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Title: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: rattran on July 24, 2008, 08:56:00 AM Buddy Codes are available! You can try to get your friends to pay Funcom too!
Quote Dear Age of Conan gamer As you may know, every owner of a Collector's Edition may invite five friends to come play free of charge for seven days. At last we are happy to announce that we have enabled this functionality. This means that now is the time to invite your friends to come play Age of Conan and see what all the buzz is about! The invitation process is easy: Log-in to your account page, and choose "Buddy program". Follow the on-screen instructions, and then write a personal message to your friends if you so desire. We are certain you will make many a friend happy with this token of appreciation, and what is better than chopping of Pict heads together with your best buddies? We recommend that you lend your install DVDs to your buddy to get him or her ready to play as fast as possible. Alternatively your buddy will be offered a $2.99/€2.99 client download with 3 additional days of playtime to cover the download time. We still highly recommend the personal touch of going to your friends house with the DVD install though. Not only does this make it completely free for your friend, it also allows you to show them the ropes! Sincerely, Funcom Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Nevermore on July 24, 2008, 08:59:48 AM You have to pay to download the client for a trial? :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Evildrider on July 24, 2008, 09:20:27 AM Funcom = retarded.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Mrbloodworth on July 24, 2008, 09:33:31 AM This was already posted, and is being discussed in another thread.
Its 3$ if you don't give them your cd's, and the download is 20+ gigs. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: rattran on July 24, 2008, 09:46:07 AM This was already posted, and is being discussed in another thread. Its 3$ if you don't give them your cd's, and the download is 20+ gigs. I stopped reading the very long threads, and doubt I'm the only one. And $3 for a free trial is too much. Plus this came right after the 'Your Account is now FROZEN' email, which amused me. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: CharlieMopps on July 27, 2008, 08:41:40 AM GameDev1: "So, we are losing subscribers, we need to get some new people in-game!"
GameDev2: "Yea... well, we could get the buddy key thing going..." GameDev1: "But we have to generate buzz! We have to do it in a way that no-one has done it before!" GameDev2: "Hmmm... I know, lets charge them for it!" GameDev1: "Charge for a free trial? Brilliant!" GameDev2: "Brilliant!" Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Sutro on July 28, 2008, 01:09:33 PM In fairness, I don't think that $3 to download 20+ gigs is really that bad.
-Sutro Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: SnakeCharmer on July 28, 2008, 01:12:16 PM I really don't either. Someone had to be the first to cross that bridge (charging a minimal fee for trying out the game). Other studios will probably follow suit.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: cevik on July 28, 2008, 01:16:49 PM In fairness, I don't think that $3 to download 20+ gigs is really that bad. Asking me for my credit card info before letting me have a free trial is too much of a barrier to entry for me to ever try your product. Making me pay 3 dollars before hand is above and beyond that. It doesn't matter if it's a good value to pay $3 to download 20 gigs, that's not the question. What matters is that Funcom desperately needs better word of mouth, so for some dumbass reason they decided to make starting a free account just that much harder. If they had been smart, they would have offered to have someone come over to your house and install the fucking game for you, asking you to pay $3 to try it is the dumbest move I can think of a company ever making (it surpasses PotBS refusing to give me buddy keys when I asked for them because I downloaded the game, and look where they ended up). Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: CharlieMopps on July 28, 2008, 02:06:49 PM I really don't either. Someone had to be the first to cross that bridge (charging a minimal fee for trying out the game). Other studios will probably follow suit. Considering it costs them practically nothing for you to download it from them, I'd have to disagree. Bandwidth is cheap. Anyways, if they really were concerned about trial accounts eating up bandwidth, the solution would be simple: Torrent Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: pants on July 28, 2008, 06:26:04 PM Theres plenty of countries (like Australia) where downloading 20 gigs is a big deal and a big cost. So I'd gladly pay $3 to get a DVD for a trial if I was so inclined. I agree that handing over a CC number is a concern however - I'm paranoid enough to be worried by an 'accidental' charge going through.
And AoC aint the first to do this, I've seen WoW trial disks in EB for $5 for something like that, and I'm sure someone else did that a few years ago. Or was that pay to get into SWG beta? Actually, that rings a bell, I seem to remember mocking someone for paying to be in a beta... Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: UnSub on July 28, 2008, 07:53:56 PM To play the WoW trial, I had to put in credit card details. Ditto for AC.
WoW trial CDs were on sale for $2 at EB in Australia for a while there. They may have gone up. DL 20GBs is a huge ask - it's my monthly total before I start getting hit with excess charges. I'm still interested in giving AoC a go, despite all the reasons they give me not to. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: HaemishM on July 28, 2008, 08:00:48 PM The $3 charge is not to get a DVD, it's to actually download the client. I'd pay the $3 at the retail counter to have a physical disk(s). I'm not paying $3 to download a "free" trial client for a company that's wanting me to be their regular customer.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Xuri on July 28, 2008, 11:22:32 PM Asking me for my credit card info before letting me have a free trial is too much of a barrier to entry for me to ever try your product. Is this really so unreasonable? It's supposed to be a game for a mature audience, and currently the "insert credit card number here plx, kthx"-method seems to be the popular (and only?) method of screening the grown-ups (in body/age, if not necessarily in soul/mind) from the kids.Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Falconeer on July 29, 2008, 01:42:04 AM It's a wall. It's not even a matter of reasonable or unreasonable: this is advertising, and they are asking you money to "enjoy" their advertising.
Some will pay it, but so many will just think it's not worth the bother. That is the wall they put in, and as an added effect it contributes to build up bad reputation. It's still a huge shot in the foot to me, unless they somehow gather so many 3$ bills out of it to counter and surpass the subscriptions they'll never collect BECAUSE of those 3$ bills. P.S: You can do that with a winning game, as every cool kid is doing it and the "3$ wall" can be seen as the price to pay to be cool. Mind works weird (and is a terrible thing to taste) especially coolkidswannabe one. But if your game is in any situation that is not pure win (not to mention pure churn) you shouldn't try to act cool as if your shit was cocoa. People usually don't buy it. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Xuri on July 29, 2008, 03:37:57 AM Oops, I misunderstood. I thought he was talking about having to provide his credit card to setup a trial account, not the client-download part. Sorry.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: CharlieMopps on July 29, 2008, 05:56:00 AM Yea, they want $3 to download the trial from their server... this would be ON TOP of any normal bandwidth fees you get from your ISP.
EB games paid downloads are a service they sell. And, in truth, they are just trying to steer you twords their yearly subscription. Something like $20 and you get all the downloads you want with no speed limit. Which is nice if you have a 20MB connection at your house. This is just a normal ol' dowload, probobly capped at 2MB/sec. You don't get disks, or a key, or even an ingame item. Nothing. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: cevik on July 29, 2008, 06:30:19 AM Oops, I misunderstood. I thought he was talking about having to provide his credit card to setup a trial account, not the client-download part. Sorry. I am talking about the trial account. When you have a game that is dying because of bad word of mouth, you need to remove all barriers from getting new people into the game as fast and in as large of quantity as possible. Doing anything that may make the person stop from installing the game is a moronic idea. If that person has to walk away from their computer to find their wallet so they can enter their CC info then you've created a reason for them to not try your game. If that person has to not only enter their cc info, but pay to try your game they've heard nothing but bad shit about, then you are one of the dumbest marketing groups on earth. There are plenty of games I would have never bothered to try, and subsequently never bothered to buy and subscribe to, if I had had to enter my CC info to get into the game. Both EQ2 and EVE are examples of this, they let me create a trial account with no hoops to jump through and they ended up selling me a copy and a couple of months of subscription. Had I been required to do ANYTHING other than download and install then they never would have made a dime. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Mrbloodworth on July 29, 2008, 08:00:38 AM The game is rated "M" for mature, your going to have to give them some CC info regardless. Its age verification, or a sort.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: cevik on July 29, 2008, 09:30:16 AM The game is rated "M" for mature, your going to have to give them some CC info regardless. Its age verification, or a sort. The rating system is entirely self regulating, my 5 year old son could walk into a store and buy an M for mature game and there's nothing anyone could do about it. You'll have to come up with a better excuse than this. EDIT: In fact, AoC can use time cards, so I suspect your defense is silly on two fronts, because you can create an account with a credit card, you just can't download the game. Which means they aren't even remotely using it for age verification. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: schild on July 29, 2008, 09:35:28 AM Yea, but your 5 year old son can't deposit money into the computer and buy an M Rated game over the web. The day computers come with a built in cash transmitter thing, we're all screwed.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Mrbloodworth on July 29, 2008, 09:41:26 AM The game is rated "M" for mature, your going to have to give them some CC info regardless. Its age verification, or a sort. The rating system is entirely self regulating, my 5 year old son could walk into a store and buy an M for mature game and there's nothing anyone could do about it. You'll have to come up with a better excuse than this. EDIT: In fact, AoC can use time cards, so I suspect your defense is silly on two fronts, because you can create an account with a credit card, you just can't download the game. Which means they aren't even remotely using it for age verification. Doesn't matter if you agree. Its the legal reason. Its not an excuse, its fact. As for reality, its the stores staff that are required to regulate. And i watched three "kids" buy it inline before me, bot only after the clerk asked for their parent, and explained that the game is rated "M" and contains "blood and gore" to them and "said i can sell this to you, but not him". The third "kid" was denied because he came alone. It is age verification, you cant have a Credit card in your name till 18, if you use your parents, it is their account, not yours. Even for a trail, you WILL have to enter your CC info for this game. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: cevik on July 29, 2008, 09:52:31 AM Doesn't matter if you agree. Its the legal reason. Its not an excuse, its fact. As for reality, its the stores staff that are required to regulate. And i watched three "kids" buy it inline before me, bot only after the clerk asked for their parent, and explained that the game is rated "M" and contains "blood and gore" to them and "said i can sell this to you, but not him". The third "kid" was denied because he came alone. It is age verification, you cant have a Credit card in your name till 18, if you use your parents, it is their account, not yours. Even for a trail, you WILL have to enter your CC info for this game. No, it's really not the "legal reason". ESRB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Software_Rating_Board) is self regulating. Some stores choose to follow the regulations, however, no one is legally obligated to follow the regulations. In fact, Funcom does not verify age when you create an account. Anyone can purchase an account and a time card and sign up for an account without every presenting any kind of age verification to Funcom. So your entire argument is worthless and silly and you're just trying to, for some stupid reason, justify the fact that Funcom is a bunch of dumbasses. In fact, I could give my Buddy Key to a friend along with the CDs and he could purchase a time card, regardless of his age, and there wouldn't be a single bit of "Age Verification" to Funcom. And they don't care, this isn't about age verification at all, you just latched on to some silly excuse and are repeating it ad nauseum with no evidence to back your claim. You don't know what you are talking about. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Mrbloodworth on July 29, 2008, 10:00:13 AM Funcom IS participating. In the ESRB and the PEGI.
And your bitching about entering CC info and 3$ like its something new. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: SnakeCharmer on July 29, 2008, 10:06:42 AM Seems to me, people are just crying about as a means to have something to cry about. Just another Damn you Funcom for touching me there!!! moment.
3 bucks. It would most likely cost you more than that to go (heh) buy the trial CDs from your local Best Buy or whatever. I do have SOME sympathy for those that have download limits, however. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: cevik on July 29, 2008, 10:09:14 AM Funcom IS participating. In the ESRB and the PEGI. And your bitching about entering CC info and 3$ like its something new. I love how you constantly change your story ("IT'S LEGALLRY REQUIRED!1!") and continue to completely gloss over the fact that Funcom doesn't do age verification for an account and the CC info is only required to pay for the download, which turns your original point into a silly farce anyways. But none the less, according to the ESRB themselves (http://www.esrb.org/retailers/retail_council.jsp), the only retailers that have offered to enforce the rules are: Quote ESRB Retail Council Members * Best Buy * Blockbuster Video * Circuit City * GameStop * Movie Gallery/Hollywood Video/GameCrazy * Sears/Kmart * Target * Toys "R" Us * Wal-Mart Notice a distinct lack of Funcom in that list. Furthermore, Funcom is not obligated nor do they to enforce the ESRB guidelines. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: cevik on July 29, 2008, 10:10:31 AM Seems to me, people are just crying about as a means to have something to cry about. Just another Damn you Funcom for touching me there!!! moment. This place is fun, if I say something good about Funcom I'm just a "AoC Fanboi ZOMG!" If I point out that Funcom is making a stupid move here, I'm just a "AoC HATA! ZOMG!" Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: SnakeCharmer on July 29, 2008, 10:13:26 AM Oh, that wasn't directed at you. To be honest, I sort of just glanced over what you said. It was more of a general statement more than anything. Probably directed more towards the official forums than anyone here.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Mrbloodworth on July 29, 2008, 10:15:42 AM I did not say it was legally required, i said it was for legal reasons. In some states, and country's, it is a legal requirement, and enforced. Better to cover your ass then become "unrated" and not sellable at all in those areas. Blanket solutions work best.
I admit, i don't know the ins and outs of the ESRB ETC.. But you just listed a huge amounts of (huge chains) stores that do enforce the policy. Your quite welcome to your opinion that "this is dumb", but how about letting others also have the opposite opinion? Its an M rated game, they want your CC info to make an account. Big deal. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: cevik on July 29, 2008, 10:17:57 AM I did not say it was legally required, i said it was for legal reasons. Either statement, parsed in any direction you want to parse it, is false. SnakeCharmer: Messing up on buddy keys, something that should be so simple and can be so helpful for your game, is one of my pet peeves (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=12212.msg407085#msg407085). Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: cevik on July 29, 2008, 10:21:41 AM I did not say it was legally required, i said it was for legal reasons. In some states, and country's, it is a legal requirement, and enforced. Better to cover your ass then become "unrated" and not sellable at all in those areas. Blanket solutions work best. Okay so you edited on me and I am trying to get a direct answer from you so I'll point out how stupid you are yet again: If this is about age verification, then why do they NOT REQUIRE a credit card to create the account? The only requirement here for a credit card is for the download, which you don't have to do if you have the CDs in hand. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: SnakeCharmer on July 29, 2008, 10:29:42 AM Naive as it may sound, though I may be right, it could quite possibly be an oversight on Funcom's part (not to require a CC for creating the account).
That said, creating an account does not equal being able to play the game, correct? You still have to DL the game/trial in which you have to use a credit card to purchase the $3 trial. Or is there something I'm missing... Create a Funcom account = no credit card, though you can't download the trial/game. To download the trial = credit card required. To buy the game = show ID (if the store is ESRB compliant) To register the game = enter CC for billing past the first month. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Mrbloodworth on July 29, 2008, 10:29:46 AM I did not say it was legally required, i said it was for legal reasons. In some states, and country's, it is a legal requirement, and enforced. Better to cover your ass then become "unrated" and not sellable at all in those areas. Blanket solutions work best. Okay so you edited on me and I am trying to get a direct answer from you so I'll point out how stupid you are yet again: If this is about age verification, then why do they NOT REQUIRE a credit card to create the account? The only requirement here for a credit card is for the download, which you don't have to do if you have the CDs in hand. AFAIK, they do require a CC for an account. Buddy keys/Time cards being a possible exception. Depending on the store you get it from, they will card you. To download the game, you need 3$ and a CC, so yet another possible verification. I have no doubt that when a trial is offered, depending on where you are, there will be CC info required, unless they want to go through the process of having diffrent rules for every area or rule set. Personal attacks are not needed, and only make me leave a conversation. Your still upset about CC info and 3$ however. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Dren on July 29, 2008, 10:43:57 AM Even with all your arguments back and forth:
I'm not paying them $3 to try their game. Make it completely free and I might. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Falconeer on July 29, 2008, 10:52:41 AM Quote from: Snakecharmer Seems to me, people are just crying about as a means to have something to cry about. Just another Damn you Funcom for touching me there!!! moment. 3 bucks. It would most likely cost you more than that to go (heh) buy the trial CDs from your local Best Buy or whatever. Nobody here is crying about anything. Funcom made a move to attract new people and some of us here think that the 3$ part makes it an extremely goofy move, while some other think it's a standard executed move. Nobody here is crying, nobody here would have a problem paying the 3 bucks (neither they will) and nobody gives a shit about AoC trial I guess. While I think slapping Funcom is the FOTM (not mine, I am still playing and loving it), this is a situation where in my opinion they deserve their faces melted by evil punches. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: cevik on July 29, 2008, 10:57:09 AM Create a Funcom account = no credit card, though you can't download the trial/game. If it was about age verification they could plug ALL holes by putting a CC requirement on this step. It's not about age verification, which is why they don't have a CC requirement on this step. The silliness of "Age Verification" is something that Blood invented himself (actually, he didn't invent it, someone else said it in the thread and he latched onto it like a fanboi gone mad) and it didn't come from Funcom or anywhere else. If there is an official statement from Funcom saying that the $3 download is for "Age Verification" then I'll at least give the argument merit. But as it stands it's just some shit some guy on a message board made up and it's obviously wrong. And Funcom are still a bunch of idiots for adding a step to the process, which means people won't be doing it, which means less customers. EDIT: P.S.: I left the game really liking it, but I also realized there were not enough of my friends left to do any real raiding/endgame pvp on a regular basis, which is why I was playing so I thought I'd give it some time and come back when more people are playing, which is why I think this move is even stupider. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: HaemishM on July 29, 2008, 11:06:05 AM 3 bucks. It would most likely cost you more than that to go (heh) buy the trial CDs from your local Best Buy or whatever. And if I were getting the trial DVD/CD at the store, I'd have no problem paying $3 for it. That's one thing. Charging for the download bandwidth is another. See my post about barriers to entry... as in the more barriers to entry you give a customer, the lower the chance they'll give you any money. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Mrbloodworth on July 29, 2008, 11:07:43 AM ahahaha, fanboy gone mad.
You wonder why people go to such extremes with you, when thats what you dish out. This place is fun, if I say something good about Funcom I'm just a "AoC Fanboi ZOMG!" If I point out that Funcom is making a stupid move here, I'm just a "AoC HATA! ZOMG!" On a related note, other than the buddy key. You cant make an account with out a key of some sort (just tried (https://register.ageofconan.com/account)). So you most likely passed through some sort of "verification" at some point. Unless the store doesn't care and sold it to you anyway, then you just need a CC for the account (Required on regastration account from box copy). Your only options are use a key (Retail/buddy), or digital download (EU/US = $3 by CC). The buddy key seems to be the exception, but only with friends disks. I cant check if they ask for CC info there, as i would have to burn a buddy key. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Lantyssa on July 29, 2008, 11:14:16 AM Any clerks refusing to sell an M-rated game to children is because it is story policy and they risk being fired for violating it. Irate parents can raise a stink and stores would rather have their PR fall on the side of "for the children" than "Best Buy sells porn to kids". There is no legal enforcement.
Funcom doesn't care either. The $3 isn't about keeping kids out, it's about offering a 20 GB download trial, or greed, or both. From a marketing standpoint, it's stupid. They have to get five people willing to fork over for the trial for every person who would have liked the game if given the opportunity to play, but ends up not buying because they're too cheap or insulted. And that's only for the first month of a subscription. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Mrbloodworth on July 29, 2008, 11:37:59 AM I never said the $3 was to keep out children. Just want to make that clear.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Dren on July 29, 2008, 11:52:55 AM Is the $3 for the children? I might try the game if that is the case.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Lantyssa on July 29, 2008, 12:54:51 PM I never said the $3 was to keep out children. Just want to make that clear. That's fine. I just wanted to make it clear that "for the children" had nothing to do with anyone but a couple of stores' self-interests, and that there is no legal action possible due to ESRB ratings.(For today's history lesson, and ever popular f13 tangent post, the ESRB was created pro-actively to prevent Congress from making such laws.) Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: CharlieMopps on July 29, 2008, 06:26:05 PM Also, there is absolutely nothing in this game that would make it deserve the M rating it so proudly displays either.
I NEVER saw a single naked body part... and they totally removed all the "Limb severing" moves... Yea, you can be-head characters but it looks so terrible you can't even tell you did it. In fact, I would say that Ultima Online is far bloodier than Age of Conan. And, with the exception of a few NPC's I've only heard about in AOC, Ultima Online showed more skin as well... I often got PK'd by players in nothing more than a thong. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: UnSub on July 29, 2008, 07:16:03 PM 3 bucks. It would most likely cost you more than that to go (heh) buy the trial CDs from your local Best Buy or whatever. And if I were getting the trial DVD/CD at the store, I'd have no problem paying $3 for it. That's one thing. Charging for the download bandwidth is another. See my post about barriers to entry... as in the more barriers to entry you give a customer, the lower the chance they'll give you any money. I don't have a problem paying $3 for a trial if it helps keep trial accounts from being abused by RMTers, people wanting grief accounts, etc. However, calling it a 'buddy key' is just plain insulting. I've still got the AoC beta client (that never worked during beta :drill:) installed on my machine. I might see if I can update it - if it works, I might come calling here and ask for a buddy key to be pm'd to me. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Tarami on July 29, 2008, 08:26:20 PM Just as an example of how imporant easy access is; I just downloaded Bring Down the Sky (the free Mass Effect content pack) and it required me to enter my ME key. I never got around to install it, despite the box sitting in a shelf not 10 feet away. I didn't expect to be needed to enter a 20-letter key, so I won't, not now and tomorrow I'll have forgotten all about it.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: UnSub on July 29, 2008, 10:20:00 PM Just as an example of how imporant easy access is; I just downloaded Bring Down the Sky (the free Mass Effect content pack) and it required me to enter my ME key. I never got around to install it, despite the box sitting in a shelf not 10 feet away. I didn't expect to be needed to enter a 20-letter key, so I won't, not now and tomorrow I'll have forgotten all about it. That says more about you than the system. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Falconeer on July 29, 2008, 10:23:12 PM Also, there is absolutely nothing in this game that would make it deserve the M rating it so proudly displays either. I NEVER saw a single naked body part... and they totally removed all the "Limb severing" moves... Yea, you can be-head characters but it looks so terrible you can't even tell you did it. In fact, I would say that Ultima Online is far bloodier than Age of Conan. And, with the exception of a few NPC's I've only heard about in AOC, Ultima Online showed more skin as well... I often got PK'd by players in nothing more than a thong. You probably didn't play long enough (I assume). There are naked characters in the game, some fatality can be gruesome and the content of some quests is serious stuff. In my world M rating doesn't have a point to exist, but in this world I can see why they had to (or they were forced to) follow that route. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Mrbloodworth on July 30, 2008, 06:10:34 AM Mature content does not only include blood and boobs. Dialog, subject matter and reading level are also included.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Abelian75 on July 30, 2008, 06:18:56 AM Mature content does not only include blood and boobs. Dialog, subject matter and reading level are also included. I'm pretty sure it doesn't have much to do with reading level in AoC's case, given that the grammar and spelling are generally pretty terrible. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: UnSub on August 09, 2008, 10:24:10 AM Okay, my former beta version is all patched up, to the best of my knowledge. Can someone please PM me a buddy key?
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Threash on August 09, 2008, 10:51:50 AM Also, there is absolutely nothing in this game that would make it deserve the M rating it so proudly displays either. I NEVER saw a single naked body part... and they totally removed all the "Limb severing" moves... Yea, you can be-head characters but it looks so terrible you can't even tell you did it. In fact, I would say that Ultima Online is far bloodier than Age of Conan. And, with the exception of a few NPC's I've only heard about in AOC, Ultima Online showed more skin as well... I often got PK'd by players in nothing more than a thong. What game have you been playing? Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: DraconianOne on August 09, 2008, 01:49:08 PM If you sign up with a buddy code, you have to enter credit card details whether or not you download it. (I borrowed discs and installed it direct which took a fucking age in the first place. "This might take a long time?" Not fucking kidding!) Anyway, point is, didn't pay $3 or whatever, didn't download 20Gb, still had to enter CC details.
I probably should try to play it before the 7 days is up. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Mrbloodworth on August 11, 2008, 06:38:51 AM Create a Funcom account = no credit card, though you can't download the trial/game. If it was about age verification they could plug ALL holes by putting a CC requirement on this step. It's not about age verification, which is why they don't have a CC requirement on this step. The silliness of "Age Verification" is something that Blood invented himself (actually, he didn't invent it, someone else said it in the thread and he latched onto it like a fanboi gone mad) and it didn't come from Funcom or anywhere else. Anyway, point is, didn't pay $3 or whatever, didn't download 20Gb, still had to enter CC details. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: UnSub on August 12, 2008, 07:51:09 PM I don't mind having to enter CC details (although perhaps I should since there have been complaints that Funcom is incorrectly billing players who quit (http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/193410)) but I'd like to get a buddy key.
Anyone? I can PM you my email address if you need to send it that way. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Rasix on August 12, 2008, 09:36:08 PM I'll send you mine.
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: UnSub on August 12, 2008, 11:02:23 PM Thanks!
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: UnSub on August 14, 2008, 07:29:07 PM Apparently I can't upgrade the beta client to the full client without re-downloading the entire game. Which I think is odd, but then this is Funcom we are talking about.
I'll have to see if I can find a friend who has the disks - I'm not spending close to my entire monthly download allowance (and $3) to try AoC for 10 days. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: schild on August 15, 2008, 12:09:11 AM I will never ever get over the lollerificness of a monthly download allowance. Some people were fed some wicked fucking kool-aid somehow and I can't rationalize it.
And on that note, in the last 2 days I have used 40GB. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: UnSub on August 16, 2008, 06:44:25 AM You don't live in my country, where download limits are standard.
I pay 15c on every MB over the 20 GB limit as well. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Wasted on August 21, 2008, 10:30:07 PM You don't live in my country, where download limits are standard. I pay 15c on every MB over the 20 GB limit as well. Yuck , I choose shaping as the lesser of two evils Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: schild on August 21, 2008, 11:43:44 PM You don't live in my country, where download limits are standard. I pay 15c on every MB over the 20 GB limit as well. Is there a type of transfer that gets around this? Maybe ftp instead of http? or sftp? anything? How can we help you? Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Mrbloodworth on August 22, 2008, 08:11:55 AM Did you ever find a way to do this unsub?
Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: Lantyssa on August 22, 2008, 08:23:52 AM Any method will be better than a bit torrent, but otherwise the amount of compression will make a bigger difference than the method. (A couple of bigger files will be better than a bunch of tiny files, though not sure that's a big enough difference to worry about either.)
Really, it'd be cheaper to mail a few disks at this point. Title: Re: "Buddy Keys" or "A final insult" Post by: CharlieMopps on August 24, 2008, 08:10:43 AM I will never ever get over the lollerificness of a monthly download allowance. Some people were fed some wicked fucking kool-aid somehow and I can't rationalize it. And on that note, in the last 2 days I have used 40GB. Working for a telecom, I can explain it a little... the vast majority of our bandwidth is eaten up by about 2% of our customers. (the torrent people) You have to plan for that sort of thing when designing your network and it makes trunking to a site a lot more expensive. Allowances effectively eliminate that sort of user. My company doesn't have download allowances, but I can understand why others do it. The problem that the customer runs into is that once a company starts charging per MB, prices NEVER go down... they only go up. So if you're limited to 20gig per month, that's never going to change. They're not going to give up their money fountain. |