The negative commentary comes from someone posting an entirely inaccurate, out-dated review of something they know nothing about, nor put any effort into researching prior to writing the review. Yet the writer, is arrogant enough to refer to himself as ‘well informed’, after making several errors, one of after another.
It isn’t a matter of opinion to point out this review applies to a game as it were, when it launched. There is a difference between opinion, and fact. It is an opinion the review is bad, not that it is not even applicable to said game now.
As I said, this is about as accurate as if one were to review Vanilla WoW now that WotLK has released. If you’re not up-to-date with an MMO, you don’t know anything about it. They are ever-changing titles, anyone who has played a couple would know this, which leads me to think the writer isn’t much of an MMO player at all.
One quick point, this is Funcom. Anyone else remember the launch of Anarchy Online? We couldn’t walk 20 yards in the big cities without it taking 20 min. at the END of the beta and it only got worse at launch as more people flooded in. It eventually got better and that was during the fairly early years of the genre, still not acceptable but understandable. This is 2008, and whether or not pushed out by marketing, this was a mistake, a very obvious one. It’s loosing them money and possibly a decent IP they can build on. Warhammer at least saw the problem and did what they should have, popular or not, and released the finished portion of the game.
One comment I would like to make that seems to have been left out was the horrendous customer service. I actually had no help from their customer service department with all the technical problems I was having and took the issue to the forums. A forum moderator actually responded with the comment that if the game worked fine on ONE SYSTEM, then the game was not bugged and all the other systems with errors, no matter how many tens of thousands, must be due to inept users or shoddy computers.
@Lillim, we certainly remember the early days of World of Warcraft when everything felt like it has been sieved through a cheese grater. The graphics didn’t want to behave… Warriors were broken.
It is always good and pleasing when MMOs finally get off of their feet and find their running pace.
@Phang, horrible customer service has certainly done in MMOs for us in the past. We go to MMOs and play videogames for the experience, and if that experience falters we like to see it fixed. When the people who would otherwise fix it are hostile or incompetent—we generally don’t come back.
Funcom definitely do amazing games. At least, for our conception, The Longest Journey series was a brilliant star in an otherwise diminishing genre; but from what we hear it has been on hiatus for quite some time to develop and bring forward Age of Conan and others.
We really hope that whatever crisis of faith or flaws in AoC that affect layoffs and this sort of tumult in the fan community doesn’t lead Funcom to losing track of their other wonderful franchises as well.
Ths rvw s crp. Mb tr ctlly PLYNG th gm thn y cn whn.
“I don’t play Age of Conan. Never have. But I do keep tabs on the video game community, and those who did play the game have their concerns and reasons for leaving, and it’s those reasons which make up the bulk of, yes, this opinion piece.”
People commenting on something they have never participated in and only based on hearsay are rumor mongers and lack any real credibility. The core individual value system is built on personal experience and perspective. You are simply a myopic lemming or pathetic sheep to be lead around by the opinions of other. A huge problem with society today is the mindless herd mentality, where identity is only fostered by the groups and associations with which people are tied. Its really pathetic. Even more pathetic are people who blogg about things they haven’t experienced.
How does a person develop an opinion on something they have not experienced anyways. Its simply culling opinions from a select few people - one segment of said gamer group. Its biased and completely of base.
Did you ever stop to consider that the most vocal people are the most hyperbolic and least credible sources of good journalism? There are many many people who could comment on this so called article/opinion piece and laugh.
Lets look at the most harped on opinion in the article and we can see how incredibly shallow the opinion is. The game is brown. To many instances of harping on a complete opinion based irrelevancy to what most gamers are concerned with. (Unless you are under the age of 18 maybe ?)
I find it rather pathetic that people read articles like this and actually believe the non-credible tripe.
I just want to take my time and laugh at each and every one of you who bought this game.
Why?
Because I learned my lesson about how defunct “Funcom” is in mmorpg.
I will never forget how badly they managed to screw the pooch with Anarchy Online.
Just let this be a lesson: never, ever, ever buy a Funcom product.
[...] Age of Conan: How an MMORPG Dies [...]
You hit the nail on the head with this. I bought AoC when it came out and my experience was frighteningly indentical to what you describe. Loved Tortage… hit the real game… unsubscribed. The thing that sticks in my mind most was that at level 20 I expected to be wearing something that doesn’t look like beggar’s rags and wielding better than a broken animal tooth… Now that they’re merging servers, I can finally delete the game from my HD without guilt.
Ww y’r wrtng BS rtcl bsd n nccrt r ld nfrmtn.
Grt jb s jrnlst thr bdd. Hv fn n WW.
The unfortunate truth of the AoC debacle is one that is all too common for dying MMOs: A Beta run that is cut to short or completely misused. The biggest mistake Funcom ever did was to completely remake their combat system (you know that original, interesting, combo-system they showed during initial promos). For the 8 months or so I was in beta, all we really did was to test the “new” combat system and Tortage. The combat remake meant that there wasn’t enough time to actually test the rest of the game.
And it shows. AoC is a pile of steaming crap at this point, with so much potential wasted and lost.
The whole “you can’t comment on this unless you played it” argument is complete BS.
Does a journalist reporting on genocide in Darfur have to actually have been in the country while acts of genocide were happening? Is it required they see the acts personally, with their own eyes? Or can they use the sources of others to base their opinion and comments on it?
One can get an informed opinion about an MMO from talking and interviewing players, and someone who actually plays the game can be completely oblivious to the disadvantages and negative opinions of many fellow players. Obviously, none of you have a clue how journalism works.
There are many factual errors in this article. It’s funny that the premise of the article is for the most part correct, while at the same time being so erroneous in the reasons cited. A few things.
1.) THE biggest reason why AoC “failed”, is because of stability. That is not even mentioned.
2.) Another HUGE reason why AoC “failed”, is because the crafting system, and other “meta” stuff (auction house)..was utterly broken.
3.) Another huge reason why AoC “failed”, is because balance was enormously screwed up in both PvE, and PvP.
Those are pretty much the top three reasons why AoC “failed”, and save a glancing over the balance issue it wasn’t mentioned. You made a huge deal out of the “browness” of the game..that was a terribly big gripe people had. You also commented on the graphics..are you friggen crazy? The graphics in AoC are BY FAR..the best of the MMO’s and right on up there with the best FPS’s.
The game you (mostly innacuratly) described is AoC ~2 months post launch..not AoC now…which is explained by you never having played it..and apparently never bothering to even read the forums, to check on what you have said..For instance Gaut was anything but a unifying force, while as the new guy was a devider..in fact its the complete opposite. The new guy is getting shit back on track.
AoC..while unfathomably mismanaged at the start, had and still does have an amount of potential to be a mind blowingly great game. It was released WAY too early..everyone knows that. The most rabid fanboy knows that AoC was released at least 3 months early..but lets face some facts. AoC had a choice of either releasing right before summer started, and thereby picking up the younger crowd, who were getting out of school, or releasing (when they “should” have), smack dab inbetween two Juggernauts..Warhammer and Wrath.
Bottom line, is that releasing when they did, they were able to be the top selling PC game of all time..Had they released in Oct/Nov in order to garner the pre Xmass/Thanksgiving crowd (the other time in which big releases try and get)..they wouldnt have gotten any where near that, nor the amount of press.
The bottom line comes down to Gaut and crew, completely screwing the pooch with release and Dev time. Had Gaut not had his head up his ass, and taken 5 some odd years to the release the game, they could have released a much more complete game when they did, and IMO would have been STRONG competition for WoW…and Judging from the cold (no pun intended) response to WotLK, could have over taken it.
Well..AoC has come a long way since the review you gave..and from the looks of things, start of next year AoC will (hopefully), be to the point where it should have been at release. People are getting really tired of WotLK..its getting to be a really old game comparable to the computing power thats out now, its the same old mobs, with the same old rep grind, with the only really new things being adjustments to the UI..Warhammer didnt have anywhere near the impact that people thought it would..which odd enough IMO is largely due to the “non-WoWers” being extremely skeptical after AoC.
AoC STILL has the potential to make a summer comback as WoW’s treads get worn thin, and they are on that track..The question is how fast, and how well they work..and how able are they to do some honest PR.
For the record..I played AoC since early release to the 3 month mark..came back for a little bit not too long ago, and decided to give it another few months. I also play WH..and played WoW till WotLK release (Sometimes I play on my nephews account)..and have been playing MMOs since UO.
In short..You have no idea what you are talking about..and not to toot my own horn, but you should just copy and paste, mine and a few others reviews into yours.
[...] Age of Conan: How an MMORPG Dies [Vox ex Machina] [...]
I love how much in deinal people can be when they invest enough time in it. I love how everyone assumes this person hasn’t played the game to completion. I played up till 20 and the game was so bug ridden that as many people have commented it was clear it wasn’t ready. I don’t know how to run an MMORPG business but when you defend a game with saying “Well they are going to fix” something rather than say “It was fix a long time ago” then you have a problem.
When you are dealing with a game that has had an almost 50% exodus, you have a problem! The game had potential but I wouldn’t know because I was too frustrated with it. It doesn’t make me a moron, nub or idiot. I wouldn’t sit in a restaurant and continue to eat a bad meal in the hopes that the next course will get better. if you would then great.. Enjoy the stomach ache..
[...] http://www.voxexmachina.com/news/age-of-conan-how-an-mmorpg-dies/ [...]
SHENANIGANS ! on this whole article …
(down with the haters)
Marcello, you are doing the exact same thing that people are complaining about this “review” about.
1.) He admits he has never played this game.
2.) You played to 20..Basically you have no idea what the whole of the game is.
3.) Very few people will deny that AoC at release and for many months there after it was garbage. Its not “fanbois” that are ranting here. Its pretty much anyone who has played the game past Tortage, and has kept at least somewhat up to date on the games going ons.
The problem is, is that the game (in particular since the August update), HAS gotten much better, and there have been some fundamental changes…the biggest being Gaut getting the boot..which again is a glaring inaccuracy in the OP. YES..AoC still has a long way to go..YES AoC was utterly broken even several months after release..YES AoC is going to have a very long and hard hill to climb, after pissing off 1/2 the player base..but the truth is, right now FunCom appears to be making a fairly respectable attempt at that climb.
Gamers shouldn’t want AoC to fail. I have no problem ripping on things that it has done wrong..Like I said..I left in disgust after 3 months, and pointed out a few that werent even listed, but AoC DID push the envelope on a lot of things, the most obvious being the graphics, and Audio quality.
In order for this market to grow it needs to do a few things. This genre REALLY needs a face lift, to get in line with today’s Tech..AoC is the only MMO to offer that. This genre is in desperate need for innovate combat systems..AoC at least attempted that. This genre is in desperate need of combine/revolutionizing PvP, and PvE..AoC allbit piss poorly did this…There are more things, but as per AoC those are the biggies.
The only thing MMOs are doing REALLY well right now with are the UIs..which quite frankly is almost entirely player driven VIA 3rd parties. Basically Devs are taking popular mods, and putting them IG..which really means that the Bigger games (WoW, WH, EQII..ect..ect), havent done anything innovative in years, and years.
Right now, as a genre, we are “stuck” with the Bubble gum pop version (WoW), and the market has no incentive to change their formula. IMO, if you are going to do a review of..well..anything..You should at bare minimum A.) Give it the “old college try” and B.) be factually correct in your arguments.
Neither of these was done for this article.
AoC is the best selling PC game of all time? Can I have some of your famboi super juice? Hell WoTLK sold more in 24 hrs then AoC has sold in 6 months. Your game is going the way of the dodo, And no amount of QQ on here is going to change it.
To those of you who are saying that this article is wrong, you are wrong. I played AOC, this article is 100% exactly what occurred with anyone who tried the game out, word for word.
And for those of you saying that AoC is somehow one of the best selling pc games of all time, you’re wrong again. AoC: 700k copies the first month, hasn’t sold crap since. WoW Wrath of the Lich King: 2 Million + copies THE FIRST DAY.
Wake up and smell the coffee, AoC is an unmitigated disaster akin to Vangaurd.
Even though this guy never played the game it seems he is right on. I played the game since EA and played for 6 months.
Another terrible aspect of this game are thier in game “rules”. I will give you one example. Rangers, the archer class in AoC, can not use terrain to thier advantage. Shooting an arrow from atop of a rock or a building will get you banned. The gm’s say you must be on level ground to shoot somebody.LOL
To the phanbois who still play this game and stick up for it, how long is it going to take for you to realize you have been had? The game released 7 months ago and it still has way more problems than WoW, UO, EQ1-2, Vanguard, and every other big mmo combined. All’s i have to say is have fun…. lmao
Gaute Godager got sacked, fired, pink slipped. It was he who was responsible for the bad release and broken promises. The board of directors just got tired of him…
AoC was the best selling game of all time at its release..Obvioulsy WoW has taken that crown back. Its funny hearing fanbois, and QQ being thrown around when I have clearly stated a couple times now, that the game was shit, and that I quit.
There is a difference between hating, and giving an actual and accurate review.
You hit the nail right on the head my friend. I got a good laugh at the idiot that said
“Folks … come on over to the AoC forums and see what’s going on for yourself.”
Please, there is nothing left over there but cock slobbering fanbois wanting to spread’em wide for failcom. Like they are gonna get a prize or something. The above article pretty much nailed it.
Also, let me add that I am a vendor for Wal-Mart among other retailers. 6 of the 10 Wal-Marts I visited last friday did not carry AOC anymore. The tag where AOC was is even gone so its not like they were sold out.
There are lots of spots for Warhammer and WoW vanilla/BC/WOTLK.
AoC is infact on its way to the grave.
I would also like to mention that DarkFall just announced January 22, 2009 as the OFFICIAL Launch of the game. There goes another huge hit for wjhats left of AoC
[...] Age of Conan: How an MMORPG Dies [Vox ex Machina] [...]
Right conclusion, wrong logic.
See my response at
http://cto-rebelmonkey.blogspot.com/
[...] ex Machina have posted an interesting article about Age of Conan and its ‘death’ (Clicky). Really is a shame, I was hoping to hop back into Hyboria now I have this new PC, but now, [...]
Wow, you know I actually told Funcom in the beta forums that the game sucked and needed more time to be polished.. I got flamed for days over that, and look at this, THE GAME TANKED. Holy shit, was I right? Yes I was.
I don’t think that giving them a whole new year to work on the game would have saved it before release, from start to finish the game was a major slap in the face. The only highlight of the day was the nude female models and the gruesome finisher combos.