Inevitable evolution

Conan Exiles General Discussion
23

Thank you for the detailed analysis. I had no idea about the details of Tencent’s business practices.

One thing I also neglected to think of is that a company might shut down a project based on an IP, but still retain that IP instead of selling it, as a way of denying a resource to their competitors. So the more I read what you wrote and the more I think about business in general, the less likely it seems that I’ll ever see a Conan game I will enjoy properly.

Even if Tencent gives it to another one of the companies they own, they’re still Tencent pawns and will follow the same “run it into the dirt for profit” philosophy that we’ve seen since the acquisition…

Oh, well. There goes my last hope for the Conan IP. :man_shrugging:

26

Sadly while I bemoan I cannot take credit for the advent of the recent spate of flags elsewhere on the forum, I unapologetically revel at being the flagger for this one. Self-serving members have selfishly derailed @Whitequeen’s thread to the point it bears almost no semblance to its original subject, with nefarious actors othering members and shoehorning in political debates. And sorry but no amount of rationalization or ‘but everyone else is doing it’ will wash with me. @DanQuixote was undeserving of the repugnant Strawman, Ad Hominem and personal attacks levelled against him. But hey, you got your ill gotten wish, he has now left. I suggest some members here need to reaquaint themselves with the Forum Social Guidelines and try actually adhering to them. As far as any sanctimonious guilt trips go, no worries there, my “conscience” is perfectly clear. Should anyone else dislike my course of action here, they can go suck a lemon. :lemon:

29

At least you got it right when you flagged that post of mine as “off-topic”. There’s no denying that. But whoever flagged it the first time as “inappropriate”, that’s the person who needs to re-examine their conscience (and get reacquainted with the forum guidelines in process).

31

My bad, I’m just all worked up by who ever is abusing the system.

32

No one is abusing the system. The system is borked. Someone at Funcom fiddled with the settings and now one flag hides the post.

Not sure if it applies to all “trust levels” (as defined by Discourse, the forum software), but I was able to confirm through observation that it happens with whatever level I have and last time I checked, no one made me a moderator.

33

#1 - Nope. No one said (or even implied) that they wanted him to leave. One guy argued with him, I made a respectful counterpoint, but no one in this thread “wanted him to leave”. You’re making up a fake argument to argue against.

#2 - At the time of this writing his last post was 23 hours ago. Forum threads often go on for days, with people frequently posting 3-5 days apart. 23 hours doesn’t even remotely count as “leaving”. Another false argument.

Speaking of sanctimonious… it’s hilarious that you’re trying to pretend you haven’t derailed plenty of threads yourself. There must not be any mirrors in your house.

34

FWIW, @Croms_Faithful might have information you and I don’t have, @Pipinghot. Private group chats are a thing and I used to be part of one that included @Croms_Faithful and @DanQuixote.

I really hope @DanQuixote didn’t actually leave the forums, but I can also totally understand it if he did. I’m becoming more of an outsider here with each passing day, and there are fewer and fewer reasons for me to stay. Sooner or later, every person has to decide for themselves whether it’s worth it to hang onto something that’s distressing them.

35

The ones who lived through Covid, lost family from the virus and still believed that never existed :roll_eyes:.
Opinions, opinions.
That’s the world we’re living, ain’t it big brother?

36

That’s a fair point, never occurred to me, thanks for that reality check.

I too would be saddened if it turns out that he’s gone, hopefully that hasn’t happened.

37

So having a conversation about a game we love and the possibilities of how to make it better in the future is out of the question. I understand the frustration and distrust but it won’t change anything. I’m putting my torch and pitchfork down and walking away. Life’s too short to waste my time on something that stresses me out. I get that irl. :smiling_face_with_sunglasses::beer_mug: cheers

38

I mean, if you see someone repeat the same mistake over and over again, asking them to repeat the process and hoping for a better outcome is also unlikely to change anything.

But I get your point, too. Maybe those of us who don’t blindly trust Funcom and subscribe to the “fool me twice” belief should leave the rest alone. Maybe Funcom should make Conan Exiles 2 and make it a disappointing experience just like Age of Conan, Conan Exiles, and Dune Awakening – and make a lot of money from those who still believe in them.

Then again, maybe not. For some of us, it’s not just about Funcom and Conan. It’s about general enshіttification of the game development industry and trying to change things by being vocal about it. And if being vocal about enshіttification bothers people more than the enshіttification itself, then that’s also part of the problem.

39

You forgot The Secret World. :face_with_tongue:

40

100% this.

41

To be fair Dune is generally regarded as a very good game right up until the end game loop in the deep desert. No, I haven’t bought it or played it and have no plans to.

If Funcom can/will support it adequately to keep it relevant/making money is certainly a good question. I suspect they’ll do what they can up until the point where the money it generates is no longer worth it then it’ll be on to the next project. To be brutally honest it’s that or go bankrupt.

I strongly doubt that I would play a CE 2 because, while CE was certainly fun the first time around, it would take a game so far beyond being “CE with better graphics and no bugs” to pull me back in that I don’t think it’s possible. It would have to be substantially different and unique while still retaining that Conan flavor, so to speak.

As an example I played the hell out of the original Diablo, no pun intended, and fully expected to play the shiny off the disc of Diablo 2. But 10 minutes into the game I knew it just wasn’t happening. Got to Act 3 and gave up trying to like it. Never bothered with D3 or 4. The been there, done that feeling was just too strong.

That said I am certainly not representative of the majority of gamers. A CE 2 might do very well though all things considered I’d have to see it to believe it.

Since we’re dreaming… A 3D version of Diablo with The Secret World’s storytelling and Conan’s brutality would likely press all the buttons for me.

42

That’s just the thing: Conan Exiles wasn’t bad at all when it was released. Some might say it wasn’t as polished as Dune, some might say it wasn’t as hyped. But the fact remains that it was good enough to attract a lot of players and get Funcom out of financial trouble.

And then came the fumbles. Not immediately, no. In fact, it was a while before they started the whole “rip out part of this, build a half-finished that, revamp this half-way and leave it like that, balance that with a sledgehammer, nerf this into uselessness, introduce a ridiculously OP that” dance.

As time went, it only got worse in terms of lack of attention to detail, overpromising, underdelivering, and leaving whole swathes of the game in a state that made every newcomer go “WTF? Why?!”, giving some of us the morbid and dubious pleasure of recounting the whole lurid history of how it ended up that way.

Fast forward to Dune Awakening. A game for which Funcom boasted that they applied all the lessons they learned from Conan Exiles. A game that lost a higher percentage of its player base than Conan Exiles over the same period compared to each game’s launch. A game that manifested the same symptoms of the same dysfunctional approach to development that we’ve seen in Conan Exiles at its very launch.

Don’t believe me? Watch the Design Delve episode about it. Just like you, I didn’t buy Dune and have no plans to do so. But that doesn’t mean I’m not curious, so I jumped at the opportunity to learn more about it from one of the people I actually trust and respect – J-M8 of Second Wind and his Design Delve series.

He spends a fair amount of time gushing about what he loves about Dune, and it basically boils down to two things: 1) he loves the Dune source material, and Funcom, in his opinion, nailed the ambiance, and 2) a whole bunch of game mechanics are designed in a way that is really tight and engaging and satisfying.

And all the time during that first part, I listened and watched and kept thinking “Yeah, sounds just the way I felt when I first played Conan Exiles.” Because yeah, that really was what drew me in: the ambiance was incredible and the core gameplay was actually pretty solid.

But then he got to the second part, which was about the problems Dune has, and I went “There it is! That’s so Funcom!”

Rushed game design decisions, rampant cheating, lack of attention to certain details that you should not be able to overlook if you actually played your own damn game as much as you should before releasing it, and so on, and so forth. The same disappointing crap we’ve seen in Conan Exiles, but without having to bother to wait several years for it to happen.

The video ends, ironically, with J-M8 going back to gushing, because Funcom “fixed” those problems shortly after J-M8 finished preparing the episode. But hey, I can’t blame him. If you haven’t been burned by Funcom, it’s easy to fall for their attitude and believe the best of them.

Incidentally, I looked up what the players had to say about those “fixes” and hoo boy, another wave of déjà vu.

So yeah, it’s not really about Dune being bad. It’s not. Yet.

It’s about heredity. Dune inherited the same “genes” that ruined Conan Exiles.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But if you keep fooling me? That just means you have no shame and I have no dignity.

43

:100:

I jumped in with the first sale. Fell right in to it, but as time went on and update after update was disappointing I got weary of it. I think it was year 3 they did an update that was my last straw at the time, I quite for a while and player BRs.

I came back for sorcery and loved it but it was typical funcom. It was OK, parts were good, but over all it was adequate… And to make it worse funcom had set themselves up for failure with the hard release dates of the ages. If they had started out with a 6 month cycle and released quality updates we’d be in a completely different situation. The game might actually still be thriving.

But this is funcom, this is how funcom does and has done games. I’m just waiting for it to dawn on the Dune players.

Too true.
If game developed stayed on top of quality, and gave their players what they wanted, you wouldn’t have a one man indy game pop up that wipes the floor with all of them.

Dune may have been good for funcom but one man playing around with the unity game engine, wiped the floor with Dune. Not even an actual developer or having a crew.

This isn’t just an indictment of funcom but the games industry in it’s entirety. AAA dev company with dozens of coders just got shamed by one guy playing around with a game engine. The might ought to step back and reevaluate how they develop games.

NDA, I’ll get Dune when it hits my price point because I know about how much game there is there for me. I’m also well acquainted with what to expect of funcom.

:100:

44

So to the question of “Can Funcom adequately support Dune?” you fall squarely into the camp of “Not a chance in hell.” and I’m not buying it even if there are some good aspects that I’d enjoy.

My take on it is just fundamentally different. While I’m likewise dubious they can overcome their track record if Dune interested me at all I would get it. Being fully aware of what I was getting into.

Could say I’m more of a be glad it happened, not sad that it ended kind of person. Cause nothing lasts forever. I paid 30 bucks for CE in early access and got thousands of hours of entertainment in return. Sure I would have preferred it to end in a different way but ultimately I got my money’s worth. More than.

Now if you were to assert that I’m the reason the industry is in the shape it’s in all I can say is that I own a grand total of 3 Steam games and it’s extremely unlikely there will ever be a fourth. CE, 7 Days to Die and Don’t Starve Together. Don’t Starve was gifted to me and I’ve yet to even launch it though it sounds like a decent little game.

Then again maybe it’s my extreme lack of support that’s made the industry what it is. Possibly if I had an extra 50ish million bucks laying around I could get Funcom very interested in retooling CE.

45

No. I’m not buying it despite there being some good aspects that I would enjoy, because I know that they won’t outweigh the bad aspects that would bother me.

And it’s not just because of Funcom’s track record, it’s because what I’m hearing about Dune is confirming that they’re still on that same track.

That’s the reason why I’m not buying Dune, despite being interested in it. I’m fully aware of what I would be getting into and I don’t want to get into that.

Among those of us who love reading books, there’s a saying “Life is too short to read bad books.”

Now imagine you’re reading a book by an author whose style you really like. Their sentences flow well, the dialog is a joy to read, and the characters are unique and interesting. Each of their books starts great, but as you keep reading, they screw up the story every single time and instead of ending the book properly, they just kind of stop. Every single book you read by that author left you disappointed.

Would you still buy that author’s new book?

That’s why I’m not buying Dune.

Forever? No. Long enough for a mortal like me? Damn right it does.

I still re-read “The Lord of the Rings” from time to time. And I enjoy it every single time, and discover something new in it that I haven’t before.

Likewise, I still occasionally replay “Crusader: No Remorse”. A month from now, that game will be 30 years old.

Nothing lasts forever, but there are things that resist the ravages of time by proving their quality over and over.

Yeah, I get it. And that’s where we differ. I don’t know how much money I’ve sunk into Conan Exiles, and I don’t care. I don’t regret that I spent money on my hobby.

But I don’t think it was worth it.

Did I rack up thousands of hours in Conan Exiles? Yes, I did. Did I have fun along the way? Yes, I did. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but I did have fun. Did I get my money’s worth? Absolutely.

Was it worth my time?

No, it wasn’t.

I had fun, but I had even more frustration and disappointment and I can’t go back to having fun with it because the fun was taken away.

Some would say that this is on me. Yeah, it is. That’s the way I feel. I’m not telling you that you must feel that way.

Some would suggest that I could, perhaps, spend money to get my money’s worth and then make sure I don’t spend more time than it’s worth to. But that’s not how it works for me. Going back to our fictional literary author, would you take someone’s advice to buy the new book and only read up to chapter 5 out of 40, because it all starts going downhill in chapter 6?

And bear in mind that, unlike Muad’Dib, I’m not prescient, so there’s no way I’ll actually know when Funcom’s mishandling of Dune will reach a tipping point for me. Unlike a book, the story of Dune Awakening is not yet finished. It’s not a book, it’s a relationship, and I can already tell it will be an abusive one.

That’s not for me.

No, you’re not. Players, in general, are only one part of the reason for the current status quo in the industry. There are others.

And besides, even though the industry has a lot of aspects that I personally dislike, not all of that dislike is shared by gamers in general. Contrary to what some here like to accuse me of, I don’t seek to bend everyone to my own standards and values.

Enshittification means different things to different people, but more and more people agree that enshittification is a problem. But it’s not a problem we will solve by telling people like you that you should feel bad about your choices. Not that you should, I’m just trying to make a point about the approach.

But that doesn’t mean we have to keep silent, either. If someone says “Funcom plz maek CE2”, I’ll reply “plz no Funcom sux kthx”. And we can talk about it, if they want to.

46

Could make the argument that the decline in quality of games tracks with the decline of Western civilization in general but eh.

I’ll just say good luck in your quest for that close enough to perfect game that will keep you engaged for the rest of life.

47

:backhand_index_pointing_up:

I’ve read too many posts by people that claim to have hit the end of content in 100 hours of casual play. The game I am playing now; also early access, has about 200 hours of real casual game play, and is supposedly only 1/3 of the anticipated map. $20 for 200 hours of play, $60 for 100 hours.

Never been able to reread a book.

I’ve yet to find a long term replacement, and as I have said, I love the game, just hate what funcom has done/is doing to it.

I’d love to see a studio with passion, drive, and vision to take over Conan exiles.

But then any game that checks those boxes would suit me, I just haven’t found it yet.

How many people are still playing Minecraft? WOW? Hell there are people still playing ruinscape{sp}. Funcom’s vision is not beyond their grasp, so they are always plucking the low hanging fruit. They don’t seem to see a games future beyond the next update.

I was really hoping 7D2D 2.0 would give me a third person option.