A lot of it wasn’t so much whiteknighting, but hope that things could and would improve. When the game you love goes downhill due to poor management and incompetence- and other games can’t hit the same beats as CE, people get defensive to a point of blindness.
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Yep. That’s my take as well.
You were (are?). Just because entropy dictates that curmudgeons will always be right, eventually, doesn’t mean that the negativity was or is justified. But you have valuable insights and understood a large chunk of the particular player base. But insight isn’t data and so your fears were still a what-if scenario and many of us miscalculated how badly the company would fumble the late stages of product life.
I’ll admit I’m in a downer stage as I watch apathy and neglect settle in but steam still has a consistent 5K average player/month metric so there is still meat on the bone for the company but I think the time for believing Conan is going to “take off” is gone now. The base engine is out of date, the code is far too full of landmines to try to update without causing players grief with breaking something and the money isn’t there to redevelop it to something that is easier to maintain (as a live service game should be). Plus it seems that FC corporate can only focus on one thing at a time and since Dune is their next big ticket item, resources are allocating towards that to maintain the momentum.
Maybe it’s just time for all of us to think of what we want from the final updates before the door fully closes and we go into maintenance mode (officially vs this passive style of the director letter saying ‘we will come back’)
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for me it is not about justification, it is about what was happening, and how it was progressing to where we are right now, people called me negative because i pointed out where all of this was going.
again , it is not that the natural time of the game is at its last stage or not, my point is the lack of honesty, why we are not told the truth? it is clear this game is no longer important for the company, and we are far into mainance mode (in practice). i cant see their focus on fixing the game, the ammount of fixes considering no new content will be added, is just small, it does look like the intent of stopping the content was simply the excuse, as more and more assets were moved to Dune.
ill rather take officialy , the we are stopping all development for conan exiles, as the game has become no longer profitable to put resources into it, than just playing the lying card we are seeing , dealing why an exasperating apathy and complete disregard to their loyal customers…
Easy - they still trying to sell final copies of the game. The game was recently (or might still be i have not checked in a few days) at 9.99. That was one of it’s lowest recorded prices since the games launch. The lowest all time was just under 4 bucks a few months ago. Translation: they want any last remaining bodies to buy a copy and potentially spend money in the bazaar before making the announcement- which i expect to happen this year.
I agree with you there. I’d much prefer honesty and it would have put some “forgiveness currency” so to speak in my understanding bank with them. However, they’ve not only purposefully omitted problems with being to maintain this game but lied about how they were handling it. The complete failure of hacking/cheating situation as well as their customer service …(Nemedian foundation bug anyone? Thrall mass murder bug?) made me swear off their next title well before i saw anything about the gameplay.
Here’s another thing that made me mad: the email signup. Why? They brought this out with the new age with a free new armor set in exchange for receiving emails direct from them. I thought oh okay, some direct communication from the company about the game. Is this the open communication they were promising? Sure was…FOR DUNE!
1 email from them about Conan, and non stop annoying promos and bragging stats about Dune, a game i dont give a crap about. I signed up for Conan emails and news, not for you to try to sell me a new game when the one i like is being tied to tree in the field and left to starve for 8 months while you figure out when you’ll finally come out to put the poor thing down. Rant over.
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Given the history of Funcom, better not to ask…
Stop Killing Games it’s one of the few hopes I have and maybe Funcom will try a cancellation before then?
I played a little bit of Kenshi and will wait for Kenshi 2, I suppose it will come out in 2 years. In the meantime I will play Conan, while mods and new maps are supported by modders.
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What’s that old saying? The road is paved with good intentions… Conan Exiles had 7 years of support. Imo switching to the Live Service model was a bad idea. Also, for those curious, Conan IP enters the public domain in January 2028.
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haha nice
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With this in mind, do you think it’s possible they’ve begun work on a new Conan game in the background? If i owned exclusive rights to make a video game on Conan, i would not wait for the IP to hit PD status before I got a new competitive product on the market. Leaving the market open to make the next Conan hit would be a suicidal move in my opinion.
As I understand it, the IP situation is rather more complex than that. My understanding is that the REH stories enter public domain, but the IP as a whole remains copyright - because there has been considerable addition and modification over the past almost a century. It’s a bit more like the famous situation a couple of years back with Disney and Steamboat Willie. Technically Mickey Mouse ‘entered public domain’ at that point, but that didn’t mean that Disney suddenly lost control of the IP - quite a few people made mistakes about what that meant and wound up with legal troubles. I suspect Funcom will still have a pretty solid hold on the Conan IP for quite some time to come.
Edit: If I recall correctly @Oduda had a clearer understanding on that than I do (unless I’m thinking of posts from someone else?)
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Yeah as for the whole Disney / Mickey Mouse thing ONLY the Steamboat Willie image and name of Mickey Mouse entered Public Domain. Not the later image and name of Mickey Mouse and thus some people “jumped the gun” and Disney rightfully went after them.
The other issue with Mickey Mouse is that Disney has a Trademark on the image, and possibly the name but definitely the image. Trademarks work differently than copyrights do, but they still add lots of confusion.
Now, as for Conan, which is what you really are here for anyway.
The original REH Conan stories are themselves in Public Domain so yes, you can publish them online and that is fine. BUT the character of Conan himself is still under copyright protection (here in the US) until 2028 (He already did in 2024 in the EU and in 2007 in England). So Funcom, being the holder of the IP over Conan, still has control over the character, in the US (and Australia), for another three years. What this means is that if anyone wishes to publish any sort of books, games, whatever using the character of Conan within the US or Australia between now and 2028 they have to pay Funcom in order to do so. However, if they are a company that is based in England or the EU they are free to go about their merry way, though they are likely to still partner up to the holder of the IP to get the “official” stamp to make their project look more legitimate and or seem more ‘lore friendly’ or what have you. They do not have to, but depending on what market they are going for it may very well be in their best interest to do so.
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I’m the kind of player who dives deep into a single game rather than jumping between dozens just to fill up a library. Basically, I’m the kind of player live service devs love: loyal, invested, and in it for the long haul.
And my involvement with Conan Exiles hasn’t been just in-game. I’ve been running a private server for several years now, made a small YouTube channel (only 4 videos, never really pushed it), and even built a website with news, clan listings, and a player directory for our server. I even had a custom amigurumi of my character made (yeah, crochet. Nerdy and proud).
Walking away from Conan means stepping away from this entire ecosystem I built over years. But at some point every cycle comes to an end.
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well, bye bye conan?