All Posts by markyturnip

Good MMOs are a beautiful thing.

But the crashing disappointment of AoC, on top of a string of other crappy titles, is raising some fundamental questions - why can't this genre seem to get it right again? WoW opened a huuuuge market. Why is it so hard to feed it with a AAA product?

Anyhow, the way I see it, AoC made one overwhelming mistake. It failed to understand that its playerbase wanted open world pvp.

How it missed the sentiment of its playerbase quite so spectacularly is beyond me. The fact that they were surprised that people wanted to play on pvp servers speaks volumes. They must have cloth ears.

WoW now acknowledges this, finally, with some of its open world pvp features in WotLK. I am amazed it took Blizzard so long to realise this also.

Anyway, finally, a new game - WAR - comes along which promises to feed this overwhelming demand for world pvp. Or rvr. Or whatever you choose to call it. Meaningful world pvp also has the beautiful feature - it remains fun to keep on playing other humans at endgame. PVE encounters are repetitions of the same thing. Other humans try out all sorts of new tricks. It is THE answer to MMO endgame.

So don't fail us! Reports are looking good. But don't get sidetracked by those who want more pve. Don't go down the cul-de-sac of too many instanced battleground. Arenas - NOOO.

Open world, meaningful, PVP. Available to all (not only members of large guilds). Available to casual players.

That's what people want. I promise you.

Keep the vision.

I wish you all the best.

It's all sad sad news, and they have noone to blame but themselves.

The game had potential. But it was not complete. And they lied.

Surely they could have done something different - declared it 'retail development' phase, where you pay for the box but no monthly fee until the game is finished. Or some such.

The fact that they went for the full pay model with a game that did not have what was promised, and poor performance, and is now a duper/botter heaven... well.

Just sad.

Unlike some I do not celebrate this.

I like to see Funcom get its come-uppance, but a game I had really wanted to work, and was the closest thing to what I wanted in some time, has proved a crashing disappointment.

Please Mythic, don't fail us now!

Just saw this on the official forum.

Well, well, well.

Now, someone suggested last night that each item had a code, so if you duped you would have the same code replicated on your armor.

I do not know if this is correct, but if so why has Funcom let it fester so long?

Everyone knows dupes are MMO kryptonite. A working well-known dupe should almost always hit immediate priority status. Dupes seriously weaken the will of honest players to play. They wreck the economy. Left unattended and unacknowledged, they punish the honest and let it be known that you can exploit and get away with it.

Yet they have only now acknowledged this (at least, I have seen no other statement, and even this thread is closed), and still have not taken any position to state a) this is an exploit and bannable b) they will remove gems that have been duped.

The message Funcom is sending is loud and clear: if you have paid for your gems, you are a sucker, and you will not be compensated.

Enjoy the game.

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=156747

Today, 10:05 AM	#1
mardrin1 vbmenu_register("postmenu_1865194", true);	no more lies gem duping rampant. its not the one shots its not the guy who played days for his set. enough about dont nerf gems this or that. THERE IS AND HAS BEEN A GEM, SLOTTING DUPE FOR OVER 1 MONTH. ONE GEM CAN BE USED TO SLOT HUNDREDS OF SETS OF ARMOR. THIS HAS BEEN DONE AND BY the 1000'S. no more lies the game is flawed from hacks and exploits remove all gemed gear from game wipe all servers or restart a new server we are tired of hacks.

Today, 10:23 AM	#4
Rinlahn vbmenu_register("postmenu_1865324", true); Moderator	The devs know about the issue and are working to fix it.
	__________________ Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Funcom or its management.

Originally posted by Crosswire

 

Don't listen to all these vast exaggerations of the true,  out right lies , BS, and malicious rumours.

AOC is a great game and getting better by the patch, and if you don't believe me give it a go your self.

The doomsayers are but a few, but by hell can they shout load and long.

If you have an opinion and the vast majority of the people in the room disagree with you, is there not at least a a chance that they may have a few valid points?

Originally posted by Kerith

I am still enjoying AoC.

The uproar in this forum about this game really shocked me. I can understand the people expressing their negative feelings towards the game regarding bugs or content which is not in -- and when this is put in reasonable sentences and presented in a polite (maybe somewhat bitter) way I even sympathise.

I don't understand the hate -- in fact it irritates me and makes me angry. I don't like the exaggerations and I also saw a lot plain lies about the game in these forums.

Just as a matter of interest, are you level 80?

Part of the 'hate' is because people invested a lot of time in this game only to realise that all the promised goodies were in reality not there. The cake was indeed a lie.

I agree, the simple thing is to just leave. But MMOs require an emotional and social investment over and above other genres of video game, so it feels more personal when you realise you have been played for a sucker.

And even worse when things like rampant gem duping, exploits and a borderline sociopathic attitude from customer service is thrown in.

So yes, of course you are right. Leave and move on. But people must realise that MMOS are a genre which includes emotional investment, and so the pain of being scammed is much greater.

Allow people their rants. They'll give up soon enough and move on. It's a natural process. War is almost here.

I can't wait for WAR... so need a new game to focus on to get the bad taste of all this out of my mouth.

Originally posted by Rabenwolf

You know Erling is only a 24 year old noob right? He has years upon years of experience ...not.

 

http://www.erlingellingsen.com/biography.html

Site even has his email on it. I would have thought he would have been more careful after becoming the face of a company with as many people watching it as Funcom.

Ah well, don't be too hard on him. Game didn't turn out as they expected. They panicked and lied. Who knows, they may turn it around, they may not. All of this will be forgotten when WAR comes out and we all have a new MMO to think about.

Originally posted by markyturnip

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

This thread is simply about people creating more sensationlism.

 

Well, I post something accurate, which later gets edited both in the AoC forum and here.

You may not have been aware it ever existed;

I am interested, though. Do you not believe editing happens?

<modedit (it happens)>

lol

but, but, you were all answering a different question.

FC's new moto is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAEl6Wa1cZ8

I think of City of Villains as the gold standard here.

How customisable are characters?

Are they to the extent that you can clearly recognise other players, or does it meld into a general generic mush?

Can humans, for example, be fat and short as well as lean and muscular? (for some reason, beer bellies are very rare in these games). Could I be weirdly tall and spindly? How 'out there' is the customisation?

Thanks.

Originally posted by Hydrakana

Blizzard completely removes exploited gear from a character, even if its thousands of players, they dont care.  They will even give you a perminant ban and delete your account if they feel like it.

The problem is how would they know? The amount of detective work to discover if it was legitimately bought or duped would be phenomenal. People continue to dupe now in even greater numbers. I feel like logging on tonight and making several sets of duped armor and selling them once its fixed.

On the other hand, a) I am stupid enough to feel bad about cheating and b) this game is really in trouble now and one wonders how it will get past the current meltdown. I reckon it will take around 6 months to get into decent shape, assuming devs continue to work at it.

I reckon it will eventually have a small but respectable playerbase... think DDO. But by that time it will be so different anyway, that any actions now will have little relevance.

PS Hmm.. I suddenly feel an odd urge to go check out DDO. Must resist! But the PVE in that game was really great I always thought.

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

This thread is simply about people creating more sensationlism.

Well, I post something accurate, which later gets edited both in the AoC forum and here.

You may not have been aware it ever existed;

I am interested, though. Do you not believe editing happens?

<modedit (it happens)>

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

What ever you’re trying to say up there is a different topic. And i also do not believe you.

Gem stacking, its taking 3 gems of the same color (and stat) and placing one in each of the 3 slots in the item.

+3 +3 +3 = +9 total = Gem stacking. The bug is, IF you were to place two reds in an item, any third was not supposed to count ( it currently does ).  But you could have Blue, green, and a red and have all three stats apply.

The developer response is a valid one, if they change this, it has more repercussions than simply item stats, a Real fix is needed, not something temporary.

There is only ONE poster in that entire thread who posted about duping (Duping is short for DUPLICATION) gems, and that’s only because he’s as confused as the rest of you in this thread, and has no idea what they are talking about. They are two different issues (if the other even exists).

 

This thread is simply about people creating more sensationlism.

<modedit>

Nope, what happened here is that this thread was edited.

As, now it seems, was the original.

(They didn't clean all their tracks though - note this post - referring to the original revelation)

"

Today, 11:20 AM	#20
Draginclaw vbmenu_register("postmenu_1851693", true); Assassin Aquilonian     Indago Wiccana PvE	Quote: Originally Posted by Whitezilla Yeah, as if mentioning it wasn't stupid enough, then you bitch about it, but then you TELL THEM HOW TO DO IT? Are you ****ing retarded? I never bitched....
	__________________ 80-Assassin-Wiccana Indago

Perhaps this thread tipped them off to the issue here.

There had been a clear explanation of how to dupe gems.

That explanation is now gone both from the original and from here. I won't repeat it as clearly the people who maintain these boards don't want it known about and I will respect their moderation. I only posted the exploit because it was there on the official boards and Funcom mods had let it continue in a thread they had written in.

Look carefully and you will see this in my OP: <Mod edit>

Originally posted by Nans1

Originally posted by markyturnip

hah.. the big pvp patch consists of fixing broken stuff and introducing pvp xp.

That will do nothing to save this game.

There is no point getting pvp gear anyway as gemmed items (now, we discover, all duped) have destroyed itemisation.

If they remove stacking, they will infuriate players who spent a lot of time grinding money for them, who had been told categorically many times that stacking was in fact intended.

If stacking remains, they will have to stack also on pvp gear, otherwise what will be the point of it? Stacking will always be superior. So you end up with pvp gear being the same, effectively, as current stacked gear. Maybe a bit stronger. Booya.

In fact, gear is not the point here - there are no world pvp objectives to make it worth pvping.

Most people don't siege (and if they reduce meaningful pvp to those people in guilds that can siege, they will have a very niche playerbase indeed). And minigames are an idiotic washout.

The only way to save AoC is to introduce meaningful world pvp objectives, which everyone can take part in. All over the world. That  would be fun. It's so obvious it almost hurts that they won't listen, and won't do it.

I dont think this game can handle worlp pvp objectives. How would failcom do that in an instanced world??, since al zones are instanced it would have to be tha things they already have: mini-games or siege, both instanced already.
 

I dont think anything can save this game, and based on failcom lies it does not deserve to be saved.

My guess is that it is gonna end up in a gear farming game like wow. Stupid instances ruin world pvp and souldbound items ruin economy and no death penalty remove any sense of risk, just like wow end game.

King of the hill?

Capture the castle and raise your flag?

Control the mine for resources?

Capture the village of attractive women, so they all go around saying how sexy your character is?

These could work on an instance by instance basis I think. (Though I agree instances hurt world pvp badly)

The possibilities are endless. And would just be plain fun.

Originally posted by Herodes

{url=http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=155777}your favourite title for your link{/url}

just replace {} with [] and you have your favourite title for your link

Sorry for OT, but if even me as probably most stupid PC-user/consumer is able to link an URL...

 

Thank you for the lesson. I tend to prefer to put the original link up there as many people are nervous of clicking on something. They prefer to copy and paste anyway. It's safer. And it's not as if its difficult, is it?