I don’t think the release schedule is forcing them to be sloppy, I think it’s forcing them to be sloppier. And I’m not basing that merely on guesstimates.
Like I said, I’m convinced they can’t handle the release cadence they committed to. My reasons are simple and based on easily verifiable facts.
Fact 1 is that they needed an unplanned chapter 4 for the Age of War, because they didn’t manage to finish all that they planned for the Age within the 3 chapters it was supposed to have.
Fact 2 is that when you compare the Age of Sorcery with the Age of War, you can clearly see the drop in the quality of releases. I’m not talking about bugs only. I’m talking about the chapter-by-chapter comparison of what was introduced into the game and how well it was polished.
I don’t think anyone is denying that Funcom is perfectly capable of royal screwups when they’re working on a more relaxed schedule. But I think that the effect of a tighter cadence is observable.
To be fair, it might not be the release cadence alone. From what I’ve heard, it looks like the dev team shrunk over time. And the codebase is aging poorly. That said, if you have a smaller, less funded team, and your codebase is old and full of cruft, do you really think it’s a good idea to promise to release major updates every 3 months?
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When one is their own master, one can set their own release schedule.
When one is the fully owned property of another, that other will dictate scheduling.
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This!
At times, I get the impression that people will continue to deny and insist that something in the past was better, regardless of the facts or changes in the present. It appears to be overlooked that:
- All DLCs were accompanied by significant content patches.
- Each DLC in the past pushed a new feature from the current content patch. I have already highlighted this multiple times.
- The intervals between the DLC releases were longer in the past compared to the current gaps between the chapters.
- There has always been a lot of criticism regarding the DLCs and their often redundant content.
The primary argument, as far as I can recall, was mainly ‘It’s not very expensive, so I’ll purchase it…’. However, the sales figures of the DLCs were never officially disclosed, or am I mistaken?
To the best of my recollection, SIPTAH fell short of expectations – even up to now. This might also explain why no other map expansion has been launched.
Sustaining a game and providing new content without a monthly subscription requires an alternative revenue source. Evidently, the DLCs did not succeed in this aspect. That’s just my assumption.
Therefore, the BAZAAR, regardless of its popularity, is simply another method to generate profit from sales. Personally, I do not miss the era of DLCs. The Bazaar offers a significant advantage – it allows for more choices, which, combined with the BPs, seems like a better solution to me.
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I could live without the free ages, which are not really free, the bazaar pays for them so someone is technically paying, just not me, but someone is.
At any rate lol as i was saying.
I could do without the boring ages as there are just too many issues with the game’s mechanics taking the fun right out of them and throwing them in the trash.
- Combat needs work
- Bugs need squashed
- Engine and underlying code needs some serious cleanup and optimization at least on console.
I know some of you don’t care about consoles, but the game IS on consoles some bought it, some got it through a subscription AND many of us bought their packs and at times buy things from their new store.
We helped too and should not be forgotten when it comes to what gets fixed and what does not.
I am sure the list goes on, but that is at least some of the issues of the game right now that you can point to and say yea, i can see those being a problem for overall enjoyment.
I prefer the old dlc packs I felt they were well worth the money given all the things you got in each one for the price and the wait was just part of it really.
When you kept it in perspective you were getting a pretty good deal with packs for a good price, the wait was just an annoyance of being impatient lol
The bazaar on the other hand while i can live with the concept it has a few issues which i have shared below as well the battlepass.
These issues have caused me far more angst than anything from a dlc pack or having to deal with the waits of a pack.
At least with a dlc pack i didn’t have to wait on a stupid rotation for things i missed to come back…
On to those issues:
- Needing to have a connection to use your items, if memory serves you didn’t need a connection to be able to use your dlc pack items, just to download them.
- Baz pricing
- Bazaar rotation is either too slow or not enough offerings, one or the other perhaps both could use some attention.
I am not against Fun and company making money of course and never have been against that, but this game needs a tune up and some swift changes, to keep myself continuing to play and to keep CE a contender amongst the growing list of games not only on the market now but in the future, but that all depends if they want to even keep CE relevant.
Their new game on the way DUNE i am 100 percent sure is going to have a lot of the same issues currently wrong with CE which is making that game already a tough sell amongst other things that are already detractors from the get go, but that is for another topic.
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I like the treehouse foundation. But do I use it? Nope.
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Because they were only cosmetic, that’s why $10.
If each of those came with a new dungeon or two, a location like “Midnight Grove” or “The Siege of al-Merayah” + themed building pieces and equipment, then $20, sure.
Siptah is the only thing that deserved $30+ price, compared realistically to other similar things on the market (yearly MMO expansions, or the new Elden Ring DLC that took 2 years to make are 30-40$).
Most multi or single player games with 30+ $ DLC offer a whole new area for that price.
They can still release both, DLC with a new area (or dungeons) with themed building pieces, armour, weapons + bonus pieces and vanity equipment skins for players and pets that go to the Bazaar and provide more income.
I wouldn’t mind if they released new Elder Vaults at $5-10 each, at least it’s real content you can play. Add a new enemy here and there, new loot, etc…
Cosmetic means that artist’s still did the work. What I meant by only $10 is that it didn’t make sense since the quality was there and the work had been done. They priced themselves out of profit if it is to be argued that DLCs were not making money, by choice.
The BLB doesn’t necessarily come with other new content. While arguably can be considered P2W for PVP and pay for advantage depending on the item, it is cosmetic as well and a hell of a lot more expensive.
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As an artist myself, and also working on video games (not as good as this one), I agree that artists’ work should be appreciated - but that’s just the art department. Expansions where the entire team of game designers, programmers, artists and writers worked for a year cost $39.99.
CE does have “dungeon” expansions, but they aren’t paid for other reasons - if al-Merayah were a paid DLC and some people on a server had it while others didn’t, that would cause other problems on servers obviously, since it’s out there in the overworld.
Another problem with CE and expansion is something other people like @darthphysicist have mentioned - which is server and console performance, and the way expansions would be implemented. Currently the best way to do it are interior dungeons - for both, performance and separating owners of DLCs.
Also, if the DLC contains new game mechanics, how do you integrate them into the base game so that they play well with the people who don’t own the expansion?
For those reasons I think they opted for cosmetic expansions and kept new mechanics free across the board - less headache. Which is why they need Bazaar to support the development consistently, until (and if) they find more ways to release paid expansions.
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You know I’ll argue about “cosmetic”.
But how much did funcom charge you for the entire northern region of the game map, all those dungeons, villages, new challenges, new lore?
Did you say nothing? That you got all that for having owned the game when it was added?
You just want to set me off don’t you? Once again all skins are content but not all content is skins. Learn the difference.
Now with present inflation those DLCs would be much closer to $40 then $10. Hell I wish gas was still $1 a gallon and you could eat a Tbone steak and it not be equivalent to a car payment. We don’t live in that $10 world any more. people should count themselves lucky the price of the DLCs hasn’t kept up with inflation.
I’m sorry I’m not really understanding.
BLB isn’t giving anything newer than the DLCs really did, just at a drip instead but is higher in cost?
I’m not really sure why you’re explaining about new content like dungeons and what not. The BLB isn’t contingent on whether things like Al-Merayah is released. Or are you saying that the BLB is tied to the Ages and new free content released within them? So it justifies the higher cost?
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There really doesn’t seem to be much difference for content release between the two systems. Old dlcs also were often released to coincide with (and pay for) new (‘free’) content updates. Riders of Hyboria, for example, coincided with the addition of mounts to the base game. Everyone got the content update, those who bought the dlc paid for it. Even Siptah didn’t actually come with separate content - everyone got the base data chages to the game, buying the dlc unlocked access. This is basically the same as the new system - bp/bazaar represents paid content (access), and the revenue from that pays for the content updates. In both cases the updates happen either way, and are paid for by purchaseable cosmetic items - the only change is the precise ways in which the purchaseable cosmetics are delivered. Neither option in anyway affects how Funcom can or can’t update content - they are solely about providing the revenue to pay for it. There’s certainly no reason that the same content updates would have been any more difficult to release with a dlc model rather than bp/bazaar - the only question is which produces better revenue, which is unprovable without testing both methods under the same conditions.
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This
, with a more optimistic way is my opinion too, not that Code is pessimist. I am just very optimistic. Code is fair and just!
Just because @Rekt is someone i really miss and respect in here, yes, i will say the same things once more, what the heck why not:rofl:
.
I love dlcs and their ability to exist offline.
I love dlcs and their ability to share with other players.
I love dlcs and their ability on consoles to be shared on different users of the same console.
I believe that Funcom was charging very low the dlcs, but at the same time, i loved them and respect them a lot.
I know that love and respect do not fill “belly”, so that’s the reason i contribute every month to bazzar, which i don’t like a lot and i find some things insanely over priced, yet only because i will always have the old dlc comparison.
I played elder scrolls online for 6 months. This my friend was clearly a robbery and pay to win tactic to it’s maximum!!!
I don’t believe i need to say more, we all understand and agree that for the player side dlcs were dreamy in front of bazzar, or at least, for players with tight budget in their lives. If someone can spend 200 euros on a bottle of alcohol , these prices are hilarious anyway, so i don’t expect these people to come down to me and tbh, i don’t want them to do so. I am happy they have money and i am happy being me as well, so no problem
. I don’t care that i cannot afford to own everything bazzar has and as the matter of fact i am happy i don’t. I cannot stand our crafting tables anymore, i get nausea trying to find something to fix, we have too many!
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erjoh
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We do know that the BLB produces a steady stream of revenue compared to the lump event that the DLC’s offered. Most businesses prefer steady stream because you can adapt situations accordingly if something is out of wack and you don’t risk loosing your shirt over it as you got time to recover if the forecast for this item didn’t work right. If you miss forecast of the DLC popularity, you are SOL for quarter vs missing the monthly goal( at worst) under the ever rotating BLB.
Very true.
This one is the sour pessimist who is still trying to figure out how to turn the bad grapes into wine so at least there is something to drink.
Regarding steady stream vs lump sum…
How much would full Culture Packs, such as Nemedian, run for in the Bazaar as a full package?
Not in dollars or ducats or denari, but in Chrome Coins.
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I don’t understand the question, sorry. I don’t even know you personally, just having a forum discussion about Conan Exiles and DLCs.
Comparing apples to apples, DLCs that cost $39.99 in 2024 for other games I play (specifically Elden Ring and ESO) offer new map area, new questlines, new enemies, new mechanics, dozens of new bosses, and on top of that new armour, weapons, animations for those weapons, etc. So, no, sorry, I don’t agree that a cosmetic-only DLC pack of 3 armors, weapon set and building set is worth 40 bucks even in 2024.
Yea, there is no way a cosmetic pack with those offerings would be 40 bucks today, maybe 15 or 20 at best, but 40 no way.
If they try to sell people that nonesense meaning the company, something has gone terribly wrong within their company and they are leaking money or they are really over inflating the cost of production in the hopes of cashing in on some newbies to how these things work.
Though it might take 40-60 to make the original pack maybe even a 100, at 15 to 20 bucks they still would make that back in no time.
I have no issue with profits, but there is a line where you are making profits and just outright trying to shake down your player base for every penny they have in their pockets.
My wish or hope for companies making a better return is that they at least deliver a better base product, but i am unfortunately not seeing that here.
They are adding content sure, but like a lot of these companies, i am not seeing an increase or at least a balance in quality to make that new content worth even having.
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In Rhodes we have Suma! Of course the base is grapes, but in this particular 40% alcohol at least spirit we use fruits as well, not oly grapes and bad grapes. And trust me, the company of few olives, feta cheese, fresh cut tomato and some bread is all you need to enjoy Suma. If you have some salted sardines too, you’re a King on a feast! People think they need all, but the basics is what really makes us happy!
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Thought I had made it clear 
And I had all the expansions for LOTRO, quit before I had 7/10 done.
You not agreeing doesn’t make me wrong. Inflation is math and math doesn’t care what you think. Now math and I aren’t friends anymore, but I’m sure someone could plug in a formal to tell you just what those DLCs would cost today.
But add it all up if you was to buy a DLC’s worth of content from the Bazaar, you’re looking at an easy $100.
Anyone notice you can kick NPCs off cliffs now? Not sure when it changed but I love to run up to an NPC and shout “THIS IS CONAN” 
Ya feel me nimbleshadow?

I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that I’m not agreeing. Same thing you’re saying, it’s fine.
Eh, Conan would just steal the DLC from the Funcom Tower Shrine 
I’d argue that in the 1981 John Milius movie the old Thulsa Doom (who previously stole Conan’s family heritage and took him as a slave) owning his own pyramid while not a pharaoh and a having a cult of blind followers while not a messiah represents the evil of capitalism, which I’d equate to someone selling a $39.99 cosmetic-only DLC.
By that logic (logic, sometimes as subjective as interpretations of a work of art) this blind Thulsa Doom follower represents a Tencent subsidiary looking into my wallet:

Some of these comments are very telling about how art is valued.
Never ceases to amaze me.