This is long, I apologise. I ramble.
General Background:
I have played this game since launch. I mourned the end of the 3 for 4 DLC packs.
When I no longer had to stand still to regain stamina, I celebrated.
Over the years things have been added, removed, fixed, reerrored, fixed, etc.
Age of Sorcery brought a new direction to the game, I thought it had promise. Age of War showed us that there was no promise, just a constant stream of poorly conceptualized ideas that were not fully implemented and sucked almost every bit of joy from the game.
Age of War was a disaster. The new purge system was live streamed with the massive desync error we are still experiencing. We were constantly promised better. This was not delivered.
Age of Heroes beta was unplayable for me, just like the previous Age of Wars betas. Not unplayable because it would not run, unplayable because constant, game breaking, bugs. I dutifully reported bugs, including:
- Fatality related permanent invulnerability
- Mesh refresh causing player to die 100+ times on login and lose all items
- Freya quest bugging with no option to restart
There were a lot more over the beta, but these three stood out as so egregious and completely preventable were the production team required, as part of their job, to play the game a few hours each week on regular settings.
The trash fire that is the new inventory system would never had made it to beta had a regular settings player tested. Most of the other bugs, (facing, climbing, mesh stickiness) would not exist if folks who played the game tested these results.
March 24th Patch Background
When we got the patch announcement for the March 24th patch, I was underwhelmed. For me, it was the same high word count/low information notice we have become accustomed to receive. And I voiced on my stream that while I would wait and see, I really had no hope this update would do much.
So, I waited.
March 24th Update Experience
When the patch did not appear for me at the promised 9:00 AM ET, I was not surprised. At 9:05 AM, I was told others in my region had accessed the patch and were processing. A system reboot resolved the issue with my Steam connection and we were on the way.
And then I logged into the forums to complain that the patch notes were not were they belonged, and stopped.
The patch notes most certainly had been posted, on time and in the expected area. They were extensive and detailed and professional and I was in awe.
I just retired from a 40+ year career in IT. I have done thousands of releases and have seen every version of patch notes from the abysmal to the exact opposite.
The March 24th patch notes are exceptional.
My sincere and hearty compliments to the staff responsible.
March 24th Update Thoughts
This is the best patch the production team has put out in a very long time.
Yes, there are some misses, the food and water icon switch, the compass despawning on character death, but these are minor, easily resolved items and, for me, fall into the nuisance rather than error class.
While I have not line-by line tested every aspect of the patch, all the things I have tested that were mentioned, behave as promised. This is the first time I remember this happening in a Conan Exiles release of any kind.
Conclusion
Are there still serious issues with the game? Without a doubt, this game has suffered from the cavalier production attitude in Age of War and Heroes where layering incompatible systems on an already aging game and the problems these are causing need to be noted and resolved.
But, as a patch update, the March 24th patch is a stellar example of professionalism and competence. As I have reiterated on my stream in both in-game commentary and responses to questions, I was wrong in my preassessment of the patch.
This is a job very well done.
Afterword
Folks are going to disagree. That’s no problem. I would suggest that folk disagree with my position rather than thinking the same insults their parents failed at 50+ years ago will suddenly have an impact.
But that is out of my control.
