When ghosting becomes a company policy, its never a good thing.
I did a final charge to my Crom Coin wallet and will go for some straggler goods when they rotate into the bazaar but I’m pretty much done funding the endeavor now because every sense of these drastic changes happening shows desperation on the unit to keep things churning. I mean if I was Den, I would be furious that the work done on the BP progression was in vain as the decision not even a full quarter into the new BP system was to remove the BP completely.
that is very specific wording that suggests it was done so for a reason. Counter question would have been “So are you on record saying no resources are being redirected away from CE towards other projects?” and also “Has the planned budgeting of CE still on track or has growth expectations been reconsidered and adjustments made?”
This chart actually shows that Q2 is where the significant decrease to almost half the averge players. So what was different in this compared to the others? Chapt 4 of AoW. The age was lackluster and people just are tired of it. Prolonging the next age release isn’t good and will only make these numbers worse.
FWIW, I believe them, until they prove me wrong. There’s a subtle difference between “maintenance mode” and “profit mode”, the latter being a concept on which you yourself educated me in a private conversation
It’s evident that Conan Exiles has gone from growth mode to profit mode, but I don’t think it’s in maintenance mode quite yet.
This one personally cannot say.
If Age of War gets a 5th Chapter or if this sad Chapter is extended another 3-6 months… Then this one will say it is maintenance mode.
Regardless of how absolutely atrocious recent changes were, they were still changes with some gravity. Games in maintenance mode don’t make such large changes, except ins very oblique situation that requires a little more tinning of the helm than this one is ready for at the moment.
The move to longer chapters coupled with the removal of the BP could signal a shift to maintenance mode.
But Fellesferie is not a good time to judge that.
The game always goes on hold for July.
This one cannot naysay those who are currently prognosticating doom, altho this one thinks it just a touch premature.
If Chapter 4 ends on time (the new on time) and with it the Age of War… and another Age replaces it, one that has something new to offer on par with Sorcery (golems, et al) or Purge/Raid Base, then primo.
But if it’s rotation between Witch Hunt and Sacred Hunt… Yeah, no.
While I’m not aching for new content/additions/changes, I recognise that a new Chapter or Age without some such would simply add fuel to the ever-burning ‘game is dead’ fire. Mostly I’d like to see more fixes and some key back-tracking or re-introductions.
In either case, I don’t expect to see much during the summer - in fact I’d generally rather they didn’t try to do anything too major in June, since they will be largely unable to rectify it until at least August. I’m actually pleasantly surprised to see that we got a patch in July that fixed a few issues. If anything that feels like an improvement over the past rather than maintenance mode. Sure, it didn’t cover every issue that players might want, or even necessarily the ‘most important’ ones - but then bug triage is more complex than most players often give it credit. (For instance - the falling through foundations bug is clearly proving more complex to fix, and it has been implied that attempts to fix it could have knock-on impacts on stability - even if they might have a possible fix lined up, the July patch would be an extremely risky time to attempt it, since they lack the available staff for an emergency that it could cause - this is, of course, speculative, but it attempts to demonstrate some of the possible factors in play.)
Like you, I’m inclined to wait before suggesting the game is entering maintenance mode. Sure, there has been a slowing of cadence, but many of us have requested that. As always, it is Funcom’s future actions that will provide the clearest indicators. I’ve seen a small patch and staff members interacting on the forums in July (in the usual limited capacity, of course) - this, if anything, seems an improvement over previous summers. There’s a fair few things about the game I’m not happy with right now (bugs, UI, inventory, hackers etc), but maintenance mode ain’t one.
i kean ignasis is now posting updates on Dune discord. Wasnt he one of the main ones to post in these forums. So me thinks they moved people. Now they may have some that were pre-dedicated to both games in some form, so technically they werent moved, but priorities list is dune heavier.
