Is Age of Conan a rousing success or a stinking failure?

by Matt Warner Jul 8th 2008 at 9:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, MMO industry, Opinion

There's plenty of doom and gloom discussion surrounding Funcom's Age of Conan. The hours played and reported by X-fire users plummeted since it hit desktops. Possibly the wackiest and most critical bug ever seen in an MMOG ever won't be fixed anytime soon. Unfinished content has diminished Age of Conan's reputation in the later parts of the game. The rap sheet goes on; however, a strong demand exists for a new MMOG as an astonishing 700,000 accounts were registered in the first month alone. That number is quite a feat, but the overall number of subscriptions four or six months down the road comes into question as most players that leave after their first month tend to be very unforgiving.

Stropp, an MMOG blogger, remains optimistic in his post entitled "Why Age of Conan Will Succeed" and points out all the advantages that Age of Conan and Funcom possess. While Stropp did cancel his Age of Conan account he believes the game will not die anytime soon and projects long-term success. Funcom is certainly a capable company with experience, but how many subscribers are needed to claim rousing success or do the crude pitfalls from an all-to-soon-launch already make Age of Conan a failure from a business standpoint? You decide.

Tags: age-of-conan, aoc, conan, funcom, metrics, opinion, retention, stropp, subscription

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

TwistedBishop said on 9:43PM 7-08-2008

I don't know how anyone could consider it a financial failure. If that Xfire number is representative of the whole, the game is set to easily make $100 million in the next 12 months.

The game certainly has its detractors, but that's not stopping it from doing quite well for Funcom.

Lars said on 7:21PM 7-09-2008

Seems like it's doing well enough to me. Maybe people just moved on from Xfire? I know I have.

Anyways, I'm just getting started in AoC and it's got a lot of promise. It has already delivered on most everything too. Graphics are amazing, combat is insanely cool, etc. I for one am not attracted to WoW's cartoony art style... AoC is a breath of fresh air in that regard, plus the combat system is a huge step forward.

I'm still surprised that people jump into brand new MMO's and say "what's this? bugs on release? well, I never!" It's pretty much par for the course that MMO's have lots of kinks to be worked out at launch. WoW was so buggy at launch and had such huge server lag issues that I couldn't stand playing it for more than an hour at a time. At least AoC is bearable. Actually the ONLY MMO I've seen that was really polished at launch was EQ2.

george said on 9:54PM 7-08-2008

I believe its a failure because of the pathetic customer support it has...

george said on 9:54PM 7-08-2008

I believe its a failure just because of the pathetic customer support it has...

Vincent J. Murphy said on 10:28PM 7-08-2008

I think it's likely to just be 'eh' and neither fail nor be a blockbuster. And that's not a bad thing to be. Better to be profitable in a niche than attempt to overreach.

I think that it again shows that game launches need to be as perfect as possible: rocky launches, unfulfilled expectations, and bad customer support will kill any game, no matter how good it is.

Starbolt said on 3:22AM 7-09-2008

People tend to play more when games has just been released, and it`s summer now, people have real life as well... I think the xFire numbers will be more consistent the time ahead.

Apart from the general forums most people seem positive about the game. Competition is good, and people should give Age of Conan a fair chance without the doom and gloom, or else we`ll just have World of Warcraft to play with..

I enjoy the game.

anahka said on 4:20AM 7-09-2008

While not a financial failure YET, if you look at the current state of the game and the "fixes" Funcom has made so far....the future can't be good. WAR and WotLK are getting closer.

Remember even basic stuff like stats, skills and feats did not even work at release. There is no sane travel-system; the one there is requires constant suicide. Something as critical as the female attack speed thing will take weeks if not months to fix. It took Funcom weeks to even acknowledge it.

Bagspace is obnoxiously expensive. Better yet, a bag is 10 times as expensive as a horse. And buying a horse is well out of range of almost every player at the level they become available. Then again, horses don't add a significant amount of speed anyway.

There is no itemization and the gear at level 50+ looks exactly like the lvl 5 crap. The average blue reward from a long quest chain at lvl 40ish looks just like the lvl 1 vendor trash the first mob you kill in-game drops.

The list of major concerns goes on and on.

The current players are seeing empty guild rosters; people haven't logged on in 21+ days. All the people I started playing with have quit in disgust, most even before the "free" month was over. I quit the second I found out stats and gear didn't really matter.

crsh said on 9:29AM 7-09-2008

I disagree. It's only a "major concern" if you keep comparing AoC to WoW, where everything is handed over for near nothing. They're not trying to be better than WoW, nor kill it; Funcom is making its own game (save for that stupid comment Gaute Godager made about McDonald's vs fine steak dinner). There is no reason to cave in to players crying to have it as easy as they did/do in WoW.

Nadril said on 10:24AM 7-09-2008

I just need to correct your points, sorry.

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While not a financial failure YET, if you look at the current state of the game and the "fixes" Funcom has made so far....the future can't be good. WAR and WotLK are getting closer.
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WAR is not going to be ready in 3-4 months, and if it's release it'll be buggy.

WoTLK is a threat, but AoC will be much more polished. Trust me that Funcom knows what they are up against.

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Remember even basic stuff like stats, skills and feats did not even work at release. There is no sane travel-system; the one there is requires constant suicide. Something as critical as the female attack speed thing will take weeks if not months to fix. It took Funcom weeks to even acknowledge it.
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Some stats (wisdom/str/dex) didn't work for the first week or so. Big deal. The traveling system is and can be a pain, but you shouldn't have to move places constantly.

Also the female attack speed bug is due to the animations. It takes weeks because, unlike WoW, this game has thousands of animations for various attacks and they ALL need to be changed.

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Bagspace is obnoxiously expensive. Better yet, a bag is 10 times as expensive as a horse. And buying a horse is well out of range of almost every player at the level they become available. Then again, horses don't add a significant amount of speed anyway.
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My 16 slot bag cost 10s. Yeah that is "10 times as expensive as a horse".

And no, you aren't just pretty much handed a mount at 40. It's there if you can aford it, if not you'll get it higher up.

And horses are double the speed of a normal player (sprinting speed) and sprint for about double of a players sprinting speed. That is for the 3g horse, the other one is even faster.

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There is no itemization and the gear at level 50+ looks exactly like the lvl 5 crap. The average blue reward from a long quest chain at lvl 40ish looks just like the lvl 1 vendor trash the first mob you kill in-game drops.
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Some loot looks the same, yeah. But my conq looks fairly unique with blues from the Sanctum, and my ToS looks unique as well with his blues. The raid gear looks good as well.

I think you forget that a lot of WoW low level loot looks incredibly plain. If it's not plain then chances are it's going to look fucking retarded on your character. I shudder to look at 60-69 characters in WoW due to how ridiculous they look.

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The current players are seeing empty guild rosters; people haven't logged on in 21+ days. All the people I started playing with have quit in disgust, most even before the "free" month was over. I quit the second I found out stats and gear didn't really matter.
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People have quit. Some people expected a WoW, some people are just leaving and coming back when it's more polished. All of these are valid reasons and have happened to other popular and sucessful MMOs as well.

on Tyranny there are so many guilds that have tons of active players. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 25 or so very active, large guilds which are playing this game. Hell one guild on our server, [Menace], apparently has over 1000 members. A big ass zerg but none-the-less it has a ton of people.

Anyways I really would like you to please actually look up your claims next time so you don't look foolish. Practically everything you said was incorrect.

anahka said on 11:05AM 7-09-2008

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Anyways I really would like you to please actually look up your claims next time so you don't look foolish. Practically everything you said was incorrect.
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You call it incorrect, I call it a matter of opinion. You're obviously still having fun in AoC. A lot of people are not.

Yes there's cheaper bags. Yes mounts are slightly faster then running. Yes some of the stuff I mentioned has been fixed by now. That does not make all my claims incorrect as your so fanboyishly put it.

I've played that game for a good month and I still keep an eye on the forums. I know what I'm talking about. You might not agree but that's not my problem.

But I feel (warning: personal opinion!) that this game should never have been released like this. Feel free to keep playing it though. Also feel free to pointlessly attack others who post their opinion.

pufonthis said on 4:37AM 7-09-2008

It's true, you can fail on many different levels not just financially. Even this Stropp guy, who thinks the game has so much potential, even quit the game. What's that tell you. I mean the guy goes on and on about how great the game is, yet in the end he quit.

He talks about how the AoC forums suck so bad cause there are only two kinds of posts. Yet here he is making the exact same kind of post he doesn't like. Oh but he called it a "blog" so that makes it different somehow.

GRT said on 7:32AM 7-09-2008

It kind of feels like Anarchy Online all over again. They launched too early, but hopefully they pulled in enough $$ to keep them going long enough to get the game completed, at which time they'll have a small but dedicated subscriber base. Certainly large enough to keep the solvent and keep the game going.

I paid for 1 month (after the free month expired) just to see if things improved, but I realize now it was foolish of me to expect things to change so quickly. I'll probably try the game again when the inevitable "Come back to AoC free for 2 weeks and see how much the game has changed!" offer comes along.

Thorsten said on 7:33AM 7-09-2008

Too early to judge in my opinion. Surely AoC will be alive over the next.. at least 3 years..
Therefore 700k accounts created should count as a big success, even if we only will see the whole truth in the upcoming months.

Nadril said on 8:06AM 7-09-2008

First off, Stropp is correct. Funcom is great at luring in old players and there is no doubt Age of Conan will not die.

Now, injecting in my own personal experience (as a level 80 Tempest of Set on Tyranny server) I think the games population is very healthy right now. Being on probably one of the largest servers I get to see constant guild vs guild matches happening in world PvP.

Khesh city, for instance, is so cut throat right now on a PvP server it's a pretty damn exciting experience just going over there. I've seen some of the largest guilds on the server duking it out, and I've seen the small 5 man guilds fighting it out.

Group PvP happens constantly. Since a lot of the leveling around 65-80 is group, unless you quest, a LOT of PvP happens. And not WoW PvP where one group just runs into the instance, actual PvP with players that actually want to win and not just survive.

Yes, the bugs suck. Grey map bug, group bug, various glitches (not as big of a deal) and there is still a slight memory leak problem that will cause the game to crash after a few hours.

But, that's the problem. Bugs. Yes, game content could be smoothed out yet Funcom is already doing just that, and in all honesty the only trouble spot is 55-60 and THAT is just if you don't have a guild you can run with to do stuff.

Players need to realize that Age of Conan is not trying to be another WoW. Some mechanics are different, and that is something that players need to get used to.

And yes, the traveling is slow. Not near as slow on a mount, however, which allows you to move twice as fast as you normally would (sprinting speed). Really only the far out of reach areas, Atzels fortress, Egolyphic Mountains and Kheshetta are time consuming to get to. However, I'd say it takes me about 10 minutes on a mount to get over to Kheshetta, which in all honesty isn't that bad.

I realize that some people complaining may be on a PvE server, but in all honesty this game isn't near as much of a PvE centered game. Yes, it has raids and such but the game is so much more rewarding and so much more fun with the element of PvP in -- which I think Age of Conan did wonderfully.

However if you don't like PvP I can't say I would recommend this game, yet. As a PvP player I can deal with all of the current hassles and the idea of a "beta" because the PvP is that goddamn good. I roll with a small guild, maybe 10-13 of us, and between the apprentice system (can app anyone to your level minus 1, increasing their damage but not HP) and world PvP and AoE areas we haven't had more fun. Just being able to grab anyone, from level 20-80, and go to a high level zone and ALL contribute to the group is an awesome thing.

So, thats what it comes down to me. Age of Conan has a kind of PvP that World of Warcraft or any other game can not compare with right now. To me it's rekindled my love for world PvP and reminds me of my days playing Lineage II. Guild relations are a big deal in this game on PvP servers, and if you piss off a lot of people you're going to have a lot of shit going on. THAT is the kind of stuff that I love seeing, but most players who want a PvE experience or a more WoW-ish PvP experience really shouldn't play.

PvP is not a minigame in AoC as it is in WoW.

koehler83 said on 9:34AM 7-09-2008

Once an MMO covers its original development costs, it can comfortably live and leech off its users pretty much as long as there are users to leech off of.

I don't see it being a financial loss. It has probably already recovered a significant amount of its development cost. However, it will take a while to recover the remainder in subscriptions alone. The best way to make money is with millions upon millions of users, whether they subscribe long or not.

In any case, it's no WoW killer. Its just another MMORPG. Far too consumed by the concept of PvP to really dig into the demographic that MMORPGs have thrived upon thus far.

Theadrick said on 12:05PM 7-09-2008

My short opinion... AoC is destined to be another niche game. There's nothing wrong with this.

Mia said on 1:04PM 7-09-2008

A lot of people like AoC. A lot of others, myself included, tried it and didn't. I may try it again in a year when they "finish" and "fix" more things.

However it's now clear that they probably will settle in for the long haul with less than half a mil subscribers. And a good percentage of those who quit, have quit because of playability issues.

People just don't have patience for imperfect anymore. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know - but it's reality. The days when developers could release unfinished games in order to get a revenue stream going to fund the remaining development are over. Blizzard knocked that one over for good with Burning Crusade - unpolished was an understatement there.

The lesson is, I think, that companies must spend the extra time to complete more and fully test it. I hope EA Mythic is paying attention. As much as I want to play WAR, everything I'm hearing about piecemeal beta testing of random elements here and there, and about what's not finished, gives me serious concern about how they could possibly be finished - and bug fixed - by October.

If they have the same kinds of problems that AoC has had, they may sell a lot of boxes, but then people will simply cancel their subs and go back to WoW to wait for WoTLK. That is, of course, if Bliz doesn't shove WoTLK out the door to compete with WAR.

Which they may do, just as they shoved an unfinished BC out to compete with LoTRO. Burning Crusade wasn't truly "completed" until June after its January release, when all the itemization and other truly broken items were fixed.

nerfenlied said on 4:53PM 7-24-2008

The Burning Crusade was complete upon release. The items were rebalanced because the developers didn't like the huge scaling over vanilla World of Warcraft which made even the finest epics obsolete.

Comparing TBC with Age of Conan... Heck, even World of Warcraft vanilla, which had its share of bugs, as well, only shows how naive you are.

World of Warcraft is not the best game there is. It's not even good overall. But it IS the best MMO at the moment, sad truth. Age of Conan was a complete failure.

Everyone knows that Age of Conan was supposed to be a PVE ONLY game and the PvP realms only got implemented out of playerbase demand, by the way, so calling Age of Conan a PvP game is not only naive but also foolish and misinformed.

Have a nice day.

Tony said on 4:08PM 7-09-2008

All I can say is that I'm not in a rush to go back. It's not a bad game by any means, but it definitely loses polish and focus after Tortage. All of my interest quickly disappeared once reaching the main world and having to spend $15 a month on something to convince myself it is fun doesn't seem like a worthwhile way to spend my money.

I plan on giving it another try once they patch DirectX 10 in.