Funcom threatening to delete noob Age of Conan characters

Funcom did this exact same thing with Anarchy Online players a few years back. It wasn't a big deal. If you had a bank alt that hadn't been logged on in a while you just logged on and logged off and your character wouldn't be wiped.

I haven't heard this much bitching about nothing in ages. Too many haters.

Why is anyone surprised that Funcom is this stupid? They epitomize MMO incompetence. It isn't going to scare anyone enough to pay $15 for junk. It was hard enough to get anyone back before, and now they've ensured their permanent failure by targeting the very people who shelled out the full launchday retail price to buy their unfinished game and who were most likely to return. Morons.

(As for the naming excuse, there's absolutely no reason Funcom couldn't do what NCSoft does for City of Heroes -- leave the character, release the name. You pick a new name when you do, ever, return.)

level 20 can be acheived in a day, it is just the tutorial area of Tortage. Quite frankly if you have a charachter there and you havent bothered to get it to level 20+ you probably wont. If it free's up names and saves them money it is a wise move.

As to all the hyperbole about them trying to scare people back into the game for fear of loosing a very low level toon thats just the usual hate mongering. No one will reactivate an account thats been inactive for a long time just to save some lowbie toon that can be replaced in under 24 hours of play.

I do agree that for them to be making such cost cutting measures they must be in a tight fix finacially, but i suspect thats the only motivation.

Well when this happens feel free to grab the username "TheMule" I certainly wont be using it, too bad for all my gems and sandstone, ye will be missed!

That being said I wish more MMOs did this given the drive by style most MMOs go for this day and age (that is sucker people in with elaborate promises, then plead for them to stick around just a while longer). I know there are several MMOs with 4 or 5 characters I started that I wont ever go back too and its no concern of mine if they get deleted.

I was also one of the ones sent this email today and I was just about to start sending it to massively but Massively is right on the ball. I think this is stupid. I had bought a collector's edition and had certain items on those characters and even though it was not level 20 i think level 15 I still would not want my characters deleted. But since I know this is an act to get people to pay money just to keep their characters and to get people to reactive their account is stupid and I am not going to be giving them my money because they are trying to save their game and their own ass. Go ahead Funcom delete my characters! They are just making people hate their company even more.

it's not just that it takes only 8 hours to level, if I ever wanted to come back I'd have to start all over again and some people really hate that. I paid a lot of money for the CE. For their game and played for two or three months WITH the terrible launch and bugs and then finally had to give up on it because they couldn't get their act together and i kept watching this games progress hoping it improved more and more so that I could come back but now they are going to delete my progress, delete my REAL LIFE TIME spent playing a game that I spent my REAL LIFE money on is insulting. But like I said before, GG Failcom they are insuring people who were watching their progress don't come back.

Because I spent money and time on it end of story. It's a bad move for a company to make that's already having problems. I've read that their has been some improvements but the dwindling player base continues and from usually jumping into the MMO hype scene (which i no longer do) one must be careful and skeptical when returning to an mmo that has made *some* improvements. A game that most people still avoid. I was following the expansion that's coming out soon but if I were to come back I'd now have to start over. Just because people think it takes 4 hours to level to 20 or 8 hours. People who play casually take FOREVER to level. Some people can only play 30 min to an hour a day or a week even. I could possibly understand a game that was doing well and had a healthy player base that Free's up characters for space and names. Like I said in my other two posts they can and will delete these people's and my low level characters and they are sealing the deal that they will never see us again.

Hurry Failcom! To the Failmobile!

Clean up the database? If they planned on a million subs they dont have to worry, they didnt come close, so their database should be an empty desert. I think the fashion hound Erling Ellingsen with his wonderful choices in lipstick and rouge is just rattling his lipstick case to try and get some errant cash.

Doubt it will work.

A very bad move from Funcom imo, definitely won't make me even consider re-activating my account.

If anything, it discourages me to ever go back to AoC.

8 chars total per account was it? Not buying the database reasoning either tbh.

Whatever.

It's no surprise whatsoever people who haven't played for more then 6 months or past open beta will automatically say how horrible this is, it seems to be the trend. But people who were hoping to grab names that level 7 person has now can and there will be rejoicing. It would have been better if they had just taken names away like CoH, but maybe they have another reason too. I'm not a dev I don't know.

Can't say it changes anything in my world, but I it is much better that they warn people before they start deleting, instead of people logging one day to find all their characters below 20 are gone.

"Just as a comparison I would note that EverQuest, Warhammer Online,
etc. have also performed server merges and never to the best of my
knowledge deleted any inactive characters."

Um... what? EverQuest most certainly has. Multiple times. And not all of
them have been directly related to server merges.

Also, Krystalle. Really? To the best of your knowledge it's never happened? Are you sure? Cause uh... I seem to recall this article from about a year ago. I think it was on this site called... massively.com? I dunno how credible they are as an MMO blog but uh, here's the source!

http://www.massively.com/2009/01/06/everquest-cleaning-house-with-server-merges-and-character-change/

"Also, inactive characters (of six months or more) who are below level 10 will be deleted."

(Sorry! It was far too hard to resist screwing with you on that one).

It's happened multiple times as I've said. I actually lost a lot of my high level character's gear in one of them as the last time I had played I dumped it on a new character of the same class to screw around with. And this was years before that 2009 merge.

Go for it. I never got out of that hellhole that was Tortage. Is that shithole still in the game? God help you if it is, that's why the game is terrible. You have to grab folks in 30 minutes of playing, not subject them to the god-awful plight of some town you care nothing about. Ugh, I remeber listending to that drivel. I think I got to level 4 and then hit "unsubscribe" in the beta. Awful, terrible, horrible. It's just a bad game. Am I hitting any nerves? Well, the game has changed. If you can get past Tortage. It's beautiful and mesmerizing. Unfortunately, 99% of everyone that has played the game has read the first part of my review and said "yep, I remeber that, ugh, they never removed that "sweet jesus that fuckhole is still in the game" It's still instanced? No, they never did. If you play WoW I give you an hour before you start crying.

You obviously haven't played AoC, carlos...

i actually was interested in trying out the new expansion. but after this, there is no way i will resub to the game. It's a scary trend to start deleting toons people have paid for.

AoC was a game I looked forward too, pre-ordered and bought the CE, I even maintained subs for 3 months after that, to give it a chance, and a further 3 months exactly a year ago to see how it had improved. It may have changed since then, but to me, that is not the point now - I have recieved an email which I feel is written in a poor style and threatening;
-It is not addressed to me, is it possible to get more impersonal than "Dear Customer"
-It appears negative from the offset, I am a prospective customer - even if you have given up all hope of my return you should still appear positive.
By changing the title, adding the odd letter and moving the paragraphs I can make something more positive instantly.

"Subject: Inactive Character Changes"
Dear DingoDv,

Thank you for playing Age of Conan.

We hoped to have seen you back in the game preparing your characters for the new adventures that will soon be introduced in the expansion "Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer". Click here to read more about the expansion.

As part of our maintenance your account is now flagged to have your characters below level 20 deleted as part of maintenance. Please re-activate your account now to ensure that your characters progress and names stay intact.

As a welcome back offer we would like to give you a time-limited offer for 7 days of additional play time if you choose to re-subscribe now. Please click this link to use this special offer!

Here are just some of the some reasons why you should return to Age of Conan now:
Veteran Points Exclusive Subscription Rewards Free Level 50 Character
Tons of New Conent Enhanced Performance Most improved
MMO of 2009

Welcome back to Hyboria, Adventurer!"

Further to this, actually hyperlinking the nice red text, rather than having red text for no reason would have made much more sense.

To get to the point, to recieve a threatening email, from a company you occasionly buy services from would put most people off trading with them. The MMO market is saturated with products, by threatening customers, even if well intentioned, you are alienating them from ever using you again.
I will most likely not use Funcom again.

sugewise - you are an idiot.

"i actually was interested in trying out the new expansion. but after this, there is no way i will resub to the game. It's a scary trend to start deleting toons people have paid for"

I bet half of these characters are on trial accounts that never got funcom a penny. The rest have been active over 7 months. Why should funcom keep paying for people who may or may not come back to the game.

I think people need a giant reality check and stop thinking that the world or companies owe them something for nothing.