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2/24/09 5:15:34 PM#101
Originally posted by dhayes68 FC sold an incomplete, unready for launch, MMO based mainly on hype. I'd rather that be seen in the industry as a failure than as a success. And which is the rub here, When we see failures like AoC and WAR, what do you think prospective developers see? A market ripe for the taking? Or a genre played out, and not worth 5 years of effort due to every one waiting to jump on and attack. Can you name me one game this year that will not be attacked again? TCoS is ready for some major hate against Acclaim, Champions? people are ready to call it a WoW clone in tights? Aion? another Asian MMO. So wishing a companys failure because they tried to use forward looking tech and tried to change how combat was done and introduced some minor changes to how quests are presented will give everyone complaining one thing... More WoW clones. Hope you enjoy. |
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2/24/09 5:34:37 PM#102
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2/24/09 5:48:35 PM#103
Originally posted by Hamrtime2 You think it was a success? They lost 500k scrips...and it cost more to develop. In the words of Mythic "We feel 500k subscribers is a success"... Believe me, AoC and WAR were two big budget games that failed for 2008...dont even think to try and make WAR a success...lol |
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2/24/09 6:03:44 PM#104
It's funny to read that someone understood a decline in profits as loss in regards to WoW and Blizzard. Besides, if money gets thight at Blizzard, they just launch Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3 and they make a few billion in few months. No biggie.
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2/24/09 9:07:38 PM#105
Everyone is entitled to an opinion. However I should mention < 1% of MMO gamers agree with you. Thats based on them voting by where they spend their MMO $. |
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Yamota
 Elite Member
Joined: 10/05/03
Money in politics is the root of all political evil. It is corruption at it's worst. |
2/25/09 4:50:50 AM#106
Originally posted by Smikis
It is a victory because it is a lesson for other developers that you cant release a buggy, incomplete game in a pretty package and using a big name (Conan) and expect to be succesful. Hopefully there will be some other company that makes something good of the Conan IP than this piece of crap excuse of an MMORPG. |
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Yamota
Elite Member
Joined: 10/05/03
Money in politics is the root of all political evil. It is corruption at it's worst. |
2/25/09 4:55:57 AM#107
Originally posted by openedge1 You think it was a success? They lost 500k scrips...and it cost more to develop. In the words of Mythic "We feel 500k subscribers is a success"... Believe me, AoC and WAR were two big budget games that failed for 2008...dont even think to try and make WAR a success...lol
WAR is a success. Just because they lost some initial subscribers doesnt make the game a failure. There are tons of servers that have healthy populations and two new classes are about to be introduced and latest reports show that the population in WAR is increasing and is hovering at around 300k subs. So having a stable subs of 300k I would say is a success of an MMORPG. Specially since the game is improving alot as we speak. |
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Yamota
Elite Member
Joined: 10/05/03
Money in politics is the root of all political evil. It is corruption at it's worst. |
2/25/09 4:57:50 AM#108
Originally posted by skeaser I keep asking and can't get a straight answer, how is the failure (not my opinion) of a game that had potential to give us, the consumers, something new and fresh, a great victory for us again?
Read my answer above. |
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2/25/09 5:00:06 AM#109
Originally posted by Yamota Looking at Xfire the trend shows a different picture I'm afraid, the trend show's that WAR still are bleeding. Looking at hours played the last weeks you will see a reduction. Either by players leaving or people play less. And when people play less it is usually sign they start to get bored. http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/
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2/25/09 5:05:59 AM#110
Originally posted by Yamota
WAR is a success. Just because they lost some initial subscribers doesnt make the game a failure. There are tons of servers that have healthy populations and two new classes are about to be introduced and latest reports show that the population in WAR is increasing and is hovering at around 300k subs. So having a stable subs of 300k I would say is a success of an MMORPG. Specially since the game is improving alot as we speak.
You are talking out of your butt. EA figures showed they had roughly 300k left at the end of October last year! Not end of january this year! They lost over 500k people within the first month! And more during the following months after. I don't call that a loss of just some initial subscribers. When me and my guildies finally give up on WAR in January this year, most of the European servers had turned into ghost towns. The number of servers with an acceptable decent population could be counted on one hand! 300k subscribers is an acceptable and succesful number, but it's pretty safe to say that they have a lot less than that right now. The game isn't improving! They are not fixing the horrendous issues around PVP and RvR itself. Not to be talking about the most boring PVE ever seen in a western MMO. Instead they keep throwing out stupid carrots in form of new classes and later this spring a new zone in a desperate hope that the players left will forget about the current horrible and broken endgame! So give me a break. |
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Darth_Osor
 Apprentice Member
Joined: 2/17/09
Just because you are unique does not mean you are special |
2/25/09 9:29:37 AM#111
WAR was a failure, Just like AoC. 60%+ drop in subs in this amount of time is not good. Not quite AoC level fail, but considering the IP, it should definitely have done better. At least EA/Mythic man up and acknowledge their failure by publishing unflattering sub numbers unlike Funcom. We'll see if they continue to do so. Funcom could shut critics up if they were actually gaining subs by publishing sub numbers, but you know they won't.
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2/25/09 9:35:25 AM#112
Originally posted by Darth_Osor This I CAN agree with. It is sad that there is such a "hidden agenda" by the company. But, there is no doubt that the big gun games of 2008 were all monumental disappointments. All we can do as players is pick our preference. I prefer AoC. Cheers |
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2/25/09 10:13:01 AM#113
Originally posted by Guillermo197
WAR is a success. Just because they lost some initial subscribers doesnt make the game a failure. There are tons of servers that have healthy populations and two new classes are about to be introduced and latest reports show that the population in WAR is increasing and is hovering at around 300k subs. So having a stable subs of 300k I would say is a success of an MMORPG. Specially since the game is improving alot as we speak.
You are talking out of your butt. EA figures showed they had roughly 300k left at the end of October last year! Not end of january this year! They lost over 500k people within the first month! And more during the following months after. I don't call that a loss of just some initial subscribers. When me and my guildies finally give up on WAR in January this year, most of the European servers had turned into ghost towns. The number of servers with an acceptable decent population could be counted on one hand! 300k subscribers is an acceptable and succesful number, but it's pretty safe to say that they have a lot less than that right now. The game isn't improving! They are not fixing the horrendous issues around PVP and RvR itself. Not to be talking about the most boring PVE ever seen in a western MMO. Instead they keep throwing out stupid carrots in form of new classes and later this spring a new zone in a desperate hope that the players left will forget about the current horrible and broken endgame! So give me a break.
You guys are both wrong, the 300k number announced for warhammer was from Dec 31st, the last day of the 4Q. Warhammer and AOC are both equally bad games (for different reasons), but Warhammer currently has a little over twice the number of subscribers as AOC and will probably 'settle' at 2x's the subscribes ONLY because it launched last. People who tried AOC in June, left to play Warhammer... but now they really have nowhere to go. I know it's hard to believe, but outside of this forum, AOC has a terrible reputation and the server mergers point to a dead game... it's unlikely that a mass exodus of players will happen from warhammer coming to AOC. AOC is still declining a little(based on Funcom's projections), warhammers are declining much faster... but warhammer has about a 150,000 player lead at this point. |
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2/25/09 10:22:12 AM#114
Originally posted by Darth_Osor
AOC doesn't really need to publish subscriber numbers, their income is almost entirely from AOC subs. The average was about 120,000 for the 3 months (oct nov dec), so they probably ended on Dec 31st with about 90-100k, which is what many of us were guessing. They also said revenues would be dropping about 25% this quarter.. so that 120,000 average is probably going to come down to about 90,000 average. This is perfectly fine since if they started the quarter at 90k, and if they end the quarter at 90k. Warhammer announced 300,000 on December 31st.... but it was obvious that number was part of a very downward slope... something to the tune of 240,000 by Jan 31st. Even admitting that 20% per month loss contines, it will be a many months before War gets down to AOC levels. |
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2/25/09 10:24:10 AM#115
Originally posted by rogert4221 Sorry, but thinking 300k is a success (and we only have that number to go on as just like AoC who last noted they had 400k, and do you believe that is what they have now?) is plain wrong. It is a mild profit maker. And it will continue a downward trend until the live expansion, which will garner interest. The game is broken though just like AoC. It needs a lot of work to get to a truly playable shape. Lets hope they figure that out. |
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2/25/09 10:25:35 AM#116
What is a success what is a failure. It's a success if it stays alive and remains active for a number of years. That's MMO success right there. Considering how volatile we are and the high expectations we have of these games nowadays a new MMO has to be freakin' perfect to fit anyone's ideal and have any hope of retaining it's initial subscription level. And that is just not the norm for the genre, it's just the legacy WoW left behind. ;P Spend less time trying to be right and just play the game you like. Sheez. (,,,)=^__^=(,,,)Game Latte Vidcast |
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2/25/09 11:00:08 AM#117
Originally posted by openedge1 Sorry, but thinking 300k is a success (and we only have that number to go on as just like AoC who last noted they had 400k, and do you believe that is what they have now?) is plain wrong. It is a mild profit maker. And it will continue a downward trend until the live expansion, which will garner interest. The game is broken though just like AoC. It needs a lot of work to get to a truly playable shape. Lets hope they figure that out.
You are confusing me with the person you were argueing with. I never claimed warhammer was a success. I'm just staying that at current time it has about 2.5x's the number of players as AOC, but also saying that it is losing about 20% per month, where AOC is only losing a small number per month ( based on funcom saying revenues will be down 25% this quarter). Read my last post. Also, the 'live expansion' is a meaningless thing. It is adding new dungeons and other stuff that the game doesn't need. The live expansion announcment was actually laughed at by current war players since it missed the mark on what is needed. Considering there is no box involved, it definitely won't bring in new players. AOC has another huge advantage. Funcom has shown that they are willing to keep a game live, even if it has a small player base. Even going so far as to make the game free to play. EA on the other hand has now cancelled a few MMORPGs that were relatively stable just because they didn't meet expectations. I was an avid player of Earth and Beyond.. a game with 50k+ stable players who were very happy with the game.. and it was unplugged. |
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2/25/09 11:10:27 AM#118
Originally posted by openedge1 And which is the rub here, When we see failures like AoC and WAR, what do you think prospective developers see? A market ripe for the taking? Or a genre played out, and not worth 5 years of effort due to every one waiting to jump on and attack. Can you name me one game this year that will not be attacked again? TCoS is ready for some major hate against Acclaim, Champions? people are ready to call it a WoW clone in tights? Aion? another Asian MMO. So wishing a companys failure because they tried to use forward looking tech and tried to change how combat was done and introduced some minor changes to how quests are presented will give everyone complaining one thing... More WoW clones. Hope you enjoy. Prospective developers will see where the money is. They won't look at the failures and blame the market, they'll investigate why the failures failed. Besides, attacking an MMO isn't the way you measure its failure. AoC isn't a failure because I post negatively about it. AoC is failing because people aren't giving FC their money. Who cares if an MMO is attacked if they have robust subscription numbers? Again I'm not wishing FC would fail because of what they tried to do. Its because of the way they conducted their business AND because they failed at what they tried to do. They HYPED what they tried to do, but they didn't actually deliver, so why credit them with attempting to do something different? And its the wow clones you'll get by FC not failing. Failures cause companies to think differently. They games current gen of games that are failing are failing because the publishers could only see and think about the profit WoW makes. They all wanted to be the next WoW. Let them realize this is a failing propostition and maybe we'll get something truly revolutionary. |
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Darth_Osor
Apprentice Member
Joined: 2/17/09
Just because you are unique does not mean you are special |
2/25/09 3:44:01 PM#119
Originally posted by dhayes68 And which is the rub here, When we see failures like AoC and WAR, what do you think prospective developers see? A market ripe for the taking? Or a genre played out, and not worth 5 years of effort due to every one waiting to jump on and attack. Can you name me one game this year that will not be attacked again? TCoS is ready for some major hate against Acclaim, Champions? people are ready to call it a WoW clone in tights? Aion? another Asian MMO. So wishing a companys failure because they tried to use forward looking tech and tried to change how combat was done and introduced some minor changes to how quests are presented will give everyone complaining one thing... More WoW clones. Hope you enjoy. Prospective developers will see where the money is. They won't look at the failures and blame the market, they'll investigate why the failures failed. Besides, attacking an MMO isn't the way you measure its failure. AoC isn't a failure because I post negatively about it. AoC is failing because people aren't giving FC their money. Who cares if an MMO is attacked if they have robust subscription numbers? Again I'm not wishing FC would fail because of what they tried to do. Its because of the way they conducted their business AND because they failed at what they tried to do. They HYPED what they tried to do, but they didn't actually deliver, so why credit them with attempting to do something different? And its the wow clones you'll get by FC not failing. Failures cause companies to think differently. They games current gen of games that are failing are failing because the publishers could only see and think about the profit WoW makes. They all wanted to be the next WoW. Let them realize this is a failing propostition and maybe we'll get something truly revolutionary.
I don't think recent MMOs have failed because they were attempting to be WoW clones, I think they failed because they were buggy and/or incomplete messes. Both AoC and WAR sold 800k+ boxes, so apparently enough people are ready to move on from WoW, it's just neither game got enough right to keep most of those people. WoW did nothing new or original (and in fact is missing features some of its' predecessors had), they just did it (apparently) the best. I say apparently because I never played WoW, but I'm familiar enough with its' features to confidently assert that statement is true. |
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2/26/09 8:43:19 AM#120
It is very simple why WoW has such high subscription levels and is considered such a big success. - WoW, like any other Blizzard game, received a massive amount of polish before it got launched. The content that was there at launch was polished and fun. The launch itself was not perfect, but nobody expected the amount of people who wanted to play - it was unprecedented. - WoW has a very high Gameplay density. There is a LOT to do in the game world. Even at launch, there was plenty to do, with quests, lots of instances and a well thought out PvP system. Crafting, while simple, was varied and rich on recipies. There literally was something for everyone. In WoW players do not have to go far to do something fun (sometimes only as far as outside the city walls for duels). - WoW has a high Gameplay variety. There are enough different things to do in the game. From Crafting to soloing, to grouping, to resource gathering, raiding and the various forms of PvP. You can do something else every day. It is these factors that keep players subscribing to WoW. Even though there is months between content updates and years between actual expansion packs, players don't stop subscribing. Some might get bored and try other things, but other things fail on several key points, and so players migrate back to WoW after a while. WoW did nothing new really. But what Blizzard did, was look at the best parts of other games, take them, and make them more accessible. Why do games like WAR and AoC not do as well as World of Warcraft? Because they look at WoW (some more, some less), try to decipher what parts are successfull and then innovate on them - but in the process they loose sight of accessiblity. The reasons are plenty, but here is the key points that i believe are the main reasons: - Games like WAR and AoC are not ready when they are launched. WAR was very solid, but class imbalance and PvP issues were present. AoC's launch was solid in terms of client, but classes where not done at all and content was just not ready beyond level 20. - It takes ages to get to the fun parts of the games. When WAR launched a player would have to travel to all the major regions to sign up for PvP matches. limited amount of quests in one area meant that a player had to travel to several areas to level up (from level 20 onwards anyway). In AoC the clunky UI and match system for PvP prevented players from easily and quickly joining matches. Same as WAR - several areas had to be visited in order to level up - requiring massive travel times. Crafting in both games required a lot of time in order to get resources. There are a few new and innovative features. Sometimes they work (Public quests for WAR) and sometimes they don't (melee combat in AoC). But generally games other WoW "fail" because they make it hard and time consuming for the player to get to the fun part. Games like AoC and WAR are also not different enough for WoW players to migrate - why leave a game and a well established character, guild and community, if the game you are going to is essentialy the same, but not done to the same high standard? WoW managed to expand the genre and draw massive amounts of new players. both AoC and WAR intially drew players away from World of Warcraft, but whoever is left playing now is probably not a WoW fan - people who still play AoC and WAR are people who either have never played WoW, or only shortly played it and not liked it. I doubt that either AoC or WAR have attracted any MMORPG newbies, who never played a game before. The thing about WoW is not that it's so good, it is that it's easy to access and it offer the player a high variety of gameplay elements in a fashion that is easily, and quickly, accessible. I am not a fan of WoW, i used to play it but i have not in a while. But, having worked in the industry for some time now, and having worked for MMO developers, i can appreciate why WoW is such a big success. |
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