Sounds wrong to me, unless this is NA only.  There are 55 NA server, like 20-30 euro and 10 or so oceanic.  Many of the oceanic hit full on destro.  The NA probably average to medium.

I would guess that across all primetimes there are about 60k concurrent users.  Which would be like 500k.  With the 1:10 subs versus concurrent.

That is very rough math but it would have to be off by double to meet this projection.

Originally posted by Blodpls

Originally posted by Thachsanh

Originally posted by Blodpls

Originally posted by Thachsanh

Originally posted by LiquidWolf

EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week.

Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game.

"Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview.

But he admitted that the number could jump as updates and expansion packs are released, adding that it would take about "six months or so" to get an idea of the MMORPG's sustainable user base.

--------------

Don't mislead people by reporting skewed information.

 

The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.

HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.

Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?

I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.

Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.

 

This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major investors that are the owners of EA. 

He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit. 

I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.

 

 

I don't think so. I would like to give him credit but it doesn't seem he deserve it. He said in the interview that he based his projection on a statement made by an EA rep. That statement was EA hope to break even on its investment. And then in the next sentense, you can see that he also make his analysis based on initial sale data which could be very very rough at this point because the game has not even officially release for a week yet. Plus the big shopping season is comming (Thanksgiving, Christmas). Make a projection on what the subscriber population would be at this point, even attemp to analyze it at this point is bad because the sale number of the shopping season will push his data out of whack.

Regarding the what information he know, judging by the article, he does not know much. Anyway, Mythic and EA are both public trading companies. Information regarding sale and subscription are kept pretty tight. If this guy can broadcasting these things to a new site like this, he probably does not know much.

 

Without doubt he has taken everything that you have just mentioned and a large number of other variable's into account. 

He isn't just pulling that figure out of his ass after a few minutes consideration. 

These people are not paid such a large amount of money for doing next to nothing.

 

If you read that article carefully, you will realize that this article is a prediction of what the subscription number of WAR EVENTUALLY will be, not right now. If it's a prediction of what the subscription number WAR has right now or a short term projection then I can take his number. But no, it's about eventually WAR subscription will settle down to 250k sub which could be 1 year from now, 2 years from now, who know. Which is why I said his prediction is bullshit base on the data he has now. You just have too little data to make this kind of analysis.

Originally posted by ethion

Based on looking at xfire data etc I'd say that war is way more then 250k right now.  I'd estimate it is between 500k and 1M currently.  But of course the first month is pretty meaningless any hyped game will do pretty well.  What matters is how it looks in 2-3 months, trending up or down and how steeply.

I mean LoTR probably hit 400-500K before ramping down to something around 100-150k.  AoC probably hit 600-700k and is down to maybe 150k and still dropping.  So the question is what will War look like in 3 months.

Yeah, it's really not hard to do estimates pulling information gathered from different, independant sources.  Warhammer shipped about as many boxes as AOC.  AOC sold about 800k boxes, which is probably around what Warhammer has sold.... a few weeks after launch, AOC had 600k players still playing.

Everything (so far) matches up exactly to what AOC was at.  Same boxes shipped, same sold,  nearly the same number of servers.    Xfire numbers look nearly identical to AOC at launch..

It's doubtful Warhammer is at a million yet, there would be more issues with server queues and a bigger indication on xfire.  It's also not realistic to think they've sold that many boxes that fast compared to other games(and the numerous low population servers kinda support that).

The other thing to watch is weekly game sales charts.  AOC had a huge first two weeks.. beating out even WOW on the sales chart... it then dropped to #50 almost overnight.   Warhammer has already dropped to #17 which basically means Warhammer is pretty much near it's peak right now.  In comparison, WOW continues to hold 5 of the top 21 spots ( Wraith #1, Wraith CE, BC, Battlechest and Vanilla).

I do think the analyst was a bit low..  War is probably at 600k now and will be at 400k in a month.

Originally posted by Nikoz78

Originally posted by Azrile

The reason being is that there isnt' anywhere else for 'wow-haters' to go. 

That's funny.

Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.

This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?

If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.

Easy mode kiddie game? Any game can be seen as a kiddie game. Its all about how much effort your willing to put in. Just becuase you can't go full loot, kill anyone, or RvR anywhere does not mean its easy. Its called a game people play to have fun not to get their asses stomped on by people who have way to much time to play.

Originally posted by Arndur

Originally posted by Nikoz78

Originally posted by Azrile

The reason being is that there isnt' anywhere else for 'wow-haters' to go. 

That's funny.

Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.

This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?

If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.

 

Easy mode kiddie game? Any game can be seen as a kiddie game. Its all about how much effort your willing to put in. Just becuase you can't go full loot, kill anyone, or RvR anywhere does not mean its easy. Its called a game people play to have fun not to get their asses stomped on by people who have way to much time to play.

Not true, in wow all you need to do is pick the good class/classes, get the best gear, then have fun solo pvping.  Warhammer there is no good class, just classes that fit into the larger picture of a perfect group.  Warhammer requires teamwork and strategy, despite most people ar currently RvRing like its a solo killing spree.

I can honestly say most of the kids who are awash with fustration in the game, for whatever reasons, are wow players when i ask.  They seem to not like having to find things on their own and just want everything handed to them. 

Most non wow players dont get fustrated with games like that, they think it though, explore, trial and error if needed.  To me that is half the fun of mmo's.  Also ive noticed that most wow players play RvR only to win, and wont play if they arnt winning. Another source of fustration ive seen in game and in forums.

So to say that this game is easy mode isnt really true, although it seems that finding the action and ease of entry into a decen RvR fight would be on easy mode, but that is a good thing.

Originally posted by Thachsanh

Originally posted by Blodpls

Originally posted by Thachsanh

Originally posted by Blodpls

Originally posted by Thachsanh

Originally posted by LiquidWolf

EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week.

Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game.

"Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview.

But he admitted that the number could jump as updates and expansion packs are released, adding that it would take about "six months or so" to get an idea of the MMORPG's sustainable user base.

--------------

Don't mislead people by reporting skewed information.

 

The problem with this so called analist is that he has no data to backup this claim that the subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000 - 300,000. Zip, non, nothing, he has no idea, he does not even know what's in the line up for WAR that Mythic has planned. He has no idea what market the game will move into next.

HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.

Yet, he made up his claim by probably pulling it out of his behind. And we can still accept him as an business analist? What kind of analist could predict through very very rough initial sale data the future of a game subscriber population? I would like to know what data that he based his claim on?

I have read that article very carefully and it seems that just some bullshits put together. With every bit of data that he has right now, at best he can estimate how many user the game has right now, he has no history data to trend, he has no inside knowledge to base his analysis on. Just a bunch of bullshit made up out of thin air.

Who would have thought WoW could blow out of propotion like that? Actually, those guys at Blizzard probably can guess that from the beginning, why? Because The9 ( the Chinese WoW publisher) approached Blizzard when the game still in open beta to strike a deal. But for outsider who has no such knowledge of that kind of information nobody could even make a wild guess that WoW will have 10 millions subscribers.

 

This man is employed by a company who's paymasters include pension funds, investment banks and other major investors that are the owners of EA. 

He probably receives an extremely large pay check to analyse these kinds of things and most likely has access to information that is not available to the general public, so saying "He has absolutely no idea" is probably not giving him enough credit. 

I'm not saying he is 100% correct (I personally think it will have more subs than that) but it should not be just discounted out of hand.

 

 

I don't think so. I would like to give him credit but it doesn't seem he deserve it. He said in the interview that he based his projection on a statement made by an EA rep. That statement was EA hope to break even on its investment. And then in the next sentense, you can see that he also make his analysis based on initial sale data which could be very very rough at this point because the game has not even officially release for a week yet. Plus the big shopping season is comming (Thanksgiving, Christmas). Make a projection on what the subscriber population would be at this point, even attemp to analyze it at this point is bad because the sale number of the shopping season will push his data out of whack.

Regarding the what information he know, judging by the article, he does not know much. Anyway, Mythic and EA are both public trading companies. Information regarding sale and subscription are kept pretty tight. If this guy can broadcasting these things to a new site like this, he probably does not know much.

 

Without doubt he has taken everything that you have just mentioned and a large number of other variable's into account. 

He isn't just pulling that figure out of his ass after a few minutes consideration. 

These people are not paid such a large amount of money for doing next to nothing.

 

 

If you read that article carefully, you will realize that this article is a prediction of what the subscription number of WAR EVENTUALLY will be, not right now. If it's a prediction of what the subscription number WAR has right now or a short term projection then I can take his number. But no, it's about eventually WAR subscription will settle down to 250k sub which could be 1 year from now, 2 years from now, who know. Which is why I said his prediction is bullshit base on the data he has now. You just have too little data to make this kind of analysis.

They have over 10 years of data from previous mmo releases that they can use to make direct comparisons.

The software that these analysts use is extremely sophisticated. They are not fail proof, and how much information he has access to regarding last weeks WAR sales is obviously a factor, but they are normally accurate enough to provide useful data.

If it wasn't then companies wouldn't bother using such techniques. 

Originally posted by crunchyblack

They seem to not like having to find things on their own and just want everything handed to them.

But that is exactly what Warhammer does. It holds your hand. Not just at starting levels, it is fundamentally an "easy mode" game (ask an objective pre-open-beta tester), designed to minimize any learning curve. That may be a good thing honestly, but what this causes is a very large degree of over simplifying the game play and game world. In a game that is supposed to be an RPG that is a very bad thing.

Ask any longtime Warhammer fan (talking about the 25 year old table top RPG) what they think of Warhammer Online. In fact, head over the the Warhammer PnP forums and take a look.

This game is just one more nail in the coffin of what used to be MMORPG's. The folks who's first experience was World of Warcraft will never understand.

Warhammer and World of Warcraft are the same game essentially.

It's the shallow, trendy pop music of whats left of our genera. Pop music outsells all other kinds of music. But honestlyly, that does make it any less shallow?

The truth is I feel sorry for all you cats who have never had the chance to experience what your really missing.

Originally posted by Azrile

But I think the big test with War is how good Lake Wintergrasp ends up being in WOW.   The zone so far is amazing, with moveable seige weapons, troop transports, destrutable walls and buildings, fighter plans and bombers etc etc.   If the thing you like most about a MMORPG is seiging, wow is really going to blow Warhammer away.  There are just so many more things to do with seiging than warhammer offers.

Thats the thing.. Since it comes AFTER WAR all it has to do, is watch and see what was "wrong" and just improve upon it... And soon of course Mythic will watch that, and just make improvements to that and in the end we have something called "competition".. yeah.. New vocabulary today folks...

People who keep bobbling back and forth because of small minor aditions are not the ones they are after, but the ones that see a solid difference and stick with it.. Repeat customers are wayy more sought after than the "just stopping in" customer from out of town if ya catch my drift..

Originally posted by Professor78

Originally posted by banthis

Its a guestimation based on what EA hopes to have it has nothing to do with reality.  Anyone that takes this post as truth is retarded at the moment.  I'm not saying it'll make a million but I am saying that the OP is trying to twist the wording of the article to his own benefit.

250K is rather good in normal standards. Only one Game ever got bloated with more than 500K and thats WoW not even EQ 1 or 2 ever reached a Million and they're considered finicial successes because they are making a profit.

 

LOTRO and FFXI surpass 500k

FFXI was over 1 million at one point.  LotRO might've been over 500k but it wasn't for very long.

Originally posted by Nikoz78

Originally posted by Azrile

The reason being is that there isnt' anywhere else for 'wow-haters' to go. 

That's funny.

Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.

This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?

If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.

This post wins the thread, this WAR forum, all the WAR forums, all the MMO forums and all the internet.

I like the WAR siege weapons, they are more what you'd expect, the ones I saw on WoW and beta footage look like someones child's drawing they stuck on the fridge.

---

Originally posted by Nikoz78

Ask any longtime Warhammer fan (talking about the 25 year old table top RPG) what they think of Warhammer Online. In fact, head over the the Warhammer PnP forums and take a look.
This game is just one more nail in the coffin of what used to be MMORPG's. The folks who's first experience was World of Warcraft will never understand.

---

Whoa, whoa where are you finding this? Warhammer is a tabletop game first of all not a PnP, and the vast majority of posts on the regular RPG forums have been really positive. Do you have a direct link?

Beyond that, Warhammer is a game first and foremost. Part of it's identity is that it doesn't take itself too serious. It is somehow both strangely addicting without stealing away with your real life.

If you are looking for an escapist virtual WORLD where you can put more effort into your character's development than you do your own, Warhammer is not it. You'll never forget you're playing a game for the fun of it, and I personally like it that way.

Originally posted by Professor78

I realy don't know where mmogchart get there fighures from, as most games don'y officialy release them (ffxi excluded, as they do)

It's pure guesswork, educated they claim. They say so themselfes. It's loosely based on sales figures, but basically, it's worthless. My guess as good as his, only difference is that he got a site people visit, and some paperwork he claim support his guesswork.

Oh, and by the way, watched that siege video from WoW. That shit looked bloody boring. When I see for me siege warfare its alot more epic than that. In siege warfare you knock down walls and shit, not kill mobs with it. It's basically the TBC bombruns only this time on the ground. They where a little fun the first few times, but got damn boring after a while. I simply can't believe that is the best use Blizzard found for the siege engines though. They usually do stuff alot better than that.

I'm expecting the game to settle under a million ... but not *that* low

I think he's more talking about what they are expecting to at least get though. Based on break even point this would be their sweet spot. More = profit.

More a statement for new developers to be honest: "Come on in! You don't need to have millions of subs on your new MMO, 250k will already break you even!"

they said 650k preorders. It's kinda hard to predict # of subs this early.

With WOW population dwindling + diablo 3 coming, expect people to sit with war+diablo 3, and not so much with wow (short term/casual over long term/grinds)

Originally posted by darkraptor

they said 650k preorders. It's kinda hard to predict # of subs this early.

 

With WOW population dwindling + diablo 3 coming, expect people to sit with war+diablo 3, and not so much with wow (short term/casual over long term/grinds)

 

Dwindling? Based on what?

I'm seeing the same dip I saw before TBC, I wouldn't say anything on population for WoW yet till Wotlk has come and gone

---

Originally posted by kazson
with 26 Low Order population servers during prime time....sounds about right
 
http://www.massively.com/2008/09/24/analyst--war-subscriptions-will-eventually-settle-around-250000/

---

lol, there is NOT 26 low population servers during prime time.

Hell, mine has queues on order side every single night.

---

Originally posted by altairzq

---

Originally posted by Nikoz78

---

Originally posted by Azrile

The reason being is that there isnt' anywhere else for 'wow-haters' to go. 

---

That's funny.
Because this type of cookie-cutter, easy-mode kiddie game is exactly what the so-called "WoW haters" hate.
This game is full of ex-WoW players. Why would a fan of genuine massive online worlds (you know, those things called RPG's - maybe you've heard of them?) want to play with this pre-school toy?
If I want to PvP I'll stick to DAoC, thanks.

---

 
This post wins the thread, this WAR forum, all the WAR forums, all the MMO forums and all the internet.

---

Yeah, take your prize and go home now. Oh wait, you didn't win anything! Gawd you have to love mmorpg.com. The most cynical and crappy mmo forums today.

The article basically said some nobody thinks they game may settle at around 250k subs.

The whole thing is stupid and based upon prediction that doesn't even make sense. I'm not interested in that crap.

Originally posted by Sulinar

The article basically said some nobody thinks they game may settle at around 250k subs.

The whole thing is stupid and based upon prediction that doesn't even make sense. I'm not interested in that crap.

I agree with you...