My Age of Conan Preview

[Skerik]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Wow. I just went to register my key and "Early Access" is sold out. Funny, I thought the act of preordering the game and getting a key entitled me to early access automatically, as was stated among the benefits of preordering. But no, we had to do this secondary registration step and, oh by the way, do it quickly because there were a limited amount of early access keys. Which, oh by the way, was never communicated to me when I preordered the game online.

**** that. Looks like I won't be playing tomorrow. Have fun....

[Cubfan]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Still working on the early access download right now. Just over 3 gigs left to download.

[Sully]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

That sucks, Skerik. Reading their forums, there's a lot of upset customers.


Those that do get in today, please post some impressions. I'm mainly concerned about performance, but will take anything you can offer.

[Sully]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Not a good start for AoC today? Servers are still down. Forums are down. And this is a controlled release. I wonder what next week will be like.

[Skerik]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

No impressions after the big Early Access weekend? C'mon fellas....

[Sully]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Their official forums were down all weekend. I browsed some other forums, and it was nothing but folks complaining about server issues. Very few impressions. From what I've read, it appears the Early Access was a massive failure.

[Skerik]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Their official forums were down all weekend. I browsed some other forums, and it was nothing but folks complaining about server issues. Very few impressions. From what I've read, it appears the Early Access was a massive failure.

In fairness, they did make an official announcement on their forums that they were going to be wiped and would then only be made available to people in the Early Access program prior to the game's official release.

However, having no official forums for this period where people can discuss the game is a pretty stupid idea. That, along with the huge Early Access screw up where they closed the doors on a bunch of people who thought they would be in it, leaves me kind of cold on this game so far.

I went back to LOTRO this weekend, mostly because I was geared to play AoC and I was so furious at Funcom. But I'm enjoying it for the time being, so I can wait for AoC to get its issues sorted out.

[fredropro]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Im still waiting on the download from the install.....40mb of 622mb have had running all night

[TCrouch]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

I spent all weekend playing, but I didn't even do the early access. I had my preorder of the Collector's Edition for months, but the email said "as early as May 14th you can download and install the Early Access Client", so that's when I went to sign up. By then they were sold out, so I'm not doing early access either.

I had no issues whatsoever all weekend on the Closed Beta servers, though. Could always tell when the EA servers went down, though, because a ton of people would rush the CB's.

[Skerik]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

You know what, **** this game.

I preordered the Collector's Edition from Amazon because I wanted the in-game items in addition to the bow you get when you preorder through Amazon. I get a key from them, which is redeemable for the bow. Great. Then I try to get into Early Access, thinking my preorder will let me play the game early, but I learn that they've "sold out" of Early Access without a word from Funcom or Amazon telling me to hurry up and register early. Ok, I guess I can look past that as if it were somehow my fault that I was supposed to sense that they would sell out of the ability to play the game early, which was one of the selling points of a preorder in the first place.

Then today, Amazon updates my preorder status with an expected delivery date of 5/27 or 5/28. The game goes live on 5/20 and they're not going to deliver my game to me for another seven or eight days? What in the hell is that. But I can't buy the game anywhere locally now, because then I get none of the exclusive preorder items. Hooray! My hands are now tied and I refuse to cancel my preorder and deny myself preorder benefits because Amazon and Funcom can't get their **** together.

So I try to log into the AoC forums to see if anyone else is experiencing similar difficulties, but oh, that's right, I've been banned from the official forums because I don't have an active game account, despite the fact that I had access to the forums during beta and I've already subscribed to the game with my ****ing credit card and I'm just waiting for it to arrive in the mail.

**** this game and **** Funcom. They can take their ****-*** customer service and cram it up their *** because I'm going to keep playing Lord of the Rings Online. Enjoy AoC, everyone.

[TCrouch]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Wow...sorry. They definitely didn't explain enough on the Early Access thing. But sounds like a lot of the issue you're having right now is with Amazon. Don't know what to tell ya. I've never preordered a game through Amazon. I always go through Ebgames or Gogamer or something, sorry man.

[Skerik]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Wow...sorry. They definitely didn't explain enough on the Early Access thing. But sounds like a lot of the issue you're having right now is with Amazon. Don't know what to tell ya. I've never preordered a game through Amazon. I always go through Ebgames or Gogamer or something, sorry man.

The EA thing was disappointing enough and represented a total failure on the part of Funcom, but it's absolutely ludicrous to not give people read-only access to the forums for the game. What other MMORPG do you know that does this? I can read the LOTRO boards without logging in, the WOW boards, etc. What's the point? I can't even talk about the game, read impressions, anything.

The whole thing is just a total failure on all fronts and it's totally soured me on the game. Whatever, Funcom (and Amazon). What the F ever.

[TCrouch]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

They actually said that they will enable it soon...they just had an absolute mad dash of preorders at the last minute. I'm guessing it's because the code became so much better in the final 2 weeks.

Honestly, I don't see a problem with it. They saw how many preorders were flying in, and shut down the Early Access to make sure that the server capacity wasn't exceeded, and people were left completely unable to play or download...which still happened in some instances. Imagine another 100,000 people doing it.

With the forums, they want to make sure that the customers in-game who are having issues right now with one of the zones locking up their character and other issues can get resolved quickly instead of having half a million people on the boards to check out the latest "word on the street", etc.

I can understand where you're coming from, but I also understand why they are doing what they're doing. Every other MMO has had just as shaky a launch...in fact, this may be the smoothest one I've ever seen because of the things they're doing.

I feel for ya, and I know it's frustrating. But if you pass on the game entirely due to launch day frustrations, you'll miss out on a great game. I don't think it's nearly as much "failure" as it is being cautious and ensuring that the servers don't go nuclear, and that people can play as much as possible (providing they got the game, at least).

[Skerik]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Yeah, who could have possibly forseen that a game as hyped and anticipated as this one would be so popular. They could have alerted people early to the fact that they were going to lock down the Early Access program shortly after its release because their servers couldn't handle the load, but instead they wait and are stunned that a lot of people actually want to play the game and they haven't adequately accommodated for their numbers. Gee, who knew?

Your forum explanation is ridiculous as well. If you want to make the support forums accessible only to the people who have the game and desperately need help, go ahead. But to cut off the general public from any discussion of the game entirely? That doesn't make a damn bit of sense, unless their forum servers can't handle the load either. Which would be a laughable proposition and totally their fault due to poor planning as well.

And no, not every MMORPG has had just as shaky a launch - the LOTRO launch went much more smoothly. Everyone who wanted to play could play, beta actually played like the retail version of the game ended up playing, and you could carry characters over from the beta. To say AoC has had such a smooth launch because lots of people are shut out from playing it is kind of ridiculous. I could develop a MMORPG, make it accessible to only me and you, and call its launch very successful because we both didn't have any problems with it.

Customer service and communication has been a disgrace, many people are unable to play (or even discuss) the game, but hey, the launch has been great! Yeah, ok.

[TCrouch]

Re: My Age of Conan Preview

Lord of the Rings was smooth...you're right. And the numbers weren't even close to the 700,000 that they had to ship to fill orders for AoC. AoC at the end of closed beta played exactly like it does now at lunch. And the forums all use the same server and the same bandwidth, so if that's ridiculous, then dunno what to tell you. Lord of the Rings only had to hold about 12 servers at launch. AoC had an absolute explosion of preorders at the last minute. Not sure what you expect them to do other than have 300 servers sitting back, ready to go, IN CASE people go nuts in the last week and order another 200,000 copies. Kind of unrealistic.

Be mad at them...go ahead. Matter of fact, go ahead and pass on it. I'm not going to get into a pissing match with you about it. I don't know why it seems like so much of this anger is directed my way. Not "so many people are shut out from playing it"...only people who haven't received a copy yet, which isn't their fault. Ordering through Amazon is a pretty big crapshoot for "release day" games of any kind. You would have a forum login, and be able to play, if it wasn't shipping a week later because of Amazon. The biggest snafu is the Early Access.