Age of Conan

Originally posted by Terranah

I predict it won't be pretty.  Probably they lose half first month.  After that it will be a slow trickle over six month period until they have Vanguard subscription numbers.

 

They reek of fear too.  They know this will happen.  Question is, are we customers still as eager to swallow their lies the second time around.  Promises don't mean crap.  It's what you can deliver that means something. 

Aye, the way the official forums are being cleansed of any dissension toward the game made by people who play shows this well. The rabid fan-gaurds make matters worse. Anyone even trying to make a statement that paints AoC in a bad light gets attacked by them.

I voted 50% though I think it will be more like 60-65%.  I just don't see it being as high as 75%.

The fact that most MMO players aren't as critical as rabid forum goers leads me to beleive the game will rock steady with around 35% - 50% of the original purchasers.

  I offer the same prediction I've made since even BEFORE all the horrible negative elements were discovered.  150K players.  I cannot say what percent that number is, as I have seen no actual subscriber numbers on which to BASE such a thing.  I would assume that 150K is around a third retention, but that also assumes that they have around 500K players at the moment.  I would feel safer assuming 300K, and that would make their rate around 50%. 

  Frankly, I don't think they deserve even that since they couldn't even manage a working stat system...but thats me.  Given what I see the fans say on this board, I guess I just expect TOO MUCH.

honestly the game is boreing as hell, more restrictive than similar MMO's (SMALL crappy zones that let you travel on the paths and thats about it) with the same, if not more tedious quest grind as other MMO's due to the lack of explorability. Im sorry, but for all its glitz and glamour, this game is like a pair of fake tits, nice to look at, shitty to play with.

Well one interesting thing about this pole is we now have decent idea of what % are completely rabid fanboys.   75% retention is preposterous.  Do any MMORPGs actually atttain this?  Highly highly doubtful.

Those still playing should look at their guilds and friends list in game.

2 out of 28 still log on after 3 weeks on my server. I did this on purpose (adding friends because it gives an excellent view of the attrition).

The rest is at 7 days off or longer....

This number is incredible compared to LOTRO and even Tabalu rasa in their first weeks.

I'd say 25 - 30 % would still play it past the free month (which is high because above the many design  problems we have here NON standard hardware requirements).

700K - 70%=  maximim of 250 K subs in the summer at the most.

Before the end of the year WotLK and WAR will come out, with respectively 3000K and 800 K units sold in its first weeks. Leaving Conan at the sub 125K category, because half would change to the new hypes.

I think the Xfire statistics give a more accurate picture of how much people are playing over time.

With all of the instancing, no one will know what the "real" population of the servers ever are.  I'm guessing they will settle in around 200,000 concurrent subscribers this time next year.  As such, I picked 25%.  Then again, this game is a gankers wet dream.  A ganking squad can move zone clone to zone clone looking for marks.  Once they kill you and your small group, you can't even chase them down.  All they have to do is change to a different clone of the same zone to get away from you or port to their player city and they'll be untouchable.

 Im sorry, but for all its glitz and glamour, this game is like a pair of fake tits, nice to look at, shitty to play with.

I dont know why everybody keeps going on about aoc`s stunning graphic. As i see it theres two ways to enhance graphics. The typical way is adding more polygons and taking advantges of graphiccards new features, resoloution up etc, etc. This has to be coded right so you dont get the flunky perfomance on high settings, resulting in everybody running low/medium settings and therefor not really a step foreward.

And then the artistic way. Where you can se that there are skilled artist behind the product. Artist will typicaly seek out more expressive looks on armors, characters and enviroments often resulting in strange inspiring landscapes, funny looking mobs and high varity of End bosses.

Examples from the movie world on the first would be Polar express, Beowulf and Final Fantasy. While the second style are more common and sells better; Ice Age, Pixars movies (Incredibles, Ratatoulie), Disney and more.

The first type wont last as " superior graphic" longer then the next dx version is out, the second will be remembered for its artistic style, and prolly inspire more games....

When i first saw footages from Age of Conan i had hopes up that the in game would look alot like -and beeing inspired of paintings of Frank Frazzetta http://frankfrazetta.org/paintings0001.php .

I was disapointed on that part. It might (offcourse)have some of the same elements, but totally lack the artists use of colors, moods, and dynamic poses....

I do find the game fun though. Ive had some pretty intense fights, where using all abillitys to its fullest was necesary to win. On the other hand i had fun with Dungeon Runners as well. The release of Warhammer, Aion and especially WoTLK will decide this games future...