Dune Awakening is on the move, fam, and Funcom doesn’t mean to let anyone forget it. This morning, the studio released a launch infographic calling the game Funcom’s fastest-selling to date, with 189K peak concurrency and 1M copies sold.
“To put it into perspective, it took Conan Exiles one year to reach this number,” Funcom says. “The game has so far reached a peak concurrency of over 189,000 players, another metric that has far surpassed Conan Exiles’ 54,403 peak.”
Funcom creative director Joel Bylos also penned a letter to players this morning, emphasizing that the studio wants PvE players in endgame and that its “goal is not to force PvE players to interact with a PvP system that they may have no interest in.” The studio says it wanted players to “embrace” the endgame PvP loop, but the players are not cooperating. Funcom is going to accommodate them.
“The reality is that players are reporting being cut out of the endgame due to the extremely competitive nature of the Deep Desert. Starting soon, some areas of the Deep Desert will now be flagged as ‘Partial Warfare (PvE)’ areas where players will be able to explore testing stations and harvest T6 resources without the threat of conflict they may not want. It’s important to note that the top tier of the game is balanced around guilds and groups, so people will still find it grindy if they play solo. Landsraad control points, shipwrecks and the largest spice fields within this region of the Deep Desert will remain ‘War of Assassins (PvP)’ flagged. The deepest parts of the Deep Desert will remain as they currently are – high reward, high risk areas.”
You may email your I-told-you-sos directly to Funcom, but it appears the studio already knows. Ah, MMORPGs.
Bylos also addresses planned changes to ornithopters, respawn timers, and other mechanics “being abused in the Deep Desert,” as well as efforts toward improving the Landsraad system and buffing out the endgame – including the PvE endgame.
