May
7

AoC – Beta Explaination

33 Comments

This coming from an article on Bildo:

MMORPG.com: We have heard that the Fileplanet Beta client is actually an old client and won’t be the one used on release. Can you speak to that?

J. Tharaldsen: I have seen the same rumors that it’s old, but it’s not entirely true. We tried to include the best we had on a stable approach, but in our eagerness to please we wanted to get a few additional fixes out (hence we pushed the launch back a couple of hours). In order to reach the May 1st date some of those fixes led to unwanted side-effects which weren’t discovered in time. For some, it got a bit rockier than we wanted. We are running an extensive survey now, and from the first few hundred replies (which should be statistically correct), it seems that most people are actually having tons of fun AND good performance. We are humble about it though, and admit that things could have gone smoother, but the experience some people have had now has helped us to improve for launch, which is what really matters…

I’m getting a bad feeling about this now. Couple things bother me about that statement, which has quite a few holes in it:
1) They put in fixes last minute that essentially broke their client. There is no doubt about it…and it now looks like they did not test the client properly before it went out. Amature mistake.
2) They think everything is OK because the first 100 replies of a survey…which is NOT statistically accurate to any degree of certainty.
3) Does anyone else see the first part of the statement and the second part conflicting with each other?or is it just me?

Not washing….but nice try.

D out.

Posted in Age of Conan Editorial
33 Comments Posted by Darren

33 Responses to "AoC – Beta Explaination"

  • brent says:
    May 7, 2008 at 9:26 am

    I have a suspicion that we’re going to have another Vanguard on our hands here.
    … and if it doesn’t launch that badly, then it’ll be a non-event (relative to the hype) ala PotBS or Tabula Rasa.

    Huge disappointment.

  • Relmstein says:
    May 7, 2008 at 9:27 am

    It’s just marketing. I’m sure we’re heading up to a launch that is going to be bugtastic but probably not as bad as Vanguard. I’m still planning on playing it though since I finally managed to convince me friends to quit World of Warcraft. Thank god that Blizzard listen to raiders and added rating requirements to everything on Season 4 or else I would never had been able to convince them to leave. All of us would rather be playing Warhammer at the moment but Age of Conan is what’s available so that’s we’ll be playing come bugs or crashes.

  • Bildo says:
    May 7, 2008 at 9:46 am

    It’s DEFINITELY not Vanguard. It may seem like that from the negative reports from the Open Beta, but nothing is further from the truth. It’s a great game that’s getting a bum wrap due to nothing more than Funcom’s own mistake. What will likely happen is a rocky launch, followed by good reviews and a slow build once people realize WAR’s not coming until 2009. ;)

  • Keen says:
    May 7, 2008 at 9:57 am

    I’m with Darren (on all 3 points) and Brent (that it feels like Vanguard all over again) on this one.

    Unfortunately what might be a decent game is being buried beneath stability issues, performance issues, bugs, and amateur mistakes from a company that is supposed to be veterans at this by now. I want to give the game a fair shake but I’m having trouble feeling the desire to invest time and money in a product that not only fails to give me faith in it’s future but lacks the support from the devs themselves because the NDA is still up TEN (10) days from launch.

  • yunk says:
    May 7, 2008 at 10:11 am

    we wanted to get a few additional fixes out
    heehee
    I’ve seen this bring down so many developmers. “oh just this one fix I’ll sneak in no one will notice”
    I’ve learned over the years to grow a bigger spine and tell managers “next week’s build” (You can’t say “no” you have to give options).

  • Lateris says:
    May 7, 2008 at 10:17 am

    I have to agree with Brent as the release will be unstable. They should put it off for 3 months.

  • Genda says:
    May 7, 2008 at 10:22 am

    I’m concerned about the prospects for this game too. I’ve had some of the same problems, and Tarkheena (my wife) essentially threw her hands up and quit the beta, it was so unstable and unplayable on her machine. Personally, I’m really glad I didn’t put much emotional capital into this one.

    I am not a total expert, although I do software testing for a living, but to me this looks like more than a couple weeks’ work to get stable and playable. It’s also a HUGE red flag when the company has a performance problem that they feel the need to come up with a name for (stalling.) They have not handled this open beta well at all, and they have put themselves into a hole. Even if the game is great, it’s going to take some doing and I’m afraid they have got another launch that is going Tango Uniform (for all you ex-military out there.)

    You’d think they would have learned from AO. PR disaster, this.

  • Knqui says:
    May 7, 2008 at 10:24 am

    It’s funny that he says that most people are having good performance and good stability. Every single person I know who I’ve talked to about this and read reports of (30+ including myself at least), that have completely different PC setups, live in different parts of the world, have played the Beta differently have ALL said that certain things rape their performance and I don’t think any of them haven’t had at least a few crashes/showstoppers. I’m pretty sure 100% of 30 would be a crazy statistical anomaly if I just happened to know the only other people in the world besides myself that had serious issues.

    I played the Closed Beta from November 07-February 08 before selling my 2 Beta Accounts, I’ve also been following the game for more years than I’d like to mention, and while they’re definitely doing their damnedest (it’s not a case of laziness or complacency) this game simply -is not ready- for retail launch. I’d assume most people who have given it a decent go would agree that the investor pressure has gotten to them the same way it did in Vanguard.

    It’s not Vanguard, not at all, but it’s not far off enough to make me comfortable, I seriously doubt I’ll be buying this, and it’s sad to say it.

    What good is a game that people can’t play? It’s not even a case of specs being low (although even if they fix all the problems that will be a big concern), the code is dirty and if you grind to a halt when more than a few spell effects are going off at once, I shudder to think what Border Kingdoms/Siege Warfare is gonna play like, which by the way, still haven’t been tested by the outside world with little more than a week till launch.

  • Van Hemlock says:
    May 7, 2008 at 10:34 am

    Sounds like another fine game that will be best appreciated once the Gamma Test is over! Ho hum.

  • Pixie Styx says:
    May 7, 2008 at 10:37 am

    /rant : Really at the point of not caring about old beta this old beta that. I ve played it and had a great deal of fun, yes funcom dropped the ball on beta client, but the potential for the game is great and I’m buying it. People bitching, whining about should i buy it or not (keen et al) are starting to sound like broken records. Make your mind up and move on … your doing nothing constructive other than fueling the fire of discontent.

    Anyway rant off, yes D you are right it is conflicitng, however they are stating a few hundred replies not 100 as you indicate. But either it is a non commital reply you would not expect so close to retail launch. However if blizzard were handling it they would just have just updated the client and continued trucking with no comment and soe would not acknowledged it or blamed it on some forum site ;o)

    I guess atleast they acknowledged a screw up and our moving on and focussing on launch. My only concern is when they bump everyone to 20 and open up the content this weekend, if they screw that it then there will be a serious problem for them and then we might consider it vangaurdian, in the mean time i think that honor is a little far off base …

  • Keen says:
    May 7, 2008 at 10:49 am

    Debating whether or not I should buy this game because of all that has happened over the past 3 weeks is whining? huh?

  • Bildo says:
    May 7, 2008 at 10:50 am

    “My only concern is when they bump everyone to 20 and open up the content this weekend, if they screw that it then there will be a serious problem for them and then we might consider it vangaurdian, in the mean time i think that honor is a little far off base ?”

    Yep, I hope they get this patch on the 10th right. They need to, or you and I will be the only people loving every step in Hyboria, Pix. :P

  • Keen and Graev’s Gaming Blog » Blog Archive » “It’s not an old client… we just screwed up.” says:
    May 7, 2008 at 10:50 am

    [...] my regular morning stops in the Blogosphere. My buddy Bildo (who is with the TTH Conan crew) and Darren (the ever wise common sense gamer) have both written their thoughts on the Age of Conan Open beta [...]

  • Pixie Styx says:
    May 7, 2008 at 11:24 am

    not exculsivly you keen but generally speaking ‘you all sound like a bunch of old women at a blue light special’. Grow some balls and make a stand, i am not buying this because ….. i put more value in that than ‘feeling this, feeling that’.

    Now i am not saying that it is your fault, that lies with funcom and its botched client and the effect it is having. Plue the limiting factor of only having access to open beta and not closed beta. This puts the bloggersphere in an awkward possition of blogging on something with only half a picture. Bloggers have a great deal of influenece, we can do as much damage to a game as the game itself … we are not media but consdier ourselves media … anyway lost train of thought … bugger

  • scytale2 says:
    May 7, 2008 at 11:29 am

    The performance issue is vastly worse than Vanguard’s to be truthful, but the client does not seem as buggy.

    All I can say is that let us not jump the gun. If they have a client which does not have performance issues, as it seems that they have, then let’s see it in action. This may be the reason for the L20 jump, while they fix the early levels – let’s hope so.

    I think you’ll find that 300 is statistically significant, unless there is some skew to the data, which is not immediately obvious. One must remember people post when they have problems, not generally when they are playing “trouble free”.

    Lastly, amature is spelt amateur, or should I not be picking holes, like you are doing with AoC?

  • Keen says:
    May 7, 2008 at 11:45 am

    @Pixie Styx: It’s more than getting some balls and making a stand Pixie. If it were that easy I would have written off AoC altogether. ALL it’s problems aside I ENJOY a lot of the game. I’m just completely torn or whether or not getting the game will be worth it down the road. I have questions that currently can not be answered because of tha NDA and the answers to those questions would determine for a fact whether or not I play.

    If I were to base my judgment on the game from what we have seen I would say this is one of the worst mmorpgs ever made. Horrible performance, horrible optimization, horrible amateur mistakes by the same developers who botched AO and so on. Is that fair? Hell no it’s not fair. That’s why I sound like a broken record when I say “I can’t decide if I want to play or not”.

    Come on now… a NDA up 10 days from launch?

  • Bildo says:
    May 7, 2008 at 12:05 pm

    Personally, I never understood the NDA hatred… all offline games are held to them until launch, except the rare (and mischeivous) exclusive review, and of course previews from gaming sites and magazines. Yet no one cries foul when we don’t know squat about them until launch.

    I think the NDA hubbub is all about gamers being less patient than say movie-goers, book-readers, or music-listeners. Are games more of a financial investment? Sure. But they shouldn’t have to show us all their dirty laundry prior to release just because of a pricing differential.

  • Keen says:
    May 7, 2008 at 12:27 pm

    Most offline games don’t even have a NDA Bildo. And most offline games receive countless reviews, previews, hands on, and even demos months before release. MMORPGs are a different beast entirely. MMOs require a larger time AND money commitment than other games. When I play a mmorpg vs a game like GTA4 (example) I form a much deeper bond with my character and the game. I care more about it. To me that justifies all the hubbub.

  • Bildo says:
    May 7, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    We disagree then, I guess. I read previews and reviews, and then decide to buy. I don’t need a demo, or other players’ opinions to make my choice especially whjen the NDA covers NOT-FINAL clients.

    With an MMOG, just like an offline game, you pay 50 dollars for the box and have a whole month to decide if you want to pay any more. That’s more time than most people will spend with an offline game.

    I personally think that the whole open beta process should be canned, but I understand the need to stress the servers. Previews, reviews, and write-ups can of the game are more than enough to judge what a game’s about. Not that I don’t like reading people’s opinions from around the blogs… I wouldn’t be writing my own or reading anyone else’s if I didn’t.

    I just don’t think companies should feel obliged to air the dirty laundry before they’re ready based on what we gamers expect of them. If I were the company, and I knew that there was something that wasn’t 100% about my game, I wouldn’t want people going around shouting it either, especially if it was something that I knew was fixed in a later client?

    See my point? I’m not saying we should be held blindly, I’m just saying that I would almost prefer if NDAs were held all the way up to release so things like this didn’t happen, or like what happened to TR (which I was part of) didn’t happen. These guys poor 70-80 hours a week of their lives into this stuff, they want it to be good and work perfectly more than any of us do… I dunno, call me a bleeding heart but I think the MMOG genre would be better if held to the same press standards as the rest of the gaming industry.

    NDAs may only apply to MMOGs, but that’s only because of the thousands of people they need for the beta process… if a company could find away around that (doubtful) and there was no NDA and only press coverage as you see with offline games… would there such a stench over a game?

  • p@tsh@t says:
    May 7, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    At the risk of going slightly OT here, with most offline games– probably all that I’ve ever purchased, I’ve had the opportunity to dl a demo to try before I buy. There’s no effective way to do that with an online game pre-release.

    The other situation unique to MMOs is that fundamentally the gameplay is dependent on multiple user concurrency. Whether its solo PvEers just running around or providing fodder for the economy or having others to group with.

    There are very few companies I would buy a game from or subscribe to without a demo or free trial period. Having an OB without an NDA solves that.
    For better or worse, OB has evolved to fill that role in MMOs. I’m not sure its about impatience. Its about trying to make a reasonably informed choice.

    My continuing issue with so-called OBs is that if its really a beta, beta testers need the tools to help test the game– a reasonable time period between wipes, and the ability to instalevel to playtest the game across a wide range of content so I don’t end up replaying the noob zones across 10 races and 10 classes or playing one race/class to high level before the next wipe.

    My overarching bitch is that these game companies require that we “give” them our money before they’ve “earned” it. We are being asked to make a $50 bet that it wont suck later. Convince us why we should make that bet. Polish and a well oiled smooth operating customer service experience would give me the confidence that they get it and could in all likelihood deliver the goods if I deign to give them another $200 over the next year.

    Not too much to ask I think. $50 a box and a year’s subscription is more than my video card and I get a hell of a lot more quality and service from hardware manufacturer…

  • Bildo says:
    May 7, 2008 at 12:45 pm

    Okay, then let’s just say this and be done with it.

    Forget about NDAs, Open betas, et al.

    Let’s just kindly ask for all MMO makers to release a free trial shortly after launch so that we can make our choice that way. Seems like a better way to judge a game (after release) than using an Open Beta marketing tool (prior to release and with potential major issues READ – AoC).

  • Pixie Styx says:
    May 7, 2008 at 12:56 pm

    Nda being left up is probably a trend we are going to see from this point on for all mmos coming out. Big money, big business. They dont want bad press destroying intial sales. Funcom is trying to straddle this line with the nda being intact with the exception of lvls 1 – 13. This would have worked if they had not screwed the pooch with a bad client ….

    @ Keen that is my exact point, you are being forced to be wishy washy by funcom due to the open / clsd beta clients and the supposed performance differences. In a way that is hurting them more than people coming and saying exactly as you put it ‘my judgment on the game from what we have seen I would say this is one of the worst mmorpgs ever made. Horrible performance, horrible optimization, horrible amateur mistakes by the same developers who botched AO and so on’.That to me is an honest and valid view of the game.

    Is that fair … damn right based on the client you were given and reviewed. That is growing balls and spelling it out to funcom and the rest of readership that if this is the current state of the game based on the client and your game play. We the consumer expect more and will vote with our money.

    Now if funcom released to us best client possible you may have had glowing reports of the game (see cameron / bildo etc) and the nda issue would have been moot ….

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    May 7, 2008 at 1:23 pm

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  • KevinC says:
    May 7, 2008 at 5:58 pm

    Just 2 copper…

    I’ve kept up with all of Keen’s coverage, all the coverage here, read a lot of previews, am constantly on the AoC forums, watched a lot of vids, have been in open beta since that started, and am in a guild that has numerous people in closed beta. All that said, this game will be fine. What’s more, it’s a great game – really fun and the atmosphere is terrific. If you don’t read the AoC boards, you need to go check out the post that’s collected a lot of the quotes by Lionex, one of the devs from Funcom. Yes, Funcom might have done the wrong thing putting out changes, running the debugger, giving us an older client, etc., but from everything “official” I can read (not blogger or forum opinions), the OB client is not what CB is using, nor is it what the final game engine will be like. Again, check Lionex’s numerous quotes from the main AoC forums for more detail.

    To be honest, I’m running a 2.5 year old computer – it was close to bleeding edge when I bought it, probably middle of the road by now (or lower). I’ve been running the game fine since Sunday (last Thursday when OB opened it was hell on everyone pretty much). No BSOD, very little if any lag, etc. And I’m not running a new or top end system.

    Whether Funcom handled their OB well or not I’ll leave to the blogosphere. But for me, I pre-ordered the CE and I’m 100% comfortable with that. The game will be fine, and in fact, I think it may be a really big hit (of course that’s relative with WoW having blown away all sense of proportion). I really think this has become a case of mob mentality and “the sky is falling”. I just don’t think it’s the end of the world, and I think the game will be great.

    My 2 copper. See you guys in Hyboria!

  • KevinC says:
    May 7, 2008 at 6:12 pm

    Don’t think I can edit my comment, but just wanted to provide the link to the thread I mentioned in case folks haven’t seen it:
    http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=80406

  • KevinC says:
    May 7, 2008 at 6:14 pm

    Doh – well I need to eat my words it seems. The latest thing on that thread says Lionex is a volunteer mod, not an official Funcom Dev. My bad guys, so take his comments as you will. Looks like the MMORPG interview comment that you posted Darren is most recent. Sorry!

  • Rick says:
    May 7, 2008 at 8:08 pm

    I’ve been detailing my beta experiences on my site over the past 5 days. It’s been a bitch, but when the game works, it’s really pretty damn good.

    Trust this: If Funcom can get a stable client in the hands of players at launch, and if their servers handle the first week of traffic, this is going to be a successful game. And I’m saying this as a person who’s had a boatload of trouble getting it to run properly in open beta.

    I’m not disagreeing with anyone who thinks Funcom made some of their open beta decisions after Happy Hour, but I think the game is good enough to recover.

    If I thought the game was ass, I wouldn’t be posting about it so much. I think it’s a good game, but it’s also a hell of a story at this point, waching Funcom trying to get this thing all the way out the door.

  • Keen says:
    May 7, 2008 at 9:24 pm

    I’ll echo your sentiments Rick by saying I think the game has loads of potential. If they can get things fixed, and fixed fast, and survive their release then they are golden. Until WAR. ;)

  • Rick says:
    May 8, 2008 at 1:23 am

    Ya know, I was thinking about Mythic today. In fact, I’ve been thinking about them since this whole AoC open beta debacle began.

    First, I don’t think there’s any way Mark Jacobs would have remained quiet throughout a weekend while a storm was raging on message boards and blogs about a buggy beta client. Funcom’s silence weirded me out. Then, when Funcom did make their announcement, I tried to imagine Mythic saying “Yeah, we included a bunch of things in the patch at the last minute”. Not their style.

    In fact, when faced with the prospect of going live with builds that testing revealed weren’t ready, what did Mythic do? Delayed their launch. Time will tell if Funcom should have done the same thing.

  • What would Mythic do? « /random says:
    May 8, 2008 at 1:58 am

    [...] Darren quoted the important part of the explanation, and I’ll trim it down even further here: We tried to include the best we had on a stable approach, but in our eagerness to please we wanted to get a few additional fixes out (hence we pushed the launch back a couple of hours). In order to reach the May 1st date some of those fixes led to unwanted side-effects which weren?t discovered in time. For some, it got a bit rockier than we wanted. [...]

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  • Jane Johnson says:
    July 6, 2009 at 6:59 pm

    Seems like we are pushing the limits on the standard boards these days.

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