It was the summer of 2008, and I was sitting down to another session of Age of Conan, only to be bombarded with a whole host of problems ranging from minor graphical glitches to game-crashing memory leaks. After the third time I had to reboot my computer to restart the client, I said to myself, “ENOUGH!” and promptly switched over to play another game instead. Two weeks later, still getting problems and no fixes in sight, so I calmly logged into my AoC account and canceled my subscription. Anyway, that’s the story of me /rage quitting, guys, or the closest you’ll see me get.
Have I ever been pissed off by a broken game feature or mechanic? Of course I have. Have annoying issues ever made me stop playing? Sure. But has it ever made me lose faith in a developer completely? Hmm.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just too lenient, and it’s entirely possible that I’m not picky enough. If things get fixed, I guess I’m always willing go back. Or if they ever end up making a new expansion or game that catches my fancy, sure, I’ll check it out.
Which is why a couple years ago, I picked up AoC’s Rise of the Godslayer expansion at launch, and again — surprise, surprise — same problems. I was able to play a new Khitan character, but was unable to experience any of the new zones with my level 80 without crashing to desktop within five minutes.
Anyway, one would think I’d learn. When The Secret World was announced, yeah, I had my reservations that it was Funcom. I generally like what I see from them, but I’ve been burned by them in the past; in my case it was a myriad of technical problems and game instability during the early stages.
Still, as you know I did end up buying and playing TSW. Okay, so it’s not without its problems. I did have a few freak-outs especially at first when the game kept asking me to update my already updated drivers and starting up in a distorted window, and I still stumble upon little bugs and glitches, like this weekend when we had a complete meltdown of the chat servers. But hey, unlike my experience with AoC a few years ago, at least the game is playable. I’m immensely glad that I lucked out there.
When it comes to bungling companies, I guess I subscribe to the “I’ll never forget, but I can forgive” philosophy. And the truth is, I’m glad I keep giving Funcom chances because if I didn’t, I would have missed out on TSW. I don’t think I’ve had this much fun in an MMO in ages.
I hope they continue to fix any issues, because currently I feel they’re the biggest drawback. For instance, it’s hard to enjoy an investigation mission when you’re not sure if you’re just too bloody dense to solve a puzzle or if the quest itself is bugged to hell.
MMO Gamer Chick 