Game Director Letter – August 2013

[Kurt2013]

In other words: if we set the expectations at rock bottom we cannot fail.

AOC has little to no resources and so saying: we don't want to over promise sounds a lot better than "we don't have any money".

The Hyborian race, for me, is pvp equivalent of horse racing track: no one asked for that and you are delivering because its dirt cheap to deliver.

While I appreciate that GD comes here with replies some of the posts are just cracking wise at paying customers. I personally don't enjoy this "forum buddy" attitude in GD and posting "lols" in replies along "you don't like the game then quit". That is the kind of stuff that I can get from other forum posters, I don't think it suits paid professional with high position in MMO industry.

Again my personal stance is that I am disappointed with current GD and how AOC development is going.

You took the words out of my mouth...i really appreciate him answering and giving some insight of why things are happening...but had he just stopped there...
Please Don't fight your customers or at least do it by taking them seriously and argue (quoting: "incoherent and utterly unuseable")...period (though i think now, some of K4nnycs post might have been edited...).
I can't say i am as much disappointed though, because i find his excuse of finishing old promises believeable enough...though the resource argument or "it is too expensive" sounds funny, if companies with even LESSER resources and money can come up with really brilliant concepts and ideas...
Seriously, this level of excuse can backfire too easily and should be avoided (especially if you look again on the vast amount of NOT incoherent and unuseable suggestions).

@Nusquam:
A few questions again:
- Will there be a char limit on the temporary server? (B&G ruleset implies it, but will this apply to different accounts, too? e.g. one char from A and one from B used both by person X)
- Will there be a difference between premium and f2p (like the bonus AA per level)?
- Will the server be physically located in the US as well?
- How do you want to limit access to instances as stated in the letter? (e.g. no sanctum or no khitai or no villas etc.)

[Loaf-of-Evil]

Why not just stop developement all together, learn from the mass mistakes from aoc, then make the new, pvp orientated, AoC.2?

If advertised as pvp, and kept up as pvp, pve would bloom, but most people would stay and play, unlike the pve fest of 1.5+.

AoC 2 sounds so awesome.

Giggty.

[Kurt2013]

I used to play EQOA online...the devs on that game were very upfront with what they could do but then the players got nasty at them... and the devs backed off and the game just stopped.

They actually ran it for about 3 years with no updates, the exact same monsters to kill (on timers for the entire game to boot). It finally got the plug pulled after about seven years (I was in AOC by then, left when they disbanded their version of the test guild which I was part of). So I could see the drop in programming up to when the devs got pulled out entirely and there just was not anything left besides basic maintenance.

Nagging at him isn't going to help out the game. That's my two cents on this whole bashing thread.

That is a good point worthy to be kept in mind. Still i think, an argument can prove fruitful, if both sides keep civil...and those who aren't you have no need to take them seriously and even less need to take things personal, but dismissing them outright and ignoring is not a good idea either (a blind chicken can find a grain from time to time, too)).

It is a good example that complete and full transparency is not a good choice always, too. Especially if you as communicator can not control all decisions involved and plans can change quickly. Luckily there is always a middle ground!

If you see this thread as bashing, it should be obvious that most are bashing (or milder put: voicing concern and critic) at the plans and not at the person.

Oh, and one more suggestion:
Why make the race to 80? why not to 60? Because that is right now the turning point for low level minis and pvewise the levelling slows down a lot after that.

Or offer in between awards:
- first to beat tortage, second to beat etc.
- first to reach pvp1,2,3,4 etc.
- first to beat sanctum (if there)
- first to beat main system necro lord of the dead (if there)
- first team to win mini at 5-19, 20-39, 40-59 etc.
- best heal award in minis
- best flag carrier award in minis
- best flag carrier kill award

[ViolentLeonidas]

Why not just stop developement all together, learn from the mass mistakes from aoc, then make the new, pvp orientated, AoC.2?

If advertised as pvp, and kept up as pvp, pve would bloom, but most people would stay and play, unlike the pve fest of 1.5+.

AoC 2 sounds so awesome.

Giggty.

Who will fund AOC 2? i don't think they have much money mate
and after the lego mmo fail (don't know many kids with Creditcards)
they will be almost bankrupt one could imagine.

I like your other post though 1 pvp server is of course what should happen

[Xenic]

honestly guys, at this point, I almost wish they would just cap everything on this game and focus on a so called AOC 2. Follow the GW business model. Buy the game for 60 bucks, no sub fees ever but do all the micro transactions. They seem to be doing ok with it.

[Kurt2013]

Why should they do that (even if they could)?

They have a good game. They have an online shop. They have active subscribers.

The game can further be improved by constant maintenance and bugfixing even if new content is slow or not there. The shop can be improved as well following already given suggestions in addition to the f2p model (already enough threads about its flaws). The subscription value was kind of increased already, but they can still tweak it a bit.

Why scrap the game, that even with a bad start is their least risky asset (not so sure about AION though) and about to return the money invested?

This would just create another backfiring credit bubble at the expense of longterm investment, imo.

[andistoteles]

The thing is that the lack of content feels like a insult. Its so obvious that they dont priorotize this game at all. On the TSW forums, they are so happy after the GD letter. Why is that?
They are getting a lot of new features. The development team is split in half. 50% is working on issue 8, 50% is working on issue 9.
I wonder how big % of development team is working on Age of Conan?

In the forum post regarding the GD letter at the TSW forums, everyone is full of exitement and praise of GD Joel, and the things comming for TSW in the future.
Here on the Aoc forums the tone on the posts is a whole lot different. Why is that? Is it because we AOC players are *******s, while TSW players are a bunch of nice guys? no its not.
While TSW get so much cool content, we get the oppurtunity at grind to 80 on a relanuched server.

Pepole have the right to complain under circumstances like this.

[smacpro]

This is not true and you should know that too. Even if they had deployed some hunters, these would probably not get what they came for (the big boss). Here is the game design flaw again. One minority enforces gameplay on others without consequences. People did not put x in the chat for pvp action, they wanted the boss.

It would be completely different if pvp rewards were somehow linked to the boss behaviour and health (and thus drawing in hunters to hunt the hunters or increasing pvp xp the nearer or the more fights are happening around it) or it could be controlled somehow and used to hunt enemy teams...

or one random player inside playfield will be the boss and opposite team needs to destroy him

[Kurt2013]

Sure, why not?
The whole video would not be as sad to watch, if the assasin would have been the pvp boss...maybe with the option to spawn small pve bosses to distract the lootwhores amongst his enemies...

[Bibik]

Pepole have the right to complain under circumstances like this.

You're entirely right, the only thing that annoy me is the fact people here act like jerks towards Nusquam who isn't responsible of Funcom's situation (3 games and few ressources).

I think AO players are the worst in that scenario.