Launch.. Impressions?

[Signe]

The technical launch was fine.  At least I've enjoyed what the have up to level 14, which is my highest so far.  I do, however, have to militantly agree with Lantyssa about the other side.  Funcom needs to work on their communication, support and business ideas.   Really.  They need support for their support.  If they were your knickers, they'd be around your ankles.  Srsly.

[waylander]

The launch was a pretty good one I think. The biggest problem right now is server ques during prime time.

[Hutch]

That's a good problem to have.

[Vanifae]

Yeah technically the launch was great besides the issue with the zone, but the service side was terrible on Funcom's part.  Thankfully the game is fun and I enjoy the setting thus far and scoring a fatality just feels right.  Especially since you get rewarded for your efforts with a buff and a cool death sequence.  The game is mature and somehow I enjoy that, hopefully the quality holds up all the way to the end.

[Rasix]

Heh, I may just have to try this now.

My WoW guild going to DKP has provided me incentive to find other pastures.

[Big Gulp]

I have always been, and still am suspicious of Vista. Its has never said to me "I am a gaming OS".

If you've got over 2gb of RAM, though, you're pretty much stuck with the x64 version.  Overall, it hasn't been bad for me.  Frankly I just don't get what all the griping is about.

[Cadaverine]

I have always been, and still am suspicious of Vista. Its has never said to me "I am a gaming OS".

Mostly, it's said to me, "You're to fucking stupid to run this thing unattended, let me verify your every move."

[Miasma]

Funcom says "Don't let the reading the forums get you down.".

Most of us on the dev team have been playing the game, and its been nice to see the different things people talk about on the OOC channel and hear peoples feedback.

Sure there are issues, sure there are things we wanted to achieve that we were not able to for initial release. But we still have plans for the game.

Currently the forums tend to be a very bad snapshot of the game community as a whole. Especially during a turbulent time like an MMO launch, people are far more likely to go and vocalize negative opinions then they are positive ones.

So if you are sitting here reading the forums and maybe have not gotten your copy installed, patched ready to go or played yet I encourage you to not lose hope and hang in there while you try the game for yourself. My personal play experience the people having fun outnumber the people complaining currently probably a good 10-20 to 1 ratio, and that's on a PvP server where most the complaining is about getting ganked anyway.

Age of Conan is not for everyone, and we never said "Hey we want to be a WoW killer" that was never our goal. We hope you enjoy the game and we will continue to make it better for you the fans.

Kinda defensive yes?  I don't know if he he's never looked at other MMO boards but the AoC ones aren't nearly as critical as others, most people seem happy, for now.

[Big Gulp]

Mostly, it's said to me, "You're to fucking stupid to run this thing unattended, let me verify your every move."

You do realize that you can turn off UAC, don't you?  Voila, problem solved.

[Montague]

Funcom says "Don't let the reading the forums get you down.".

Most of us on the dev team have been playing the game, and its been nice to see the different things people talk about on the OOC channel and hear peoples feedback.

Sure there are issues, sure there are things we wanted to achieve that we were not able to for initial release. But we still have plans for the game.

Currently the forums tend to be a very bad snapshot of the game community as a whole. Especially during a turbulent time like an MMO launch, people are far more likely to go and vocalize negative opinions then they are positive ones.

So if you are sitting here reading the forums and maybe have not gotten your copy installed, patched ready to go or played yet I encourage you to not lose hope and hang in there while you try the game for yourself. My personal play experience the people having fun outnumber the people complaining currently probably a good 10-20 to 1 ratio, and that's on a PvP server where most the complaining is about getting ganked anyway.

Age of Conan is not for everyone, and we never said "Hey we want to be a WoW killer" that was never our goal. We hope you enjoy the game and we will continue to make it better for you the fans.

Kinda defensive yes?  I don't know if he he's never looked at other MMO boards but the AoC ones aren't nearly as critical as others, most people seem happy, for now.

Jesus. The forums are a fucking love-fest compared to some other launches. Funcom needs to hire some experienced community people. It seems to be the one aspect of MMO's they haven't grasped yet.

[schild]

Yes, funcom has the worst community people on the planet and somehow, a moderation team that's even worse than that. Color me flabbergasted. Which is a mix of vomit green and pitch black plaid.

[Vanifae]

Yes, funcom has the worst community people on the planet and somehow, a moderation team that's even worse than that. Color me flabbergasted. Which is a mix of vomit green and pitch black plaid.

I am not too surprised given their stellar customer support and service...

[ShenMolo]

Funcom says "Don't let the reading the forums get you down.".

Most of us on the dev team have been playing the game, and its been nice to see the different things people talk about on the OOC channel and hear peoples feedback.

Sure there are issues, sure there are things we wanted to achieve that we were not able to for initial release. But we still have plans for the game.

Currently the forums tend to be a very bad snapshot of the game community as a whole. Especially during a turbulent time like an MMO launch, people are far more likely to go and vocalize negative opinions then they are positive ones.

So if you are sitting here reading the forums and maybe have not gotten your copy installed, patched ready to go or played yet I encourage you to not lose hope and hang in there while you try the game for yourself. My personal play experience the people having fun outnumber the people complaining currently probably a good 10-20 to 1 ratio, and that's on a PvP server where most the complaining is about getting ganked anyway.

Age of Conan is not for everyone, and we never said "Hey we want to be a WoW killer" that was never our goal. We hope you enjoy the game and we will continue to make it better for you the fans.

Kinda defensive yes?  I don't know if he he's never looked at other MMO boards but the AoC ones aren't nearly as critical as others, most people seem happy, for now.

Jesus. The forums are a fucking love-fest compared to some other launches. Funcom needs to hire some experienced community people. It seems to be the one aspect of MMO's they haven't grasped yet.

Being European, they are probably used to more civil forms of discourse than the relatively tame forum howling they are currently the victims of. Therefore they may be more sensitive to criticism than, say, your average Blizzard moderator who has a crosshairs permanently tatooed to his forhead.

EDIT: Although you think they would have learned from the AO launch to have thick skins and tunnel vision.

[schild]

Delayed one more hour.

Also, I'd rather them be humble and pussy like than ignorant and stupid like most MMOG teams.

[Big Gulp]

Being European, they are probably used to more civil forms of discourse than the relatively tame forum howling they are currently the victims of.

Europeans also don't tend to go in for "customer service" in the same way Americans do.  Go to any American store and you'll have somebody asking if they can help you, cashiers being friendly (even if it's forced friendliness), etc.  You don't really get that in European stores.  The clerks tend to be standoffish, and it's just a less friendly vibe.

I think it's lingering remnants of the old guild mentality when shop owners weren't allowed to aggressively out compete each other lest they be tossed from the guild.

[stray]

Lol, American customer service sucks balls dude. 

Asia is where it's at. People will serve you up a big mac with a huge smile on their face over there.

[schild]

Asia is where it's at. People will give you a big mac with a huge smile on their face over there.

They have to, it's part of their job. That's why Smile is on the menu for free.

[rattran]

Ouch, another 2 hour delay.

Not so good to have a 2 hour downtime the day after launch, extended to 5 hours+

[schild]

I want to change the name of this thread to "Lunch... anyone?"

[Montague]

Ouch, another 2 hour delay.

Not so good to have a 2 hour downtime the day after launch, extended to 5 hours+

Given the 'sploits and the Lacheish Plains mess it's not too surprising. The kids home from school have to be irate though.

[Xuri]

Being European, they are probably used to more civil forms of discourse than the relatively tame forum howling they are currently the victims of.

Europeans also don't tend to go in for "customer service" in the same way Americans do.  Go to any American store and you'll have somebody asking if they can help you, cashiers being friendly (even if it's forced friendliness), etc.  You don't really get that in European stores.  The clerks tend to be standoffish, and it's just a less friendly vibe.

I think it's lingering remnants of the old guild mentality when shop owners weren't allowed to aggressively out compete each other lest they be tossed from the guild.

In just about every (non-grocery) store I can remember ever entering in Norway, I've gotten a "Can I help you with anything?" of some sort - and we're considered amongst the more "standoffish" cultures in Europe. Now, perhaps that's only because I generally look so lost and helpless that they can't find it in their hearts to NOT approach me - but in any case I don't really recognize your description of customer service in European stores (which I guess Norwegian ones are a part of). :P

One thing that I have noticed that might differ between European customers and ones from the USA, though, is that over on your side of the lake there seems to be a lot more attitudes like "As a paying customer, I DEMAND <insert demand>", as if being a paying customer gives one the right to customize the service rendered completely to one's own preferences. 

[Big Gulp]

but in any case I don't really recognize your description of customer service in European stores (which I guess Norwegian ones are a part of). :P

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the clerks were out and out assholes, but there was a certain amount of aloofness.  This is Germany, also.  I can't speak definitively about every other country.  I will say that the Dutch apparently don't have any sense of humor.  Germans may have a weird sense of humor, but at least they have them.

as if being a paying customer gives one the right to customize the service rendered completely to one's own preferences. 

Damn skippy.   

[Tarami]

Customer service in Europe (parts of it atleast, Sweden and Italy are far, far, far apart culturally ;) is often a bit more distanced. Every time I've been in the US, I, as a Swede, has almost felt assaulted by overly helpful clerks. I think it's just different strokes. I kinda like both deals, depending on what kind of store I enter. For normal stores, I kind of like the off-hands style, but you Americans got far better waiters. Atleast in Vegas, Chicago and NY.

My friend gave a funny remark on that, "Yeah, but that's because they want to sell more over there in capitalist country." Well, duh, they're shop clerks.

And Germans are, uhm. Special.

[Montague]

On a side note, I'm hoping that Funcom employs some Catholic school nuns or something to moderate the boards. Please to not be having another cesspit like WoW forums, kkthx.

[Signe]

Half my family is from/in Bergen.  They are very stand-offish.  The other half of my family is from/in Italy.  They smother me with affection.  It's confusing.  One is hot, one is cold.  Don't put them in a room together, if you can help it.

[Big Gulp]

One is hot, one is cold.  Don't put them in a room together, if you can help it.

You get Jello?

[Lantyssa]

No, a free trip to the loo.

[Numtini]

Impressions. I haven't read anything, not even most of what was here. The open beta was totally unplayable for me due to lag, but this is one of the few places I really trust on whether or not it's crashy, so I gave it a try. Huge huge improvement from unplayable to fine in terms of tech. No stuttering and great framerate.

Now impressions of gameplay?

Longest install ever. I thought it had crashed. I think from DVDs it took two hours? Zoiks.

Create an account. Ouch. Apparently accounts at funcom are universal, so my numtini account which I created to play AO in 2003 cannot be validated to play AOC. However, I can't create a numtini account for AOC because I have a Anarchy online account under that name. Tried a few others of my usual usernames and realized I've created quite a few trial and frewbie accounts. I finally find a name that works, but for some reason that I really don't understand, it has figured out that I'm also numtini so I see my numtini AO account from my new AOC account. This is dumb and irritating. Either combine them or separate them.

Got into game. Zoning is 15-30 seconds not two minutes. Yay! Journey to the city was well paced leading item to item. The tutorial stuff makes no sense. It tells me to hold down control to see my shields. I hold down control and nothing happens. Do I need shields? Do I have one? Is there something I'm not doing? I close it. Either way, I follow the quest lines and see critters and kill them (mostly by one shotting with a spell). I see white things, figure they're shields, and I'm rewarded for more damage. Yay me. Hold down control tho, still a big nothing.

Once in the city, there's the inn with my next quest. Very wow-ish on leading you to where you need to go, but oops, it seemed to be warning me not to do the night quest so I guess that I'm too low and go into the city and pick up a few quests. Here's an easy one, a sex worker has been ripped off by her John. They're right around the corner! So I go to get the money back. They see me and I'm dead five seconds later. Oops, can't do those. Not even close. Not even close to close. So much for the pacing. And worse, there doesn't seem to be anything else to do.

I see four orange exclamation points on the map and a countless number of grey exclamation points, but in game I see only one active orange quest NPC. Spent about five minutes looking for the others hoping they would have quests I could do. No such luck, if those orange quest givers are there, they have really good stealth.

Found the merchant NPC though, he told me he was the auction house mail and vendor all in one and I should right click on him. I right clicked on him and he does nothing.

Nothing else I can figure out to do, so I took the night quest. I have to zone twice before there's anything to fight. Loading Please Wait jokes come to mind. Ok I guess that's what I'm supposed to do because once I get to the island, I can actually kill these critters. But during combat, now there are yellow things next to the white things. I have no idea what those are. In a moment of inspiration, I hold down control and there's yellow things around me. Those must be my shields, but I still have absolutely no idea how to use them. I look at the manual, it has something about combos where you hit a skill and then have to follow the arrows it lights up. That sounds, irritating. Like the kind of thing you build a macro so you don't have to do. And I haven't hit any skill buttons so I don't think that's what the yellow jobbies are either.

At that point I was kind of tired and it had made me cranky so I logged out. Combat seems at once both boring (hit a bunch of buttons whack a mole style in response to their flashies) and incomprehensible (mostly because I feel like there has to be more than this). I guess after one night I'm just left with a big feeling that it lacks a lot of polish and doesn't seem to be very much fun.

[Viin]

Just wondering, did you do the quests on the beach?

I was only level 3 or so when I started the night ones and it was fine (no warning though).

[Slayerik]

The Blacksmith and town guard at the door get you to like 4-5 dont they?

Hmmm, I had no problems finding stuff to do, I thought it was well paced. Just my 2c

[Brogarn]

Good stuff so far. Learning curve is steep in some areas and easy peasy in others if you've played MMOs. I figure I'll learn it all as I go and so far that's been the case.

Servers have been rock solid for me so far (meaning database lag and the like). Game is playing fine on my machine which is pretty new but hardly top of the line. Haven't crashed yet, but don't have a lot of play time in.

All in all, especially thinking back on AO, I'm completely impressed so far.

[Lantyssa]

Create an account. Ouch. Apparently accounts at funcom are universal, so my numtini account which I created to play AO in 2003 cannot be validated to play AOC. However, I can't create a numtini account for AOC because I have a Anarchy online account under that name. Tried a few others of my usual usernames and realized I've created quite a few trial and frewbie accounts. I finally find a name that works, but for some reason that I really don't understand, it has figured out that I'm also numtini so I see my numtini AO account from my new AOC account. This is dumb and irritating. Either combine them or separate them.

They seem to have a master account, then sub-accounts.  The first game created gets the master account name (my AO one as well), or they mitigated AO accounts to the new master account, but then you cannot use that sub-account name for other games.  Which is really silly.

[Lantyssa]

Just received this e-mail which makes me want to stab someone:

Dear Age of Conan customer.

Thank you very much for registering with us. To ensure uninterrupted game time and to unlock any pre-order items, you will need to upgrade your account with a retail box key.

Follow these instructions to upgrade your account to the full version:

    * Locate the key at the back of your manual
    * Log in to your account on https://register.ageofconan.com
    * Select the option "Use a Key to add a Prepaid Card, Upgrade a Subscription or Create a Subscription"
    * Enter your key then follow the on screen instructions

When this process is complete you are can play continue playing normally, and also claim your pre-order item (if eligble) using the in-game command "/claim".

Thank you for purchasing Age of Conan and we look forward to seeing you in the game.

Best regards,
Funcom

Thank you for rubbing it in, Funcom.  Still no drinking cape for me either and I was getting the news letters.  It's almost funny at this point.

Oh well.  My box is in Dallas.  Probably finding a junker of a delivery van to make sure they can drive it off a cliff.  Thankfully it will arrive just in time for me to leave for a friend's wedding that puts me out of town this weekend.

My second impression:  This game shows the full gamut of emotions!  Anger, sadness, resignation, rage, despair, bemusement.  It makes me want to live the life, to take an axe to all who stand in my way, and wanting to hear the lamentations of their executives.

[Engels]

If its any consolation, I'm bound to be up next. My box hasn't even shipped, not slated to ship for another 5 days. I'm probably gonna do what Signe did and drive out to BFE Renton and buy a friggin box. I haven't gotten an email yet, but its bound to show soon.

[Hoax]

If it makes you feel better I got a drinking cape code in my email today and I have never touched any of their clients ever and I'm not planning on touching AoC until July.

I'm not sure what qualified me for the thing.