FUNCOM: SILIRRION: PLEASE Read)

[AgentBond]

Funcom, SPECIFICALLY to Silirrion:

Silirrion,

I don't know what else to say. AO has suffered with these problems, sometimes less and sometimes like this, for as long as I can remember now. I've played AO since beta. WoW does not suffer like this. Neither does most any other game I've ever played.

By not takings these problems with your absolute HIGHEST priorities, you're losing clients left and right, day in and day out. I've stuck with AO because IMHO, it's the absolute best MMO out in this world today. (Graphics could use an upgrade though, lol)

The chat servers crashing for 18 hours out of a day and being unable to chat is driving me absolutely nuts. The game server LAG is absolutely killing me.

I never thought I'd say this in my friggin life, but I'm considering leaving AO because I can't deal with, what I "feel" is irresponsibility in FUNCOM's duty to give ALL OF US what we pay for on a monthly basis...

Hopefully you will read this and take these things I say now to your heart as a game company and give me a reply that I think many (if not all of us) would greatly appreciate getting from you...

--- --- ---

First, When you are having problems, You don't communicate. You give us statements that are as vague as saying "I'm young"...Well how young of an age do you consider to be young? 5? 10? 16? 18? 25? Under 40? See what I mean?
OR I have a LONG shift to work today...How long is long? 8 hours? 12 hours? a double shift? a Triple? You give such vague answers and we get absolutely NO COMMUNICATION from FUNCOM whatsoever until 12 to 18 hours after the fact.

Second, How long are we going to have to deal with this kind of "disrespect" to us as YOUR clients and players before we get compensated somehow? At least with some games that I used to play, if the servers are experiences severe problems, They gave EVERYONE game-wide, an extra 50% xp for a couple days to a week depending on how severe the issues were or how long they were down for.

Honestly, I'm not asking for the extra xp or a free month or anything. All I'm asking for is some SERIOUS consideration to what WE as the players go thru on a daily basis. I play AO every single day, I've lost chances to be in teams, I've lost the abilities to fight, I've lost xp and money, and items because of lag and crashing. I can't even talk to my friends in the game because of what issues we've got going on now..

I've sincerely taken my time and effort to write a THOUGHTFUL and serious letter to you as FUNCOM's Representative. Please, I beg of you. Take the time to reply in the same "thoughtful and serious" way to ALL OF US, as We are spending OUR money to play AO. And to be a member of this community.

I seriously don't know what else to say....I feel disrespected as a player, as a community member, and as a person because In my honest opinion, Funcom isn't taking us seriously..


--Jormar, 215 Advy, CLAN, Serendipity

[AgentBond]

Silirrion, Funcom:

If we don't get a serious reply from you in response to what you're gonna do (i.e. COMMUNICATION), what can be done, a timeline, some ideas, What you might offer in compensation (if anything), SOMETHING thought out and serious and sincere,

Then I think it's safe to say for all of us, that Funcom just doesn't care anymore about AO and has given up on it.

All I'm asking for is a serious reply.


BUMP!!!


P.s. Also Heard a rumor that Funcom was going to SHUT DOWN AO and offer a discount to members to go to Age of Conan....Please, Say it's not so. A response to this would also be greatly appreciated.

[Mekh]

I would very, very much like to hear some quality feedback as well...

Regarding a discount in order to go to AoC....LoL?
That can't be serious... If they shut down AO, they shut down my money-train to FC as well.

[Vellizol]

I've never really used these forums much while playing Anarchy Online. I Guess This would be a nice place to write this as I don't really wanna see 1000 new topics with something similar Making more work for whoever manages these..

I've been Playing Ao For Quite Some Time Don't Let The Date In The Corner Fool Ya I Lost The Password To My Original Account...In My Time I've seen Lots Of Stuff From None Of Us Being Able To Zone To Horrid Lag..I've seen small chat resets But nothing to this extent..

For Being A Multiplayer Game Chat Is Essential..It's Been 2 Days Almost I Believe? And You still Have Yet To Discover The Problem?

I suppose I'm worried...It seems ever since Aoc Came around we got the second treatment horrible support lag and A Buggy Chat Server...

I've stuck with Ao Because Its An amazing game. I've learned to enjoy the lag with other by making hamster jokes..This Chat issue is just really crazy I would like to get a better detailed view like others on whats going on...

I realize this game is old and all things eventually die...The Engine Did Restore My Faith For A Lil But After what I've seen the last few days and the lack of Communication to the players I Have to wonder Is It possible You have too much on your hands

I would love a response to any of the forums thats perhaps detailed and has a lil effort written into it...
Thanks

[Lumifly]

See, the problem with threads like these is that, while your heart is in the right place, your head isn't. Funcom is first and foremost a business, and while you may think a delay of 24 hours or more is ridiculous, it isn't necessarily.

Think of it this way: would you rather Funcom make some form of statement when they have knowledge or plausible theories as to what is causing a problem, or would you like them to just say what you already know - "there are some problems at the moment..."

Funcom's history in regards to AO - especially recent history - has shown that they do respond when they have something more substantial to actually respond with.

Threatening to leave them isn't going to change this, and only has you coming off as incredibly childish, as if you actually, genuinely, expect the world to keep working as you think it should without any hiccups.

I think it would be great if the team that is still working on AO could give numerous knowledge updates, keeping us all informed - but they don't have a team as big as WoW or probably even AoC, and to be on call 24/7 to give little information beyond "we know something is not working" is a big budget burner, and you simply have to accept that money and time are going to revolve around the business side first.

[Damon7]

that's the prob lumi...

it's a vicious spiral. as the player base declines, the resources drop as well. I'm usually an optimist about ao---at least it's continued exisitance, but i'm frankly concerned here.

FC CS has been bad for years and with the roll out of aoc it seems to have gotten worse. They had some really bad CS issues during the last xmas holiday as well.

It's all about the business and i'm not sure the business isn't being focused on aoc. Any smart company is going to try and share as many resources as possible like CS, etc. Devs may be separate but nothing much else probably is. I'm sure there is a lot of work needed to sign folks up and such for AOC and monitor the game.

As to specif probs at hand..you're correct about the responses..timely communication has nver been fc's strenth and i understand some folks geta bit paranoid expecially with aoc rolling out and support email addressses changed to aoc instead of ao...Makes one su****ious.

[gergiskoo]

The problem is that FC clearly did not have enough capital (money, employees, servers) to smoothly pull off the launch of a second MMORPG. What it seems like they were going for was enough of an income spike from AoC that they'd be able to compensate later on. We have no idea if it's working.

I'll tell you, though, if they had been just a tad (read: a lot) more aggressive in advertising AO and addressing player concerns, they may not have needed to hedge their bets on one game to support the other.

[AgentBond]

Lumi, I'm not threatening to leave AO by any means. I'll be with it until the very end whatsoever. I love this game.

My biggest problem with FC is that when I petition, I wait online and play for 8 hours, then go to bed, leaving my acct logged in, 3 days straight like I do a lot, and I'm STILL in the queue, further back normally than when I was in the beginning.

Also, Lumi...We've been having trouble with the CHAT SERVERS and the General SERVER lag 15 seconds, 40 seconds, minutes upon minutes of LAG, and chat server lag for more than 1/2 the day at times. THe general GAME server lag continually for months.

Maybe 24 hours is pushing it for a response, especially since it's the weekend, and I forgot that. All I'm wanting is a true and honest response.

But what YOU have to realize is that for as god awful long as we've been dealing with the LAG SPIKES in chat and in gameplay, the chat server problems. The NUMEROUS complaints and threads on the forums about general game lag, (in inferno mission, We get lag, 3 minutes later, We come out lag, and I'm already fully rezzed in garden...things like this, etc.)

I mean, I know you've played this game for quite a while. I've seen you around, so you know what I'm talking about. These are SERIOUS issues, the gameplay lag and the chat server issues.

If these 2 problems have been going on for months, then they NEED to..i.e. MUST BE ADDRESSED and put up on PRIORITY. And as far as I know, months ago, they had a notice on the launcher "We do know about the lag spikes, etc, and believe it is caused by etc....etc bla bla bla.....We are working on a fix" Yet that's the last thing I've ever heard, and to this point, months later I've heard or seen NOTHING to be done about it. Frankly I love funcom, I really do, I play AoC, and I LOVE Anarchy Online. No doubt about it. But I'm beginning to dislike those people that side with funcom just because they're a company and not as big as Blizzard or whatever.

IF you've got these types of problems, Then fix them. How hard is that? Especially when you've KNOWN about these problems such as gameplay lag for MONTHS on end, and supposedly are doing "research" or "fixing" them, Then at least give us UPDATES...LET US KNOW that you haven't forgotten about us or ABOUT THE ISSUES at HAND.

--> ***Think of it this way. US POLITICS --> Presidential Candidates (i.e. FUNCOM) are DEBATING and trying to WIN OVER It's CITIZENS to vote for them (i.e. The Players in Anarchy Online)***

Anarchy Online truly has to show us Concern and that they are truly working on these serious problems at hand to win us to keep us with AO (i.e. vote for them)

If you call the following GOOD COMMUNICATION, then you should take some management/business communication courses and learn what REAL good communication is.

"We are aware of the problem and are working for a fix on it" (once every month if not once every two months for a couple days at a time)

That's not good communication. If you have sever issues like AO has been facing, then you should put an "Emergency Crew" on it ASAP and get it fixed, no matter what. Whether it's weekend or weekday middle of the night, that's irrelevant. If it's a serious problem, it needs addressed as such, not as something that you can take weeks to look at when it's convenient.

I'm sorry if I'm blabbing and if you want to flame me, go ahead. But I'm sure that more than a few actually agree with everything I've said.

********STILL WAITING PATIENTLY FOR SILIRRION TO RESPOND ********

P.s. Send tell to Seringas if you honestly have something intelligent to say but don't feel like posting. But I would more than anything appreciate posts on top of this if you've got the time

[Yodsanklai]

Funcom, SPECIFICALLY to Silirrion:

Silirrion,

I don't know what else to say. AO has suffered with these problems, sometimes less and sometimes like this, for as long as I can remember now. I've played AO since beta. WoW does not suffer like this. Neither does most any other game I've ever played.

By not takings these problems with your absolute HIGHEST priorities, you're losing clients left and right, day in and day out. I've stuck with AO because IMHO, it's the absolute best MMO out in this world today. (Graphics could use an upgrade though, lol)

The chat servers crashing for 18 hours out of a day and being unable to chat is driving me absolutely nuts. The game server LAG is absolutely killing me.

I never thought I'd say this in my friggin life, but I'm considering leaving AO because I can't deal with, what I "feel" is irresponsibility in FUNCOM's duty to give ALL OF US what we pay for on a monthly basis...

Hopefully you will read this and take these things I say now to your heart as a game company and give me a reply that I think many (if not all of us) would greatly appreciate getting from you...

--- --- ---

First, When you are having problems, You don't communicate. You give us statements that are as vague as saying "I'm young"...Well how young of an age do you consider to be young? 5? 10? 16? 18? 25? Under 40? See what I mean?
OR I have a LONG shift to work today...How long is long? 8 hours? 12 hours? a double shift? a Triple? You give such vague answers and we get absolutely NO COMMUNICATION from FUNCOM whatsoever until 12 to 18 hours after the fact.

Second, How long are we going to have to deal with this kind of "disrespect" to us as YOUR clients and players before we get compensated somehow? At least with some games that I used to play, if the servers are experiences severe problems, They gave EVERYONE game-wide, an extra 50% xp for a couple days to a week depending on how severe the issues were or how long they were down for.

Honestly, I'm not asking for the extra xp or a free month or anything. All I'm asking for is some SERIOUS consideration to what WE as the players go thru on a daily basis. I play AO every single day, I've lost chances to be in teams, I've lost the abilities to fight, I've lost xp and money, and items because of lag and crashing. I can't even talk to my friends in the game because of what issues we've got going on now..

I've sincerely taken my time and effort to write a THOUGHTFUL and serious letter to you as FUNCOM's Representative. Please, I beg of you. Take the time to reply in the same "thoughtful and serious" way to ALL OF US, as We are spending OUR money to play AO. And to be a member of this community.

I seriously don't know what else to say....I feel disrespected as a player, as a community member, and as a person because In my honest opinion, Funcom isn't taking us seriously..


--Jormar, 215 Advy, CLAN, Serendipity

+1 Wtb Funcom reply aswell

[Armus]

The chat server problems started alot earlier than just a few days ago. More like two weeks ago than two days. I remember specifically when clan gnaked 1x CAV, should've been 2 weeks ago or so. Clan didn't plant that because the chat servers died before we had decided who was to plant (apparently, I was afk ish myself). The server had also gone down earlier that day. And they have crashed ever since a few times a day. Nothing nearly as serious as the last few days though.

So in reality it's a 2 week response time from FC, not 2 days.

[Mekh]

I agree with every single word Yodsanklai wrote, really...

S
...snip...
Threatening to leave them isn't going to change this, and only has you coming off as incredibly childish
...snip...

I can't follow that line of thought really.
I'm paying a lot (4 full accounts) for a service I'm not getting.... In a sufficient quality at least.

The only leverage I have with regard to try and get FC up to speed is the money I send to them. If they do not wan't to deliver what I expect I'm entitled to for my money, then I will not give them my money...

That's not childish, that's common (business) sense.

First you tell them what you're unhappy about, then the company can either choose to do something about it and tell me they will do so and when they expect it to be fixed. They can also decide to do nothing in which case most people regardless of the product would go to the next step.
Then you warn them that if they can't deliver the product they say the will and you expect, then you will discontinue paying for the product.

If that still do not help, then you take the last and final natural step, which is to discontniue your business with the company that either can't or won't deliver what you expect.


EDIT:
Also... If people do not post their warning FC that they will end their subscription(s), then how are FC to be be aware that those people are so unpleased with them, that they consider ending their subscription?

In that case all FC will see is a notice with "ACCOUNT CANCELLED" without any reason given most likely, because people can't be arsed to give a dasm anymore...
Noone benefits from that...

So people that are displeased and sincerely tempted to end their subscription due to how things are really, really should post, because that way FC at least have been warned and have the knowledge of how bad people feel about it.

If no one tells them, they will just go along thinking it's all fine.

[Warhead]

If you want somebody important to read this, you need to PM that person. Tech help is like a thought box with a shredder beneath it.

[Mekh]

If you want somebody important to read this, you need to PM that person. Tech help is like a thought box with a shredder beneath it.

I did...

They've probably disabled PM's to FC staff as well as they've disabled CS tho.

[AgentBond]

I've PM'd every admin/staff that I could reasonably find in 3 minutes time, which was like 4 of them. Including Silirrion requesting appreciatavely that he read this and give me a reply, so we'll see what happens.

And in regards to you, Mekh...That's exactly my point. All people do is bitch this and bitch that, and complain about whatever they don't bitch about. That's not saying you're going to leave game because of it. And honestly, Even when AO was first released, there were some UNBEARABLE bugs...If you played back then, you know. And then when SL was released, OMG Fixer hell! and more. lol.

I stuck thru all of that and love the game. But this lag and the chat server bulls*** is something thats CRUCIAL to an MMO, otherwise I'd just go play oblivion solo.

Other than that, Mekh. I appreciate ya reply. Greatly appreciated. 2 THUMBS UP to MEKH!

[Ayria]

Funcom specifically states that they do not reply to game suggestions; never have in the past, posing "Please read" in the title is not going to make them respond. I'm sure by now they have read it, as they do all threads.

The problem is that, despite the communities expectation of constant communication, it is not generally possible. They are after all running a company and a virtual world; I'm sure they have busy jobs and busy days and the last thing they want is some stressed out person yelling on the phone that they need to do more. (This not in specific to you)

But people don't always realize this but when you're a company that deals with thousands upon thousands of customers and the ratio versus your staff is not in your favour some forms of communication must be limited. Places like Game Suggestions is such a active area that it would be all they could do to keep up; not to mention decide if it's good to put in game, code it, implement it, support it: along with various multitudes of other tasks involved in updates, hardware support and general company concerns.

Then of course there is the need to consider what resources they can draw on. It's so easy to assume that they can just "Hire more staff", but even here where I live; by far not a large city compared to some (we're only around 700 000 people), we have a shortage of workers and a lot of companies are struggling or dying out because of it.

On the idea of tech support: there are multiple versions of such a thing. Tech support to the average person is that person who can barely speak English and doesn't understand what your problem is where the solution is generally re-installing Windows. And then there's tech support where you have to sift through millions upon millions of lines of code in a dynamic and shifting venue to find some extra comma that makes your swim wear crash the game.

If it were so easy to say "Reboot the chat system and it'll work." like the standard response you get from Microsoft then Funcom would have done that. Sadly things are not so easy and they are only human themselves, not perfect and able to find in an expeditious manner the issue that plagues the code.

I know it's not easy, and a lot of things seem inconceivably horrible or unacceptable but rest assured that Funcom knows of the issues and are working on resolving them: keeping in mind that they are only as human as you and I and not capable of anything more then we would be.

[Pafpuf]

AO is dead, the recent additions to the game were just a hype-type fraud to keep the paying playerbase's moneyflow until AoC is launched. Now that it is you can forget about AO as FC did. I saw this coming months ago.

It's beyond obvious how little effort they put into maintenance and adding new content. Skin designs with LE were beyond horrible, most of the item stats and requirements are copy/paste jobs of older ones, etc.
When you read patch notes they always say "X should work like it was intended to" or "Bug Y which caused Z to happen should be fixed". Should ? They "fix" bug without even knowing if they did or not, not to mention for every "fixed" bug they add a dozen new ones, some of which so are so obviously toying from the dev team it's tragicomical. Adding a 10000 stamina buff on a perk is a bug ? Unintentional ? Come on...

[Azazelkeep]

much better post than the one i did for the same reason...
Pafpuf i do not want to agree with you as i see the things about AO optimistic
Ayria... you are right but they can help if they really want... we need some respect as paying customers for a company
and well AgentBond i totally agree with you in everything...

point is that as it seems they fixed the chat server probs yesterday night for me +2 gmt and i must admit this was i good move...

hoping they will keep on like that

[Adacta]

I think the communication isn´t as bad as you paint it. Or at least, not as bad as I remember it to be pre-Sil.
And besides, the CS in other games isn´t perfect as well. I played Sony and Blizzard games, and the overall CS was way worse than this.

That of course doesn´t mean there isn´t room for improvement, there always is. I too would love to have one really qualified person at FC that does nothing else but reading the forums, getting info/permission from the team, and posts/comments in our threads.
In short, a community manager that actually manages the community, a constant hot wire between them and us.
Maybe it´s because I grew up with a self-employed merchant as a father, but I really believe that good mix of information, sweet-talk and sometimes an appropriate "excuse" can do more to customer-seller relations than any bonus, rebate, payback or gift could ever achive.

As for AO being dead or not ... we´ll see. If one day the e-mail tells me it´s over, I´ll know for sure - until then, no use in wasting brain capacity speculating about it.

And last not least: yes, complaining in the forums is good.
It may not speed up any fix, but it gives the players a chance to vent their anger, either in a constructive post or in a pointless flame. It also gives FC the chance to come up with some calming, and if they don´t use it, they miss out on a great way to "hold hell at bay", kinda. What I wrote above, actually.

[gergiskoo]

The thing that really gets me is that all Silirron has to do is sit down at the computer for 15 minutes and write a Community Corner post. At this point it should be more of an apology than a "we're moving forward!" statement (which as Pafpuf said is a lie), but something is better than nothing. I'd just like to know that he doesn't just come into the office once a week to vaguely reply to a post and make a vague thread about how awesome 17.9 is going to be, which as we can hear from the testlive people isn't strictly true.

If he really is that busy at Funcom that he can't even read and respond to these major customer concerns on a regular basis (which is laughable to me, since there doesn't seem to be much to direct in AO anymore), then they need to refocus their resources.

It's beyond obvious how little effort they put into maintenance and adding new content. Skin designs with LE were beyond horrible, most of the item stats and requirements are copy/paste jobs of older ones, etc.
When you read patch notes they always say "X should work like it was intended to" or "Bug Y which caused Z to happen should be fixed". Should ? They "fix" bug without even knowing if they did or not, not to mention for every "fixed" bug they add a dozen new ones, some of which so are so obviously toying from the dev team it's tragicomical. Adding a 10000 stamina buff on a perk is a bug ? Unintentional ? Come on...

Someone (I forget who) said that AO's code is so messy that changing something that sounds simple can be very difficult or cause unexpected side effects. But I agree, it's silly that they haven't tried to fix certain bugs. And if they have tried and failed, then perhaps they should have said so a long time ago.

[Adacta]

Someone (I forget who) said that AO's code is so messy that changing something that sounds simple can be very difficult or cause unexpected side effects. But I agree, it's silly that they haven't tried to fix certain bugs. And if they have tried and failed, then perhaps they should have said so a long time ago.

I remember a nice "bug" that happend years ago when AMD released a new CPU (I believe it was the 586).
They wiped some dust off the old designs and speeded up something (the A20 gate iirc). No big deal, logical and useful.
BUT .. since the timing of said A20 was the same since the first 8086 CPUs, a lot of mouse driver programmers used it as a simple sync-timer.
Hence, the new, improved CPU caused these drivers to go wild and fail.

So why do it tell stories from grandpa´s chest here you ask ?
Because a lot of problems in software like AO have the same cause. Routines get values from places they shouldn´t, because the programmer was too lazy to do it properly, or didn´t have time to find the right source.
On top of that, the client is still in the same state as it was during beta. A programmer friend of mine said "it´s compiled in debug mode and still gives out debug information".
In short, the game was never really finished when it hit the shelves, but just a collection of routines hastily glued together.
Once a few programmers leave or get replaced, the team starts too loose track and the ability to get some sense out of the mess they left behind.

As a result, every added feature, every fixed bug, every single line of code changed is a potential "lowest tier" card in a card house - pull it, and the building collapses.
Blame the guys that programmed the very base of AO, and the circumstances under which they did it.
The current team is just the poor housemaid that has to clean up after a teenagers birthday party.