I admit it. I was wrong about AoC.
I said it would be a blip that would quickly fall to the high system requirements and the World of Warcraft juggernaut. I said that WoW would be entirely unchallenged by AoC, and was only mildly worried about Warhammer Online.
I think I was wrong about every thing I said. Those people who called me clueless were right.
AoC is having the most successful launch I think I have ever seen, maybe even better than WoW back in 2004. Back then, of course, the market was a lot smaller, and WoW’s launch turned then-MMO champ EverQuest into a niche game, something Asheron’s Call and Dark Age of Camelot had not been able to do. So I don’t see AoC booting WoW to the curb.
It sure looks like WoW is weaker than I thought. Since all this interest *must* be largely coming from WoW (nobody else has that kind of presence), great crowds of people must have just been waiting for a new game to come out which wasn’t trying to be a WoW competitor but was just trying to be the best game possible. And with the welcome news of a very smooth launch and very playable game, more and more people will decide to take the plunge and join their friends.
I thought WoW had at least another year or two of unchallenged superiority. Maybe when people saw the next expansion would be nothing to really inspire passion, they became more willing to roll the dice and take the chance on something new?
Going to Warhammer Online, I expected. That is a game that I thought would appeal to WoW players (and probably will). AoC I disregarded as a blip, a quick MMO to play before choosing sides in the WoW vs WAR megashowdown at the end of the year — a battle I still expected to be won ultimately by WoW. Now, I am not so sure.
WoW is this giant walking around crushing villages and causing devastation wherever it turns, and all other MMOs are like people attacking the massive toes of the giant with clubs and pitchforks. Maybe the giant has finally met his Jack.
Blizzard acts like a leader in the MMO world, magnanimously hoping for decent competition. You can say that when you’re ahead. But Blizzard has shareholders to appease, and they can’t be liking the thought that another company would steal any of WoW’s thunder before they had a suitable replacement ready.
Is it time for Blizzard to pull back the curtain and show what they have planned for WoW’s second act? We’ve all seen how fast market leaders can become yesterday’s news.
So yeah, I was wrong and I admit I was wrong. Way to go, Funcom. I hope Age of Conan surprises and shocks EVERYONE by its wild success.
31 thoughts on “Being wrong about Age of Conan”
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Lots of people including myself were very cagey about Age of Conan, so I think some cynicism was warranted. All the signs pointed to “niche game,” and even over the last week when really positive buzz was starting to build the high system requirements seemed like they’d scare a lot of people off. So don’t be too hard on yourself over it.
Thing is, I don’t think Blizzard is the leader in the MMO space – CCP is. Sure, they have by far the largest market share. But their devlopment cycle is horrendously long and they are incredibly slow to react even to urgent needs. One gets the impression, correct or not, that they are convinced that their game is perfect, and that all they’ll ever need to do is make little tweaks like they do with their regular updates, and give people more of the same kind of thing that’s already in the game.
Leadership is not about getting a huge market share and sitting on it whistling happily – it’s about getting and maintaining steady growth and continued innovation. Blizzard’s growth is starting to crest and there has never been a shred of innovation out of the place – they have merely taken what was done before and done it better. That’s craftsmanship, not leadership. WoW makes huge profits… but does it really seem to anybody that anything more than a trickle of that is going into ongoing development of the game?
This apparently highly successful launch for Age of Conan will not unseat WoW. But what it looks like it just might do is underscore for everyone just how vulnerable WoW is. And beyond that, what if AoC gets a successful launch on the 360 as well? Then it very well could dethrone WoW, something WAR is not in a position to do.
What it’s really showing is that there’s room for more than WoW, even in fantasy MMO land.
What FC needs to do now is deliver on content patches. If they can keep content coming, they’ll be golden well past Warhammer even if Mythic’s game ultimately does better than the Cimmerian.
Let me know Tip, if you ever get the urge to play. We’re supposed to get buddy keys sooner or later.
I actually just wrote a piece about WoW needing to bring it’s A-game, and so did Tobold. Is this going to be the next blogosphere trend? Not sure, but it’s true, nonetheless. Blizzard’s days of sitting on their laurels are over. If they want to keep their customers, they are going to have to give them a lot more reasons to stay now that competition is only going to keep getting stronger.
Wait a week or two and see if you change your mind. There is certainly a good deal of pent up desire for the Next Big Thing(tm), and with nothing else on the horizon for the upcoming summer, AoC will see great initial interest. Whether it will hold that interest is something else entirely.
I’ll be curious to see how things develop once the new MMO smell wears off and how quickly FC can tweak, balance and add content.
It’s getting a much better launch week then I anticipated, I’ll be curious to see if that holds up past the 30 days. It still strikes me as a niche game long-term — all the pre-release press shows a target audience of 20-24 year old males, a demographic I don’t fall into, and I’ve heard nothing yet that makes me even curious enough to take advantage of a buddy key. I strongly doubt I’ll ever give this game a go, and I wonder just how long their current audience will stay interested.
Yeah… I was openly dissing a MMO that so blatantly sold its message of sex, blood and violence to a very core group of people, without caring about who it pushed away. Last year’s family-friendly LotRO did well, but nothing like this.
The real test will be to see who is still standing this time next year. But AoC has already blown past all my expectations for it.
I mostly like it because its combat is faster pace but not repetitive like I found Tabula Rasa. Most of the classes feel like your playing some kind of warrior/rogue/shaman hybrid. Coming from playing a paladin healer who really only ever got to use 3 buttons its a big change. The combat requires some faster keystrokes but there seems to be a rhythm and timing so that just quickly hitting the attack keys doesn’t do that much damage.
I really hope it does well. Not just to spite Blizzard for being lazy but to enrich the MMO sphere and encourage innovation in general instead of tried and true stuff.
Oh, don’t worry.
You WERE right.
I posted some very similar thoughts to these on my blog in a post titled, “Funcom: Thank you Blizzard and Mythic!“. Coming from someone that has been in closed beta, the early start and now playing at launch, I can say that the game is drastically better than what it was in beta to now. Funcom broke out some serious pixie dust to get the game working as well as it does now. To that end, I am still surprised at the amount of interest in this game.
In my post I wonder if it isn’t just that the mmog market is expanding. Remember, back when EQ was king with 400k subscribers, no one thought the market had 10 million subscribers in it. A million was hard to believe, let alone 10. I think that it has something to do with that AND the fact that Blizzard is probably losing some people due to how long its taken them to roll out the Lich King expansion.
Great blog btw, gonna put you in my blogroll!
I wouldn’t say you were wrong till we some some numbers. And then more numbers in a few months. I like numbers.
Yeah, I may have thrown in the towel too early. Well, now that I have taken stake in both extremes, I’m bound to be right!
Seriously, though… having to add thirty servers? That’s just insane.
Im just wondering what you are basing the fact that youy were wrong off of? Because a handfull of bloggers are hyping it or actual release numbers? I havent seen anything other than “we shipped a bunch of copies to the store” to really back up that the launch was better than WoW or even Lotro.
Reports that they had to add like thirty new servers was what prompted this. And memories of most other launches without this sort of success. I think they may have hit a sweet spot with males 15-30. Now, Shadowbane and Fury have gone after the same market and failed. Is it just the nudity? The over-the-top violence? A freedom that comes knowing that you are accountable to nobody? I don’t know. I hate to speculate since I don’t play the game… but looking in from the outside, it’s clear SOMETHING is happening.
My original prediction had this dead the day WotLK shipped. I no longer feel that is the case.
A lot of things to respond to in this thread . . . I’ll try and keep them straight by going in reverse order. Yay!
Tipa, AoC is doing better than Shadowbane or Fury because of timing (massive WoW burnout) and the fact that its simply a much better game than either of those PvP offerings. It also has good graphics (for those with good computers) which Shadowbane NEVER did.
Lord of the Rings Online could have done similarly well, except it ended up facing off against The Burning Crusade, a fight it was destined to lose. Imagine the attention Lord of the Rings Online would be getting if it were releasing now instead of AoC. I think AoC would still have more interest to burned out WoW players because it’s gameplay has more differences from WoW, but LotRO could have easily done twice as well as it did by releasing in the current market.
That said, AoC could still be a blip. Come July 1st their population could have crashed and we’ll be reading all about their server consolidations, sadly shaking our heads as the game implodes and disappears. I hope not, Blizzard needs to be taken down a few notches and made to realize that maybe, just maybe, ‘business as usual’ isn’t going to cut it for the next 15 years like they hoped.
I would just be happy if someone was able to get Blizzard to release content at a faster rate. You’re right about LOTR getting much better publicity if they had released this year when WoW burnout has reached maximum.
I also admit I’ve underestimated. Between the bugs and performance issues I got in beta, it looked like another Vanguard. I also though the graphics reqs would limit the game to much.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still some pretty big bugs. Witness the zone problem yesterday and the 4 hours of downtime. The bank vendor pc is still not back in game. I had a sound loop that continued even after I shutdown the client. I finally had to reboot to clear it. I have several guildmates who still can not get it to run about 5fps even with a new video card. As my guild leader said “AoC hates PCs”
What I didn’t expect was the sheer pent-up need for a new MMO that alot of people must be felling. I’ve seen at least 1/3 of my guild head to AoC, with another 10-20% going when they get thier PCs up to spec. I had originally guessed at a 200k launch number. I’m curious to see what it will finally be.
I do wonder about AoC’s staying power. I just not that big on the game. It’s more of a flavor of the month/ take a break kind of game like TR. Plus Warhammer and WoW:rotlk are both due out in less than 6 months.
If it is just a flavor of the month thing, will people ever go back to WoW, or just continue finding other MMOs to play, now?
I wrote a post about how worried other gamers must feel as well specifically in regards to my other game of choice …EQ2
Do not get me wrong…AoC will not be a WoW killer..but I believe other games will get hurt more ..like EQ2, Tabula Rasa and LOTRO
As I played my scheduled time in EQ2, I could feel the hatred of other players as someone brought up AoC being down…and then the venom began…
The fact remained…people are oblivious to what AoC is about..
First the “boob” word was thrown around…and I have yet to see any player…but my wife…show their boobies…
Then the “it is a button masher” came and really…this argument is old…if you are button mashing in this game…you are doing it wrong…it is like a rhythmic game…for example like “The Witcher” where you timed your attacks, but, you need to watch shielding, pulling aggro…every time I start combat, I get a rush…
And of course the final argument came in the “If it is that good, then why are you here…” and this is just a silly attack…as if a person cannot like both games…
But, it made me almost log out…as I thought to myself..I came to EQ2 as the community was so much more mature…
And now I sense a feeling of dread in these lower populated games…I even had one of my guild mates say he was thinking of leaving the guild, as he thinks I will stop playing EQ2..
I love both games…but, the way MMO’s make people get all riled up (yes…even me and my “Still Feel it” hatred of LOTRO)…really makes you think about the genre as a whole…what type of hold do these games have over people compared to just a single player game…
Guess I better get back to Psychology class, as I need a degree to understand this type of attitude…
It’s in the nature of communities to be defensive. And they have a right to be. The PvP servers are emptying to go to AoC. But if you think the EQ2 fanbois are defensive, check out the WoW ones.
Hey Tip, curious on your thoughts about my recent resource gathering write up.
Posted it today if you’ve a few to read it and respond.
I’m finding it very refreshing so far (the resource gathering), but I wonder if it will soon get stale and if I’ll find myself wishing for LotRO or EQ2 or WoW’s more in your face version of doing so.
I did read that. It really reminded me of Vanguard, actually. Well, I guess I’ll head to your part of the webs 🙂
@tipa Sex, blood and violence sells.
I am playing AoC and I love this game. I don’t love it because of the sex, blood and violence… well… it contributes, but the gameplay and the artistic detail. It’s a fun game, you don’t have to worry about having the best gear, the highest level spells in order to be competitive in PvP. Based on my pvp experience in EQ2, that Funcom did it right in this game, for example: separate PVP experience and feat trees, pvp sieges and mini-games, pvp helps your guild attain a goal. These are things that I felt were missing in EQ2 PvP.
I am also playing AoC and I’m pretty sure when mentioned in the past, I’ve tried to stand by this title. I played beta for months before and its really amazing to see how far it came for launch. So far I’d say the best thing for me about AoC is not the action oriented style or the great eye candy but the speed of levelling and the lack of loot hoarding. I am very much a casual gamer, and although I’ve put in more than my usual 1-2 hours per day or so of game time, I am sure to be level 40 tonight and myself and my guild are hoping to have a guild city started in the next short while. It seems we may be the dominant guild on our server so far, and so hopefully we will have quick access to the resource provinces, and then the game will REALLY be on.
It is very refreshing to play a game that moves away from the content-driven gameplay which is meant to be repeated ad-nauseum to get all those pretty items. Let me at my enemies, not at the scripted gameplay which, once solved, proves to be an exercise in memorization.
@Ddoom
Also, for us Casual players who like to enjoy the scenery…hehe…
I am only level 23 after 26 hours…the level curve is AWESOME for me…
If I get 80 hours out of the game…I then got my moneys worth out of the box alone…
Good fun
Four people I work with play WoW. These are four people on reasonable salaries. When I told them I was playing Age of Conan they said “Their system wouldn’t play it”. Not taking anything away from WoW, it’s a good game, but so much of it’s success is due to its system requirements, at least in my opinion.
Imagine how many more people might have bought/tried AoC if it ran on lower specced systems.
@Caliga
And imagine how many more people would have said it is exactly like WoW if the had lower specced the game..
The graphics in AoC distances itself even from LOTRO visually…and due to the mechanics of the game..more power is needed for collision detection, etc.
The more realistic feel and visual quality will be a “new system sales” pusher for sure…as so many people have made the plunge for next gen computing thanks to the graphics needs of this title…and then to have so many more games follow suit will be a boon.
We need to push ahead in the PC market, or else consoles will take over…pure and simple. There will be no need to innovate in any manner…and then people will be stuck playing WoW ten years from now…the same boring playstyle and same graphical power.
So many people are done with WoW…and if they really want something new…then they will make the move to go forward…if not, then each time they complain they are sick of WoW and the same old tired mechanics…they can always look back and say “Well..if I just would have spent a few hundred dollars…”
There is a lot more to AoC than blood and and boobs. A lot of people can’t see past that and really put some time into it in order to experience everything that game has to offer. Their single player (1-20) quest chain pulls you into your character and plays more like an RPG(such as mass effect or oblivion)… no other mmo has been able to give me that kind of experience with their quests. When you talk to an npc it looks cinematic like the way Mass Effect does their conversations. Of course it’s not as good as a true rpg but still better than any other mmo out there in my opinion…
AoC has a lot to offer in terms of gameplay. There are a lot of people who, before WoW, played AC, AC2, shadowbane and fell in love with the vast landscapes and the open field for pvp and exploration. WoW players who were fans of those games will probably move to AoC. This is why people are staying once they get into the game. It reminds them of these mmos that original got them hooked. This game also offers huge castle sieges, wars and creation that only DAoC and shadowbane was able to provide. Although imo shadowbane’s sieges were nothing compared to DAoC’s siege warfare. Right now AoC is the only thing that may come close to that.
I don’t think Warhammer will be as successful as AoC. Warhammer looks way to much like DAoC. Not much new and the whole thing looks like it will play the same way. AoC has more variety in skills… to me its “deeper”. There are a lot of things that you can tweak with your character and its not just add damage skills. Stealth is a skill that I think every class has available at some point, this in itself is very unique in any mmo. More classes can heal and main healing classes can dps. Healing works differently. Most healing is passive with and not potent. It is mostly HoT and dps/healing.
These are the reasons why it’s doing well. I can see melee combat and shielding becoming boring and annoying after a few months, maybe the pvp will even become repetitive.. so for this reason I believe people will go back to WoW after end game or find something else. Right now I think WoW has the most end game content that’s not boring.
Everyone I know who was playing LotRO is now playing AoC. I don’t think family friendly or blood and gore have much to do with it (though I will say the “sex and violence” mainly just make me giggle – I’m almost surprised they got the rating). Timing is good in that WoW, LotrO and EQ2 all have a bunch of top end people waiting for the next expansion.
*whispers* I still prefer EQ2 overall, though.