Age of Conan

So the latest community survey is up on the official forums.

Here is the post from Wexx the creater:

Well, we started off in August with a generalized survey to give a view of the classes, content, and general progress of FunCom after 3 months of live play. Now we find ourselves coming upon the 6 month mark after release. So, I'm re-releasing a copy of that first survey to see in which areas FC has made progress or not in the view of the forum community.

AoC Community Survey #5  <<clicky

The survey takes only minutes to complete and your answers will provide insight into the opinions and make-up of the forum community and hopefully provide for some constructive discussion and feedback for FunCom. Thanks to all of you who choose to participate. This survey will run into the weekend after Thanksgiving (4th Thursday in Nov.) and results will be shared with the community after it is closed.

Catching this one as it goes up in order to get the community here in on their feelings.

If anyone hasn't taken this yet, now would be a good time as I think it's closing soon.

Few mins of your time I am sure would benefit the community! thanks!

So here are the results from this latest survey:

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcf5vd99_854c8xv46vk

I also pasted below for persusal and if too lazy to click link

(EDIT: I saw Transporter put up a post for all, was doing this at time ;)  )

I like the work Wexx puts into these surveys.  The trend overall seems a lot more favorable overall as compared to the last survey results!

Wexx posted a follow up to those results, which make for good reading: 

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Just a breakdown of some of the observations that I noticed from a quick viewing of the results.

Demographics haven’t changed a whole lot. Less people took the survey, there could be many reasons for this, but I’m sure less population has a role.

We had more people with active subscriptions who were not playing back in the August participants (35%) vs. the November participants (23%).

Only 37% of those surveyed had at least one level 80, now that number has jumped up to 50%. Doesn’t seem that high for a game that has been out 6 months, but we have to take into account those at endgame who have left and the players that have picked up the game sometime after launch.

The number of classes played has gone up across the board. Some classes are nearing a ratio of 1 out of every 2 players having rolled one. Naturally, this is due to more people being at endgame longer and rolling alts.

Every class has improved on the “fun” factor of playing them (yes even the DT). Back in August, only the Barbarian, Ranger, Bear Shaman, Tempest of Set, and Herald of Xotli were rated “fun” with the rest “average”. Now all classes are rated “fun” except for the Dark Templar, Guardian, and Priest of Mitra (who are still all rated “average”.)

The classes that were rated Overpowered (by at least 20% of the population) were Guardian, Ranger, Bear Shaman, and Tempest of Set. Three months later the classes now considered to be FotM if you will are still the Bear Shaman and Tempest of Set with the new addition of the Necromancer.

The single most favorite classes to play 3 months ago were considered to be Guardians and Rangers. Now the classes people are really enjoying are Herald of Xotli, Ranger, Conqueror, and Barbarian. Demonologists and Dark Templars are still not getting much love. Probably because the Dark Templar is still rated as Weaksauce. Demonologists are more of an enigma.

As far as content. Numbers have improved across the board. The most significant change has been the rating of PvP combat. It received a total of 41% Disappointing/Subpar rating in August with only a 18% Good/Excellent rating. Now the numbers are 22% Disappointing/Subpar vs. 32% Good/Excellent rating.

Minigames, sieges, and raids all still rate disappointing, but the numbers have improved in those categories in the past 3 months.

Minigames 27% down to 21% Disappointing (+6 pts)
Sieges 34% down to 17% Disappointing (+18 pts)
Raids 28% down to 16% Disappointing (+12 pts)

Crafting and crafted gear still rate low disappointing marks as well but as a whole everything has gone up with # and Diversity of Quests getting the biggest bump in approval.

FunCom rated fairly horrible Disappointing marks back in August on their handling of Bugs (43%), Exploits (37%), Stability (44%), Balancing classes (42%), Balancing gems (53%), Fleshing out content (43%) and Patches in general (38%)

Now three months later all of those have improved and are rated either Good (Bugs, Exploits, and Stability) or Average (Balancing Classes, Fleshing out Content, and Patches in general). With the lone exception being balancing of gems which still rates disappointing (35%).

Communication has also improved greatly going from a rating of Disappointing to Average.

So, in general, as a whole the game is improving and I think most of us playing the game are well aware of this as it shows in the results. Be interesting to see where this game stands in another 3 months. Can it continue to improve or will it take a step back in some regards?

Holy shit. FC certainly have got good critics for the way they have cleaned up bugs, performance and more. Also content is considdered to be good. Good to hear.

For a quick glance over we can see:

Gameplay / Community feels that

• Mingames
• Sieges
• Raids

Need some more work on, along with

• Crafting
• Crafted Gear

Needs better gameplay.

The community rated Funcom's progress disappointing towards:

• Gem Balance

And felt the Community Team was disappointing in terms of

• Community Events

On the flip side:

Gameplay / Community feels that:

• PvE Combat
• PvP Combat
• Melee Combat
• Ranged Combat

Were all Good with a large element feeling Melee was excellent

In Gameplay terms the community felt:

• Quests
• Number of Quests / Diversity
• Leveling Speed
• NPC's

Were all Good

With;

• number of zones
• loot drops
• social elements
• guild elements

all Average with a chunk of ppl also saying loot drops were subpar too

With;

• Tortage / Tutorial
• World environment

Both Excellent

Funcom's progress towards:

• Bugs
• Exploits
• Stability / Crashes / errors

Were all rated Good with Stability a chunk saying Excellent

• Balancing
• Fleshing out content
• Patches in general

All received majority Average

Thoughts on the Community Team:

• Updates
• Enforcing rules

were Good majority with Communication and 'general' Average

Originally posted by SinReaper

So, in general, as a whole the game is improving and I think most of us playing the game are well aware of this as it shows in the results. Be interesting to see where this game stands in another 3 months. Can it continue to improve or will it take a step back in some regards?

I think with what is happening now (server merges) coupled with new content updates on the horizon with DX10 on test servers imminent will certainly make for interesting times. I always hear how the game has huge potential, with implementation to start being pretty flawed and I agree with this.  My sentiments on the state of the game are pretty much in line with the populous from the survey too. I feel the majority of people who play the game can give a better idea of it's current state than those that left a while back. This same populous is also across the board feeling things are getting better all around pretty much.

I think FC's short term Roadmap presented should help to alleviate those disappointing area in to more of an "Average" or "Good" result if their implementation has been as good as the past few months worth.

Let's not forget that there is another important factor at play here as well. Most of those that gave AoC the lowest marks in August isn't playing anymore, and is very unlikely to have responded to the survey. In August 65% of the respondents were playing, now it's 75%, so more answers were from people that just quit in the first survey.

So while the game has indeed improved, and by a lot in some key areas, I think we have to contribute quite a bit of the move up the ratings scale to the fact that the average respondent is more positive to the core parts of the game in the November survey than in the August one