Age of Conan - The most massive Failure I've ever participated in...

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Kahnvex

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Sep 5, 2001
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WARNING - It's a long one.


Color me uninformed, I didn't have the misfortune to experience Anarchy Online, Funcom's first major MMO abortion. I thought with AoC, the potential and the massive interest the game had at the beginning would be enough to carry it until the devs got their act together, and how wrong that assumption was.

I liked the combat, I liked the graphics, and the world, and just about everything else about it. They proceeded to slash and burn virtually every aspect of the game that made it enjoyable. If something cropped up as an issue, they obliterated it.

Group XP abuse?
-Shotgun the group xp bonus.

Gems making PvP too one sided?
-Destroy almost all benefit they give

People on forums complaining about "x"?
-Grab your ass, because they're about to blow your class out of the G.D. airlock

Is your class too powerful in PvP?
-Stand by, we're about to ruin your ability to PvE with some serious nerfage.

Funcom didn't just have a nerf bat, they had a nerf Howitzer, and nobody to really aim the damn thing reliably. They tripped over their own peckers every patch.

It seemed with every patch they would break some essential game mechanic that was fine before, while introducing or changing things that were virtually useless to the gaming populace, and absolutely ineffectual at rectifying issues. The enitre post release dev-cycle was filled with patch after patch of knee jerk reactions to things that weren't even relevant.

They would introduce new quests, leaving broken ones as is for months. My favorite thing that they did was take the time to introduce more voice overs. That garnered the biggest "W.T.F." from me that I've ever experienced in an MMO, and granted, I'd only played one before. It was a doozy as well... it was SWG.

At least with Star Wars Galaxies, Sony sloooowy drove it into the ground over a three-year period, with gentle taps, almost lovingly, until the final New Game Edition fiasco where they bolted on a run and gun control scheme to a point and click interface and finally decimated their player base in a two week period.

Funcom drove a game into the ground with a 10 ton sledge maul, in less than 6 months. I didn't log in for a month, and when I got back, everyone in a friends list of 30 people were gone. I ran through every major area you can run through where there normally would be 40-50 people average on a week night.

There were three, I saw three players. Until I went to Kheshetta, then I saw five more. One of them kicked the absolute crap out of me in about 5 hits. Class balance in PvP my aching arse.

AoC should stand as a perfect testament of how not to do things in an MMO. The devs should write a book and call it "Full on Fail, the Funcom art of Effing things up".

I think that pretty much covers most of my disappointments/butthurts, I think I'm on hiatus with MMO's for a while, at least until Bioware brings out their Star Wars mmo, then we'll see.

I know some of you played it, I'd like to hear what you all have to say about it, post mortum.
 
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That's about dead on,
I die a little bit inside every time I realize that I spent money on that game.
 
Back in july they were recruiting people for "moderators" on their us support forums so I applied and got the job.

I knew after doing that for a week it was pointless.

The site was flooded DAILY with hundreds and hundreds of angry posts by people who were not happy.

Does it surprise me it failed? Nope.

Didn't seem anyone really cared about the way the game was going.
 
The patches broke it? I hated it shortly after leaving the first town. Didn't know they could actually make it worse. Warhammer still seems fun though so maybe there is atleast one decent game to play.
 
Jakalwarrior said:
The patches broke it? I hated it shortly after leaving the first town. Didn't know they could actually make it worse.
Click to expand...

The patches didn't break the game.. the patches always broke "more" stuff in the game which they would have to end up patching again.

The brought up two servers .. a public server and a test live server.. and the test live server basically became where everyone dumped their problems.

It was absolute mess.
 
To the OP:

Have you tried Warhammer? If so, what did you think of it?

I too am wary about spending money on another MMO after blowing all the cash on the AoC CE. I'm back to WoW for the time being. WoW has it's own problems, but at least it is a polished and fun game.
 
Spectrum17 said:
To the OP:

Have you tried Warhammer? If so, what did you think of it?

I too am wary about spending money on another MMO after blowing all the cash on the AoC CE. I'm back to WoW for the time being. WoW has it's own problems, but at least it is a polished and fun game.
Click to expand...

I tried Warhammer and wasn't impressed with it. Mind you I only tried the beta but even that didn't impress me enough to warrant going out to spend money on the game.
 
I remember people were gushing about this game during the first couple weeks of release. Some people were commenting about it just being "fun" where wow was a chore. You essentially need to give an mmo a few months before you can really pass any kind of judgment on it.
 
I liked the game. Stopped playing eventually due to the moronic approach to the classes - I played a barbarian, which had about five non-working feats or abilities, and whose main attack was utterly destroyed because people complained. Never mind that they were a low-armour, high damage DPS class - if they were doing damage people were complaining. It was useless against more than three NPCs, and you were forced to combine both 2H and DW trees to to stay alive long enough to do any damage, unless you gemmed up. This was the main reason I left the game. I could cope with the bugs and the losers forty levels above me raping me to death every time I went into a new area: my class was just shat on. They could take light armour, but all the light was mage-spec. All the 2H were mage-spec.

I wanted AoC to work because it's the only MMO I know of that doesn't employ the fucking silly gnomes and blue-eared elves and green goblins approach. It was nice sticking your knife in someone's throat and tearing it out of the side, it felt more rewarding than watching a bar go down. They obviously just had a serious mongoloid in charge of the decision-making.

Bore.
 
I have played just about all of the MMO games to one extent or another. The one I consider the best is the one I still play and that is Lord of the Rings Online. I actually made it to the top level which is something I have never done in any of the others. The story and characters are very good and they seem to understand that we play these games to have fun. I am also impressed with the amount of new content they have added since launch.
 
i played A LOT when it first came out. hit lvl 55 and was like hitting a wall, the urge to play stopped. iv played maybe 10 hrs in past 2mo ~_~
 
I wish I had my money back as well. I played for a few weeks and just couldn't stand it.
 
I played right up until the point of the first patch. It wasn't the patch that drove me away, it was RL happening so I shut down WoW/AoC accounts on focused on RL. So then I fire back up my WoW account, but keep looking at AoC with a fondness because I actually had fun the whole time I was playing. So over the past few months i'd considering firing AoC back up, but for whatever reason I don't. So now I read this and realize that I probably quit at the perfect time. Its a shame I spent retail price on it, and a shame they kicked it to the ground. I liked AoC 1.0, i thought it was a really innovative MMO, and one that had a fantastic development cycle. The whole process was engaging, and I suppose being involved early on was part of that. Maybe they can bring it back to its roots. Maybe it'll go Vanguard =/
 
Totally agree. LOTRO is the only MMO that can hold me. I've been involved with all the "major" MMOs of late and I just get bored with them. LOTRO has a very compelling quest-driven storyline. Can't speak about PVP as I don't do that.

AOC just never pulled me in and it was very unstable. LOTRO is mature enuf that it is very stable and as you say they frequently add new content.
 
hey I don't play it but don't take these as something unique to AOC
These are found in WOW too

your class too powerful in PvP?
-Stand by, we're about to ruin your ability to PvE with some serious nerfage.
Wait till you see the new expansion. Balance ROFL


hey would introduce new quests, leaving broken ones as is for months. (YEARS IN WOW) give them time
 
How can you call Anarchy Online an abortion, honestly? That's a horrid opinion of it but, whatever. I'm with you, just as everyone else is I'm sure, that AoC sucked harder than a Bronx hooker. AO, that's another story altogether, that's one of the MMO's out there right now that is still very much alive/good and hasn't really changed all that much.
 
I liked it at first, I rolled a Necro right off the bat which is my favorite class in any game.

Then i quit shortly after they nerfed the hell out of them, i managed to get to level 46 and bam, brick wall.

In the beginning i could destroy a boss and 5 mobs a level or two above me with ease, then they nerfed them and i couldn't do squat
 
I jumped ship on the game before my free month was up. I remember the last patch that came out, while I was playing, broke the ability to bind keys... key binding was broken for weeks. Wow... just wow.
 
Wally said:
I wanted AoC to work because it's the only MMO I know of that doesn't employ the fucking silly gnomes and blue-eared elves and green goblins approach.
Click to expand...

EVE-Online. Spaceships instead of trolls.
 
I liked Anarchy Online, don't hate on it if you never played it. It was no WoW, but it was a decent game for the time.

Warhammer looked interesting but when they did that major content cut to get it out the door I lost a lot of interest. Mostly because they cut the class I wanted to play. :(
 
Played it from July to about a week ago. The first levels (1-20) were awesome, and 20-40 moderately fun. I took a short break in late August Upon returning to the game in September, I found the instance in which I was making progress before was now utterly impossible. My Dark Templar that was formerly easily able to handle two of the same level NPCs could now only handle one... just barely (and XP given was not increased). To make matters worse, the NPC density had increased, so I'd get aggro at every turn. I'm not exactly sure what spells they gimped, but there was definitely something wrong. I tried returning to an easier area, but the xp it offered would have taken me a month to level up. All this, coupled with the fact that there was absolutely no one left in my guild and the servers were all but deserted, made me quit my sub.

All in all, I'm glad I had some fun and cut my losses early while it was still a bit fun.
 
I was an adopter of AoC from the beginning and made it about 45 days from launch. I even managed to sign up with a clan/guild for a while, but the game started to tank after that. I decided to subscribe to the theory that things can and do get fixed over time, so after about 65 days of hiatus, I bought one month of service - and restarted the game from the beginning again.

I elected to give AoC another run because I had spent an ridiculous amount of money on the CE, and for a game that had so much promise, I guess I wanted to believe they could fix the problems and make some kind of minor recovery. Also, I had heard that a recent patch that came down on Sept. 19th (ironically, right after the director of AoC/co-founder of Funcom was forced to resign/fired) had made some dramatic turnaround in the game's overall performance.

So far, the game functionally works like it should. I have not enountered a single bug during play (20 levels). Performance has been significantly improved since the first 45 days - I suspect this also has to do with the dramatically lower player population, however, clearly the client is much leaner and meaner. Memory usage of the client is much less, I have not seen one condition that is causing memory leaks (a common technical problem at release) yet - not a single quest has bugged out, animations, sound, etc are buttery smooth. I do feel that the recent patches have made significant improvements to the game.

Funcom also appears to be much more forthcoming in what they are doing to resolve issues - the information on the client loader not only indicates that a patch is coming, but they also detail what the patch is going to fix. Previously, they would patch the game and list a bunch of things that were troublesome, but often I'd be scratching my head going "Wow, didn't even know that was broken."

As far as class balancing goes - I'm not sure all is resolved, and even some of my most recent experiences are more frustrating than I remember. One thing I clearly see now is that the game will punish you severly for not using abilities if you have them, or not being in the appropriate stance if your toon has those available. I roll a conqueror, and have found that proper use of abilities and stances is paramount to success. Beforehand it didn't really matter. I think this should be something the game definitely nails people on in higher level play, but not so sure you should feel the brunt of that in the first 20 levels. I've died many, many more times this go-around than I ever did before.

Can AoC recover? Who knows. Here's an idea - if someone knows somebody at Funcom, you are free to fire this up the suggestion chain - since AoC sparked a lot of interest at release, you know there are probably thousands of accounts now sitting dormant because the game went from very cool to very crappy faster than most people could even comprehend. What would be a good way to get people to at least consider trying your game again? Hmm...how about 30 free days of gameplay? You offer someone who previously purchased the game an opportunity to try AoC again for a month, and see if they feel the game has improved. You might convince some people to stay with it, and then you've increased subscriber numbers. What do you have to lose? Your game already got the sucktastic stamp of approval, which pretty much now means you are subject to the law of diminishing returns and ultimate failure. DO something to encourage people to give you a second look. Most people won't drop another $15 to try it again like I did.
 
I got bored with AoC after the first town... it was the only part of the game that felt finished to me. I went back to EQ2... yeah, yeah, you can laugh, but it is the one MMORPG that I keep going back to when everything else fails to live up to expectations. For me, it is the best MMORPG out there for the PvE set. I'm not a big fan of PvP, I just don't get into it.
 
Played it for a couple of months then cancelled my account.I just had no desire to login to the game anymore..... Pretty much agree with the op. Maybe funcom should change their name to suckcom ? I also want the money back I paid for CE.

I am loving Warhammer. Have not touched WoW since War started.
 
I cancelled my sub before the first free month was out. I had hit 80 on my Conqueror and most of my guild had stopped around level 50. I stuck it out so I could try the end game PvP and sieges so I reupped my account for the next month to give it a try.

Joined a new guild and went to town. We were the first guild to have a BK on our server (Doomsayer) and we PvP nightly. After about 2 weeks of this I canceled again.

A buddy wanted me to come back and help his guild raid, so I reupped for the second month and started doing the PvE raids. Never seen such easy raid mechanics or as many broken encounters before in my life. The raids in AoC are pathetically easy with horrible loot. Plus each patch they would change a fundamental aspect of a raid so you never knew what you were going to get.The entire PvE endgame in AoC sucked so hard I canceled again and never looked back. Have a Conqueror in full tier 1 and some tier 2 that I walked away from. This would be the only MMO where I had no desire to level an alt and no desire to log in.

I took a break and picked up WAR last week. I love every minute I'm in that game. I can log in for an hour and feel like I accomplished something. I have so much stuff to do I'm generally overwhelmed since there is a plethora of world PvP/RvR, scenarios, and PvE content. Being hanging out in the tier 2 areas doing keep sieges and they evoke memories of my days in DAoC which were a riot.

AoC did not evoke anything of the sort except nausea and disgust and I have nothing to good to say about the game except the graphics were the best I've ever seen.
 
i wanted to cancel my sub... in the free month... they charged my CC 5 days early... and they didn't respond to my emails for 3 weeks... the reg page was always "crashing" ...

took me 3 weeks to unsub. what a shit mess. i still owe my friend $50 for the game... anyone want to help? lol.
 
Warhammer Online is awesome (if you like to PVP first and foremost), AoC was a stopgap for me between WoW (ugh it is finally over) and WaR (yay DAOC2.0).
 
It was ok in the first town, after I got out of that it looked like I had walked behind the set in a theater. Super Nerf is dumb, really really dumb. Stop using the public to alpha test your crap.
 
Good write-up.

I, too, regret purchasing the CE. I only stuck around for the free month because I practically paid to play the beta (PvP was pointless back then).

It's a damn shame, too.... the combat system is easily my favorite in any MMO yet.
Too bad... back to LOTRO I go!
 
Yep i quit, hit 80 and nothing to do, the game sucked..collectors edition was a waste of money

to top it off, they didn't deliver half the stuff the box listed

I went back to wow to check out wolk, have to re level since i sold off my 7 lvl 70's that were all decked out, but id have to agree, the ONLY thing AOC had going for it from the get go was graphics, after that it was total fail.
 
I agree 100% (I was actually in beta and still purchased the game), but I'm not sure tripping over your own dick is really a problem....
 
I agree with the OP as well, I whole heartedly enjoyed that game when I first got it. With every single patch by Funcom though they ruined it more and more till I just no longer wanted to play the game anymore.
 
Stop it. You're breaking my heart.

MMO's have done more to kill PC gaming than even consoles.
 
Wally said:
I wanted AoC to work because it's the only MMO I know of that doesn't employ the fucking silly gnomes and blue-eared elves and green goblins approach. It was nice sticking your knife in someone's throat and tearing it out of the side, it felt more rewarding than watching a bar go down. They obviously just had a serious mongoloid in charge of the decision-making.

Bore.
Click to expand...

I love it when ppl get racial in forums. Bore.:eek:
 
And now, a left wing view...

I guess there's always one of us who thinks the opposite, eh? I've played AoC since the early access program and have been through all of the ups and downs. The main difference between me and most of the other players is that i'm a casual MMO player; I log in maybe 3-4 times a week for between 30mins to 4 hours at a time.

For a casual gamer like myself, I take my time enjoying the aspects of the game: unique combat, excellent graphics, PvP aspects, and quest varieties. Im in a small guild on a PvP server that has a few members on at all times. We PvP, do group quests, and raid when theres enough people on. I have 2 professions and somewhat even enjoy the generic crafting and gathering. We dont rush to have the "phattest loot," most lvl 80 chars, or best battle keeps. For a player such as myself, this is a great game to occupy the amount of time I get to put in.... It's fun, fast paced, and best of all, different from the other MMO's out there.

All in all, this is a fun MMO, if you take the time to enjoy it.

Aux
 
Most people play MMOs because the next day when you log in, something the did the last time leaves you in a better place this time. That stops being true when someone gets the massive nerf, or in this case everyone and ther dog gets massive nerfs. It's like when they Nerfed Rangers in FFXI, they went from being the strongest DD (DPS for you wow fans) class in the game to being the weakest. They were also an order of magnitude more expensive to play. It seems Funcom thought it would be "fun" if everyone could experiance that.
 
It makes me laugh when people describe AoC as a broken, buggy mess, having experienced Vanguard's launch and knowing what an abysmal farce that was. AoC is polished and fun by comparison.
I love the design style of AoC, I like the environments, I like the combat (melee anyway, there doesn't seem to be anything special about casting). On the other hand I ran out of content in the mid-50s, like a lot of people, but unlike a lot of people I'm not interested in grinding levels so that's where I stopped. There's a bit more 50s content in now, and a lot more "coming soon". It remains to be seen if I'll bother to go back and try it. I'm also not a fan of the severe zoning, and the instancing of anything except dungeons. The unified, open world was the one thing Vanguard got right.

As a PvE player I only care about class balance because when it's done to appease PvP players crying nerf, it usually ends up hurting PvE. Class balance is a ridiculous fallacy. I think every game should decouple the PvE and PvP skill effects, like Guild Wars does (and probably others do). Or just make everyone playing PvP be the same class and be done with it.

Still, at least I spent a couple of months playing AoC. I have the WAR CE sitting here and didn't even bother to install it after trying the beta.

Kangg said:
Maybe funcom should change their name to suckcom ?
Click to expand...

Don't you know? All the cool kids call it "Failcom", because that's really clever and funny and original.
 
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