To the surprise of absolutely nobody with even the barest hint of sense, a company actually communicating with customers/clients is indeed more reassuring that their not doing so. The latter often means a company/brand really is on its last legs.
As such, not communicating - especially on a purely online property - really does suggest “no, this game probably isn’t worth investing in (anymore)”, which isn’t a smart message to send unless maybe if it is in fact true, i.e. if GID.
No amount of snark is going to change that fact, but I somehow doubt you care.
I have no doubt they’ll say something one way or the other when they’re good and ready and I’m sure when they do, you’ll have been posting this reverse psychology nonsense recently enough that you’ll be able to feel like you made it happen
Funcom’s brand is doing really well atm. Yeah, SWL isn’t the focus of their full attention any more, (if it ever really was,) but apparently that’s a smart move in terms of company success.
No, the company is doing reasonably well, but that’s not quite the same as the brand.
On the brand side, there are indicators the Funcom brand has yet to really recover from all the flubs over the years. For example, it appears investors will sell off Funcom faster than average when the overall market is feeling pressure, which is a sign of comparatively low investor trust.
When Funcom took $100 for a year of monthly fees in advance, that was a signal they were tossing in the towel on this game. They have cut work back to one guy spending I’d guess two hours a week on this game. And they sure aren’t going to admit it. I also note that it seems they’ve lowered some of the drop rates, to make it more difficult to advance and to encourage PTP.
Given that you say that they aren’t admitting it, I wonder what your source is. I also wonder where you’ve got the idea they’ve changed drop rates from, I’d love to see some kind of evidence…
I remember changing droprates being a concern during the release of the agent system. Big reason we now have secretfox which kinda showed the opposite at least for agents to the best ability of the community.
It however has been the case that the droprates, especially the low ones vary a lot making some people veeery unlucky.
And yet here we are, almost September. No Congo. No nothing. Their annual report highlighted their Anniversary Event as the big thing to see in SWL this year.
Connect the dots.
It will be based in the 80s to try and cash in on a certain streaming phenomenon.
The world is on the brink of nuclear war as the superpowers try to out maneuver one another while exploring all boundaries to find an advantage. In the middle of the Pacific ocean a new island emerges from the depths. The factions race to seize whatever assets it may hold only to find the horrors that have awakened with the rising.
What was the point of a relaunch if it was to develop even slower ?
And now I’m going to throw some unpopular opinions that are still mine (so deal with it, basically)
The Aegis was fine.
The ability wheel was better.
Agartha was prettier and less cringy before.
The crafting was okay (and interesting for missions)
PvP was rich and meaningful (Fusang buffs)
“So why don’t you go back to that” ? says the forum-roamer with his funcom t-shirt (that’s almost SWL’s “go bfa”)
Because there’s nothing new there (even if there’s almost more content, SA was meh, I murdered it in 3 hours) and I’m pretty sure (like very… very very sure) the money invested to relaunch TSW would have given us way more content and things to do if it had been directly injected into the original game development.
It has been a waste, now they have no mana after a failed ressurection attempt and they’re dying of thirst. Or rather they’re letting SWL wither while the funds are flowing to new IPs and games they haven’t completely abandoned.
