Originally posted by Xasapis

If you bothered to read the source of this article, you'd notice it does not originate from IGN.

If you bothered to read my post before responding, you would know I JUST QUOTED THEIR "SOURCE" so I know it's not from IGN, still they keep on making these gargbage claims AND fanboys keep feeding these IGN trolls.

I have no idea why people bother with NA numbers they are like a leaf falling out of the big tree.Happy Farm has 23 million everyday users ,let me see 23 million users=at least 40-50 million accounts,umm 50 mil <>700k lmao,maybe the stem of that leaf falling out of the tree?

The network in China that delivers Happy Farm is making 400 million a quarter,selling virtual goods and online services.Their Happy Farm game has spin off games all over the world now,the total amount of farm game users is well over the 100 million number.

Happy Farm in China is considering to limit the DAILY new subscription maximum to 2 million a DAY !Governments have just introduced some new workplace laws because Government workers have been found playing Happy Farm,it is like another epidemic.

Here we have a poster talking about some game like they are proud of the 700k numbers lmao.I don't even bother to care about numbers in MMORPG games anymore,they have very little meaning to the big picture.

I think the Tvirus is spreading,only one person can save us from this epidemic...Mila Jovavic D.

venturebeat.com/2009/10/29/china-qq-farm-happy-farm-games/

They are also selling it though steam, what's your point, that online distribution is bad? I buy all my games through steam these days.

The source this time is a Korean newspaper. Whether you want to believe what's written in that newspaper is up to you. It's certainly not just a blog from some anonymous source.

Before posting all this conspiracy diatribe, question you should be asking yourself is:

"Is xfire a meaningful marketing tool?"

You're the one paying (way) too much emphasis to it. How's the rest of the world feeling about it though? Do they even care about xfire stats? And if they don't, why bother to "manipulate" the results?

Edit: To add a bit to your perspective, if it wasn't for your xfire constant advertisement, I wouldn't know that xfire had stats in the first place. For me xfire was something similar to gamespy, ie some useless game networking utility. Which brings us to the next question.

Do you actually work for xfire?

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Xasapis

Before posting all this conspiracy diatribe, question you should be asking yourself is:

"Is xfire a meaningful marketing tool?"

You're the one paying (way) too much emphasis to it. How's the rest of the world feeling about it though? Do they even care about xfire stats? And if they don't, why bother to "manipulate" the results?

 

Edit: To add a bit to your perspective, if it wasn't for your xfire constant advertisement, I wouldn't know that xfire had stats in the first place. For me xfire was something similar to gamespy, ie some useless game networking utility. Which brings us to the next question.

Do you actually work for xfire?

 

Xfire is still valid to view IN game tendancies, simply by the fact it is ON line 24/7 and tracking 200 to 300K western PC's. That's a HUGE sample.

The present day number of around 7K Aion players represent a sample. The lower that number goes the lesser the subs related to them. AIon had a record high of 14K+ players after one week. It is clear that represented around 500/550K players with the few keywords NCsoft dropped ... AND the server numbers.

The only thing that bothered me is the oversampling we saw (compared to other MMO's). I stilll think 5K Xfire users are not accounted for. Since EVE has around 3K Xfire players and WOW around 60K.

Of course with the selling of games now on their website, the relation between those games has changed even more.

But the IN game trends of a game, allows you to predict the increase or decline of an individual mmorpg.

Just looking at xfire WOW has seen a 30% drop ...does this mean WOW is dying? Can you please explain WoW's huge drop in xfire numbers?

Originally posted by Krilster

Originally posted by Cammy

Originally posted by cyan85

I work at a place that sells games, and Aion is a total bomb.  I've only had to ring up one (yes, that's right, one) person that's bought the game since the initial relase date.  We have NOT sold through the first order of the game, and unless sales pick up, sendbacks will be in its future.  All those beautiful metal boxes just sitting there collecting dust.  Sorry to say, but the entire MMORPG genre is dead, guys.  Only WoW is still going strong; we get a couple people buying the game time cards every day.  We don't even carry AoC anymore (except for a few time cards collecting dust), and no more orders for WAR.  Aion looks to match the sales pattern of those games which was big in the beginning, then totally dead.  I'm not saying this as a hater, I'm just telling the truth about the particular store that I work at, which may or may not be indicative of the games performance nation wide.  Right now, console games are where its at: Uncharted 2, Borderlands, Dragon Age, Demon Souls, etc, are what the MMO customers have been into of recent.

 

Right... cause MMO gamers buy their games from gaming stores... why dont you go look online and see how many DIGITAL copies they've sold instead of making yourself look like a tool? ya... that would help you along nicely.

 

 

Cammy is right.
Me and many of my friends rarely go to Gamestop or Best Buy anymore to buy games. We always buy them online, as I assume A LOT of other people do as well considering it's much more convenient.

Yep. I very rarely buy physical boxes these days, unless I have to. Digital copies is the way to go.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by pepsibottle

Originally posted by Xasapis

If you bothered to read the source of this article, you'd notice it does not originate from IGN.

 

If you bothered to read my post before responding, you would know I JUST QUOTED THEIR "SOURCE" so I know it's not from IGN, still they keep on making these gargbage claims AND fanboys keep feeding these IGN trolls.

 

 

As a matter of fact, it was a Korean web journalist, who without giving ANY official source was guessing numbers. Clear if you read the posts. The fact IGN cited this is on the SAME error line as their previous "error" (typo as X said it back then).

How could he even come up with 1M "expecting" before Xmas? That's a good laugh.

Now there is NO date, NO sold through shops - or not - statement, NO subscription number, NO accounts created , NO offical confirmation whatsoever.

What we DO have though is ... two statements of NCsoft at launch and one week after.

"Almost" 400K western pre-orders (remember those are the smart guys included which try the game out for 5 days and then "forget" to collect the order)

A second point is that NCSoft explained the queing lines when they could host 180 K users (12NA.12EU) servers. They said ... 60% of the players were logged on concurrently. 60% of those 400K = 240K. So one third was hold up in the queuing lines. They upped the servers to 14NA/18EU ... that could hold ... the 240K players concurrently.

So according to the in game Xfire stats, we see now a decline of more than 55%.

That means if the game went to around 500/550K in their first week, it shows that currently 250K are subbed.

700K is not even OFF really. Because that's the part that is being shipped to the shops (plenty of stock everywhere these days).

But the thing is with NCSoft, you hardly get ANYTHING in correct FIGURES. In fact they let the internet gosspip reign.

That's why I am here: to show the truth behind the Korean marketing thing.

I guess we will see it again with GW2.

 

NCSoft shot in their own feet btw, by selling Aion through Xfire (with Xfire installed now), just to "ensure" they would end up second played MMO on Xfire....

But in fact, that honour already clearly goes to EVE now. Because they have a 300K offiicially confirmed western subs.

------ > The burden of proof NOW lays with NCSoft now, being a stock quoted company; they have ALL intrest to prove things (finally).

This is all speculation on your part. Do you know how many copies of Aion was even sold through XFire?

Regardless of that, or anything else about XFire numbers being skewed, you have in EU 18 servers for which most are packed on weekends. Considering that an MMORPG server these days holds around 5000 max concurent users (Lineage 2 had that as max number) so assuming that packed means about 3000 concurrent users that is 3000x18 = 54000 concurrent users in Europe.

Number of concurrent users compared to total subscribers are usually around 15%. So that gives us 54000/0.15 = 360.000 subscribers just in europe.

Now this is an estimate as one really does not know how packed the servers really are but assuming that Aion does not have worse server architecture than Lineage 2 then 3000 concurrent users per server is a reasonable number. So even if we round down to the closest houndred we have an estimated 300.000 subscribers just in Europe. So 700k including North America is a reasonable number indeed.

http://www.videogamer.com/news/warhammer_online_sales_reach_1_2_million.html

Thats all that needs to be said.

Are you implying that they lied and the WAR numbers are also made up? Because that's what certain people in this thread argue about the Aion numbers.

If you're implying that the subscription numbers only tell half the story and we need to wait until the game has some months over its back, I would agree.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Are you implying that they lied and the WAR numbers are also made up? Because that's what certain people in this thread argue about the Aion numbers.

If you're implying that the subscription numbers only tell half the story and we need to wait until the game has some months over its back, I would agree.

The latter. WAR sold more units in a much shorter time, yet look at it. In the end selling a mass amount quickly means nothing.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Before posting all this conspiracy diatribe, question you should be asking yourself is:

"Is xfire a meaningful marketing tool?"

You're the one paying (way) too much emphasis to it. How's the rest of the world feeling about it though? Do they even care about xfire stats? And if they don't, why bother to "manipulate" the results?

 

Edit: To add a bit to your perspective, if it wasn't for your xfire constant advertisement, I wouldn't know that xfire had stats in the first place. For me xfire was something similar to gamespy, ie some useless game networking utility. Which brings us to the next question.

Do you actually work for xfire?

Zorndorf, do you work for xfire or blizzard? Have you ever worked at either of those?

Originally posted by Darkogie

Originally posted by Xasapis

Before posting all this conspiracy diatribe, question you should be asking yourself is:

"Is xfire a meaningful marketing tool?"

You're the one paying (way) too much emphasis to it. How's the rest of the world feeling about it though? Do they even care about xfire stats? And if they don't, why bother to "manipulate" the results?

 

Edit: To add a bit to your perspective, if it wasn't for your xfire constant advertisement, I wouldn't know that xfire had stats in the first place. For me xfire was something similar to gamespy, ie some useless game networking utility. Which brings us to the next question.

Do you actually work for xfire?

 

Zorndorf, do you work for xfire or blizzard? Have you ever worked at either of those?

No he isn't but he is a fanatical WOW fan

 For the sake of a healthy market with competition, let us hope Aion becomes a wide success. This is the responsibility of every mature gamer who wants the genre to break from its current boring game formula.

Originally posted by Aleste

 For the sake of a healthy market with competition, let us hope Aion becomes a wide success. This is the responsibility of every mature gamer who wants the genre to break from its current boring game formula.

 

 

God it's hard to catch this sarcasm. It is sarcasm, right?

Originally posted by colddog

Originally posted by Aleste

 For the sake of a healthy market with competition, let us hope Aion becomes a wide success. This is the responsibility of every mature gamer who wants the genre to break from its current boring game formula.

 

 

 

God it's hard to catch this sarcasm. It is sarcasm, right?

I dont think is sarcasm...

I think Aleste is serious...

Originally posted by Aleste

 For the sake of a healthy market with competition, let us hope Aion becomes a wide success. This is the responsibility of every mature gamer who wants the genre to break from its current boring game formula.

 

 

I'm generally opposed to boycotting or supporting a game out of principle. I believe one should play a game for the sake of entertainment and fun.

Some of the % could have been from people like myself that no longer use xfire while playing aion because the less latency you have the better specially in the abyss were you need to be 100% focused.

Ever thought about that or your blind when someone says something against your "facts"?

Plus I can bet all the money I got in bank that less then 50% of the whole population uses xfire while playing aion don't be stupid and assume 500k or whatever is the whole population uses it.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

How BLIND fans can be?

It shows on Xfire that Aion has LOST 60% of the playing time and 50% of its players in the LAST 4 weeks.

Look at the graphs...

http://www.xfire.com/games/aion/Aion/

Coming from ... 81611 total on Oct 1st ... D O W N ... to ...33002 on Nov 4th.

That'sa 60% drop off coming out of a sample of 14K and now 7K XfireAion  users.

 

And STILL people D R E A M that this game has 700K players right now.

What a laugh....

Of course  the 14NA and 18 EU servers are no longer full.

50% drops in players means simply 400 to 500K/2 that it had at the launching week .... = 250 K actual player

are less than EVE at the moment.

The greatest joke was the guy above who spoke about 15% concrrent users, while NCSOft themselves in their state of the game speech spoke of 60% concurrent users.

Look at the number of servers and you know exactly this game doesn't grow anymore.

It simply lost players EN MASSE.

You need to stop smoking that x-fire crack.

Nvm... It's pointless arguing with you I shouldn't have even posted, you will never learn anyways you keep on saying same shit in every single thread that praises aion so why bother again....

i really wish people would stop using box sales in MMO's as a success indicator.  We've all been there before, the over hyped game *cough* AOC and War *cough* that has sold XXX, 000 copies in the first week of release only to loose over 50% of its sub base after the free month has expired.

So yeah, its nice that Aion has made some money back (box sales are pretty much there to give the investors some money back for helping to fund the game) but its long term subs that we really should care about.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Look at the number of servers and you know exactly this game doesn't grow anymore.

It simply lost players EN MASSE.

If it did lose players EN MASSE as you say, server I played on hasn't felt it. It is full of players and the server density didn't change at all. It is always Full at peak times and Recommended at other times, just like one of the most populated WoW servers Kazaak used to be. In fact I see people at off-peak hours on Gorgos more than I used to see on Kazaak ^^. Understandable however, seeing as the kids are usually asleep/ at preschool/school.

But you wouldn't know, would you, fiddling with Xfire numbers trying to prove that "AION FAILS" with every little bit of energy you have. You come across as a sad, sad human being tbph. Pathetic.

I just canceled my account actually, but it is quite a fun game.  I would like to say that the numbers and clusters of people gradually decline as you progress up in level past 25 and early abyss.  The early levels are absolutely packed though, but it's the higher level gamers who will stay.  I simply didn't stay because the general player base was a bit juvenile.  It's weird playing in a group with seven-year-olds who have to take breaks every thirty minutes because their parents want them to get ready for bed. 

Sales figures are interesting (though unsubstantiated) but largely irrelevant.

While the sales numbers might have to be estimated, the subscription numbers are known to NCSoft and they aren't publishing them.

Usually means they are nothing to be proud of.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Electriceye

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Look at the number of servers and you know exactly this game doesn't grow anymore.

It simply lost players EN MASSE.

 

If it did lose players EN MASSE as you say, server I played on hasn't felt it. It is full of players and the server density didn't change at all. It is always Full at peak times and Recommended at other times, just like one of the most populated WoW servers Kazaak used to be. In fact I see people at off-peak hours on Gorgos more than I used to see on Kazaak ^^. Understandable however, seeing as the kids are usually asleep/ at preschool/school.

But you wouldn't know, would you, fiddling with Xfire numbers trying to prove that "AION FAILS" with every little bit of energy you have. You come across as a sad, sad human being tbph. Pathetic.

Do you have queuing lines?  Nope.
 

Does every server show LOCKED at prime time? Nope.

Did they add servers to the rather low number of 14 NA/18 EU? Nope.

So it clearly is a sign that the servers are no longer stressed and the max capacity of those servers (200 to 240K) is never reached anymore.

ALL in accordance with what the oversampled samples of Xfire shows. 50% players just left. A 24/7 on line sample base of 14K users is WAY to BIG. (on line samples 24/7 of 1K users is MORE than enough to have valuable working data).

 Get over it, Aion was surpassed by EVE as second most played subscription based MMORPG in the west.

 

 

Im sorry but you're not making any sense

You realize the queue's were fixed after the FIRST week - and yes - people STILL logged in at that point. So your argument is completely invalid.

You'll come back with another snarky comment to make yourself look foolish - so for the meantime I'll wait.

Oh and btw - EVE is a great game - but numbers are showing Aion has more traffic right now. Not taking anything away from EVE.

In short - try harder

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Electriceye

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Look at the number of servers and you know exactly this game doesn't grow anymore.

It simply lost players EN MASSE.

 

If it did lose players EN MASSE as you say, server I played on hasn't felt it. It is full of players and the server density didn't change at all. It is always Full at peak times and Recommended at other times, just like one of the most populated WoW servers Kazaak used to be. In fact I see people at off-peak hours on Gorgos more than I used to see on Kazaak ^^. Understandable however, seeing as the kids are usually asleep/ at preschool/school.

But you wouldn't know, would you, fiddling with Xfire numbers trying to prove that "AION FAILS" with every little bit of energy you have. You come across as a sad, sad human being tbph. Pathetic.

Do you have queuing lines?  Nope.
 

Does every server show LOCKED at prime time? Nope.

Did they add servers to the rather low number of 14 NA/18 EU? Nope.

So it clearly is a sign that the servers are no longer stressed and the max capacity of those servers (200 to 240K) is never reached anymore.

ALL in accordance with what the oversampled samples of Xfire shows. 50% players just left. A 24/7 on line sample base of 14K users is WAY to BIG. (on line samples 24/7 of 1K users is MORE than enough to have valuable working data).

 

 

Having no queues or locked servers is good. And as I already said, it does not feel like there is any mass exodus until now, so server population must not be that far off cap.

Also, you need to realize that they have upped the capacity of players a server can hold. Queues sucked at launch, but it was NOT because the server capacity was reached, it had more to do with the massive number of players in the early zones. The more players got into the next zones, the more people were able to log in and play.

Sure some people might have quit because they found the game boring or whatever, but until now, from where I stand, there hasn't been mass quittings at all.