Is the "Never Give Up" strategy working?

If any company can use this motto more today than ever...it is Funcom.

From Anarchy Online to Age of Conan, this company has had a strategy that follows a specific pattern.

Mess up, break it some more, fix it up some, add some more breaks, and it goes on.

But, during all this time, the company still struggles, still survives, and holds on for dear life. Is this admirable to you the player? Or is it a sign of a company that just tries to "get by".

In todays work ethic, the "getting by" is a road to disaster in my opinion. Yet, Funcom still survives and holds out for the next financials report.

For example, I can note that each time a financial report is almost due, Funcom takes it upon themselves to scrabble and release an update, do a trial, add new content...something. It is almost like Funcom is working on the "get it in at the last minute" strategy actually.

What do these last minute fixes and changes do? Fix their bottom line and help make those financials look good.

This time around, the 3rd quarter financials are due November 12th of 2009. Luckily Funcom came through and patched Age of Conan. But, they also made the mistake of introducing a multitude of bugs. Then again, they recently lowered the monthly subs for multiple month subscribers...so, could this help that bottom line at the end of the day?

The other issue that always seems to be making the rounds of discussion when it comes to Funcom...is choices.

As of late, their decisions on changes to the game seem to be questioned in all manner and form.

No new raid content for close to a year, another 6 man dungeon when so many exist. Changes to classes making one play style more prevalent over the other..

I am sure any MMO developer is guilty of this. Just for Funcom, at this time, these choices are not the best means to build back up a dwindling population.

So, where do we stand here. The "Never Give Up" strategy looks to be a good call, and makes the company look like they are trying...just waiting to the last minute to make changes, and as well, make some choices that do not vibe well with the community is questionable.

Is Funcom "Not giving up" or are they just "Getting by"?

Age of Conan - Who else worries about AoC?

Looks like Gamestop and Barnes and Noble are worried about Age of Conans longevity as well as me.

60 Day Game cards, normally 30 bucks, now going for $12.99

B&N Price Drop

Gamestop drops price of AoC time cards

Ouch!

Age of Conan - Truth or Dare?

The Dare...

Play a game that is fun to you, even though the company does not care about it's product and then watch as servers dwindle and die as said company continues to degrade the client..

The Truth?

Funcom has a lack of skill and intelligence to truly run a full fledged AAA MMO product without degrading the performance, playability and add content on a timely manner...that it makes it truly unbearable to give the company another red cent.

Lets take a step back in time, and see where this all started for Age of Conan's downfall.

In June of this year a new content patch was applied. Also known as the gear revamp, this patch changed the systems of how gear related to attacks, magic, etc. In so many words, the gear mattered now.

Before the gear had an issue of using numbers that were less than intuitive. But, this also led to a system that skill was more important over the numbers, that people could actually wear basic armor pieces and be good at combat and actually survive combat.

People were torn over this update, but it did make a difference in how the gear looked in relation to stats. They made sense. A new gear reliance game was born.

At this time new content was introduced. New dungeons, a new zone. Life was looking up.

Funcom then introduced the return trial for launch players. The servers loaded up. New stuff to do. Quest progression versus leveling was well done now. People were pleased with the changes taking place.

Age of Conan went to the upper 20's on Xfire. Life was looking up.

Then began the balancing act.

From July and on, Funcom started a MAJOR revamp of the classes in Age of Conan. Melee took some hits as their capabilities were diminished. Casters were spiked to be more powerful and even sometimes harder to kill.

A disconnect took place over the issue of Stamina versus Mana (Stamina runs out for Melee for running AND combat, yet only running for Casters...and as well, the amount of Mana used is less to a degree than the relation of stamina for a melee class...it is complicated to say the least), and people started to complain. The game had a new name by many ... "Age of Casters".

This is normal for most MMO's though. Some class becomes favorited and it sees a balance shift...but not a whole STYLE of gameplay.

But, then time went on in the revamps, and nothing was done for classes (Assassins receive no revamp) and certain classes were gimped even more (Barbarians...the mainstay of Conan).

Then the issues started.

Each patch would break something for no reason. Guild cities now had a bug where if you entered and stayed for a bit, goodbye ALL sound in the game, forcing a relog.

Bizarre issues like hair changing color while zoning, turning the players body gray after certain knockdowns in certain zones...the list goes on and on.

And each patch got worse. Life was looking...down.

The worst part is during this whole time...ZERO content was added. Thus endgame suffered, and nothing was taking place to create things to do. It took almost 4 months before anything new would be added.

What would we get with that new update? They add a 6 man dungeon. That is all. (They did add a Halloween event, which will be removed within the next two weeks...so, if you wish to count quests that can be completed in 1-2 hours...cool).

But, with the content patch, we get NEW bugs. Blocked quests, mitigation in raid issues, new memory leaks, the return of the dreaded RED BAR lag spike that had been missing since the beginning of patch 1.05...the list goes on AGAIN.

Thus, this is where we are at. Two hot fixes are in and yet, some of the issues still exist...as well as old issues that have not been fixed.

The client degrades and Funcom sees the outcome (at least I can as many others do). Xfire has a dip into the low 60's and over the weekend bombed into the 70's. The first time ever.

Raids are taking a decline in how many are taking place. Grouping takes hours to get together. The Trader suffers as certain products become over priced and others take a dive as the player cannot get rid of it. Certain items flooding the market coming from people running the same content over and over.

Emptying servers overall is Funcom's reward.

So...Truth or Dare: Would you play a game where the company who runs the game continues to ruin the experience, creates a dwindling population with empty servers and hits a long running game with bugs that creates a game environment where you are more scared to run the client and log in than just load up another game title instead..

You decide!

Age of Conan - BROKEN game!

Age of Conan truly has hit rock bottom. Ongoing issues and then new bugs as well causes the game to become an almost unplayable mess.

Recently an update went live (Tuesday Oct. 27th) which added new event content and a new dungeon.

Along with this wonderful content ... a slew of new bugs like lag spikes kicking you out of the game, raids being borked due to mitigation issues, broken quests, trader issues...

Basically they fixed one issue and introduced three more.

I am now in a major discussion with my family of what to do. The wife is of course very forgiving...especially seeing she has not played an MMO in ages, and AoC is the first one to entice her back.

She loves it. And she does not want to give up that easy.

Same for me...

But, at what point do you say that you have had enough.

Do you go to a restaurant, eat a shoddy meal, yet have good appetizers, but the delivery of the food took forever, yet it was an excellent deal....and finally say...well, I will go back again or never return?

This is where I am. I love the meal, but man oh man, I hate the service.

Age of Conan is just on it's last legs. Maybe someone finally needs to put her out of her misery...or mine at least, as I just do not want to play another MMO. Maybe if they shut it down, I could finally move on.

Help me Obi-Wan!

EDIT: Just when you think you are talking to a brick wall, along comes the Game Director and opens the "Devtracker" (Source)

Looks like details on upcoming updates, a central source for info on the expansion and a way to see what bugs are being tracked, issues, concerns and more.

Alright, Funcom gains a small reprieve...but for how long?

Age of Conan - Bugs that bug me

If you are not quite doing it yet, then by all means, check out Twitter (no need to sign up either...but just to read).

Quite a few bloggers are using it now, and getting their thoughts out there in a Readers Digest version.

I have a current streak going today called "AoC bugs that bug me". If anything, Age of Conan lacks some fundamental Q&A, and it shows with so many silly little bugs. The hope is more polish will go into the game as it continues...but no one knows for sure.

Got one to add? Please post a comment here.

Anyways, head here (http://twitter.com/openedge1) to see if yours is mentioned...and if not...let me know here.

Cheers

I return....with the bug report

Ah yes, we love them, we know what happens, we know IT WILL happen.

I call it the bane of PC gaming (and seems to be the console problem now as well)

Bugs!

After having a long weekend, with an included field trip with a bus of 50 screaming kids, and a boring day at a location called a Discovery Place, which has exhibits on Science, Math, History, etc., I put in some time on Witcher, and tried to finish some achievements in Fable 2.

Let me start with Fable 2.
Three of us in the household.
We have all played and beaten the game.

We ALL have some glitch on our game.

The wife has a glitch that her Furniture Store has become EMPTY...especially when she was being such a nice landlord and buying the furniture to redecorate all the homes she was renting (as well as the stores she owned).
I have a glitch that was based on my first wife disappearing (yes, I got married again because that wench walked out on me)...but then she reappeared after the main story ended. But, she was still broken. Could not emote, make babies, etc.
I killed her.
Now, I have a quest to rescue my child...but it is attached to the child of the dead wife, and he was taken to protective services. So, the quest is now broken...

We ALL have a glitch that various shops and stalls will not have sales anymore (usually these would be announced with discounts or markups, etc.).

So, what happened along the way? And why is this so common (check out the huge laundry list of bugs here...)

Ugly.

Luckily our overall experience was quite fun. But, why must we suffer such bugs in today's programming? These teams for these games are huge. QA runs for quite a while. Yet, we see more bugs than is possibly imaginable.

Just like MMO's. Why is it acceptable to have this player created "6 month" window for fixes. An MMO is never really ready for 6 months after release....why?

As to PC games, we have even more issues with hardware, software glitches, etc. Not even the programmers fault, but it makes PC gaming more of a hit or miss situation.

Anyways, this takes me to the NEW enhanced, bug fixed, fixed up, uber Witcher version..

That still has old bugs.

I had decided to start over, as thanks to the enhanced version, the story is more fleshed out. It reads better, is more cohesive, and some mechanics worked better (like potion making and leveling skills).

One issue presented itself to me when I played the game last year.

I got stuck in a cave after rescuing a young boy. The wall I am supposed to knock down, would not go down. Seems an updated patch would break this wall so you could not go through.
You had to reinstall the game from scratch, and then continue that save, then could patch after knocking down the wall.

This rears it's head again in the Enhanced version.

Seems some steps will cause this to happen still.

In so many words, if a certain person is not spoken to, be prepared to go back to a previous save.

But, another bug showed up.
Seems the copy protection scheme is broken on the new version, and you need to update to the latest version of that software (TAGES protection). And to add injury to insult, you must also update the DVD firmware if it is older than the recognized format of the copy protection.

Player? Meet hoops.....can you jump?

Anyways, if you did not update the protection, a very important NPC is missing (invisible) and you cannot continue.

Both of these issues are huge game breakers.

Games cost quite a bit nowadays. We pay good money to keep the developer continuing to create these great games. But, when I am forced to search for answers to dilemma's, and sometimes there is no cure...we are stuck with a 30 dollar coaster.

I have found this missing NPC thanks to hours of installing, fixing and going back to previous saves.
But, why should I have to do that?

And is the cave going to be ok on this run through?

Same with Fable 2. These issues just make the end game sort of...not too fun to load up anymore.
(But, an announcement on something happening is coming next week...hope it is a huge bug fix patch and FREE content)

Have you gotten to the point that if you buy a game...you expect a bug? Or are you still surprised when it happens?