Originally posted by bcbully

So you add a few % and now it's YOOOUR story?

 

 

BCbully 12-19-12

"TSW's Xfire numbers are still way down from launch (ranked 16 at launch), but it looks like it's now growing. Since B2P TSW has increased Xfire hours played by 300%. Its ranking had a high of 43 this weekend with triple the amount of users using xfire. 

 

There still is a long way to go with the pvp content (PvE is rock solid), but this is good news for Funcom and TSW."

 

You'll be hearing from my attorney.

 

I would also like for this to be admitted exhibit b2981, as it adds to our case that Xfire is reliable in predicting trends within the overall mmorpg community.

 

ps. I'll settle out of court for a star. 

Only a 33% margin error.

B2P was a definit draw. I am a CoH refugee and TSW was highly...I mean HIGHLy recommended game to turn to by fellow CoH players.

Now if it would work on my laptop......

Originally posted by Celcius
This honestly doesnt mean anything. Every F2P MMO sees similar results at F2P transition. Give it a couple of months and it will die down again. What amazes me that even with the F2P conversion they are still having to fire a bunch of people and consolidate the company further. Sounds like Funcom is not gonna be making any more MMOs. Thats probably good for us since they all suck anyways.

Actually it has great significance.  The game isn't free to play.  You have to buy the game.  So this signifies that a major portion of that new players in the time period were willing to pay Funcom a box fee (most around $12 - $30) for access to the game.  It's significant because it's direct revenue.  It showed there is a significant portion of players willing to support that business model.

If they can continue to put out quality issues I think people will pay for that, enough to make it worth their while.

They learned a lot from their horrible AoC transition to F2P by welcoming the new B2P customers.  The community is really good and that is the strongest asset of a niche game.

It seems like a recipe for success in that it can only grow its playerbase.

Originally posted by ksternal
Happy for the people who think B2P aka F2P is a great idea. For me I hope the future games coming out don't resort to this because the content they put out is nothing more then new asinine costumes and weak powers you can have which you should get for free anyways.

Games with sub:

-WoW

-Rift

-EVE

-FFXI/XIV

-Some older, much older, games

That's it now. Everything else has a form of F2P/B2P going on.

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by Celcius
This honestly doesnt mean anything. Every F2P MMO sees similar results at F2P transition. Give it a couple of months and it will die down again. What amazes me that even with the F2P conversion they are still having to fire a bunch of people and consolidate the company further. Sounds like Funcom is not gonna be making any more MMOs. Thats probably good for us since they all suck anyways.

Actually it has great significance.  The game isn't free to play.  You have to buy the game.  So this signifies that a major portion of that new players in the time period were willing to pay Funcom a box fee (most around $12 - $30) for access to the game.  It's significant because it's direct revenue.  It showed there is a significant portion of players willing to support that business model.

If they can continue to put out quality issues I think people will pay for that, enough to make it worth their while.

They learned a lot from their horrible AoC transition to F2P by welcoming the new B2P customers.  The community is really good and that is the strongest asset of a niche game.

It seems like a recipe for success in that it can only grow its playerbase.

 

Thats just it, they can't continue putting out "quality issues" because the game is going to have a reduced staff due to people getting fired. The game was already significantly under performing, so a 30% increase in sales as a result of B2P is not as big of a deal as most other MMOs would be. Considering especially that most people who picked up the game after the B2P transition were picking it up on sale for less then 20$. If they got every cent of that, then that is 1.4M since the transion. That is the same as 93K subs roughly. Not a good number to be at. 

They wanted to sell through 1 million copies and have roughly 500k subs iirc and there is no way they are even remotely near that. Obviously that number has lowered since the layoffs, but that also further proves my point that layoffs resulted only because the game was not meeting sales expectations. You can safely assume by that logic, that it still did not hit sales expectations based on the B2P transition since more people are getting fired.

B2P only works if you have the systems in place to support it and Funcom just does not have that. The issues were already pretty small for the most part as it is, you can probably expect more SWTOR -esq patches in the future. (that you have to pay for)

Originally posted by lyinggod0

Originally posted by MindTrigger

it's a cool game and all, but it has potential to be great if it wasn't such a themepark / dungeon grinder experience.

All mmorpgs are grinders. Your either grinding a quest, a dungeon, or the world (such as it is). Computerized RPGs (on and off line) are just that way. Until there is a true artificial intelligence "GMing" the experience, they will be more obviously over structured and ridgid grinds.

So now  the only question is......

How smooth and involved a grind is it? In otherwords how bad or good is the experience.

I like to grind at games too, I just dont kid myself about what they are (compared to the real thing - real RPGs, not cRPGS of any type)

YMMV

The Lyinggod

No, all games are not a grind.  What I'm referring to is the difference between linear upward themepark progression compared to more open world, emergent gameplay systems.  

Originally posted by Rthuth434
meh. up from 50k to 200k active, which will be short lived. 

I have to agree sadly because TSW did try some different things.

200K isn't all that much for a B2P product.  If it were still a sub, then it would be in a good place.  They will need more people to buy because TSW is now dependent upon their cash shop more than ever.

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by lyinggod0

Originally posted by MindTrigger

it's a cool game and all, but it has potential to be great if it wasn't such a themepark / dungeon grinder experience.

All mmorpgs are grinders. Your either grinding a quest, a dungeon, or the world (such as it is). Computerized RPGs (on and off line) are just that way. Until there is a true artificial intelligence "GMing" the experience, they will be more obviously over structured and ridgid grinds.

So now  the only question is......

How smooth and involved a grind is it? In otherwords how bad or good is the experience.

I like to grind at games too, I just dont kid myself about what they are (compared to the real thing - real RPGs, not cRPGS of any type)

YMMV

The Lyinggod

No, all games are not a grind.  What I'm referring to is the difference between linear upward themepark progression compared to more open world, emergent gameplay systems.  

"Grind" is something that has been taken out of context over the years. A grind, to me, is doing something over and over that is not fun. If a game has a quest system like TSW, Tera, or even SWTOR it can feel like a grind to me after a while. Its the gameplay variations and deep combat systems that keep me interested in quests. 

There are alot of people out there though who love to throw out the word "grind" like all it means is "playing a game". The reality is, MMOs are a considerable investment of time, if you are enjoying that time it should not feel like a grind to you.  I guess what I am trying to say is that the word "grind" is subjective.

Originally posted by Melkrow
SWTOR is probably facepalming right about now.

And even more now that TERA has announced there F2P/B2P model which like TSW blows its doors off.

Great news for TSW, I wish it well :)

Originally posted by Celcius

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by lyinggod0

Originally posted by MindTrigger

it's a cool game and all, but it has potential to be great if it wasn't such a themepark / dungeon grinder experience.

All mmorpgs are grinders. Your either grinding a quest, a dungeon, or the world (such as it is). Computerized RPGs (on and off line) are just that way. Until there is a true artificial intelligence "GMing" the experience, they will be more obviously over structured and ridgid grinds.

So now  the only question is......

How smooth and involved a grind is it? In otherwords how bad or good is the experience.

I like to grind at games too, I just dont kid myself about what they are (compared to the real thing - real RPGs, not cRPGS of any type)

YMMV

The Lyinggod

No, all games are not a grind.  What I'm referring to is the difference between linear upward themepark progression compared to more open world, emergent gameplay systems.  

"Grind" is something that has been taken out of context over the years. A grind, to me, is doing something over and over that is not fun. If a game has a quest system like TSW, Tera, or even SWTOR it can feel like a grind to me after a while. Its the gameplay variations and deep combat systems that keep me interested in quests. 

There are alot of people out there though who love to throw out the word "grind" like all it means is "playing a game". The reality is, MMOs are a considerable investment of time, if you are enjoying that time it should not feel like a grind to you.  I guess what I am trying to say is that the word "grind" is subjective.

Yes, doing dungeons over and over in this game to get gear is not fun.  I agree.