Originally posted by Draemos

Originally posted by DKLond

I didn't mean to suggest it was a huge success - but simply a success.

There's no way it's not a success with the amount of attention and forum activity we're seeing still.

As for numbers, I have no idea - and it's obvious that the amount isn't too impressive - or ArenaNet would have made them public.

But given my opinion about the game and its design - I honestly didn't expect this level of continued dedication by fans. They very clearly struck a chord with a significant segment of the gaming populace - and that's not a trivial accomplishment.

This forum is and has always been a breeding place for GW2 fanbois, which are the most obnoxiously loyal group of fanbois ive seen in gaming in 15 years.  The game could be a steaming pile of dung and the GW2 forums would still be flush with activity.  I wouldn't consider forum activity a sign of anything here... In some cases it might even be a bad sign.

 

but yeah, 3 million copies sold is nothing to sneeze at, and the game's not bad... Even if I personally can't get into it.  It's real saving grace is that it never adopted a subscription, otherwise it would have fell flat on its face like the rest.

 

i think it would have did extremely well if that had been smart enough to have a proper PvP infrastructure and ELO system in at launch.  I think they really blew it on that one.  The games PvP is a lot of fun.

In my (over) 15 years of gaming, have found the amount of fanbois pretty much correlates with the amount of trolls, but maybe its just me...

I can't help but think that love or hate the game the better it does the better for the industry as a whole. Well, unless you absolutely adore the WoW model (game and financial)  and want to see more and more games of its ilk.

The game that I'm rather surprised is doing so well is SWTOR my hunch is the setting is a big part of that.

Originally posted by DKLond

Originally posted by DKLond

Originally posted by Draemos

Originally posted by DKLond

Originally posted by Draemos

Originally posted by DKLond

I didn't mean to suggest it was a huge success - but simply a success.

There's no way it's not a success with the amount of attention and forum activity we're seeing still.

As for numbers, I have no idea - and it's obvious that the amount isn't too impressive - or ArenaNet would have made them public.

But given my opinion about the game and its design - I honestly didn't expect this level of continued dedication by fans. They very clearly struck a chord with a significant segment of the gaming populace - and that's not a trivial accomplishment.

This forum is and has always been a breeding place for GW2 fanbois, which are the most obnoxiously loyal group of fanbois ive seen in gaming in 15 years.  The game could be a steaming pile of dung and the GW2 forums would still be flush with activity.  I wouldn't consider forum activity a sign of anything here... In some cases it might even be a bad sign.

 I disagree.

The amount of forum activity - good or bad - tends to reflect the level of interest a game enjoys.

Obviously, it's not an accurate tool and some games have strong dedicated forums by the developers, making other forums less active - but I'd say it's pretty clear that GW2 has a large active fanbase still. Large can mean what you want it to mean - but my estimate is above 300K and below 1.5M players players - and that's enough to constitute a success in this day and age, where 95% of all recent MMOs have less than that.

I'm not saying it means anything in terms of the quality of the game - merely the amount of active players.

That's why Darkfall has routinely been a high activity forum around here for years,because of "interest". 

 

We must have very different concepts of what "high activity" means - because before the announcement of DF:UW, the forums were very quiet.

That said, it's one of the VERY few viable sandbox MMOs with full loot PvP - so it's only natural that it will get a bit more attention than would otherwise be the case with such a small playerbase.

But if take a loot at GW2 activity - it's a completely different story. There's massive activity and there has been a massive activity since release.

Compared to what?  Newly released  or upcoming games?  DF has consistently been in the top 10 for years post and prior to release, and has a extremely small player base in comparison to its peers.

It, much like GW2, has some extremely protective and vocal defenders. 

I'm not so convinced. See, a while back, back when guesting was still weekly, I decided to try out a number of other servers because I was fed up of the zones after level 30 being a real ghost town. Even Orr was, with almost all (if not all) waypoints contested. So I tried a few other servers, each as empty as the last. That was one of the things that convinced me to give up on it, because the game is very broken if you're the only person running around in a zone. It's like they didn't even anticipate that.

Remember how public quests were in Warhammer Online? That's pretty much what's going on in GW2, it's exactly the same phenomenon. It's like they never even conceived the possibility that their zones would be really empty. I can only assume that, in general, people are tiring of the game by about level 20 or 30. If my sample with the servers I tested is any indication, their player retention is terrible. This is Warhammer Online all over again; history repeating itself.

This success/failure shite on this site is beyond me honestly. There seem to be enough people liking and playing GW2 so it must be sucessful. Personally I don't like GW2 but this does not make it a failure. 

Originally posted by Marcus-

Originally posted by Draemos

Originally posted by DKLond

I didn't mean to suggest it was a huge success - but simply a success.

There's no way it's not a success with the amount of attention and forum activity we're seeing still.

As for numbers, I have no idea - and it's obvious that the amount isn't too impressive - or ArenaNet would have made them public.

But given my opinion about the game and its design - I honestly didn't expect this level of continued dedication by fans. They very clearly struck a chord with a significant segment of the gaming populace - and that's not a trivial accomplishment.

This forum is and has always been a breeding place for GW2 fanbois, which are the most obnoxiously loyal group of fanbois ive seen in gaming in 15 years.  The game could be a steaming pile of dung and the GW2 forums would still be flush with activity.  I wouldn't consider forum activity a sign of anything here... In some cases it might even be a bad sign.

 

but yeah, 3 million copies sold is nothing to sneeze at, and the game's not bad... Even if I personally can't get into it.  It's real saving grace is that it never adopted a subscription, otherwise it would have fell flat on its face like the rest.

 

i think it would have did extremely well if that had been smart enough to have a proper PvP infrastructure and ELO system in at launch.  I think they really blew it on that one.  The games PvP is a lot of fun.

In my (over) 15 years of gaming, have found the amount of fanbois pretty much correlates with the amount of trolls, but maybe its just me...

 In my 30 years of gaming, I'd tend to agree.

But the trends change all the time and it's a curve of good/bad word of mouth. Most hyped games start with massive fanboism and a few vocal detractors - and then it slowly changes as more and more people are getting fed up and realise the game can't be perpetually interesting. At this point, the detractors start to outweigh the fans. It's a natural development.

But there's no way we'd be seeing this level of forum activity if the game didn't have a significant playerbase.

Originally posted by Marcus-

Originally posted by Draemos

Originally posted by DKLond

I didn't mean to suggest it was a huge success - but simply a success.

There's no way it's not a success with the amount of attention and forum activity we're seeing still.

As for numbers, I have no idea - and it's obvious that the amount isn't too impressive - or ArenaNet would have made them public.

But given my opinion about the game and its design - I honestly didn't expect this level of continued dedication by fans. They very clearly struck a chord with a significant segment of the gaming populace - and that's not a trivial accomplishment.

This forum is and has always been a breeding place for GW2 fanbois, which are the most obnoxiously loyal group of fanbois ive seen in gaming in 15 years.  The game could be a steaming pile of dung and the GW2 forums would still be flush with activity.  I wouldn't consider forum activity a sign of anything here... In some cases it might even be a bad sign.

 

but yeah, 3 million copies sold is nothing to sneeze at, and the game's not bad... Even if I personally can't get into it.  It's real saving grace is that it never adopted a subscription, otherwise it would have fell flat on its face like the rest.

 

i think it would have did extremely well if that had been smart enough to have a proper PvP infrastructure and ELO system in at launch.  I think they really blew it on that one.  The games PvP is a lot of fun.

In my (over) 15 years of gaming, have found the amount of fanbois pretty much correlates with the amount of trolls, but maybe its just me...

Nah, otherwise games like Mortal Online and Star Trek Online would be a hotbed of activity.  We trolled the hell out of those forums. I do think fanbois attract trolls though, just because its so fun to get a rise out of them when you point out something that just blantantly sucks in their game and you watch them try to rationalize it...so there is that.

if you look at STO, there community just actively admits that a lot of things are subpar.  There isn't really a controversy. TSW is the same way, their players admit the games faults(and TSW is a fantastic game in most respects, much like GW2), and its forums are relatively bland.  Contraversy drives the activity; the folks who cover their eyes and ears and go "lalalalala" any time you criticize their game.  GW2 has a lot of those folks.

Originally posted by Draemos

Originally posted by DKLond

Originally posted by DKLond

Originally posted by Draemos

Originally posted by DKLond

Originally posted by Draemos

Originally posted by DKLond

I didn't mean to suggest it was a huge success - but simply a success.

There's no way it's not a success with the amount of attention and forum activity we're seeing still.

As for numbers, I have no idea - and it's obvious that the amount isn't too impressive - or ArenaNet would have made them public.

But given my opinion about the game and its design - I honestly didn't expect this level of continued dedication by fans. They very clearly struck a chord with a significant segment of the gaming populace - and that's not a trivial accomplishment.

This forum is and has always been a breeding place for GW2 fanbois, which are the most obnoxiously loyal group of fanbois ive seen in gaming in 15 years.  The game could be a steaming pile of dung and the GW2 forums would still be flush with activity.  I wouldn't consider forum activity a sign of anything here... In some cases it might even be a bad sign.

 I disagree.

The amount of forum activity - good or bad - tends to reflect the level of interest a game enjoys.

Obviously, it's not an accurate tool and some games have strong dedicated forums by the developers, making other forums less active - but I'd say it's pretty clear that GW2 has a large active fanbase still. Large can mean what you want it to mean - but my estimate is above 300K and below 1.5M players players - and that's enough to constitute a success in this day and age, where 95% of all recent MMOs have less than that.

I'm not saying it means anything in terms of the quality of the game - merely the amount of active players.

That's why Darkfall has routinely been a high activity forum around here for years,because of "interest". 

 

We must have very different concepts of what "high activity" means - because before the announcement of DF:UW, the forums were very quiet.

That said, it's one of the VERY few viable sandbox MMOs with full loot PvP - so it's only natural that it will get a bit more attention than would otherwise be the case with such a small playerbase.

But if take a loot at GW2 activity - it's a completely different story. There's massive activity and there has been a massive activity since release.

Compared to what?  Newly released  or upcoming games?  DF has consistently been in the top 10 for years post and prior to release, and has a extremely small player base in comparison to its peers.

 

It, much like GW2, has some extremely protective and vocal defenders. 

Again, DF is a bit of an anomaly because of the full loot nature of PvP - and the amount of players interested in that feature, myself included.

The same can be said about Mortal Online which has a TINY TINY playerbase - and yet the forum is still somewhat active.

But GW2 is a themepark and there's no shortage of those around. Compare GW2 activity with Rift, LOTRO, Age of Conan and so on - and you'll see a GIGANTIC difference.

But there's no way to prove this either way. If you really think GW2 has this level of activity without a significant playerbase - then I don't mind. It's not a big deal if we agree about it.

it's ok, nothing much, but ok game...

if it got sub I'll stop playing by now or even after box sub got over; but it b2p, so no reason to stop.

for p2p it will be fail, but as it b2p it may look like a success.
Only to be honest, and I don't want to troll, I would prefer to play next x-pack of GW1.

Originally posted by Draemos

Nah, otherwise games like Mortal Online and Star Trek Online would be a hotbed of activity.  We trolled the hell out of those forums. I do think fanbois attract trolls though, just because its so fun to get a rise out of them when you point out something that just blantantly sucks in their game and you watch them try to rationalize it...so there is that.

if you look at STO, there community just actively admits that a lot of things are subpar.  There isn't really a controversy. That's what drives the activity; the folks who cover their eyes and ears and go "lalalalala" any time you criticize their game.

Perhaps something you think blatantly sucks, they enjoy? Or maybe its something they can overlook because there are other aspects of the game they like? Crazy, i know.

From what i gather, the developers of  Mortal Online sold a bag of goods which weren't as advertised, nevermind disc and sub problems. So yes, if the game can barely get out of it own way,  of course the trolls will outnumer the fanbois.

I've never found the amusement here (in red), though i am curious what MMO you play, or do you just go around trolling forums and not offer anything constructive all ?

But hey, if its what enjoy, knock yourself out i guess.

Originally posted by Marcus-

Originally posted by dimnikar

Originally posted by Grotar89

GW2 is amssive sucess and will only continue to grow, guess haters will always find some reason  to hate it.

I feel sry for them they are wasting their time and energy on bashing the game since they dont have any game to play.

 

I actively point out GW2s faults (i.e., bashing), yet have TONS upon TONS of games to play. That's just so odd, right?

 

ONTOPIC: I'd like to point out that while GW2 is a success on PC box sales wise for sure, determining whether it's a MMO success will only be possible if they release active user numbers (which won't happen, I assure you).

We will know if it's a MMO success when the 1st expansion hits, and even then only if they release sales numbers for the expansion (NOTE: they never did for GW1 expansions, altough part of that was due to the strange bundling they did back then).

What defines an MMO success? How many boxes must be sold that folks would actually say "success"?

 

3 million?  Or does it need to go up to 4 million expansion "boxes" sold? Is it possible to sell 2 million boxes, and then have enough income through the BLT to support the game and future expansions?  Can a an MMO have 400k active players and make enough money to be a success?  Or is there some arbitrary number it must have that the MMO community has deemed acceptable?

I'd say what he's getting at for an "MMO success" is initial player retention and long term activity and growth. There isn't a magical number to hit for that, but probably more dependent on how many boxes you sold. Would think a player retention rate of 50% would be extremely sucessful in this day of MMOs, although the more boxes you sell the lower percentage you can probably get away with for retention.

Like most pseudo MMO hybrids, it's really fun for a few months, then it just isn't anymore. Progression keeps people playing for years, this game lacks progression IMO.

GW1 was like this for me as well, Fury was another game, I'm sure there are others I'm still just in a fog this morning. Good games, but no staying power.

GW2 is a massive success, thats simply an undeniable fact. Many that don't like the game don't understand why so they try and refute it success and try to predict its eventual doom. 

Heres the bottom line on why it is and will remain one of the top MMO's in players, play time and popularity. 

It appeals to a much larger player type than many of us belong to. Its as simple as that. 

Those looking for a second life aren't going to find that in GW2. Its not a game you can escape into for 10+ hours a day. Those looking for this are going to be understandably dissapointed. This group isn't the largest out there though, it's actually relatively small in comparison. 

Those looking for a hardcore game aren't going to find that in GW2. Theres no full loot, no FFA PvP, no perma death, no stat loss, no fear of loss on anything really or anything remotely close to that. Griefing potential is next to non existant. This group isn't as large either. 

What Anet did was provide an MMO without a monthly fee that was extremely polished. An MMO that was designed to be hopped in and out of with ease that didn't gate fun behind a lot of arbitrary time sinks. An MMO that offered a risk free and care free environment where everyone was your ally and never competition unless you wanted it and so on. This appeals to a rather large player base. 

The games still very active, it's still selling fairly well, its still one of the most discussed, and its still one of the highest rated. 

I want to start out by saying that I am an ArenaNet fanboy.  I openly admit that I was greatly disappointed with Guild Wars 2.  Is Guild Wars 2 a failure?  No.  In fact they sold many times the number of boxes than they had expected to and retained more players than NCsoft or ArenaNet expected to retain. 

I have jumped across four different servers in the last two months and have found that most of them are at capacity most of the time.  I have yet to find a single server where all of the events (quests) are actually working.  From what I have seen, only about a quarter of the events I know exist are actually working.  There were several promises made when development started that were not kept.  Those promises include; mounts, player housing and way too many more.

The game just does not feel like Guild Wars, it’s a whole different beast.  I am still not sure (even after hundreds of hours) if I like the game.  I really wish they would release a new expansion for the original Guild Wars.  At least there the quests worked.

Originally posted by kzaske

I want to start out by saying that I am an ArenaNet fanboy.  I openly admit that I was greatly disappointed with Guild Wars 2.  Is Guild Wars 2 a failure?  No.  In fact they sold many times the number of boxes than they had expected to and retained more players than NCsoft or ArenaNet expected to retain. 

I have jumped across four different servers in the last two months and have found that most of them are at capacity most of the time.  I have yet to find a single server where all of the events (quests) are actually working.  From what I have seen, only about a quarter of the events I know exist are actually working.  There were several promises made when development started that were not kept.  Those promises include; mounts, player housing and way too many more.

The game just does not feel like Guild Wars, it’s a whole different beast.  I am still not sure (even after hundreds of hours) if I like the game.  I really wish they would release a new expansion for the original Guild Wars.  At least there the quests worked.

This is person that understands that him being dissapointed doesnt matter when objective indiacators clearly show its a success. Or vice versa. Kudos to you.

On other note, hopefully they will know how to carry with success and add to the game, some events are broken, some break randomly but hopefully they will work it out.

And hopefully they learned their lesson what to do and what not to do, since its obvious thah they made few big mistakes since launch, but what is reassuring is admitting those mistakes.

Anyway, 1 big + is that you dont have to pay them 15/month to keep playing and hoping them fixing stuff. If you are happy you can throw few bucks their way, if you are OK you can keep playing, and if you dont like it dont play it and you can easily return whenever you want without 15 entrnce fee just to check stuff out.

I guess my question is what defines 'success' in this context?   Who decides how it is derived?

Success in general is subjective (unless you pull in financials which I dont think anyone has the actual numbers here) -- so hard to see how you could argue one way or another effectively?

But more importantly - why does it matter?  It has nothing to do with liking/disliking the game.

Originally posted by kzaske

I want to start out by saying that I am an ArenaNet fanboy.  I openly admit that I was greatly disappointed with Guild Wars 2.  Is Guild Wars 2 a failure?  No.  In fact they sold many times the number of boxes than they had expected to and retained more players than NCsoft or ArenaNet expected to retain. 

I have jumped across four different servers in the last two months and have found that most of them are at capacity most of the time.  I have yet to find a single server where all of the events (quests) are actually working.  From what I have seen, only about a quarter of the events I know exist are actually working.  There were several promises made when development started that were not kept.  Those promises include; mounts, player housing and way too many more.

The game just does not feel like Guild Wars, it’s a whole different beast.  I am still not sure (even after hundreds of hours) if I like the game.  I really wish they would release a new expansion for the original Guild Wars.  At least there the quests worked.

Out of curiousity where did they say GW2 was going to feel like GW1?  Honestly I only played a few levels of GW1 but completely expected GW2 to be different.

GW2 is in a funny, but unique spot.  They have created something different.  Outside of the revolutionary / evolutionary debate it doesn't play like the MMOs we are used to.  This is going to (and from observation here and other forums) and has split the MMO playerbase.  Progression versus (what I call) exploration or horizontal progression.

Interesting enough the game launches and soon after they implement 'small' progression via the ascended gear.  It begs the question of which audience with ANet ultimately cater to.  Try to succeed pleasing both sides and both will hate it. 

Curious to see how the updates/expansions play out this year.  I still say they have a great opportunity for a living world MMO but not sure if they'll invest in the necessary systems to do it.  I mean you add housing, fishing, RP elements, expand the world, and you got an interesting concept that at least piques my curiousity.

Going to watch this one.. (as I play it along with my other MMOs)

I am going to do some simple and mostly made up math here. Try to pay attention.

assuming GW2 sold 3 million boxes: 3,000,000

(https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/)

and it cost about half as much as SWTOR to make: $100,000,000

(http://www.gamespot.com/news/star-wars-the-old-republic-cost-200-million-to-develop-6348959)

and lets assume that every box sold was a normal edition sold in a retail chain store: $60

and assume that 30% of that profit goes to what not and blah blah blah to the retailers or shipping or boxing.

Than we are left with 3,000,000 * 60 = $180,000,000 and taking out the store cuts we get 

$180,000,000 * 70% (cause 30% goes to what not) = 126,000,000 

take out costs: 126,000,000 - 100,000,000 = $26,000,000

Im going to go with in this worst case scenario that GW2 was a success in every sense of the word. 

At this point, it's pretty clear that a lot of people are more worried about their "cred" (which bet did they place, how can I be sure my ass is covered, I was right all along [insert statistics]) than ever had any concern about or interest in the game itself.

Forum cred. Is anything else quite so useless guarded with so much passion?

Originally posted by Marcus-

Originally posted by dimnikar

Originally posted by Grotar89

GW2 is amssive sucess and will only continue to grow, guess haters will always find some reason  to hate it.

I feel sry for them they are wasting their time and energy on bashing the game since they dont have any game to play.

 

I actively point out GW2s faults (i.e., bashing), yet have TONS upon TONS of games to play. That's just so odd, right?

 

ONTOPIC: I'd like to point out that while GW2 is a success on PC box sales wise for sure, determining whether it's a MMO success will only be possible if they release active user numbers (which won't happen, I assure you).

We will know if it's a MMO success when the 1st expansion hits, and even then only if they release sales numbers for the expansion (NOTE: they never did for GW1 expansions, altough part of that was due to the strange bundling they did back then).

What defines an MMO success? How many boxes must be sold that folks would actually say "success"?

 

3 million?  Or does it need to go up to 4 million expansion "boxes" sold? Is it possible to sell 2 million boxes, and then have enough income through the BLT to support the game and future expansions?  Can a an MMO have 400k active players and make enough money to be a success?  Or is there some arbitrary number it must have that the MMO community has deemed acceptable?

I apologize, I assumed everyone on these forums knew what constitutes a successful MMO. It's not boxes sold; we've seen enough evidence of that through "record breaking" sales of WAR, SWTOR and some others. Unless that was the business plan and they developed a bunch of patches in advance (think on-disc DLC, Capcom style).

But let me explain; for it to be a financial success for the publisher/developer, it needs to meet projected profits. In case of an MMO, in-house expetations extend beyond initial box sales, usually through implementation of subs, cash shops, or a combination thereof. We rarely - if ever, know if a game was a financial success; we usually aren't given the numbers (invesment, projected profits, etc). We speculate based on server merges, conversions to different business models, etc.

If it's a sucess in terms of being a good game for *US* is much easier to figure out, however, and depends fully on player retention. Having it be a financial success is a prerequisite - or else the game goes into "maintenance mode" of infrequent updates and "bare essentials" upkeep. You can notice players leaving easily enough by encountering ghost servers and through declining active user numbers.

With GW2s B2P model, the second kind of success will only be accurately known if they release expansion sales separately (as opposed to what they did with GW1).

I hope we're on the same page now.