1 year in review - 2014

[Tomium]

for link and formated text go to: http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2014/...view-2014.html

================================================

Yet another Hyborian year has passed and it is time for my savage review. When you look at the list of things that were promised in 2013/2014 it will be pretty obvious that most of the stuff did not get delivered. On another hand new gear mechanics had to be introduced to add any new meaningful content to AOC. Lets see what was going on in Hyboria during those 12 months.

COMMUNITY MANAGMENT
All Your Tomium Are Belong To Us
[Forum Event] Epic Tales of Uncertainty - a forum game
Halloween Streaming!
Adventurers vs Kang - Hardmode! - youtube re-post
Player Spotlight Rishis
Forum re-design
I often give community managers a hard time because I feel like so so very little has been done over the years to really help AOC and it's community. I spilled my beans on that subject here. With an addition of new community manager I didn't expect for things to change drastically, but I gave the benefit of doubt. Without being an ******* about it the above list is what pretty much has been done for the community over 12 months. Epic Tales ended on a less than epic note. Halloween Streaming was two community managers giggling on Twitch and dieing on their low level characters. It was painful to watch as it was pretty obvious that community managers had little to no idea how to play the game. If someone expected insights about AOC, Q&A session with a dev or learning anything about the game then it was a big let down. I don't mind that "shits and giggles" approach to streaming once in a while IF it is a break from your regular streaming that has both purpose and content to offer. If just laughing your ass off for 2 hours on Twitch is the only thing you are going to do over 12 months then why even bother. We also had one youtube video re-post and one player spotlight. What was that about? Why even bother to do something once and then abandon it completely? I am not going to talk about forum re-design. I will just mention that old design was the best thing I have seen when it comes to MMO boards and I am saddened to see it gone. However if it was needed for technical reasons then be it, it's not that super important. Community management, again as always, resorted to posting server status and path notes with addition of Tomium offering a wide array of snarky comments to the players (which is less than welcomed and opposite to helful).

Thanks for your input.

Since you mentioned me directly, I will gladly respond to the criticisms you have here.

Starting off, let's be fair and have the proper time frame: 6 months. I started in June, so that's half the year gone by. With that timeframe in mind, I will gladly look at this:

• Epic Tales- Yep. It's late. I was planning on doing this when we all came back from holiday, but did not tell anyone that and I take full responsibility for that. We had a skeleton crew during Christmas, and I chose not to continue the story. Again, full responsibility- my fault. I have crafted 16 stories that allow the community to choose their own path, complete with research and different pathways. Even though it is late, I still think it went quite well, and that people have enjoyed it thus far. (That last death WAS pretty epic.)
• Streaming- I admitted several times that I am not very good at this game. I don't have to be in order to have fun. Actually, that's one of the appeals of this game is that you can sit down and just... play.. We never made any allusions to developers answering questions, nor did we ever say that this was to be used for marketing. We wanted to come and hang out. Kind of like a giant mixer party with people you don't know. We wanted to get to know you. Apparently, the people watching like killing me..... a lot.... AoC went from having 0 streams (from Funcom, ever) to having 4 streams in 6 months. I'll stand by that. If you don't like what we are doing in the streams, that is perfectly your right. Keep in mind though that there are other people who are watching who DO want to see what we're doing.
• Player Spotlight/Posting fan made things- We started to do this, but we had a bit of a problem with our selections. We were aiming for one time every 2 months. I openly asked for suggestions, and got nothing new or anything we could re-post. Such is the way of things.
• Forum Redesign- What we want we don't always get, and that goes for us in CM as well. We didn't want the new stuff, but we understood why it was being done (security), and have tried to make it as bearable as we can. I am not going to rehash this again, other than to say we know how you feel about the forums as they stand.
• Snarky Comments- So, here's something for you: I am not in PR, Marketing, Social Media, or Customer Service. Yes, my job has every one of those components, but does not serve one as its master. I chose to reflect the tone given to me by posters. Usually, that is with a wink and a grin. Many people take it as being a player (which I am) and a human (guilty!), and some people get ... well... butthurt. If any of you are butthurt, I apologize. Sezmra and I talked about this and we decided early on that in this community, I could either JUST post patch notes, or I could be more interactive and try to relay the needs of the community to the developers. I chose the latter.

Speaking of-
You missed the new suggestions thread which has cataloged every suggestion in it and sent it to the devs. Not an easy task, as we literally copy and paste each into an excel doc.
You missed the NUMEROUS times that we in CM had the game devs come in and answer questions. Mostly, because you don't know we're doing it- which is as it should be.
You missed the failed attempt at answering the top 5 questions the community had early on in my tenure here.

Honestly, that's the point here. You choose to see what you want to see. I know I am doing my job well, and that I am doing the work of many people in any given day. What you perceive as patch notes is actually a multi faceted process that takes hours to complete. What you perceive as my not doing anything is my working behind the scenes to get answers to questions- sometimes to the detriment of my co-workers. (Marketing got a message from me daily for about a month.)

I may never make you happy, but that's not my job here. My job is to convey the wants of the players to the devs in a way that both can understand. I am the middleman.

What would you like for us to do in the new year? Ask- and I'll tell you whether or not it is doable.

[Jin-chan]

http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/...view-2012.html
http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2014/...view-2013.html

Were they? 2012 got HOC and T4 and 2013 got Dragon Spine zone, DS dungeons and unchained dugeons

HoC was 2011 December when SWTOR was also released. Remember when game was unplayable for month because of that HoC update messed everything up
Funcom basically told players to move on to SWTOR. Biggest hit on user base after Aion release

[Ismemah]

I would like all those input/suggest be constructive for next years.

[Fass]

HoC was 2011 December when SWTOR was also released. Remember when game was unplayable for month because of that HoC update messed everything up
Funcom basically told players to move on to SWTOR. Biggest hit on user base after Aion release

House of Crom came in 2012. How can you claim it was in December when it clearly says 11th of January 2012? :o
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthr...1th-of-January

[Texan615]

HoC was 2011 December when SWTOR was also released. Remember when game was unplayable for month because of that HoC update messed everything up
Funcom basically told players to move on to SWTOR. Biggest hit on user base after Aion release

I thought the late 2011 update that wrecked the game for many people was the Dreamworld update.

This happened to coincide with Skyrim being recently released in Nov and SWTOR released in Dec.

Many players left during this time.

[-Blash-]

You missed the new suggestions thread which has cataloged every suggestion in it and sent it to the devs. Not an easy task, as we literally copy and paste each into an excel doc.

If Funcom would apply 1% of those suggestions, AoC would be almost perfect game. Imho waste of time now to catalogue what people are repeating for over 5 years. FC was so close to have almost ideal game during afair 1.4 era - just some small tweaks here and there, polishing sieges engine and we would have a game with thousands of players paying and supporting the company. Bah... some wrong decisions and we have what we have. Hope for improvements? For last 2 years I see only words and promises with no game-changing crucial decisions.

FC please make a Grand New Opening: AoC 2.0, make this game with brutal, hardcore pvp based on the players suggestions: sieges, guild wars&alliances, territory claims, meaningful pvp with competitive goals and objectives both for players and the guilds. I would pay again twice much to see such a game in action.

[kinlock]

FC please make a Grand New Opening: AoC 2.0,

Oh God, no! Funcom IS what Funcom does. Just look at what they have done to AOC..... And you want them to do it again and think they could do better!?!? They can't even make a playable siege play field without a million tons of lag. They can't, or don't, fix simple bugs. I could go on but I've wasted enough time on FC today.

Yes, I would love to see a AOC done right, but not by Funcom. Funcom's development pace and community team are a major turn-off to me.

[Lambert81]

FC please make a Grand New Opening: AoC 2.0, make this game with brutal, hardcore pvp based on the players suggestions: sieges, guild wars&alliances, territory claims, meaningful pvp with competitive goals and objectives both for players and the guilds. I would pay again twice much to see such a game in action.

Good idea BUT it's never do it becose FC one time say "make PvP game to hard and we don't do this".
For good PVP need hard work - class balance (5 year they fixing balance), motivation in PVP (Bori dig, yeah baby!!!! It's realy brutal and savage challenge! sarcasm) motivation in siege (we save our keep 1 year and so? + 250 xp and +5% resist to knock?) but siege motivation is a easy creating.
FC good company but he haven't resources (money, developers) to make somting global in aoc. And all global what's make FC after release only kill AoC.))) And thay know this.

[Jin-chan]

House of Crom came in 2012. How can you claim it was in December when it clearly says 11th of January 2012? :o
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthr...1th-of-January

True, did truly remember it came in 2011 December.

I thought the late 2011 update that wrecked the game for many people was the Dreamworld update.

This happened to coincide with Skyrim being recently released in Nov and SWTOR released in Dec.

Many players left during this time.

You are right, i just remembered that HoC was on that same update. My bad

[KephaPT]

Which other company you think would do the same or better? I hope you won't post any of those based on Korea. True that the old bugs are an issue that should have been attended long time ago, together with other many things - like my IGN being changed from Kepha to Kephaofcrom when the system says "there is no user with the name of Kepha", but still.

In a totally true story, I thought the last week would change my mind completely regarding this Company when during the sub offer purchase, in the still hard to navigate account, I end up paying two 1-years (I even came here extremely upset to spam). It turns out, within 24-hours and it was Christmas day, I had a e-mail informing that I would receive my money back and indeed I have.
I cannot imagine how it would be if it was for example NCSoft, nFlavor or NEXON. The latter I still had my support tickets pending after three years.