Friday 20 June 2008

FunComs "After Sales Care"

Alternate title "How to ignore your playerbase"


LAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGG!

1 word.

3 letters (usually).

Such a tiny word, but a word hated by gamers the world over nonetheless.

Unfortunately, lag is a word which is currently being used in reference to Age of Conan a little too frequently for my tastes. The forums are currently rampant with players on both sides of the Atlantic complaining about degraded performance in-game, especially since the most recent patch.

This blogger himself has also had the misfortune to experience crippling latencies which make the game completely unplayable. One minute you're happily cantering along on your damned expensive horsey, off on your merry way to see the trader...

And then you notice it out of the corner of your eye.

That little green bar in the bottom corner of your screen. The one that keeps you happy. Safe in the knowledge that the little packets of information, flitting backwards and forwards between your client and the remote server, are happily reaching their destination.

But it's not little anymore. It's growing.

...and it's getting yellow.

...and then it's red.

Before you know it, your ping hits 8800ms and you travel back in time to 1955!

Or, more accurately, 9834ms ping followed by a disconnect from the game.

This has been a common occurrence for adventurers making their way through Hyborea. But, unfortunately, it's one which FunCom seem inclined to ignore.

If you take the fairly considerable amount of time required to read through the mass of posts on the official forums, you'll notice a lot of irate paying customers who are not getting the answers they need and deserve.

Aside from one of the Dev Team popping on to ask people to submit their Tracert logs from their IP to the AoC server, there has been no further contact between the Devs/CMs and the playerbase except to inform us that they do not believe that the problem lies at their end.

After reading a lot of these threads there does not seem to be any commonality with the players which could link it to anything other than the FunCom side of the chain.

Router firmware, network drivers for motherboards, ISPs, VPNs, traffic shaping. You name it - it has all been discussed.

When all is said and done, the only thing all these people have in common is AoC. Many players also have active accounts in other games and have reported that all is well when they connect to them instead.

Already, throngs of people are threatening to cancel their accounts if their pleas are ignored for much longer. A not uncommon cry from the crowds when situations like this appear.

Despite AoC still being in its infancy, this is a pretty game-breaking issue and when threads on the topic reach the 500 post mark (with only 1 official response included) you have to wonder at the level of customer service being provided.

Especially so when the game has already come under fire for the level of response provided by the in-game petition system.

For now, I'm prepared to give them a fair crack of the whip and stick it out. Despite this issue there is still pure gold under it all just waiting to be given its moment to shine. And I genuinely do want to see that happen.

But I can't deny that I vehemently curse the unborn children of FunComs employees when a lagspike hits me at the worst possible time. It's just another of the annoyances that has plagued every online game at some point or another.

However it turns out, I'll do my best to keep you apprised of any developments.

No comments: