Rant: Gold Spammers

“They should be kicked down a burning flight of stairs covered in broken glass and AIDS.”

These were the words a guildmate of mine recently used to describe his feeling towards the parasites of the MMO genre we have all come to know and hate, the gold spammers. Every major MMO in the last few years has been infested with the likes of these scumbags. It doesn’t matter if the game is big or small, these blood-sucking leeches are ready to offer you their dubious services in order to make your gameplay experience a more enjoyable one.

They always seem to find you. Most commonly many of us will receive the random tell from a gentleman with an almost unprenouncable name, probably generated from rolling his face over the keyboard. These worldly scholars mysteriously also seem to share the same commanding mastery of english language. In more recent games like Age of Conan, they could be seen shouting in general chat and filling your in-game mailbox with advertisements. Hell, even some MMO based websites find their forums and blog sections infested with these dingleberries clinging to the ass of the genre. For only few measly dollars, they promise to introduce you into lifestyles of the rich and stupid of whatever virtual world you find yourself inhabiting.

2-Sided Problem

On one side of the coin you have to deal with how these people directly effect the game. To the honest player, they are an annoyance first and foremost. Often times they can obstruct the gameplay of players. Gold farmers who gather the money will identify an area that enables them to generate the most wealth per hour. This can in turn lead to bottlenecks in these areas which often times are places that normal players will have to pass through during the natural order of progression. If left unchecked over time, the flooding of gold into the online economy can often time lead to inflation driving up the costs of items sold between players via the auction house.

The other side of the coin is the fact that players are to blame as well. These spammer would not be in the business they are in if it were not profitable. It is profitable as long as players are willing to take the low road and shell out real life cash for in game cash. Let’s say a farmer buys a box for $50 to play the game, and manages to send an advertisement to every player on the server one time before being banned. In many cases, that farmer only needs to find one or two players willing to do business to justify the $50 for the new account that gets banned.

The Solution

Most MMO’s that are infested by these shortbus-riding window-lickers are proactive about trying to shut them down as fast as possible. Final Fantasy 11 was notorious for having tons of gold farmers, but oddly enough, no spammers. The reason why they don’t bother the player I am guessing is due to the fact that Square-Enix has been known to wipe out thousands of accounts at a time. Anyone who has ever played this game knows how hard it is to get to a level to make money so I can only assume they fear the time investment in releveling in this old challenging MMO.

I want to take some time to talk about Warhammer online as this seems to be the hot topic at the moment. Mark Jacobs at Mythic has expressed his feeling towards this in a recent blog entry where he says…

“I hate gold sellers/spammers. No, that’s not strong enough, let me try again. I HATE GOLD SELLERS WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING.”

I think I speak for most of us when I say that we feel the same way. Nobody would shed a tear if these people decided to take a bath with their toaster, drank a bottle of Clorox, or took a leap down a slip-and-slide naked while carrying a scissors… but I digress.

Mythic has literally had the gold spammers invade Warhammer Online right at launch. The good news is that Mythic has put themselves out in front of the problem right away to face it head on, in a very transparent way. The first thing they have done is make it very easy to report the spammers. They have also built into the game’s mailbox mechanic a waiting period between sending mail to players of 20 seconds. This helps prevent the kind of mass mailings that Age of Conan still suffers from. When bans do come down, players have been receiving pop up boxes that have become somewhat comedic letting the players know certain players or sometimes entire guilds have been banned. I actually read a thread today where some people were actually complaining that the ban pop ups where just as annoying as the spammers, an argument which may get amplified over time. It was also pointed out to me today that Mythic has a counter on the War Herald site showing the number of bans handed out so far.

It’s good to see that the devs of all MMO’s are fighting back. Mythic seems to be leading the charge right now, so we will see how steadfast they remain as their game grows in popularity. Money is so easy to get in Warhammer right now, and other than buying a mount, I don’t see the demand for gold to be high enough to justify paying for it. I hope fellow WAR players will realize this and make it unprofitable for them to spam us in game.

One final note, a part of Mark Jacobs blog did jump out at me and raise an eyebrow that makes me question some of the other devs out there…

“I’ve been offered “a piece of the action” both personally and corporately in the past if I will either turn a blind eye or help them in their actions. This would have netted me and/or Mythic a very, very tidy sum, far more than we would see from box sales. My answer was and always will remain the same:

Go to hell.”

Paragus

Co-Leader of Inquisition

It seems that when it comes to MMORPGs most of us prefer the fantasy genre.  This is evident by not only by looking at the top MMORPGs (Wow, GuildWars, LoTRO, Runescape, EQ, Lineage, DAoC, FFXI), but also by the fact that most of the MMORPGs that are created are fantasy based.  Is this a case of developers giving us what we want or is the fantasy genre being shoved down our throats?

I believe this is a case of supply and demand.  For most of us, including myself, it is much much easier to go from one fantasy MMO to another fantasy MMO.  In the most recent case for me, jumping from Age of Conan to Warhammer Online.  There’s already a built in system that I don’t have to relearn.  Warriors carry melee weapons, mages have mana and spells, orcs and goblins are evil.  I already know who my friends and enemys are before I create my first character.  Not so with the sci-fi genre.  Jumping from Starwars to Eve Online to Tabula Rasa to City of Heros is a learning experience each time.  Sure we all know the Starwars story and that superheros fight super villains, but not so with most other sci-fi games.  We must learn a new story line, new weapons, new races, new powers, which makes the learning curve much steeper.  There’s something to be said about knowing where you’re headed.  Same goes in real life, most of us have a favorite bar or restaurant we always go to and while we don’t mind trying something new, it’s always nice to be somewhere you’re familiar with.

Apart from the comfort factor with fantasy MMORPGs, there also seems to be many more big fantasy properties out there that already have a following and lore.  Lord of the Rings, Warcraft, Conan, Warhammer, Camelot, D&D, Final Fantasy, Ultima Online to name a few.  Most of us, being a bit on the nerdy side (or could just be me), already have at least some knowledge of almost all of these story lines.  Which again makes it easier for us to join that universe.  While sci-fi does have some big properties that have been made into MMOs, it doesn’t seem any of them have reached a level of success that the big fantasy MMOs have.

Does this mean that a sci-fi or other non fantasy MMORPGs can never become the top MMORPG?  Absolutely not.  In fact the next MMORPG I’m looking forward to is a sci-fi one which I wrote about a little while back, JumpGate.  Even though I do prefer fantasy, it does get a bit stale after a while so I need to switch it up from time to time.  How about you?  Fantasy, Sci-fi or other?

Rant: Server Queue

The release of Warhammer Online has brought us something we haven’t seen in a very long time besides good PvP, and that is the horror of server queues. I was lucky enough to pick probably the highest pop server for my guild to play on, but also unlucky enough to be faced with some of most serious queues of all of the servers. Now given at this point, we are only about 1 week into the games servers being brought live, but this seems to have become a hot button issue for many people finding themselves on crowded servers.

The downsides of queues are obvious and can be very annoying. All you have to do is read your forums of choice to hear the whining of people who are stale about this issue. People coming home from work and having to wait upwards of 30 minutes or longer to be able to log in. We have even had some guild members report that the queue was so long that they weren’t even allowed to join it! They then have to spam the join button in hopes of getting a spot in the back of the line. Now imagine going through all of this to get in the game, and then have a crash to desktop sending your ass right to the back of the line again.

Now that being said, the existence of queues obviously mean the game has sold very well. There are rumors swirling of over 1 million boxes sold right out of the gate, something that not even World of Warcraft to lay claim to. Also the queues may be a foreshadowing of the success this game may come to reap. We haven’t seen this sort of demand for an MMO since World of Warcraft was released years ago, which we all know has had subscription numbers soar over the 10 million mark over the course of its lifetime. I am sure the people over at Funcom are envious of this, the one problem their game does not have. At least if Mythic loses 50% of their subscribers like its competition it will still be on good shape.

As a guild leader, I intentionally wanted to pick a server with a high population because I have experienced what it is like to play an MMO on underpopulated servers in a variety of games. There is nothing worse then playing an MMO, especially one that revolves around PvP, and finding yourself having to go out of your way to find a fight.

Warhammer Online seems to have a lot of emphasis on the scenarios for the time being, hopefully this will change once people level up. The good thing about the high population is that there is almost always a scenario going on. There are reports that on some of the lower pop servers that the scenarios are taking longer to start up, even worse if you are playing Destruction. I can tell you as an Order player I often times find the scenarios popping up too frequently, not giving me enough time to finish my quest.

Mythic also seems to be aware of the problem and understands that nobody wants to have to wait to play. They have come up with what I think is one of the most interesting ideas to try to persuade people to try another server. Shortly after the population problem on certain servers became evident, they copied all of the characters from those populated servers to specific underpopulated servers. In past MMOs, we often would have to wait ages for devs to open up a character transfer option. When the time finally did come, players would have to go through a transfer process that quite honestly is a pain in the ass. Mythic’s solution seems enticing because they are telling you that if you want to switch your character is already on this other server ready to go.

One problem still remains in the fight against queues. On my server which still have queues, they have already done the cloning option for transfers, and they have also announced that my server is set to the maximum the hardware will allow. So where does Mythic go from here? The hardware is maxed and the transfer option has already been used.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am more than willing to tough it out. I expected this, and to me it is a price worth paying to get to play on the server I am on. My entire guild is in it for the long haul, there is nowhere else we would rather be. I know for a fact a lot of the other guilds on my server have adopted the same policy as well.

It makes me wonder if we are all playing a giant game of chicken against each other as players to see who has the stomach to ride this thing out. Players who are not attached to large guilds may have to really start evaluating their server decisions on whether or not it is worth the wait to play. Perhaps in the end everyone is hoping Mythic will come up with some way to upgrade the hardware to allow more players. It’s been a hell of a week Mythic, hopefully something will happen to help alleviate the situation, or maybe we will keep playing the waiting game. Only time will tell.

Paragus

Co-Leader of Inquisition

www.inqguild.com

Of course I’m talking about the recently released Warhammer Online and not actual war.  As you might have read from Malcom’s review below, Warhammer is a crap load of fun, so I’m not going to post another review of the game, instead I’ll post my opinion on what I think thus far.

Currently I have two characters, a Battle Priest, lev 11 on a normal server and a Dwarf tank, lev 10 on a open RvR server.  Alliance all the way!

First I’ll start of when what I don’t like, cause quite frankly it’s a pretty short list.

Game Map – The main map does not provide any indicators of towns or outposts at all, even locations you visited.  Now some towns/outposts are obvious just by looking at the map, however many are not.  So when traveling between location and wanting to look back, it’s hard to remember where things were.  Minor inconvinience which hopefull will be corrected in the near future.

Mobs – My main problem here is the respawn rate and the amount of time they chase you when running away.  The respawn rate in some areas is so fast that it’s rediculas and frustrating to do quests in that location.  The chasing is just as annoying because to me it feels as though they chase you for twice as long as any other MMO I’ve played.  Put these 2 in together and some quests, even easy ones, just became very frustrating.

Public Quests – While I love the idea, I don’t really like how they work.  PQs are broken into chapters, I believe there are 28 chapters in the game, with each chapter having multiple PQs to complete.  Then each PQ is broken down to stages, each stage becomes harder until you complete them all and finish the PQ.  You can complete a chapter by getting points by participating in PQs, however you don’t have to complete any of the stages or more than 1 PQ.  You can farm the first PQ and just do the first stage over and over until you get enough points to complete the chapter.  This becomes extremly boring and tedious as you’re killing the same things over and over.  The other problem is that when you do complete a PQ, it’s normally no where near the amount of points needed to complete the chapter, so in my experience so far, players just do the same PQ over and over until they have enought points, which again is very boring. As I said I love the idea, I just don’t think it’s implemented correctly.

Now on to what Warhammer Online does right, which is everything else.  In some of my previous posts, I sometimes come down hard of PvE, but to be honest, I don’t mind it that much.  PvE can be fun, I just hate being forced into it and having no options to do anything else.  Within 20 mins of starting Warhammer online, I was doing PvE quests, in the waiting queue to participate in a RvR senario quest and joining others in PQs.   A few hrs later once I gained some levels I then entered some RvR areas and joined a warband to kick some Destruction ass.

Having joined both servers with either low or medium population, I have yet to wait in line to login and the waiting queue for RvR is very fast, normally 3-5 mins.  The best part of RvR senarios is that you can do other things while waiting, then you get a popup asking you if you want to join.  Great way to keep the game exciting and constantly changing up what you’re doing.

PvE quests are your normal run of the mill MMORPG quests, however if you don’t want to do any of them, don’t, you don’t have too.   Don’t like RvR, join a normal server and just play the normal PvE quests.  The best part of Warhammer Online is that it doesn’t force you to do anything you don’t want to.  I love that!

I think it’s safe to say Mythic has a kick as MMORPG on their hands with Warhammer Online and I definietly have a new home game wise.

I’ll be playing exclusively now on the open RvR server, much more fun imo and will post some updates as I get further into the game.  I hate to be Funcom right now considering a good PvP game just came out. Ouch!

With Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning seeing its release on September 17th, there hasn’t been a lack of people wanting to share their views on how good or bad EA Mythic’s latest MMORPG is. Unfortunately, for me, it has taken a while to be able to get a chance to sit down and write my thoughts on the game, because I have spent nearly every waking hour playing it. Finally, I decided to take the time to be able to write my first impressions, and throw out yet another review to the hungering behemoth that is the internet.

I. Decisions, decisions.

Let’s face it, we all love having choices. We love choosing how to look, where to go, what to do, and what reviews to bookmark to read and enjoy over and over. Warhammer Online is a game that will flood you with choices right from the beginning. You will have to choose what server to pick, what type of server to pick(Open RvR, Core, Role-play, or the only Open RVR/RP server), and what faction you’re going to play for. Now, the sad truth is that Destruction is over-populated. This seems to cause long waits in the match-making system for scenarios, meaning as Destruction you will normally be waiting a hell of a lot longer than Order to get into a fight. Originally, I thought I would go Order only because Destruction had so many people, but the first witch hunter named “Vanhelsing” I saw sort of turned me off and convinced me to make the switch to Destruction. Now, even though I play Destruction, I’m going to say that Order has some really cool and unique classes, which completely break the warrior, rogue, healer archetypes into a more complex type of role, and even though Order seems to be yet another Middle Earth-esque faction, it has a very distinctive spin to it.

 Once you’ve picked Order for the sole purpose of making wait times for my Marauder shorter, you will have to decide what class you want to play. Mythic presents you with another tough choice, but gives you the benefit of reading a small description which indicates what your main role in the game will be. The way the classes have been laid out overall is incredibly refreshing. In fact, I can think of no other word except refreshing when describing any of the many classes included in Warhammer Online.

 

On to the actual classes:

•  Healers – Healers are actually very, very fun to play. They either combine offensive spell-casting with their healing, or melee DPS with their healing. Yes, you read right. You’re not restricted to being a robe-wearing scholar who desperately swings his staff if anyone gets within three feet of him. No, you’ll be running into the fray, swinging your weapons purposefully while assisting your fellow comrades in battle with the heals you build up through your attacks.
• Tanks – It’s finally possible for tanks to have a role in PvP. Tank game-play varies, with some tanks having focus on melee damage, and others having focus on supporting their allies. Still, the way tanks have been implemented into the game is astounding. For one, taunts work on players. Taunts give debuffs to your target, or give the tank a buff against their target. This buff wears off if the targeted player attacks the tank x number of times, which gives incentives for people to attack the tank. This is just one of the many ways in which Mythic has created a more than satisfactory role for tanks in PvP.
• Melee DPS – They’re there to do what they already do in every other game. Hit things at close range until they drop dead. There’s nothing really different in the way the melee DPS plays their class as compared to other games, but the abilities they receive make them unlike any other type of melee DPS you may have played in the past.

• Ranged DPS – These are not very different in what their ultimate purpose is, either. They’re there to throw fireballs or shoot arrows at people until they are face down on the ground. However, Warhammer once again surprises all of us by delivering these classes in a very unique manner. For example, Bright Wizards build up combustion with their damaging spells. As combustion goes up, the wizard’s critical chance with spells go up, but if they build up too much they will risk having their spells explode and damage them instead.

 

Since there’s no pressure for performance if you’re just starting out, you can explore all the classes and archetypes until you feel comfortable enough to master one.

 

II. Player vs Player/Realm vs Realm

 

 Finally, a game that delivers on what they promise. This is all-out war; there are no rules, no fouls. You simply pick a side and you work towards exterminating the members of the opposite faction, taking their keeps, and taking their land. Scenarios, although reminiscent to instanced PvP in other games, are perhaps one of the most popular forms of RvR in the game right now.  The good thing is, however, that the objectives don’t treat you like a child. Unlike other games with similar instanced PvP content, you’re not there to play a friendly game of capture the flag with your enemy; you’re there to kill them.

 

  Rare in MMORPGs is the fact that you can gain levels in PvP, or doing something other than killing monsters(i.e.: crafting). While you can not obtain higher levels in Warhammer by crafting, you can obtain higher levels by engaging in PvP or RvR combat. Every player you kill will give you XP, renown, and some money. Renown increases your renown rank, which lifts restrictions on gear available from renown merchants around the world; that is, the higher your renown rank is, the more gear you will have available to purchase. Luckily, although there are two separate types of ranks, you can increase them both by doing just one thing: PvPing.

 The world objectives are also highly enticing. While dependant on server population, there’s usually battles going on to decide the fate of a particular piece of contested land. I’ve been having a lot of fun just randomly showing up to the northern part of Nordland to engage in random RvR with other players there, outside of scenarios. The downside is that there are normally a few higher level players that will be able to turn the tide of battle.

 That brings me to my last point in their PvP system: levels, and how they affect PvP. In this game, you have the ability to jump into a scenario as soon as your character is created and you’ve gone through the introduction cinematic. In Scenarios, your level will be increased to a certain point, so that you can stand a better chance against enemies in the higher ranks of the scenario. For example, for Tier 1 scenarios, your rank will be bumped up to rank 8 if you’re lower than that. This will give you more health, and allow you to survive better in a battle. I randomly made a sorceress this morning, and went into Khaine’s Embrace(a Tier 1 scenario) at rank 3, and ended up second to a rank 11 witch elf in damage dealt. This encourages people to jump into the PvP system as early as possible so that they make all their mistakes early on and learn how to properly play their class by the time they’re out of tier 1.

 

III.  PvE / Grouping

Well, we come to one of the parts that a lot of people don’t like about the game. To be fair, the game is not intended to have you gather 20 people and go kill a boss in an instance. At the same time, however, many feel like the PvE aspect of the game could have been given more attention. Right now, PvE seems to be mainly in place to create a sort of linear progression that guides you from tier to tier, or from chapter to chapter of public quest. Next, if you enjoy grouping with other players to do quests, or enjoy social aspects of MMORPGs, you will not find it easy to get accustomed to Warhammer Online. Meeting new players is difficult, because rarely anyone talks in the public channels, and there’s rarely a need for groups.

 The only thing that requires a group of people are public quests, but those people don’t even have to talk to each other to get them done. Public quests display objectives globally, so when any player kills a certain mob, or does a certain thing, it will count for all the players in the area. Even if you’re nowhere near the public quest when it starts, you can join in when it’s halfway-through simply by entering the public quest area. What this means is that there can be six of us in a public quest area, ungrouped, completing the objectives, finishing the stages of each chapter, taking our loot and going home without having to even know their names.

 

 

It’s obvious, but if you are a fan of PvE games, raiding instances, and the like, you will not enjoy Warhammer Online in the least.  There just isn’t enough PvE content to keep fans of item hunting and repeating bosses happy.

 

In the end, if you’re searching for a game that will satisfy your PvP needs, then this game might just be it. Keep in mind that although the PvE is not bad there’s just not enough of it to keep someone playing it if they enjoyed a type of game-play more like Lord of the Rings: Online. If you rarely PvP, and want to try something different, by all means give the game a shot.

 As for my opinion, I haven’t had this much fun with a game in a long, long time. Not since the days of vanilla World of Warcraft, where I would stay up to 3 AM in the morning trying to get rank 11 in battlegrounds. This game has the “what the hell, it’s 3 AM already?!” factor to it, and all the games I have played lately have not been able to keep me hooked in such a way.

Back in May, I posted an article about how Age of Conan shipped 700,000 units for its big release.  Today, although a bit late, I learned that Mythic has shipped more than double that, 1.5 million units to retailers for its release tomorrow (or should I say today since it’s 1am) Sept 18th, absolutely crushing the previous record.  Although not a true world wide release, it’s pretty big shipping units to North America, Europe and Oceania (basically Australia and a few other islands around there)

What does this mean for Warhammer Online gamers?  Well not much.  As we saw with AoC, having a big release will get the game off to a good start, but if you don’t bring the beef players will drop your game faster than a drunk frat girl dropping her panties after she’s had a few.  But it does say something about Mythic’s confidence in its final product, which hopefully is much better than AoC’s was on release day.

Tomorrow I plan on going out and hunting for a copy of War.  Hopefully it won’t be as bad as last time when I tried looking for AoC and wasted about 5 hrs over the course of 2 days before I finally got a copy.  Wish me luck.

Just when I thought I had escaped writing about Age of Conan, something as superb as THIS knocks on my electronic front door. The infamous Gaute Godager, Game Director for Age of Conan and of Steak and Wine fame, has ‘resigned’ from Funcom. For those that don’t know what ‘resigned’ means, it means that they told him to resign or they’d fire him.

I can’t help but feel a little responsible for all this. Sure, my scathing review of sorts of Conan probably didn’t help his cause – but I think I’ve been too hard on the guy. I’ve called him out multiple times, not only for his Steak and Wine quote (man I love that) – but also possibly one of the weirdest ‘welcome to the game’ messages ever created. He managed to include slave whipping, confuse it’s players on whether they are riding a ship or driving it, use the phrase “nature launches” and even use the word “bumpiness”. I’m almost tearing up re-reading that announcement. It seemed so long ago we were so naive of the ways of Funcom and had such high hopes for the game.

While I wish Gaute the best of luck in his new career – and speculation on where that will be will only cause fear in the collective MMO community – I think it’s safe to say that MMO’s probably aren’t your forte. That might be a bit harsh, but for those keeping count, that’s 0/2 for Mr. Godager – Anarchy Online and Age of Conan. At least Richard Garriott has Ultima Online to reminisce about as he shoots off to the Moon or whatever.

Adieu, Mr. Go Danger, your savvy wit and cheeky quips will forever be remembered.

Hi, I’m Daedren. You might remember me from other interviews like “Mark Jacobs: He Didn’t Call Me Back” and “Richard Garriott: Corp Por or In Vas Mani?” I write this not with a gun to my head, or a sharp weapon to my balls, but because I’m an advocate of objective journalism in the MMO industry. That means when I strike up a dialogue with someone as unlikely as even Erling Ellingsen, of Age of Conan interview fame, I must adhere to my own code. I think I’m saying that because I’ve been watching Dexter too much.

A short synopsis of the background leading to this interview: I recently wrote an article titled “Age of Conan: A Post Mortem Analysis” that was, by MMO industry standards, famous enough to have Massively’s chief editor send me a couple hookers and a bucket of KFC for my troubles. Some of my readers summed it up as “The harshest review ever done on a game – but mostly true” or “inane babble by a crazed man, obviously driven insane by his socialist European overlords” – in any case, it got the attention of Funcom, probably because I emailed it to all of them.

I eventually came to discussing the article with one Erling Ellignsen. After he realized I was not all fire and brimstone, he lightened up to the fact that reaching out to MMO player base might be a good idea. No one is perfect, of course, and it’s only fair to give someone the chance to explain. With that said, I’ve given Erling 5 questions to answer, and here are his responses:

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Daedren: In an interview with Jon Wood of MMORPG.com, you state that “No big features didn’t make it in to launch”. However, Age of Conan was marketed as a PVP-Oriented MMO. As the game was launched without a PVP system, how is this possible? We understand the need for testing and ironing bugs out, but it really does seem like the PVP system should have been there at launch and wasn’t. What gives?

Erling Ellingsen: I disagree with you that the game launched without a PvP system. You could PvP players from day one, both in mini-games, in the open world and in sieges. One of the things we received the most positive feedback on was actually PvP, and Age of Conan is unique in regards to the fact that the majority of our players actually play on PvP servers. We even launched with a PvP cultural server ruleset. However, we know that we need to develop PvP further and that’s what we’re doing when we’re now rolling out PvP experience, levels, armor and the consequence system. Saying that Age of Conan launched without a PvP system would, however, be incorrect in my opinion.

Daedren: In the same interview, you mentioned that “We know better than anyone what issues we are facing with the game”. That said, how can you then justify the recent gem changes, the horrible gem balance from before, the past and current in-game itemization, and lastly, failure to fix game breaking problems like gems and epic item farming (effectively ruining the economy) in a reasonable amount of time? What sort of assurance do players have that mistakes like this won’t be done again in the future?

EE: I certainly understand your concern, but rest assured that we are doing the best we can at the moment. We would like to fix everything right away, but that’s simply not the way it works. These changes take time to develop and implement, and we need to work from a list of priorities. We have done a tremendous amount of improvements since launch, just look at the various patch notes. That being said we know there are still many issues that needs to be corrected, and we are working relentlessly on that. The gem system is being worked on as we speak, and the recent change we did was a temporary one to offer an intermediate improvement until we get it right. We will address all the issues we can, we just need to work from a list of priorities, and that means some issues will be ironed out before others. I know it’s hard to be patient about these things.

Daedren: There has been a lot of criticism about Funcom already announcing a pay-for expansion for Age of Conan. A hefty portion of people have been allocated for this project. How can you justify spending time on paid content when basic features (like PVP) are missing from the game, and how can you try and compete with other games like Lord of the Rings Online who provide these content updates at no cost?

EE: I have absolutely no idea where you have “a hefty portion of people” from. Right now the expansion team is very, very small. Our main focus now is, of course, the live game. It would make no sense whatsoever for us to not prioritize the live game — we need players to be happy with the game or else there isn’t much point even making an expansion, so improving on the game that’s there is priority number one. We wanted to drop some news on the expansion now because we wanted to show our playerbase that we are making long-term commitments to the game. Again, addressing the concerns the players have about the live game is alpha omega to us. The expansion is far, far away from release and we merely wanted to announce that we are indeed committing ourselves to delivering that sometime in the future. Until then, the live game is top priority.

Daedren: With the release of Warhammer Online and the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, how do you plan to retain players? What is the focus in the next 6 months of Age of Conan to either keep players playing or get them back from other games?

EE: That’s a good question, and I’m sure it will be a challenge! Right now what we want to do is work with our players on addressing the concerns they have and making the necessary changes and improvements that both we feel is needed and that the players feel is needed. We’re definitely getting there, and I think you will see us picking up speed in the time ahead as more and more good stuff is coming out. The first part of the PvP update is leaving the test servers now, and I can’t wait to hear the player’s feedback on it. Then we need to get the consequence system out, and I think we have definitely made a heavy improvement to PvP. We’re also rolling out a whole new outdoor area for level 55+ players, a whole new dungeon for level 60+ players, Tarantia Commons for mid-level players, as we have at least two level 80 dungeons in production. Then there is epic raid gear coming for all the classes, and we will continue to revamp content similar to what we did with the Black Castle. We are also looking into loot distribution, making the items more meaningful and making raiding more rewarding. We are committed to improving on Age of Conan and a large number of the changes you’re seeing is a direct reaction on player feedback.We will also work towards improving communication with our playerbase, and we want to keep everyone more in the loop on what we are doing with the game.

Daedren: How are the current subscription and server numbers? We’ve hear rumors of server merges and severe population declines on some servers. Any plans for these?

EE: I’m not at the liberty to discuss subscription numbers due to the fact that we are a publicly traded company. The latest number we announced was the 415.000 customers per August 14th. We will certainly do what is necessary to entertain a healthy community of players on the servers, and if we decide on doing anything such as server merges we will make sure to notify the playerbase when we can. Right now I can not give you any definite plans on this, though. We do, of course, register the feedback we’re getting on the forums and we’re taking it into consideration.

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*And there we have it, folks. I’m a bit disappointed with the answers, of course, but that’s not surprising. If you call “able to attack another player” a “PVP System” then I guess that’s your call. Perhaps I should have said “No meaningful PVP System” or perhaps “A PVP System different than Bruce Lee on the Commodore 64.” Not releasing subscriber numbers might not be Erling’s decision, but I think it’s safe to say with Warhammer launching this week and WotLK out in November, Age of Conan is going to have a bit of a difficult time not only retaining players but getting new ones as well. From how Erling talks, Age of Conan is being patched constantly and fixing problems, not introducing new ones. How accurate is that?I’ll be honest: I haven’t played Conan since June. That said, I’m not the most informed on the current game status: though word on the street is that the PVP patch still hasn’t launched and there are still some glaring performance problems. I’ve heard from a couple MMO hobos that still play AoC that a real patch hasn’t been introduced since July or early August, and that the PVP patch (the one promised in June) is hyped up every week, only to be let down come patch day.That said, I ask my readers to come up with some questions to bring to Funcom. Of course, I’d like to know peoples response to these answers. I’ll be compiling what I consider the “best” questions from readers around and giving them back to Erling in a week or two – that is, if he doesn’t put a restraining order out for my vivid pictorial references above.

Consider this an open dialog with “the Funcom”. I’d like to hear from both ex-customers like myself and also some current subscribers that still enjoy the game.

Oh, on a last note, here is the three month trend for Funcom Stock. If you’re too lazy to click, it’s gone from $55 per share to $8 per share in just over 90 days. I’m no market analyst, so I ask for help on this as well. Is that healthy?

Sanya Weathers has tossed down a bit of a rant on her Eating Bees blog, regarding the relationship between media and public relations (albeit from her role as a Community Manager for MMORPGs which is much the same thing). As someone who has worked as a journalist and a PR manager (but mostly journalist) for over a decade, including covering the video game market, I found her comments interesting because I can relate to them firsthand from either side of the fence. But do I agree with her? On the whole, no, not really.

Let’s start with one of her comments:

There are only two ways for a reporter to get on my shit list when I’m wearing my CM hat – one, lie. Two, drink my booze and wear my t-shirt without giving me so much as a paragraph on your blog.

Ouch. While I can see where Sanya is heading with that second thought, I could never apply it like a blanket to all journalists. Yes, there are some inverate liggers out there in journalism who go to events just to drink booze and catch up with their mates. They usually have no interest in the product being marketed. Indeed, one wonders how such people ended up journalists in the first place. And I’m not just talking guys and gals with blogs – I mean serious journalists. As such, it’s VERY easy to get a bit cranky with their attitude and consider them for your “shit list”, or however else one describes that area of their Excel spreadsheet of contacts where names are relegated for minimal – or no – contact. But, I must add, it really goes on a case by case basis, too.

You see, as a journalist, I would happily attend an event, drink the booze and/or eat a meal… and then evaluate what was on offer. Sometimes what was on offer was so pathetic, I couldn’t conceive writing about it. But how do you know before you get there? We used to joke in the editor’s pit, actually, that the more secretive an invitation was, leading up to an event, the less newsworthy an event was probably going to turn out when we arrived. And we were usually right! It is a journalist’s right to evaluate what’s on offer and, whether they’ve had a few beers, a three course meal, or even been flown business-class to the far side of the world, have every right not to write a story. That’s just the way it is. What does this mean for PR people?

I believe it’s basically a challenge to make events (especially those that include hospitality or travel and are basically taking someone’s writing time and, in some cases, their personal after-hours time), to be as newsworthy as possible. Because, unless you’re just inviting those inveterate liggers, chances are that a newsworthy event will be covered. Magazines and websites like news. Give them news and, chances are, they will write it up – whether you fed them, whether you flew them around the world… or whether you just sent them a press release by email. It’s all about the news!

Next, Sanya offers:

For better or for worse, few studios recognize the power of the small website, the fansite, the struggling comic, or the ranter. If I had to cash in chips to get you invited to the press event, you need to do more than a half-assed paragraph underneath your machima porn expose. I’m in the trenches arguing that you have more value than PC Gamer, so don’t make me look like a schmuck by “forgetting” to post anything substantial.

Wow. My only response to that is to turn this back on Sanya. If a writer/blogger is so niche, why bother with them in the first place if it’s going to be a hard sell to your bosses to allow them to attend an event? Sure, there’s that warm fuzzy feeling you can sometimes get as a PR person when you can put a small-fry writer into a room with “the big boys” and see the joy on their face as they get to “play journalist” for the day and live the dream. That’s nice and, you know, I understand how it can also foster some nice relations among people who might read that person’s blog or listen to their podcast, or whatever, but I would seriously draw the line at going overboard trying to fight for someone’s right to party if they’re niche and not likely to return much copy.

Of course there are sometimes big events where it doesn’t really matter if you sneak a dozen people – and their mates – in through the back door… but Sanya is clearly indicating more formal times, perhaps with limited seats, where she might have to argue for their presence. In such situations, with my PR hat on, I’d simply ask myself, “Is this a hill worth dying for?” If not… if it’s some blog that has 8 readers via Feedburner, or something… I just wouldn’t go to the trouble in the first place. The easiest way to not let someone make you look like a monkey is to not give them the ability to do so in the first place. Simple, eh? Sanya’s next point, meanwhile, I actually agree with:

DON’T REPRINT THE HANDOUT. Some professionals may disagree with me here, and their logic is sound enough. If twenty fansites just reprint the handout, well, that’s a pretty sweet job of saturating everyone with our talking points, right? If everyone says it, the intended playerbase will believe it.

All you bloggers and writers, listen to me. A successful blog, or site, will always add value to its copy. People need a REASON to be coming back to your site. Reprinting a press release isn’t adding value. None, nada, zippo. People can access the same copy in 101 other places, so why not consider tossing up a couple of pars of original thought instead? It doesn’t hurt and, you know, if the answer is, “Because I don’t have time…” or some variation of that, consider whether you should be trying to inform and entertain people via a blog, anyway. If you don’t have 15 minutes to throw down a few words, you’re not taking your site too seriously in the first place. No excuses!

Sanya retreads an earlier theme towards the end:

Marketing’s budget paid for everything from your pleather dice bag to the steak you had for dinner. The purpose of the event was therefore to market a product. If your precious ethics prevent you from giving the studio publicity as a result of the event, you had no business eating the steak.

I can go two ways here. One one hand, if a writer genuinely believes they cannot write on a product if they’ve been “wined and dined”, then I agree they shouldn’t be going to events. The only problem with that is, I’ve never met such a writer. Sure, the old “ethics” chestnut will get trotted out when they attend an event and simply don’t want to write anything at all (truth be told, I might have even done it myself, just to get a PR off my back at times), but I’ve never seen a journalist, in over a decade of being in the game, who was able to apply that at all times, and to all situations. Thus, on the other hand, I think Sanya’s talking about a very rare beast indeed: if not impossible to find in the wild. I think the more likely scenario, in most cases, is that a journalist will attend and event and, if you’re newsworthy enough – and not just marketing fluff – will write something up, whether s/he had booze and gifts shower down, or whether they drank a quick glass of water during the Q&A. I keep repeating the following theme because it’s true: if the story’s good, it will get covered one way or another. Guaranteed!

To come back to another theme I mentioned earlier, before I sign off on this piece, it’s hard to throw a blanket over an industry when there are so many variables. Especially in this day and age where some blogs and podcasts are gaining significant followings, yet the people producing them don’t feel in any way indebted to companies or their PR people, or indeed even feel like they are a capital-j Journalist in the first place, the industry really needs to be taken on a careful, case by case basis by PR people.

I’ve been following this game’s progress for some time now and every time I hear something new it gets my blood pumping.  Recently at PAX 2008, IGN had a chance to jump into the pilot seat and get a first look at the gameplay, also if you click the link there’s a brand new trailer for the game, go watch I’ll wait. (goes to get a cup of coffee)  Looks pretty kick ass right? Now not to knock Eve Online, but the combat sucks big donkey balls.  I grew up playing games like X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Freespace and Wing Commander and am a huge fan of space combat sims.  Which is one of the big reasons I never got into Eve Online, that and the fact that its learning curve is steep enough that only the few truely dedicated will make it, it’s almost like a rites of passage.

Anyway, I’m getting side tracked.  Jumpgate Evolution not only looks bad ass, but has a lot of features that I want in my MMO.  PvP is a must, which it has and is integrating with leveling, so if you’re not big on quests, you can level by enjoying some good old PvP.  Traveling is also not as tedious as it is with other games as you just jump (hence the name Jumpgate) from one area to the next, although I’m sure there will be some restrictions with that.   There will also be a leader board system that shows things stats like “Most kills”, “Most money earned” etc, which is pretty cool and will fuel PvP even more.

Aside from Warhammer Online, Jumpgate Evolution is probably the game I’m looking towards the most.  Currently they’re accepting beta signups, so if you haven’t already, go sign up.  The game is currently scheduled for release sometime in the Spring of 2009.