Originally posted by babac

1.2mil boxes sold / 800k registered users...., yes this game is dead

It's about the number of people that SUBSCRIBE to the game and actually start paying monthly fees.

Age of Conan also sold over 800k boxes and had 800k registered users!

How many did actually subsribe there?

Great Game, eveyone I know is loving it!

Originally posted by redOrc

There may be  1Mil people who will pay 50$ for playing a new game for a month.

When you buy a non MMO game, you rarely play it more than a month. So the game company made 50Mil out of this game. It covers the expenses.

But  out of those 1Mil buyers, only a fraction will resub, and this is where the real money is.

 

Actually, a lot of those money goes to retailers so EA/Mythic only gets about half that sum. The subs is a different matter unless people buy gamecards it all go inte the devs pockets.

So if 25% will play the game for 4 months they get the same sum, long time subs are the way to make money. EQ2 have given SOE a lot of money even though it doesn't have so many players,

But it seems like the market for monthly paying games isn't growing anymore, right now most players just change around the games, maybe Arenanets way of bussiness will be the future one after all (Barnett did say in a interview a year ago that the way of Guildwars doesn't work but it sure seems so to me).

There is maybe 5 or 6 million players in the western world that pays montly fees to play, and the market have been standing still for at least a year. If that way of business shall continue we do need a new wow that pulls a lot of new players in.

Or we might either play free games with itemsshops like the asians or games lie Guildwars.

I always thought they made too many servers at launch.

To the Op...I didnt know a majority was 1 person????? LOL

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by redOrc

There may be  1Mil people who will pay 50$ for playing a new game for a month.

When you buy a non MMO game, you rarely play it more than a month. So the game company made 50Mil out of this game. It covers the expenses.

But  out of those 1Mil buyers, only a fraction will resub, and this is where the real money is.

 

 

Actually, a lot of those money goes to retailers so EA/Mythic only gets about half that sum. The subs is a different matter unless people buy gamecards it all go inte the devs pockets.

So if 25% will play the game for 4 months they get the same sum, long time subs are the way to make money. EQ2 have given SOE a lot of money even though it doesn't have so many players,

But it seems like the market for monthly paying games isn't growing anymore, right now most players just change around the games, maybe Arenanets way of bussiness will be the future one after all (Barnett did say in a interview a year ago that the way of Guildwars doesn't work but it sure seems so to me).

There is maybe 5 or 6 million players in the western world that pays montly fees to play, and the market have been standing still for at least a year. If that way of business shall continue we do need a new wow that pulls a lot of new players in.

Or we might either play free games with itemsshops like the asians or games lie Guildwars.

The company only gets about 20% of box sales in NA, and about 17% in EU.   This is pretty standard in the entire industry.

Well I don't think the game is epically failing but it is quite obvious this game was majorly overhyped since day 1. WAR had some nice ideas but they was just too dull and boring such as PQs. PQs are nothing more than killing a ton of mobs for a chance at what they consider good items. Scenarios were really nothing new, they seemed more like BGs from WOW and GVG from Guild Wars. I wish WAR would have turned out to be more fun but that was not the case unfortunately. All that money wasted on promoting the game, they simply could have put that time and effort into making WAR a better game rather than seeing Paul and Jeff goof around in their videos.

To be honest, even if Im not playing the game anymore, I think this was one of the necessary changes, the game isn't gonna die if they keep listening to their playerbase, even if the changes hurt their image (a game merging servers, omfg!!!) it will end up better for the ones who decide to play.

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Originally posted by babac

1.2mil boxes sold / 800k registered users...., yes this game is dead

 

It's about the number of people that SUBSCRIBE to the game and actually start paying monthly fees.

Age of Conan also sold over 800k boxes and had 800k registered users!

How many did actually subsribe there?

 

In NA, 70%+.  They already have 250k subs in NA.  800k active worldwide (active -as you pointed out- means subs+free month).

www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/239/view/forums/thread/209963

Hard to say anything really.

The server/population situation is completely whacked.  Also I think a lot of people are subbed and not playing.

I doubt even Mythic knows the true state of the game.

Originally posted by Arcken

Originally posted by Geriden

WAR is a dumbed down version of WoW and anyone who says otherwise is a fan boy or a total retard.

 

WoW is a dumbed down version of EQ and anyone who says otherwise is a fan boy or a total retard.

There, fixed your post.

No!

WoW took most of it's stuff from Asheron's Call 2, abbrivated as AC2.

But I'm not surprised that most doesn't know this since AC2 got closed down in 2005 and never made much of a stir amongst the online community.

So, will server mergers still be a good thing when they need to get rid of another 40% of the servers in a couple months?

Also, at least Funcom was man enough to admit that AoC lost half its players after the first month.

Originally posted by Xiaoki

So, will server mergers still be a good thing when they need to get rid of another 40% of the servers in a couple months?

Also, at least Funcom was man enough to admit that AoC lost half its players after the first month.

For people who are actually playing the game and generally are happy, server merges are a great thing.

For the company backing the game, it's a terrible thing.  Not only is it a PR nightmare, but it shows there is something critically wrong with core features of the game if 50% of your expected player base is no longer playing the game.  Say anything you like, but Mythic EXPECTED these servers to be needed or they wouldn't have launched them all.  Launching servers is no easy task, and certainly dealing with server merges isn't easy either.

The comment about funcom admitting their problems is kinda ironic since MJ in his little speech a few weeks ago used something like ' 3% loss'...  which is just absurb when you think about them now having to shut down 40% of their servers.

Originally posted by Dingdongdang

server merges = death

6 weeks in and they arent adding servers...they arent even stable, they are killing almost 22 servers.

Remember the queues and login issues with WoW, due to it's unexpected popularity?  Is it that unlikely Mythic/EA planned ahead to have enough servers up and running to handle the initial influx at launch and planned to consolidate servers once the player base stabilized?

Sounds like good planning to me.

I am wondering when Devs will learn that if people want WoW they will PLAY WOW. Not a WoW sim with a different skin and some added options.

Wake up Devs and realize you have to break into something new to draw people, NOT follow WoWs shadow.

Can we please find some devs with the nads to design a MMO with creativity, quality, and originality? That IS NOT BETA when released.

Maybe a next gen sandbox?

O well at least there is EVE for us sandbox lovers.

Originally posted by Azrile

The comment about funcom admitting their problems is kinda ironic since MJ in his little speech a few weeks ago used something like ' 3% loss'...  which is just absurb when you think about them now having to shut down 40% of their servers.

You have a very strange logic. This is not a server merge. Why? Do you know what a server merge is?

A server merge is a force operation where 2 or more servers' population consolidated into 1.

What they are doing now is not a force move. If you don't want to move, you don't have to go anywhere and they are also not gonna shutdown the server under you.

Do you think 100% population of a server will move to a new server? I don't think so, not in a short amount of time. Even there are a few customers left in the server and even if they are not even play regularly, they cannot shut those servers down. As long as there are customers on the server, they cannot shut that server down. If you really look at it, they have to eat the cost of running those almost empty servers so that people have a better game experience. In my opinion, they don't even have to eat the cost, the income from current subscribers actually more than enough to keep those servers open, if they cannot financially justify keeping those servers up, they would have to do a force merge. If you read that quarterly report, you would know that EA is losing money and have to lay off like 500 people. So, if Mythic cannot financially justify keeping those servers running, don't you think EA will up in their arse closing down those servers?

In PvE heavy games like WoW, people actually want to play on a less crowded servers. So, if WAR was designed like a traditional MMORPG like WOW people will not have any problem with the server popularion and distribution right now. Looking at the US server popularion and distribution, it actually pretty healthy. Remember the server cap was set to low and extend over time as player level up and spread out. That's why you see the server go from high to mid recently. The server caps were completely removed.

During the CE and pre-order period, the server queues were so long, people scream bloody murder and they released more servers although they should not do that. The server caps were low, yet, they were unwilling to lift the cap to keep the server stable and release more server instead to spread out the population. Notice this is the traditional way to handle population issue in an MMORPG. However, the reason why they should not do that is many features of the game required the server to be crowded to work well. This is the opposite of the traditional MMORPG and they were using the traditional way to handle the issue and that was a mistake.

Originally posted by Arcken

Originally posted by Geriden

WAR is a dumbed down version of WoW and anyone who says otherwise is a fan boy or a total retard.

 

WoW is a dumbed down version of EQ and anyone who says otherwise is a fan boy or a total retard.

There, fixed your post.

WoW was a dumded down version of EQ, and most MMO's that have launched since have been copies of WoW.

I am currently playing both EQ and WoW, each game for a different reason.

Originally posted by rhinok

Originally posted by Dingdongdang

server merges = death

6 weeks in and they arent adding servers...they arent even stable, they are killing almost 22 servers.

Remember the queues and login issues with WoW, due to it's unexpected popularity?  Is it that unlikely Mythic/EA planned ahead to have enough servers up and running to handle the initial influx at launch and planned to consolidate servers once the player base stabilized?

Sounds like good planning to me.

I do think that they learned the lesson of WOW and had servers available to launch quickly.  But they definitely did not plan on having to do mergers so soon.    They know their game and know that gameplay suffers on low-population servers.  You would not willingly submit your customers to that in the first  month of playing (the free month).  Also, if they were planning on doing mergers all along, they would have had the technology in place to do it as soon as it was needed.  It's basically been 'noticable' that there are a ton of low/low population servers for over a month now.  There simply would not be this 'lag' between them saying they need mergers (a few weeks ago) and them actually implementing them.. unless it is something they hadn't planned for.

I do think they need to be commended for actually doing the mergers now, rather then trying to delay the PR hit.   AOC suffered a lot because Funcom was afraid to admit there were problems and never merged servers.  They went so far as to put all servers on Medium to cover up their falling subscriptions.  Mythic is puting it's players gameplay over PR, which is a good thing.

Originally posted by Thachsanh

Originally posted by Azrile

The comment about funcom admitting their problems is kinda ironic since MJ in his little speech a few weeks ago used something like ' 3% loss'...  which is just absurb when you think about them now having to shut down 40% of their servers.

 

You have a very strange logic. This is not a server merge. Why? Do you know what a server merge is?

A server merge is a force operation where 2 or more servers' population consolidated into 1.

What they are doing now is not a force move. If you don't want to move, you don't have to go anywhere and they are also not gonna shutdown the server under you.

Do you think 100% population of a server will move to a new server? I don't think so, not in a short amount of time. Even there are a few customers left in the server and even if they are not even play regularly, they cannot shut those servers down. As long as there are customers on the server, they cannot shut that server down. If you really look at it, they have to eat the cost of running those almost empty servers so that people have a better game experience. In my opinion, they don't even have to eat the cost, the income from current subscribers actually more than enough to keep those servers open, if they cannot financially justify keeping those servers up, they would have to do a force merge. If you read that quarterly report, you would know that EA is losing money and have to lay off like 500 people. So, if Mythic cannot financially justify keeping those servers running, don't you think EA will up in their arse closing down those servers?

In PvE heavy games like WoW, people actually want to play on a less crowded servers. So, if WAR was designed like a traditional MMORPG like WOW people will not have any problem with the server popularion and distribution right now. Looking at the US server popularion and distribution, it actually pretty healthy. Remember the server cap was set to low and extend over time as player level up and spread out. That's why you see the server go from high to mid recently. The server caps were completely removed.

During the CE and pre-order period, the server queues were so long, people scream bloody murder and they released more servers although they should not do that. The server caps were low, yet, they were unwilling to lift the cap to keep the server stable and release more server instead to spread out the population. Notice this is the traditional way to handle population issue in an MMORPG. However, the reason why they should not do that is many features of the game required the server to be crowded to work well. This is the opposite of the traditional MMORPG and they were using the traditional way to handle the issue and that was a mistake.

Lets be honest and at least acknowledge this for what it really is ok?  These are server mergers dressed up in character transfer clothing even though servers are not officially closing down.  The populations on many servers are not healthy and that is why they are allowing low population servers to transfer to medium population servers.  This isn't some situation where there are to many crowded servers and they are evening out populations.  They are trying to consolodate a lot of small populations into a few healthy big ones.  I highly suspect the servers that allow transfers off are going to be decimated. 

Mythic could shut down the servers where people are allowed to transfer off, but that would be a gigantic blow to the games reputation.  The cost to run empty servers is far cheaper than word of mouth that the game is closing down servers after only a couple of weeks. 

These "mergers" are a good thing and kudos to Mythic for not sitting on their ass and pretending everything is fine like many posters here or other companies have done with other MMOs.  I'm actually excited to play again where I wasn't so much lately.

Originally posted by Azrile

Originally posted by rhinok

Originally posted by Dingdongdang

server merges = death

6 weeks in and they arent adding servers...they arent even stable, they are killing almost 22 servers.

Remember the queues and login issues with WoW, due to it's unexpected popularity?  Is it that unlikely Mythic/EA planned ahead to have enough servers up and running to handle the initial influx at launch and planned to consolidate servers once the player base stabilized?

Sounds like good planning to me.

 

I do think that they learned the lesson of WOW and had servers available to launch quickly.  But they definitely did not plan on having to do mergers so soon.    They know their game and know that gameplay suffers on low-population servers.  You would not willingly submit your customers to that in the first  month of playing (the free month).  Also, if they were planning on doing mergers all along, they would have had the technology in place to do it as soon as it was needed.  It's basically been 'noticable' that there are a ton of low/low population servers for over a month now.  There simply would not be this 'lag' between them saying they need mergers (a few weeks ago) and them actually implementing them.. unless it is something they hadn't planned for.

I do think they need to be commended for actually doing the mergers now, rather then trying to delay the PR hit.   AOC suffered a lot because Funcom was afraid to admit there were problems and never merged servers.  They went so far as to put all servers on Medium to cover up their falling subscriptions.  Mythic is puting it's players gameplay over PR, which is a good thing.

Well since you are considered the troll here....

The character migration will not solve the problems. I know this is very odd to say, but I have 3 main reasons why it will only help for a few weeks.

I will not start a 'war' here, but just refer to this in 4 weeks time.

Let's say I did a little field work these past 72 hours and a poll on "neutral" grounds. The stats were sampled with the help of 3 friends and we came up with no less than 644 War players or ex War players.

The first question was: Is War your first MMORPG? The second question was ....

See you in 4 weeks top.

PS. I can't help but think that EA already has the same conclusions in view of what they clearly said in their financial report. It's all there troll. Up to you to find it..... (and the obvious changes from previous launched info). Read between the lines and you'll find quite a few bombs in there.
Let's say their pre release marketing team really blew it because they should have known these data months in advance.

The OP doesn't have necessary "credentials" (one post wonder that signed up to the forums the day before yesterday) to even warrant us reading this post, much less wasting precious time responding.

Oh, gee look....I've already wasted 10 seconds of my valuable life just pointing that out.

/returns to gaming

Obvious troll is obvious.