Unlimited Free Trials are the New MMO Hotness (Age of Conan, Champions Online, Warhammer Online, and more!)

Apparently I missed the memo.  Free trials with unlimited playtime, but level and gameplay restrictions, are popping up everywhere.

Age of Conan - LINK
Details:  Unlimited playtime. Players can play up to level 20, but only if registered for the trial before Jan 1st, 2010.  Trading and player chat limited.

Champions Online - LINK  
Details: Unlimited playtime. New players can create an account and play the beginning zone of Champions Online for as long as they want.

Warhammer Online - LINK
Details: Unlimited playtime. Players are restricted to the Tier 1 Empire vs Chaos zones, but can access all scenarios.  Trading and player chat limited.

Alganon - LINK
Details: Unlimited playtime. No leveling or zone restrictions, but trial characters are deleted after 30 days and must be re-rolled.  Limited skill progression and limited chat options.

Not A Good Time For Failing MMOs

Tabula Rasa is going the way of the dodo. Age of Conan may be following as well: Age of Conan Servers To Merge, Funcom Sees Layoffs.

Two ominous signs have come recently for Age of Conan fans; developer Funcom went through a round of layoffs, and they announced plans to merge some of the game's servers in order to maintain a "healthy" population. Despite this, Funcom has maintained that development will continue for both the PC version and the upcoming Xbox 360 version of the game, confident that Age of Conan won't follow Tabula Rasa into oblivion. A writer at Vox ex Machina doesn't share that view, pointing to several of the game's flaws as reasons why it didn't maintain the popularity it enjoyed at launch.

Tough economic times call for tough measures, but a little voice in the back of my head keeps telling me these games probably wouldn't survive even in the best of economic times. I wonder which game will be next...

Perfect Analogy

Sometimes, an analogy fits a point of view perfectly.

Age of Conan is to "The Fantastic Four" as Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is to "The Dark Knight".

Thanks Satarious!

Epic Fail 2: Second Age of Conan Siege

Openedge was kind enough to point out that a second siege occurred in Age of Conan. According to him it went "much better", but I'm not quite sure our idea of "better" are exactly the same. For example: to me filet mignon is a much better cut of beef than sirloin. To Openedge, cube steak is better than ground beef, because its not ground as much. See what I did there?

From all reports on the second siege, the only aspect to improve, was that it was semi-playable this time around with top-end gaming rigs reaching an astonishing 15 FPS. Everything else STILL did not work. Walls were still exploited, and when the legitimate way to get through a wall, by smashing it to bits occurred, the attackers could not get past the now demolished structure. Siege weapons sat idle.

Really, I could go on and on with the list of problems that AoC's siege warfare has currently, but it isn't worth the typing. The fact is: AoC's end-game siege warfare was not ready at launch. This is fine for the hardcore guilds currently battling each other. They expected as much, are used to such failures, and will battle on into the future.

Problem is, the hardcore guilds are going to quit, regardless of whether sieges get fixed or not. I've played with every single hardcore guild listed, both against and alongside them, and none of them has stuck in any MMO for any length of time. Sure, their name lives on, but rarely do the mainstay players and leaders of the guild last long. There is always a greener pasture to look forward to.

What happens when these early adopter guilds decline? Does Funcom have the system fixed by then or will the majority of AoC players walk into a disaster? I'm not going to sit around and say Funcom can't get it fixed, but I will chastise them for leaving it in-game in such disrepair. It definitely nailed the coffin shut in my mind. I will never play Age of Conan.

I spent a lot of energy arguing that AoC was a direct WoW knock-off and that the only defining features of AoC were not complete, would not work, and are exactly in the state that beta testers predicted them to be.

AoC has proven beyond a doubt that it is a WoW clone, a barely-capable WoW-clone at that. The PvE game is almost an exact copy, which is fine, but the features meant to define AoC as a non-WoW-clone, just are not ready. Will Funcom fix them and develop AoC into a long-standing MMO for their core audience? Probably, but don't expect any more massive interest in the title. Launch was as good as it will get for AoC.

Epic Fail: World First Age of Conan Siege

The news couldn't get worse for Age of Conan (AoC). World first siege, between PFB and LOTD, turns out to be unplayable.

"PFB did the server's first siege (world first?) this morning at 6am EST on LOTD, a few Sinister who were online decided to take the opportunity to see how "polished" siege warfare was. The naysayers were pretty much deadon. It took little time to break down the main gate (max of 4-5 mins), buildings in general go down really fast with the full raid on them. Siege weapons don't work yet, and the mercenary system isn't in (we had to drop our guild for the siege in order to not kill each other even in the same raid). Keeps still have vunerable areas where you can just run past the walls (on the LOTD keep it was on the right side of the outer wall). After breaching the outer wall we ran into the major problem (I guess?) of sieging. LAG. I run a quad core 2.4ghz 2 gig ram and a 8800GT, and I had a solid 2-3fps once we engaged (btw i spent 500 dollars upgrading my pc for this game). Trying to actually fire combos and kill anyone was virtually impossible unless they were rooted."

This wasn't even that many players and AoC is planning to somehow have 150 vs 150 battles? World of Warcraft (WoW) managed 40 vs 40. Most good FPS games max out around 32 vs 32. There was a lot of prior history for Funcom to learn from and set attainable goals. They seem to have disregarded all of it in favor of putting big numbers in their press releases.

I am sick of posting these followups to AoC, highlighting the same problems beta testers were talking about in beta. I'm sick of people telling me I was wrong about AoC. I am sick of people telling me how "fun" AoC is. Games that are not complete, are not fun.

The fact is: Funcom tested NONE of AoC's features outside of leveling, and tested leveling only to the point that it was possible to reach level 80, not whether it was fluid or consistent.

Guild cities? No testing.
PvP sieges? No testing.

I quote a beta tester that participated in the siege:

I'm pretty sick of beta testing the game honestly. I pushed for the last 2 months of beta to get level 80 pvp implemented. I asked for the final month of the beta to have a /80 command so that we could test their endgame/pvp content. Nothing...they didnt do ****. It was a smooth release, but they knew from beta that people would be at endgame content within the first couple of weeks due to their fast leveling curve....yet they continue to push level 30-50 content. ****ing stupid.

A few days of stress testing would have easily shown that neither worked! Something that doesn't work should not be launched for the public to suffer through. That is the old MMO market, not the post-WoW market.

I understand the need for games to launch early. I don't agree with it and I think there is a lot of evidence to show that delaying until finished is very financially viable. However, I must admit that is not how some development houses are run and the need to launch happens. It is just mind-boggling to me that developers don't at least hold major features back that just don't work. Stick with what works, make it really good, and worry about the other stuff later. Most importantly, don't list features on the box that will not make it into the final game or that are unlikely to actually work.

I will compare this situation directly to Pirates of Burning Seas (PotBS). PotBS took a huge delay to put in Avatar Combat. Avatar Combat failed miserably and painfully took away development time from polishing what did work: ship combat and the economy. PotBS could easily be enjoying life as a niche success, but instead the developers are patching in the polish that could of easily been added had Avatar Combat just been ignored until later.

PotBS had huge player numbers at launch, but a few server merges and months later, and it is evident no one stuck around. That is EXACTLY what will happen to AoC. Anyone that doesn't believe me, doesn't understand the power of history to teach the human race.

AoC players better prepare for a long wait, because the siege system is going to require an entire rewrite to become playable. Maybe the rest of the game will hold up and entertain those looking for sieges and epic guild conflict. Maybe, just maybe, Funcom will pull another "Miracle Patch" out of their ass. I doubt it, but I'm going to leave the possibility door open.

We sit here, again, with the long-standing MMO tradition of forcing the player base to test in-game systems after launch. The laundry list of mistakes that AoC has made, is making, and will continue to make is immense. I firmly stand by my position to not play AoC.

Update: 25 June 08 - More commentary here.

Age of Conan Troubles Continue to Surface

The Age of Conan (AoC) launch seemed to have gone off without a hitch, but the truth beneath the surface is starting to rear its ugly head. Which is fine with me, since it fulfills my interest in not eating crow.

AoC launched too early. The "Miracle Patch" that did fix some hardware and crashing issues, did not house any miracle fixes to the late-to-end-game content that many believed it did. Lack of quests, bugs, and malfunctioning game systems are plaguing players as they approach level 80 and begin to settle in for the long haul. That is, if they haven't quit already.

I don't even need to go farther than AoC's own developers to prove this point. They have fully admitted the game wasn't finished or tested enough in this Letter from the Game Director. They launched because the game was playable and could be patched into fruition, as evidenced in their aforelinked Letter and quoted below.

1. We will add content, specifically in mid-late thirties and mid-late fifties and make the leveling speed smoother in those areas, reducing the need to grind.
2. We will have an overhaul of the PvP system – adding consequence and a host of small things.
3. We are fixing bugs you reported through all channels we can get information from.
4. We will add a new large outdoor region in the 55-60 range this summer!
5. This is only a small taster! More information about the exciting summer and fall Roadmap will come the end of the next week!
6. We are staffing up Customer Service, Quality Assurance and Community departments!

Here we sit again, another MMORPG launch goes off technically smooth, but it does not take long for the lack of polish to set in. Most of us hate to use the word polish, but honestly it fits the problem perfectly. Blizzard polished World of Warcraft to a squeaky-clean shine. They didn't innovate; they simply executed the same ideas that have been around for years and polished, polished, polished.

I could go on, but I won't. Funcom simply did not heed the warning set down by Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Tabula Rasa, and Pirates of the Burning Seas. Don't launch until the game is ready. Finish the game first, polish while finishing the game, and then launch.

I know it is easy for me to say that. After all, I'm not putting millions of dollars on the line and could really care less about running out of money. I've always stated that MMO developers need to be a business first and a game developer second. Good business practices will assist greatly in ensuring extra time is available if needed.

No, I'm not a game developer. I'm their customer (loyal btw) and I try to stay out of commenting on the business practices of developers. However, it is painfully obvious, especially with MMOs taking off due to WoW's success, that some developers just do not get it.

AoC, like LotRO, may enjoy financial positivity for a time, but I can't help but point out that these two games could of easily wound up in the state of Vanguard. Fortunately, both AoC and LotRO were able to polish enough of their early game to ensure a bleak existence and give hope to the MMO community that they may just be able to get it done.

I am jaded. I understand a lot of people do not like my constant negativity, but I'm not going to lie to myself. I can't be positive for these unpolished games. The MMO industry is very depressing right now, but has grown to immense proportions. There are players looking for games and AoC picked a great time to launch. I just can't excuse an unfinished game simply on the grounds of launching during a sweet spot. I know, I would probably be a horrible failure as a CEO.

To me, it is summed up in the first comment to this post over at Massively.

So... answer this: Why is it that they can do all of this now, instead of delaying release for 30 days and provide the public with a much more playable product?

Official Age of Conan Forums Open to Public

Funcom has opened the Age of Conan forums to the public. A game account is no longer needed to access the forums.

Visit them here.

GIVE AWAY: Age of Conan Beta Tester Cloak Code

Funcom seems to have appreciated my beta testing and feedback for Age of Conan.

Greetings!

You have been a long and thrustworthy participant in our community, and as such we would like to thank you for helping us form Age of Conan into the marvelous product it is today. The last weeks has seen some serious enhancment to the game, and with the release we will be opening several new areas and neverbefore seen content in the launch version of the game. What and where it is? You have to find out for yourself!

As a sign of gratitude for your aid, we are pleased to offer you the in-game item used by those loyal to King Conan: The Drinking Cape. This item will allow your characters (one game account only) to free of charge demand the very sought after alcholic drink of "Ambrosia" - free and in unlimited supplies for life! After having claimed your cape, merely find one of the kegs in the finer Inns of Hyboria and click it whilst wearing your cape to receive your drink.

However, since I am not playing this game, this gift item is going to go to waste. That is where you come in. Leave a comment with your e-mail address explaining why you deserve to receive it and in a couple days I'll select a winner and e-mail them the code.

UPDATE: Congrats to Genda from The Grouchy Gamer on a fine win.

Age of Conan Miracle Patch?

I played the Age of Conan (AoC) technical beta tests. They sucked. I lost all faith in the game. I understand that technical beta tests are not for my enjoyment. I understand beta testing. I submitted the information they requested for feedback. I still lost all interest in the game. There wasn't even a sliver of hope that the game would be enjoyable in the long run and would most likely crash horribly at launch.

The game hasn't officially launched, but open beta ended successfully from all accounts, aside from obvious FFA PvP server rules. Now, the early access period is in full swing and going well. Supposedly a Miracle Patch occurred between the late stages of beta and the live version of AoC.

Of course, I'm not playing and didn't play in open beta, so I can't really confirm or deny it. However, over a decade of online gaming has taught me that Mircale Patches do not exist. If Funcom pulled something off that fixed the majority of crashes that plagued beta, all while adding the entirety of their high level content in a bug-free way, and without so much as a bleep as to why it took so long, then I will simply eat crow and silence myself.

But I'll wait for the "real" launch and subsequent launch reviews to occur before I make any official calls. Regardless, I'm not starting at level one again for the promise of end-game PvP anytime soon. Either a game gives me what I want from the start or I'm voting a big zero dollars down.

Beta Leaks

There is a certain website that has sprung up recently dedicated to anything and everything that is beta leaking for MMOs. The site features NDA-breaking leaks for Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, and other titles. The main focus of the site is finding "beta leakers" and allowing them to post "beta leaks".

Being a MMO blogger, I appreciate "insider information", so I assumed this beta leaking website would be of value. I truly wanted some juicy information to confirm my worst fears or better, solid information to base my opinion on. Unfortunately, the site isn't about beta leaks and most of the "beta leakers" could be mistaken for misplaced third graders.

What I've found is a Special Ed class in "I don't have a fucking clue about MMOs, but I'm in a beta for one!". The forums for this website are littered with "OMGz this is overpowered", "the graphics suck", and worst of all, "its not like WoW!!!" postings. Someone would have to work really hard to discern any "leaked information" from these rants about games that are still in beta. It would be so easy to just reply a thousand times over "its still beta, how the FUCK can you make any determinations when you are only testing the first few levels of content?".

It really depresses me that these oxygen thieves were given beta slots in the first place. I do get a good laugh though, as about every other day, a "beta leaker" posts their "I got banned" post because they posted a screen shot or video displaying their character's name. At least we know someone is watching closely.

But even worse than the leakers, are the clowns that show up and post in response.
They confuse "beta leaking forum posts" as "this is how the game will be on launch day", and make all kinds of wild assumptions. Some even go so far as to start breaking down numbers, without even having a fraction-of-a-decimal-point of information to base their claims on.
Reading the posts, a casual reader could easily confuse the conversation about beta information, for information about a game that has been around for five years.

Yes, I do still check the website occasionally to see what has been posted, but I doubt I'll keep it up much longer. I don't feel like wasting any more time reading two page posts about some idiot who got into a beta last week, played for a few hours, and absolutely hates the game now. I can get that from normal forums.

Another Age of Conan Delay

Funcom set a new release date for Age of Conan today.

Funcom announces a new release date for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. The highly anticipated MMO receives 8 more weeks of development, allowing Funcom to deliver a more polished MMO experience when the game launches on the 20th of May 2008

With the rumormill and beta leaks swirling, the news coming out of the Age of Conan camp has not been good. I don't harbor any ill-will towards the title, but I am a bit confused by the delays for the title.

I praised Age of Conan at one point for showing the fans what they wanted to see: PvP sieges, mounts, city building. However, apparently most of what was touted to be "in-game" was actually not. What fans have seen through demonstrations seems to have been pre-canned development server stuff, which is disappointing.

Is this the last delay for Conan? I think so, but I also thought I would be playing both Pirates of the Burning Sea and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning back in 2007! Oh well, I still hold to my 2008 predictions that AoC and WAR will both launch.