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Age of Crashing... sorry, make that Age of Conan
by Rob

A little while ago, we had Mike announce that he was done with Age of Conan. I wrote a counterpoint opinion piece saying that I was staying in the game for the time being, although qualified it that unless the game picked up, I'd drop it within another two to three billing cycles. Essentially, I was putting Funcom on notice, with the point of view that I wasn't going to offer Funcom my coin forever if the game remained in its current state and updates continued to break more than they fixed, among other problems.

Well, scratch that idea as a bad joke. I've now cancelled my sub within the next billing cycle. No more chances for Funcom; I've had enough of Age of Conan for good.

This game is freaking terrible, and it's not getting any better. Even having a cool bunch of guildmates to adventure with (well, those who stuck with the game, at least), couldn't pull this one out of the fire for me. I've turned my back on the game for good because, here's the thing: I'm no one's fool and, at the end of the day, continuing to pay Funcom for rubbish goes completely against the way I operate. A guy on the AoC forums made a list of things that annoyed him about the game and, looking down that list, I agree with him. I reproduce it here as a simple, shorthand version of things I hate about AoC:

No DX10 at launch

Meaningless item stats

Lag spikes/frequent server kicks

Single compulsory starting area

Buddy pass delay

Exhausting delivery quests/poor travel

Poor (non-consequential) death system

Various graphical & gameplay glitches

Instance heavy/too many load screens

On rails/invisible walls

Zero player character uniqueness

No item degradation/repair system

How do you like them apples, Funcom?

Anyway, for all those feeling royally screwed over by the Funcom experience ("Games for kids, designed by kids" reads one forum poster's signature file), take heart that the company's share price has absolutely tanked. Does USD 54 on May 21 to USD 16.30 on August 15 sound like a healthy situation to you? Nope, me either.

I had high hopes for Funcom's upcoming game, The Secret World, but after the Age of Crashing... sorry, Age of Conan, experience, I'm in no rush to sample anything made by Funcom for... hmmm, let's see... the next 5000 years? A truly excreable experience. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

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