Despite the combat, which is very good, I'm real disappointed with the depth of game play in AoC and won't play for long. I expect, despite the record sales, that AoC will not be a strong commercial success - guess shareholders also have that view. But this article is just hate-mail dressed up to look like a news article. There are no facts and figures other than the share price dropping (which is pretty well in keeping with the market as a whole). My guess is that someone got banned and this is revenge.

It's funny how many people voted this down considering most of the major gaming sites have picked the story up now. Blizzard is even reporting that 40% of customers who left WoW for AoC have now returned. Statistics be damned, nobody has any reason to lie really.

so the fanboys are still alive here? pathetic... the game was destined to be a failure... now bear the consequences

The main topic is supported by statistical facts from Yahoo and I already prefaced your arguments by stating that the article was heavily biased otherwise. Outside of that, he does just ramble to try and support the reasons why.

No viable sources for this article, and to those of us on a pvp ffa server it's a complete fabrication, I've not seen pvp like this in any game other then shadowbane in it's time. If there is a drop in numbers it's from the carebear, wow players who've gone soft expecting another fu-fu fairy land gear-centric bonanza, or those whiney bastards who can't deal with post release patching which every game goes through.

Best thing that could have ever happened for Vanguard!

This article claims so many things yet has no sources for their "facts". If this was better backed up I *may* have believed it. Too biased to read.

Pissing people off? That approach worked for Flagship, maybe they're trying to copy them? Hmm...

"The Official Age of Conan Forums have become even more of a joke lately, as moderators aggressively lock and delete threads that mention anything negative about the game."

Hmm, maybe they ARE trying to copy flagship.

Clearly a biased article, but you can't dispute facts. I can personally attest to the lack of quality customer service; seems Funcom is in the business of pissing people off.