Conan Exiles - Funcom strikes again

[bylam]

That's just how Funcom operate. They have these brilliant creative folks creating captivating worlds, pump the hype, try and sell enough on launch before people realize the game is actually garbage and then dump and abandon it and move onto the next thing. It was the case with Anarchy, their first MMO in 2001, it was the case with Age of Conan, it was the case with TSW and it's the case with Exiles.

Fun fact: Anarchy is still running, it's one of the oldest MMO still in existence, it is also the most expensive MMO on the market with 15$/month subscription while also being a P2W with selling items that increase player power. This is the kind of company you're dealing with.

It's literally a Ponzi scheme. Save yourself nerves and never give them as much as a dollar.

I dunno, I wasn't around in the Anarchy days, but the company released 5 expansion packs for Anarchy over 8 years. I wouldn't call that a dump and abandon.
Age of Conan got 3 expansions. TSW got 15 or 16 issues at this point. And a reboot. All of those games are still running.

I understand why people dislike the bugs and performance issues in the games we release, I'm more confused by the insistence that we abandon our games. We pretty much always work on them longer than profit-driven companies would (in terms of player metrics vs profitability).

"Battle Royale in Hyboria"

Fuck no.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Don't forget to pour one out for Anthony Bourdain while watching.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Yes, I support this game

 

[lophiaspis]

bylam what's wrong with your bosses that they have all these great writers and then insist everything must be an MMO? Have they never heard of, I dunno, Skyrim? GTA?

 

[Bocian]

bylam what's wrong with your bosses that they have all these great writers and then insist everything must be an MMO? Have they never heard of, I dunno, Skyrim? GTA?

Still chasing the WoW fad?

 

[bylam]

bylam what's wrong with your bosses that they have all these great writers and then insist everything must be an MMO? Have they never heard of, I dunno, Skyrim? GTA?

Hehe, well I have these discussions with them frequently. GTA Online makes far more money than GTA V did so it is kinda hard to use that argument. Also GTA cost 200million to make. Skyrim is more comparable (and actually after Oblivion I spent a great deal of time trying to convince people that we could a much more proficient game in that style).

And don't get me wrong, where I stand personally is that we should be making single-player games. A company our size (50 people in the Oslo studio) will always struggle with the infrastructure and ongoing costs of multiplayer games. But on the other hand, we'll always struggle to deliver the polish level of something like The Witcher 3 because we are paying Oslo salaries and Oslo is the 5th most expensive city in the world.

Still chasing the WoW fad?

Anarchy Online release date - June 27, 2001
World of Warcraft release date - November 23, 2004

I don't blame you for thinking we weren't first since WoW is such a monolith, but we kinda made MMOs 3 years before Blizzard did.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

So, honestly, what will it take to convince your suits that a single player game is worth investing in?

 

[ortucis]

So, honestly, what will it take to convince your suits that a single player game is worth investing in?

Well, it's kinda hard to justify including a spyware in your game, when the game is offline only.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Balor's eyedrops, what the fuck.

 

[bylam]

So, honestly, what will it take to convince your suits that a single player game is worth investing in?

Well, it's kinda hard to justify including a spyware in your game, when the game is offline only.

Except it is not in Conan Exiles. It was in an earlier build to test the click-through effectiveness of marketing campaigns and was deactivated before the game launched. And then because Unreal plugins apparently leave files in your build even when disabled, we removed all the dlls manually.

That's not a defense, by the way. Just what happened. Judge that as you will.

 

[Stokowski]

I don't blame you for thinking we weren't first since WoW is such a monolith, but we kinda made MMOs 3 years before Blizzard did.

This is PR-speak for "we launched one MMO before Blizzard, and the game was so utterly broken and the launch such a disaster it became the stuff of internet legend." One example being that the registration servers - which frequently crashed and failed to process registrations - didn't employ any encryption at the outset. Credit cards are already perfectly safe, right?

 

[ortucis]

So, honestly, what will it take to convince your suits that a single player game is worth investing in?

Well, it's kinda hard to justify including a spyware in your game, when the game is offline only.

Except it is not in Conan Exiles. It was in an earlier build to test the click-through effectiveness of marketing campaigns and was deactivated before the game launched. And then because Unreal plugins apparently leave files in your build even when disabled, we removed all the dlls manually.

That's not a defense, by the way. Just what happened. Judge that as you will.

So wait, are you telling me, that spyware was specifically designed for us early access players who supported Funcom?

I feel honored.


On the side note, triple check your cooked games.

 

[bylam]

So wait, are you telling me, that spyware was specifically designed for us early access players who supported Funcom?

Meh, I wasn't involved and think it was a stupid fucking thing to do. As I said, I don't really defend it, just pointing out that it is not in the game and it was never active even when it was included in a build.

 

[Bocian]

This reviewer claims that the w spyware was in the game after the release and was deleted only after a week or so.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198426455634/recommended/440900/

Currently Conan Exiles sends data to redshell.io without asking for permission, declaring what data they are collection.

I can't recommend this game until this have been removed just as other games have done when caught using this software.

Edit5 May 16:

It looks like Funcom finally have stopped sending data to redshell. Something that should have been done in less then one day sadly took a whole week. But the fact that the customers did't even get a "Sorry" is the worst part. Andy B attempt to twist the words are good but only shows that there is no remorse.

Deeper analyse of all the data ConanExiles sends are in the works, until we have the results this review will stay, might remove it later on or make a proper review. I really wish there was a "neutral" recommendation to give here on steam.

 

[bylam]

Yes that was the "dlls were still there" thing. They were not actually sending data because it was disabled, as mentioned. This is according to the tech team.

 

[bozia2012]

Yes that was the "dlls were still there" thing. They were not actually sending data because it was disabled, as mentioned. This is according to the tech team.

Are you a level designer or programmer (or what?) at Funcom? Asking so not to confuse you with people in charge of making decision (and thus complain about stuff).


On the side note, I honestly have no issue with developers monitoring clicks, player actions, etc., in their games. Analytics makes sense, even Unity allows that, though that isn't some third party integration. This Redshell drama feels like EA lootbox situation. Everything was going fine until some idiot forgot to rename the DLL and ruined it for everybody.

These gamers whining about "SPYWARE HERP DERP!" right now, are the same people who happily share everything on every app they download from Apple and Google on their phones, including their contact list, for running a freeware game. People are stupid like that.

http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=joel+bylos+linkedin

 

[bylam]

Are you a level designer or programmer (or what?) at Funcom? Asking so not to confuse you with people in charge of making decision (and thus complain about stuff).

Creative Director focus on the design/writing side. You can blame me for a lot of design decisions, though I can usually provide some context as to why they were made a certain way.

On the side note, I honestly have no issue with developers monitoring clicks, player actions, etc., in their games. Analytics makes sense, even Unity allows that, though that isn't some third party integration. This Redshell drama feels like EA lootbox situation. Everything was going fine until some idiot forgot to rename the DLL and ruined it for everybody.

These gamers whining about "SPYWARE HERP DERP!" right now, are the same people who happily share everything on every app they download from Apple and Google on their phones, including their contact list, for running a freeware game. People are stupid like that.

The redshell thing annoys me because the design team were never informed (me included). Also it should be flagged to the players. The problem is that it *looks* dodgy when something like that shows up. It's easier to just tell people "Hey we added this thing that tracks if you clicked an ad for the game then bought it later" than to deal with fallout. Funcom already has a less than stellar reputation for many reasons, so every little thing that erodes player goodwill is annoying.

 

[thesheeep]

The redshell thing annoys me because the design team were never informed (me included). Also it should be flagged to the players. The problem is that it *looks* dodgy when something like that shows up. It's easier to just tell people "Hey we added this thing that tracks if you clicked an ad for the game then bought it later" than to deal with fallout. Funcom already has a less than stellar reputation for many reasons, so every little thing that erodes player goodwill is annoying.

Same thing happened to FatShark with Vermintide 2.
Instead of being fully open about it from the get-go (and allowing people to opt-out!), they just said "we only use it to see if the ad campaign worked" and drove their rep even more south.
Well... nobody's gonna believe those claims and it also doesn't change what data is being sent to RedShell itself. There's just no way for users to really KNOW what is going on.

I think it is great that people start getting some conscience about their data, even if it often leads to things being blown out of proportion.
Hopefully, companies will adjust and start simply being open about it.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

My problem with Conan Exiles is while following the full development of it me and others of the roleplay wanted to bet in this game to have finally the opportunity to roleplay in this majestic setting.

The game started with a early access campaign promising distinct features that many were interested on: City life,mounts and so on and so on.. Then.. The developer decided to scrap all of this to force a gold build for console nobody was interested about.

Even worse the game feel lack luster in content because it is many gameplay mechanics have an odd design that result gamey uninteresting and contribute to give a plastic feeling on the game..

They pushed for a revamp of combat that indeed were necessary then released the game axing like 70% of the promised content during the early access. Promised content like more character customization,more cultural armor and buildings ( that now are in form of paid DLC good work funcom!), the planned city life feature (joel mentioned player built cities feeling more alive with thralls going to gathering for you or going around the city at night to light the torches), Sorcery (that funcom used the excuse that now you have teleport and you can make potions is part of the sorcery!) all of this got scrapped to push the release for console that being a crappy hardware can barely run games that are more than a potato.

Also funcom is uncapable to code something decently and that is old news.

The game went in the final release status with, Placeholder items,Missing content,Major features bugged (purge, decat system) and little content.

The community of roleplayers to bring enough content had to rely on modders that they in the end did nothing else that UNDO the idiotic design decision made by funcom.

Decision like have to roam around a uninteresting world to unlock basic emotes..

Pretty much: *You found an old diary and you learned the ancient secret of yawning*

But what was even worse is when the users started to figure out that almost all the major promised features were about to be cut they been insulted and called doomsayers or accused to spread bad rumors when til Funcom confirm those features were cut during a livestream.

To me this guys have the credibility of a Clown with the difference at least a clown is not credible and does bullshit to entertain so in the end it makes his job.

Funcom don't.

And let's talk about the out of scale placeables.. Things like you sit on a chair and you see your feet merge with the ground and the tables so big that reach almost the character necks.

And since building is mentioned...

Sandstone,Brickstone,Insulated wood and pretty much all the building blocks looks exactly like plastic compared with the game world and the buildings you can find in the neutral city.

Now they can promise gold and tell me that the sun is cold but i won't like many others believe anymore in Funcom.

And i apology if some funcom dev will find this post offensive but this is the codex if you deliver shit you will get shit.



Edited to include the lies video.

 

[bylam]

Man Mebrilia, it is hard to address all of this - some of it is fairly accurate and deserved, some of it is not.

Promised content like more character customization,more cultural armor and buildings ( that now are in form of paid DLC good work funcom!)

We added more character customization during early access.
We added more cultural armor during early access.
We added more buildings during early access.

For comparison there is a handy info graphic on this page. https://www.conanexiles.com/blog/we-are-live-conan-exiles-has-officially-left-early-access/

It is straight bullshit to say otherwise.

, the planned city life feature (joel mentioned player built cities feeling more alive with thralls going to gathering for you or going around the city at night to light the torches),

This is fair enough. We wanted to. But our AI was shit and we had to spend time fixing the AI. We still want to add these things.

Sorcery (that funcom used the excuse that now you have teleport and you can make potions is part of the sorcery!) all of this got scrapped to push the release for console that being a crappy hardware can barely run games that are more than a potato.

It got pushed so we could work on bugs. The decision was between extreme bugs vs certain features and we made the call to add these features post-launch and focus on bugs for launch. It's unfortunate but that is reality.

But wait, you ask, why not just push back launch until it is ALL in the game AND polished? Unfortunately, those are not decisions I get to make.

Also funcom is uncapable to code something decently and that is old news.

The game went in the final release status with, Placeholder items,Missing content,Major features bugged (purge, decat system) and little content.

Placeholder items? (Not *in* the game, but placeholder items might be in the admin panel. Because it is an admin panel.) Missing content? (such as?)

There were def bugs, I'll give you that.

And i apology if some funcom dev will find this post offensive but this is the codex if you deliver shit you will get shit.

I don't really get offended, but I think it is funny the difference between some of the things you say and the actual sheer amount of things we added during Early Access.

And yeah that video was stupid, marketing should never have been allowed to record and release it to the public, as it was based on our internal development roadmap, it was for closed press and OF COURSE people assumed everything in it was a promise. For that, I truly apologize.

 

[laclongquan]

I actually dont mind people collect that kind of data on me from games PROVIDED that

they are upfront about it.
it doesnt affect gameplay itself (no lag etc)

But they usually being dodgy about it (thus making me irritated) or the collection just ruin the game (examples of pirated games BETTER than official games). So yeah~

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Man Mebrilia, it is hard to address all of this - some of it is fairly accurate and deserved, some of it is not.

Promised content like more character customization,more cultural armor and buildings ( that now are in form of paid DLC good work funcom!)

We added more character customization during early access.
We added more cultural armor during early access.
We added more buildings during early access.

For comparison there is a handy info graphic on this page. https://www.conanexiles.com/blog/we-are-live-conan-exiles-has-officially-left-early-access/

It is straight bullshit to say otherwise.

, the planned city life feature (joel mentioned player built cities feeling more alive with thralls going to gathering for you or going around the city at night to light the torches),

This is fair enough. We wanted to. But our AI was shit and we had to spend time fixing the AI. We still want to add these things.

Sorcery (that funcom used the excuse that now you have teleport and you can make potions is part of the sorcery!) all of this got scrapped to push the release for console that being a crappy hardware can barely run games that are more than a potato.

It got pushed so we could work on bugs. The decision was between extreme bugs vs certain features and we made the call to add these features post-launch and focus on bugs for launch. It's unfortunate but that is reality.

But wait, you ask, why not just push back launch until it is ALL in the game AND polished? Unfortunately, those are not decisions I get to make.

Also funcom is uncapable to code something decently and that is old news.

The game went in the final release status with, Placeholder items,Missing content,Major features bugged (purge, decat system) and little content.

Placeholder items? (Not *in* the game, but placeholder items might be in the admin panel. Because it is an admin panel.) Missing content? (such as?)

There were def bugs, I'll give you that.

And i apology if some funcom dev will find this post offensive but this is the codex if you deliver shit you will get shit.

I don't really get offended, but I think it is funny the difference between some of the things you say and the actual sheer amount of things we added during Early Access.

And yeah that video was stupid, marketing should never have been allowed to record and release it to the public, as it was based on our internal development roadmap, it was for closed press and OF COURSE people assumed everything in it was a promise. For that, I truly apologize.

Cultural armor were in the early access from a while but there were told others were coming in the release...Wich in fairness we had.... One?....a prize for the effort.
Character customization never went... Beside some retexture of the skin nothing new.
Yep where is all the things shown in the video?.. Like where is the corpse pit that was promised or the siege tower?

About the AI there was a rumor around that funcom used third party developers to fix the A.I i am right?.

About the launch... there was never a true launch it was just a marketing releases mostly to ship the game on console... In fact the release caused our server to wipe twice because the decay was not even working.

Not even mentioning the half assed implemented purge that struck some of our player while OFFLINE.

The armor temps at the release don't even make sense anymore... Some armor that first had a nice little sense of realism that used to protect you to the heat now swapped to protect you from the cold... For NO reason at all.. except that maybe was a design decision based on laziness and incompetence.((hey we can't make more armor for the north since we made a clusterfucked game even for being a survival let's take some of the heat themed cultural armor and let's give them protection from cold).Let's take something we did right in early access and fuck it up because we are cool!



Placeholder items yes indeed and not only in admin pannel..But also craftable... You would look in the trophy section to see how much everything works there... Or let's talk about the shade that are so bugged that once placed they can't be removed at all not even with admin command.

Look i do appreciate the honesty of your here.. It is refreshing to see when people like me and many others got bashed both in the steam forum and the official forum just because they were experiencing bad time with what funcom delivered... And funcom delivered the 20% of their promises...

About the missing content...

You used Derketo as avatar in the launch trailer.... But there is not derketo avatar in the admin panel... And...There is not a derketo priest to place in the derketo altar.... So agan my post expressed facts... And as you admitted yourself funcom deiceved who decided to invest on them to make the game.. That video is more than enough to prof that...

Thing is.. first you had the excuses of the early access... Now the game released and there is not excuse for it anymore.

But i found also funny you quoted my post and decided to answer at just some of my criticism and not everything.

Is also true that Funcom forgot quality for PC owner when they decided to launch this console parity bullshit...

In the early access before the content rebalance patch the graphic were looking immensely better... Seems to me everything been scaled down to match with console version... I have comparsion screenies.. Now the game is absolutely blurred out in everything.

Before the content rebalance

After the content rebalance

Pretty much somebody at the top of Funcom simply said: Hey guys let's make a title early access let's promote it with features we will not deliver... And pack up with a beautiful graphics that in the end will be toned down because we want to make the experience equal for those that still have 10 years old hardware machine and console.. And the ones with high end machines? Screw those... Is too much time consuming find a nice balance to scale settings.

Ah and before i forget about "We never promised those features..." no you did and they were at the first screen popping up when you were opening the game in early access...

 

[hello friend]

Still chasing the WoW fad?

Anarchy Online release date - June 27, 2001
World of Warcraft release date - November 23, 2004

I don't blame you for thinking we weren't first since WoW is such a monolith, but we kinda made MMOs 3 years before Blizzard did.

Everquest - 16 March 1999

 

[Lazing Dirk]

release...had.... One?.... went... launch... console... anymore... cold... all.. pannel.. craftable... there... here.. delivered... promises... content...
trailer.... panel... And... altar.... facts.. game.. that... is.. access... bullshit... better... version... screenies.. deliver... console.. those... access...

I didn't really read what you said, nor am I particularly interested in whatever topic is being discussed. I just thought you'd like to know that your style of writing is abhorrent and awkward as all hell; akin to talking to someone who keeps drifting off mid sentence. Stop that.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

release...had.... One?.... went... launch... console... anymore... cold... all.. pannel.. craftable... there... here.. delivered... promises... content...
trailer.... panel... And... altar.... facts.. game.. that... is.. access... bullshit... better... version... screenies.. deliver... console.. those... access...

I didn't really read what you said, nor am I particularly interested in whatever topic is being discussed. I just thought you'd like to know that your style of writing is abhorrent and awkward as all hell; akin to talking to someone who keeps drifting off mid sentence. Stop that.

Beep....Baap....Booop....