Originally posted by Antarious

Originally posted by Auxer

Seems to be the rule nowdays to release a MMO before it's ready for release. I cannot figure out the reasons myself, sure, you get a lot of paying "beta testers". But you also ensure that you will leave a poor taste in the consumers mouth with your half completed product. And that taste is hard to remove, and we see many games now that will never reach any high numbers due to releasing a beta product and scaring off the customers or just making them angry to pay to beta test their game and thereby not continuing to subscribe.

 

 

Well some of that is because Corporate doesn't understand it.. or at least not the investors.  What they see is money they invested and money spent over a period of time with no money coming back in (yet).  This is the major advantage a privately owned and financed company has over any corporate or company that uses outside investors.

 

On the other hand I got into WAR beta at the start of Phase 2 I guess.. I think it was the end of Phase 1 because there was a pretty big down time while they revamped things.. but anyway...

 

I really liked how the beta was run.. by that I mean they removed testers who were just being obstacles.  There was very little Ahat ratio until Phase 3.  Altho I will admit I saw the most post asking to be removed from beta for WAR than any beta I've been in (beta'd most MMO's since UO).  I'm not sure why that is.

 

The bad side of beta was... things were how they were going to be.  You were not allowed to say "this is not fun.. if you changed it to this.. it would be fun."

 

If you did that James gave you a nice warning to provide feedback on the system as it was or that you would be removed from beta...  *edit for clarification*  This isn't talking about some form of nerd rage and forum spam resulting in warnings... I do mean entirely you were not allowed to suggest any alternative other than feedback on the system as it was... no matter how bad you or everyone (most everyone) thought it was.

 

So in that sense... my feeling was.. if you give me a pile of crap.. no matter how much sugar I sprinkle on it.. its still crap.

 

Translate that to:  If your customers are telling you a paticular mechanic, system or even the entire core game.. is not fun.  You might want to listen to that and figure out what it means... other wise you will have these systems YOU wanted and very few customers.

 

I honestly have no idea why it was like that.. I've never seen any other beta like that.  In the past I've seen many concepts actually incorporated or things changed in pretty radical ways that really did improve things.  Just wasn't allowed in that beta. 

 

/shrug

Two things ... this is Mythic Entertainment we are talking about. Dark Age of Camelot was released well, but they didn't react well to bad expansions or bad patches. They are very slow to change, however, they are very much into the community and wanting to get good feedback, they are just so slow to react.

Then, they get bought by Electronic Arts, which in my opinion wasn't the greatest idea, but it was an essential one to support Warhammer Online and help get the latest DAoC expansion out. However, it's no secret, EA doesn't care for quality, they like money, they like it a lot.

On the side with a company like Blizzard. Mythic won't have their fortune.. Blizzard is the most powerful gaming company in the world, with such titles as Diablo II, StarCraft, Warcraft III and World of Warcraft. These are all household names and they are owned by Vivendi Universal. Vivendi is a very benelovent company and allows Blizzard to do what they want and take their time because they know for a fact-- when they release a game, it's not going to produce a ton of money at release.. no it'll do that, but it won't stop for a long time. StarCraft Battlechest is 20 dollars, Diablo II Battlechest is 30 dollars and Warcraft II Battlechest is 40 dollars! It's insane.

Mythic won't have this power, even if they make the game with the best PvP or some super unique feature. EA isn't a company that's designed for that, it's hard to get your feet in the water, especially in an expensive market like MMOs.

im happy if we just got one server that is fully populated

Did i hear server merge?

"The most recent info on Warhammer Online puts the game's dedicated player base at 300,000."

hmm, what does "dedicated player base" even mean. Do they have a description of what that includes or did I miss something? Why does the tiltle of this thread use "subs" in it when we don't even know if this includes trials and so on.

Mind you, it was predicted before hand that EA would use something like that rather than saying "subscriptions" so doesn;t surprise me. Considering they've released WAR in 2 new territories and are still at 300k, they are still bleeding subs in the Western markets.

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Originally posted by Raztor
"The most recent info on Warhammer Online puts the game's dedicated player base at 300,000."
 
hmm, what does "dedicated player base" even mean. Do they have a description of what that includes or did I miss something? Why does the tiltle of this thread use "subs" in it when we don't even know if this includes trials and so on.
 
Mind you, it was predicted before hand that EA would use something like that rather than saying "subscriptions" so doesn;t surprise me. Considering they've released WAR in 2 new territories and are still at 300k, they are still bleeding subs in the Western markets.

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I agree with this sentiment of Mythic's use of the word "dedicated" as simply meant for misleading opinion.

A game has 300K subs. They then release into new areas/markets where they claim the game is well received with thousands in beta. They then say that the game on release in those markets have been successful in adding tens of thousands of subscriptions of "NEW" players playing. Then when they release new totals, but they are still at 300K subscriptions total. It's obvious that those 300k subscriptions are not all "dedicated" because many of them by Mythic's own admission are "new" in new markets. Apparently, if thousands joined and the number is exactly the same, it means that all those subs were not "dedicated".

Classic case of lawyering and misleading, without having to actually prove it. It's like them saying WAR is the most popular game on the market. Even though WoW can say they have 12 million subscriptions worldwide, Mythic can simply claim "Yeah, but those people don't really like WoW, but our 300k love WAR so we are the most popular." Crazy for sure, but they really don't have to prove that and can claim it all day long legally.

Dedicated, to me, seems like those subs that have been around for at least two months, meaning they have either bought the retail box, played the first free month, and enjoyed it enough to continue playing, OR a returning player who has paid for at least two consecutive months while these stats were being tabulated.

Then again, maybe I'm just too optimistic about sub numbers. :P

Originally posted by Raztor

"The most recent info on Warhammer Online puts the game's dedicated player base at 300,000."

For clarity's sake,  That is a statement by a website reporter and not a direct quote from the conference call.

hmm, what does "dedicated player base" even mean. Do they have a description of what that includes or did I miss something? Why does the tiltle of this thread use "subs" in it when we don't even know if this includes trials and so on.

The info relayed from the phone conference was "dedicated player base." Eric Brown's actual statement was "Warhammer ended the year with over 300,000 subscribers." The title uses subs because the Gamespot article uses subs because that is what is listed in the report from EA. The Gamespot reporter seems to be a fan of the game and added a few words of his own.

 

Mind you, it was predicted before hand that EA would use something like that rather than saying "subscriptions" so doesn;t surprise me. Considering they've released WAR in 2 new territories and are still at 300k, they are still bleeding subs in the Western markets.

But EA's CFO did say subscribers.

 

EA is notorious for putting MMO's in the graveyard. First MMO they executed was Earth and Beyond and then Auto Assault. The only thing that will keep WAR alive is Mythic Entertainment as they are probably one of the most dedicated MMO gaming companies left around.

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Originally posted by ParkCarsHere

Then again, maybe I'm just too optimistic about sub numbers. :P

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QFT

Originally posted by Rhoklaw

EA is notorious for putting MMO's in the graveyard. First MMO they executed was Earth and Beyond and then Auto Assault. The only thing that will keep WAR alive is Mythic Entertainment as they are probably one of the most dedicated MMO gaming companies left around.

The first was Legends of Kesmai then Motor City Online then EnB. Auto Assault was an NCSoft title. EA did have a variety of UO sequals it smushed along the way, along with the early development of Privateer Online.

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Originally posted by Rhoklaw
EA is notorious for putting MMO's in the graveyard. First MMO they executed was Earth and Beyond and then Auto Assault. The only thing that will keep WAR alive is Mythic Entertainment as they are probably one of the most dedicated MMO gaming companies left around.

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I know one thing. EA cannot be blamed for putting these games into the ground. It looks like to me Mythic has their own dismal record of putting MMOs into the ground. (Check all the ONLINE titles). And btw, some of those titles were HOT property IPs when they were made, so that can't be blamed either.

Dragon's Gate (1985)
Tempest (1991)
Castles II Online (1996)
Rolemaster: Magestorm (1996)
Splatterball (1996)
Invasion Earth (1997)
Darkness Falls (1997)
Rolemaster: Bladelands (1997)
Aliens Online (1998)
Starship Troopers: Battlespace (1998)
Godzilla Online (1998)
Silent Death: Online (1999)
Darkness Falls: The Crusade (1999)
Darkstorm: The Well of Souls (1999)
Spellbinder: The Nexus Conflict (1999)
Independence Day Online (2000)
Dark Age of Camelot (2001)
Imperator Online (Canceled 2005)
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (2008)

That was all Mythic, no EA involvement.

You see ONE winner on that list. EA had nothing to do with those or WAR doing badly. Please stop trying to excuse Mythic and let them off the hook. If they deserve credit for DAOC, which they DO, then they deserve blame for WAR which they also do. There is only one game that is of note they have made, and that one was made eight years ago.

Maybe WAR should be classed as a winner too, it sold far more boxes than DAoC and has a higher sub count than DAoC peaked at. So while WAR has worse gameplay than DAoC it has surpassed it in terms of numbers adn that can't be bad for Mythic or EA.

Also EA have closed MMO's down but they have also kept UO on a drip for so many years and it must have next to nothing of a population and certainly can't be making a sizable profit.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by Raztor

"The most recent info on Warhammer Online puts the game's dedicated player base at 300,000."

For clarity's sake,  That is a statement by a website reporter and not a direct quote from the conference call.

hmm, what does "dedicated player base" even mean. Do they have a description of what that includes or did I miss something? Why does the tiltle of this thread use "subs" in it when we don't even know if this includes trials and so on.

The info relayed from the phone conference was "dedicated player base." Eric Brown's actual statement was "Warhammer ended the year with over 300,000 subscribers." The title uses subs because the Gamespot article uses subs because that is what is listed in the report from EA. The Gamespot reporter seems to be a fan of the game and added a few words of his own.

 

Mind you, it was predicted before hand that EA would use something like that rather than saying "subscriptions" so doesn;t surprise me. Considering they've released WAR in 2 new territories and are still at 300k, they are still bleeding subs in the Western markets.

But EA's CFO did say subscribers.

 

 

 

This is only partly correct. While we cannot be positive that WAR currently has 300k active subscriptions, we do know that their quarterly financial reports say that they had 300k last year, as you indicated.

As far as the title of the tread goes, I think it's accurate. The most recent, OFFICIAL WAR subscription numbers were at 300k. Sure, they may have increased or decreased over the very few months since this was an exact number, I still believe it is accurate enough for our discussions. The end result is that Warhammer is definitely still alive and kicking, and I believe patch 1.3 will only add to these numbers.

Edit: This is more of a reply to Raztor, but wanted to include the information LynxJSA provided.

Originally posted by mcharj11

Maybe WAR should be classed as a winner too, it sold far more boxes than DAoC and has a higher sub count than DAoC peaked at. So while WAR has worse gameplay than DAoC it has surpassed it in terms of numbers adn that can't be bad for Mythic or EA.

Also EA have closed MMO's down but they have also kept UO on a drip for so many years and it must have next to nothing of a population and certainly can't be making a sizable profit.

In that case you must also measure what WAR and DaoC cost to make. In a expensive game you need more subs to keep the game running, more subs doesnt always means more profit.

Originally posted by mcharj11

Maybe WAR should be classed as a winner too, it sold far more boxes than DAoC and has a higher sub count than DAoC peaked at. So while WAR has worse gameplay than DAoC it has surpassed it in terms of numbers adn that can't be bad for Mythic or EA.

Also EA have closed MMO's down but they have also kept UO on a drip for so many years and it must have next to nothing of a population and certainly can't be making a sizable profit.

While what your saying is true to a certain degree what you didn't take into account is the fact the mmorpg market is alot bigger now than 10 years ago and as the poster before me mentioned WAR had a budget which was close to 50 times what DAOC had.

Originally posted by Newhopes

Originally posted by mcharj11

Maybe WAR should be classed as a winner too, it sold far more boxes than DAoC and has a higher sub count than DAoC peaked at. So while WAR has worse gameplay than DAoC it has surpassed it in terms of numbers adn that can't be bad for Mythic or EA.

Also EA have closed MMO's down but they have also kept UO on a drip for so many years and it must have next to nothing of a population and certainly can't be making a sizable profit.

 

While what your saying is true to a certain degree what you didn't take into account is the fact the mmorpg market is alot bigger now than 10 years ago and as the poster before me mentioned WAR had a budget which was close to 50 times what DAOC had.

Im curious, what was WAR and DAOC's budget?

They've been working on WAR since 2005, their freakin budget must have been HUGE!!! Besides they were getting funding from EA, I know that for sure.

Originally posted by TheHavok

Originally posted by Newhopes

Originally posted by mcharj11

Maybe WAR should be classed as a winner too, it sold far more boxes than DAoC and has a higher sub count than DAoC peaked at. So while WAR has worse gameplay than DAoC it has surpassed it in terms of numbers adn that can't be bad for Mythic or EA.

Also EA have closed MMO's down but they have also kept UO on a drip for so many years and it must have next to nothing of a population and certainly can't be making a sizable profit.

 

While what your saying is true to a certain degree what you didn't take into account is the fact the mmorpg market is alot bigger now than 10 years ago and as the poster before me mentioned WAR had a budget which was close to 50 times what DAOC had.

Im curious, what was WAR and DAOC's budget?

DOAC's budget was 2.6 million WAR's was just under 100 million.

Yeah there is a massive difference in budget but i think a huge chunk of the $100 million was probabaly spent on advertisment because if it has been spent on development they could have kept in dev for another year and released a better game. I mean looking at the game it doesn't appear that a lot money or time was spent on animations or stability.

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Originally posted by mcharj11
Yeah there is a massive difference in budget but i think a huge chunk of the $100 million was probabaly spent on advertisment because if it has been spent on development they could have kept in dev for another year and released a better game. I mean looking at the game it doesn't appear that a lot money or time was spent on animations or stability.

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The type of early advertising WAR had before release did NOT cost a good chunk of almost 100 million, lol. When you look at all of their pre-beta, beta and early release PR, how many commercials do you remember on television? Not one.

Most of their advertising was viral crap and cheaply made podcasts, magazine spreads here and there and site advertising like this one. I doubt MMORPG.com got tons of cash to plaster the WAR ads all over. For as much as they spent overall on the game, they underspent on advertising. Plenty of people playing WoW had never even heard of a Warhammer. The only time a lot ever did was just a few months ago, when Mythic finally bought out ALL the WoW third party sites with homepage skin ads. And that's a bad strategy when WAR obviously was targeting the WoW crowd from the beginning.

I have no idea how you want and expect a certain audience, and then fail to market directly to them until half a year later. Plain stupidity.

Conversely, I was just watching the NBA playoffs the other night, and World of Warcraft was a sponsor of the third quarter.

Erm popinjay i'm pretty sure that WAR's budget wasn't anywhere near $100 million until after EA bought them, and EA did spend a lot on advertisement.

I mean look at the game if they spent near $100 million on development then every memeber of Mythics staff should hang thier heads in shame as games with half that budget have been of better quality.

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Originally posted by mcharj11
Erm popinjay i'm pretty sure that WAR's budget wasn't anywhere near $100 million until after EA bought them, and EA did spend a lot on advertisement.
I mean look at the game if they spent near $100 million on development then every memeber of Mythics staff should hang thier heads in shame as games with half that budget have been of better quality.

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Then let the shame at Mythic begin.

There is no way that anyone at Mythic will ever say they spent the lion's share of their budget on advertising as you claim they have. Even if the total budget for WAR was 75 million, I don't know why you'd think they spent anything near even 20 million in advertising. I don't think when they got the money from EA would matter much, if as you say:

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Originally posted by mcharj11
Yeah there is a massive difference in budget but i think a huge chunk of the $100 million was probabaly spent on advertisment..

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Again, based on the viral marketing and podcasts with internet advertising, there is no way they spent even 10 million on PR for this game. 10 million out of just under 100 million isn't even that much.

I find it hard pressed for anyone following this game since beta to think they spent more than 10 million in advertising. It doesn't even look like they spent 5 million to me. They sold (to stores and others) 1.75 million boxes but out of that, only 700k had actually activated the accounts.

That works out to 700K subs at $15/mo= $10,500,000.00 that second month. If you claim they spent a "huge chunk of $100 million on advertising", that would be one of the worst returns in gaming history. Again, I doubt they even spent 5 million on advertising.

Originally posted by Auxer

Seems to be the rule nowdays to release a MMO before it's ready for release. I cannot figure out the reasons myself, sure, you get a lot of paying "beta testers". But you also ensure that you will leave a poor taste in the consumers mouth with your half completed product. And that taste is hard to remove, and we see many games now that will never reach any high numbers due to releasing a beta product and scaring off the customers or just making them angry to pay to beta test their game and thereby not continuing to subscribe.

You are correct that to many companies release games long before they are ready.

In the case of Mythic, they had a huge budget and a very small time frame.  Keep in mind that the game was already pushed back twice so it was originally scheduled to release close to a year earlier.   The time frame put on the creation of this game was completely unrealistic.  I just don't think a company can throw huge amounts of resources at a game and expect to cut the time table in half.  Testing and refinment take tame and cannot be rushed.

I have often wondered if warhammer was just built on top of whatever mythic had done completed for their own mmo imperator.  Which would be worse, because it just doesn't work to make such drastic design changes mid project like that, even if you do get awarded a major IP.  See TR, SWG for more proof of that concept.

What really upsets me about the game is that mythic thought they hit a home run at release.  All the high fiving they did and predictions make them look like they expected to dominate the market after release.  It just tells me they really don't understand gamers right now.   Outside of responding to player feedback (which they are pretty good about),  I don't expect much in the way of new interesting ideas from them.  

Originally posted by mcharj11

Erm popinjay i'm pretty sure that WAR's budget wasn't anywhere near $100 million until after EA bought them, and EA did spend a lot on advertisement.

I mean look at the game if they spent near $100 million on development then every memeber of Mythics staff should hang thier heads in shame as games with half that budget have been of better quality.

The 100 million was just the development costs and didn't include advertising which isn't classed as been part of development costs in any game.

Originally posted by Newhopes

The 100 million was just the development costs and didn't include advertising which isn't classed as been part of development costs in any game.

I see...

Newhopes, what pool of funds are marketing dollars drawn from?