They release trials when they need to boost dwindling subscriber numbers. Now I know they didn't have the greatest of releases but they still have decent subs right? I ask , because I dotn't play. The beta was enough to make me cancel and I haven't really followed it since.

Originally posted by Bama1267

 They release trials when they need to boost dwindling subscriber numbers. Now I know they didn't have the greatest of releases but they still have decent subs right? I ask , because I dotn't play. The beta was enough to make me cancel and I haven't really followed it since.

Some people estimate AoC has about 75k-90k active subs at the moment. It's not bad for a "mature" niche MMO like AoC but it's nothing like what FC management and investors expected (see funcom stock price).

Btw have they lifted nda on beta yet?

I understand and agree with your points, I really do. I'm only here because I was searching for honest updates as well.  We all pick and choose who to "listen" to and who to "ignore".

I didn't do beta or pre-order because I smelled the BS just in time.  I don't play now either.  I watched the outrage, read the posts, and tracked this thing like a bloodhound.  I shared and still do share the feelings of outrage at Funcom's attempted duping of my person. 

End result is that I still don't see anything that would entice me to buy this game as Funcom has not changed and I'm fed up with being blatantly ripped off by the mmo market.

Originally posted by Scaredgirl

Originally posted by Bama1267

 They release trials when they need to boost dwindling subscriber numbers. Now I know they didn't have the greatest of releases but they still have decent subs right? I ask , because I dotn't play. The beta was enough to make me cancel and I haven't really followed it since.

 

Some people estimate AoC has about 75k-90k active subs at the moment. It's not bad for a "mature" niche MMO like AoC but it's nothing like what FC management and investors expected (see funcom stock price).

Btw have they lifted nda on beta yet?

The correct answer is that noone but Funcom know the exact number of subscribers as they wont release this data. The only fact we have to go by is the Q3 report which suggests much higher number, but then again that were for the period a couple of months ago.

And no, the NDA will not be lifted for the beta.

Originally posted by Tjommis

The correct answer is that noone but Funcom know the exact number of subscribers as they wont release this data. The only fact we have to go by is the Q3 report which suggests much higher number, but then again that were for the period a couple of months ago.

And no, the NDA will not be lifted for the beta.

Why won't they release subscription numbers? I mean if it's going so well as some people here claim and AoC has 200k+ subscriptions, why won't FC release that data? Wouldn't it be god marketing for them to show rising sub numbers?

I believe sub numbers are still declining. The worst exodus has ended but people are still quiting the game every day.

I know people here don't believe in Xfire numbers but I think they give pretty good picture about what games people play. Right now AoC is number 55 in Xfire with less than 900 daily users. WAR has five times as many users and WoW of course has over HUNDRED times as many. If you would assume that WoW players in general use as much Xfire as AoC players, then we can estimate that AoC has about 90k-100k subscriptions. Could be more, could be less.

55th place is pretty bad for an MMO that was supposed to be "Number 2 MMO in western world".

Originally posted by Scaredgirl

Originally posted by Tjommis

The correct answer is that noone but Funcom know the exact number of subscribers as they wont release this data. The only fact we have to go by is the Q3 report which suggests much higher number, but then again that were for the period a couple of months ago.

And no, the NDA will not be lifted for the beta.

Why won't they release subscription numbers? I mean if it's going so well as some people here claim and AoC has 200k+ subscriptions, why won't FC release that data? Wouldn't it be god marketing for them to show rising sub numbers?

I believe sub numbers are still declining. The worst exodus has ended but people are still quiting the game every day.

I know people here don't believe in Xfire numbers but I think they give pretty good picture about what games people play. Right now AoC is number 55 in Xfire with less than 900 daily users. WAR has five times as many users and WoW of course has over HUNDRED times as many. If you would assume that WoW players in general use as much Xfire as AoC players, then we can estimate that AoC has about 90k-100k subscriptions. Could be more, could be less.

55th place is pretty bad for an MMO that was supposed to be "Number 2 MMO in western world".

They wont release these numbers since it is company policy of not doing so. The reason I know is that I have been playing Anarchy Online for a number of years and they never disclosed these numbers for that game either. They even did not publish them after the huge influx of players when  the basic AO game went F2P..

Noone knows if sub numbers are declining or increasing, allthough what I know is that I have seen a steady increase of players the last few weeks on two of the three servers I have characters on.

X-fire numbers might or might not say anything about how many plays the game. What is a fact is that they fell short on projecting the Q3 financial result for Funcom. The discussions are here and the report is at FC's home page. And why are X-fire numbers not such a good projection you might ask? My guess is the main reason is because the AoC cmmunity is older in age than the general MMO community. And they sure don't use a program such as X-fire.

My 2 copper

Originally posted by Tjommis

Originally posted by Scaredgirl

Originally posted by Tjommis

The correct answer is that noone but Funcom know the exact number of subscribers as they wont release this data. The only fact we have to go by is the Q3 report which suggests much higher number, but then again that were for the period a couple of months ago.

And no, the NDA will not be lifted for the beta.

Why won't they release subscription numbers? I mean if it's going so well as some people here claim and AoC has 200k+ subscriptions, why won't FC release that data? Wouldn't it be god marketing for them to show rising sub numbers?

I believe sub numbers are still declining. The worst exodus has ended but people are still quiting the game every day.

I know people here don't believe in Xfire numbers but I think they give pretty good picture about what games people play. Right now AoC is number 55 in Xfire with less than 900 daily users. WAR has five times as many users and WoW of course has over HUNDRED times as many. If you would assume that WoW players in general use as much Xfire as AoC players, then we can estimate that AoC has about 90k-100k subscriptions. Could be more, could be less.

55th place is pretty bad for an MMO that was supposed to be "Number 2 MMO in western world".

They wont release these numbers since it is company policy of not doing so. The reason I know is that I have been playing Anarchy Online for a number of years and they never disclosed these numbers for that game either. They even did not publish them after the huge influx of players when  the basic AO game went F2P..

Noone knows if sub numbers are declining or increasing, allthough what I know is that I have seen a steady increase of players the last few weeks on two of the three servers I have characters on.

X-fire numbers might or might not say anything about how many plays the game. What is a fact is that they fell short on projecting the Q3 financial result for Funcom. The discussions are here and the report is at FC's home page. And why are X-fire numbers not such a good projection you might ask? My guess is the main reason is because the AoC cmmunity is older in age than the general MMO community. And they sure don't use a program such as X-fire.

My 2 copper

They released numbers in the Q2 report. Its company policy when it serves their purposes.  Aside from the fact that they might be held responsible if they lied since subs are direct indicator of the companies profitability.  There are rules about publicly traded companies.  Aside from these reasons - ITS COMPANY POLICY doesnt wash with me... Esp since Q2 report contained sub numbers.

Originally posted by Tjommis

They wont release these numbers since it is company policy of not doing so. The reason I know is that I have been playing Anarchy Online for a number of years and they never disclosed these numbers for that game either. They even did not publish them after the huge influx of players when  the basic AO game went F2P..

Noone knows if sub numbers are declining or increasing, allthough what I know is that I have seen a steady increase of players the last few weeks on two of the three servers I have characters on.

X-fire numbers might or might not say anything about how many plays the game. What is a fact is that they fell short on projecting the Q3 financial result for Funcom. The discussions are here and the report is at FC's home page. And why are X-fire numbers not such a good projection you might ask? My guess is the main reason is because the AoC cmmunity is older in age than the general MMO community. And they sure don't use a program such as X-fire.

My 2 copper

Lol, "company policy"..

If AoC suddenly had 1 million subscriptions, you think we wouldn't see EE doing videos and interview every day boasting with their numbers? Give me a break. You are being very naive my friend.

Were you here at launch when EE and others were telling us how AoC sold over 750k boxes? They talked about their sub numbers then, ignoring their holy "company policy", what has changed? I'll tell you what has changed - 90% of those players quit.

The only reason why any MMO developer would be quiet about their numbers is because those numbers SUCK. Look at Blizzard. They are not quiet. Why should they be, they have 11 million subs. If AoC had 11 million subs, EE would be running around naked on the streets of Oslo shouting this news to everyone.

You talk about AoC players not using Xfire because they are older bla bla.. How do you know this? How do you know AoC players don't use as much Xfire as for example WoW players? You don't know. You are only speculating.

What we do know is that at the same time AoC started to lose players, Xfire numbers went down even faster than FC stock. Xfire numbers went down 90%+ You think this is coincidence? You think it was only those Xfire players that didn't like AoC?

Last but not least.. this "steady increase of players" you have been seeing is probably just people switching servers. Why don't you go to a less populated server and make a new character? You can play this fun minigame where you see how many levels you can get before you see another human player. I think you could easily go for level 40+.

I like it when people make sense.  Keep up the good work !  Anyway its ture that no respectable MMO has relased a free trial in the first 6th months.  That clearly means that if people are asking for one, they hold Conan with no esteem.   They probably just dont offer a free trial so you dont grow to hate the game more.

Originally posted by Tjommis

Originally posted by Scaredgirl

Originally posted by Tjommis

The correct answer is that noone but Funcom know the exact number of subscribers as they wont release this data. The only fact we have to go by is the Q3 report which suggests much higher number, but then again that were for the period a couple of months ago.

And no, the NDA will not be lifted for the beta.

Why won't they release subscription numbers? I mean if it's going so well as some people here claim and AoC has 200k+ subscriptions, why won't FC release that data? Wouldn't it be god marketing for them to show rising sub numbers?

I believe sub numbers are still declining. The worst exodus has ended but people are still quiting the game every day.

I know people here don't believe in Xfire numbers but I think they give pretty good picture about what games people play. Right now AoC is number 55 in Xfire with less than 900 daily users. WAR has five times as many users and WoW of course has over HUNDRED times as many. If you would assume that WoW players in general use as much Xfire as AoC players, then we can estimate that AoC has about 90k-100k subscriptions. Could be more, could be less.

55th place is pretty bad for an MMO that was supposed to be "Number 2 MMO in western world".

They wont release these numbers since it is company policy of not doing so. The reason I know is that I have been playing Anarchy Online for a number of years and they never disclosed these numbers for that game either. They even did not publish them after the huge influx of players when  the basic AO game went F2P..

Noone knows if sub numbers are declining or increasing, allthough what I know is that I have seen a steady increase of players the last few weeks on two of the three servers I have characters on.

X-fire numbers might or might not say anything about how many plays the game. What is a fact is that they fell short on projecting the Q3 financial result for Funcom. The discussions are here and the report is at FC's home page. And why are X-fire numbers not such a good projection you might ask? My guess is the main reason is because the AoC cmmunity is older in age than the general MMO community. And they sure don't use a program such as X-fire.

My 2 copper

http://www.abnnewswire.net/press/en/52437/Funcom_News.html

Here is FUNCOM releasing SUBS again for AOC. Seems when they had 400k + sub they wanted everyone to know about it, now NOT SO MUCH.

Originally posted by Scaredgirl

Originally posted by Tjommis

They wont release these numbers since it is company policy of not doing so. The reason I know is that I have been playing Anarchy Online for a number of years and they never disclosed these numbers for that game either. They even did not publish them after the huge influx of players when  the basic AO game went F2P..

Noone knows if sub numbers are declining or increasing, allthough what I know is that I have seen a steady increase of players the last few weeks on two of the three servers I have characters on.

X-fire numbers might or might not say anything about how many plays the game. What is a fact is that they fell short on projecting the Q3 financial result for Funcom. The discussions are here and the report is at FC's home page. And why are X-fire numbers not such a good projection you might ask? My guess is the main reason is because the AoC cmmunity is older in age than the general MMO community. And they sure don't use a program such as X-fire.

My 2 copper

 

Lol, "company policy"..

If AoC suddenly had 1 million subscriptions, you think we wouldn't see EE doing videos and interview every day boasting with their numbers? Give me a break. You are being very naive my friend.

Were you here at launch when EE and others were telling us how AoC sold over 750k boxes? They talked about their sub numbers then, ignoring their holy "company policy", what has changed? I'll tell you what has changed - 90% of those players quit.

The only reason why any MMO developer would be quiet about their numbers is because those numbers SUCK. Look at Blizzard. They are not quiet. Why should they be, they have 11 million subs. If AoC had 11 million subs, EE would be running around naked on the streets of Oslo shouting this news to everyone.

You talk about AoC players not using Xfire because they are older bla bla.. How do you know this? How do you know AoC players don't use as much Xfire as for example WoW players? You don't know. You are only speculating.

What we do know is that at the same time AoC started to lose players, Xfire numbers went down even faster than FC stock. Xfire numbers went down 90%+ You think this is coincidence? You think it was only those Xfire players that didn't like AoC?

Last but not least.. this "steady increase of players" you have been seeing is probably just people switching servers. Why don't you go to a less populated server and make a new character? You can play this fun minigame where you see how many levels you can get before you see another human player. I think you could easily go for level 40+.

1. Yeah, it is their company policy. I'm just stating it as it is and has been with FC over the years. No more. Your speculation about why that is so, is yours, allthough in my opinion this has hurt the company more than they have gained by it.

2. The reason I said the players seem to be older is based on two things. My own experience ingame never having heard about a single person using this program, combined with the polls being held at the forums showing these signs. Ofcourse this is not bullet proof data, but it fits with X-fire not being a good predictor for the Q3 results. That's it. Atleast it is backed up by something and not pure speculation; which is a label you seem to easily place on others.

Originally posted by Tjommis

1. Yeah, it is their company policy. I'm just stating it as it is and has been with FC over the years. No more. Your speculation about why that is so, is yours, allthough in my opinion this has hurt the company more than they have gained by it.

2. The reason I said the players seem to be older is based on two things. My own experience ingame never having heard about a single person using this program, combined with the polls being held at the forums showing these signs. Ofcourse this is not bullet proof data, but it fits with X-fire not being a good predictor for the Q3 results. That's it. Atleast it is backed up by something and not pure speculation; which is a label you seem to easily place on others.

1. Did you look at the link arkady09 posted above you? So much for your precious company policy.

2. Let me guess.. nobody in your guild is using Xfire? I know the concept of statistics might sound scary and difficult to understand but the fact is, statistics work. When they do and election poll, do you think they interview millions of people? No, they don't have to, it still works. The fact that you, your friends and or your mailman has ever used Xfire, doesn't mean ANYTHING. There ARE people who use it and they are not some weird crazy Xfire people. They are regular gamers like you and me. Young, old, big, small, smart or dumb. Welcome to the world of statistics!

Personally I trust Xfire 1000 times more than a Q3 report made by unethical management of FC with "mystery 6 million". I think people who use this particular AoC Q3 report to estimate subscription numbers are crazy in the head.

Originally posted by Teran1987

I'm not going to pay $35 or whatever the price has been lowered to for a game I'm not allowed to try first, and for a game that I got into the beta on, and my computer which wasn't even crap at the time couldn't even handle it. I want to be able to download a demo first or something geeze....

You know review sites are made for this reason alone. Read a few reviews see what they say they can't all be wrong. Does Burger King let you try out the Hamburger before you buy it

Originally posted by 7Fold

You know review sites are made for this reason alone. Read a few reviews see what they say they can't all be wrong. Does Burger King let you try out the Hamburger before you buy it

Actually most of them are. What happened with AoC reviews was that the people who reviewed AoC, did it right before launch after playing only for a couple of days. Most reviewers didn't even finish Tortage and they wrote the review only seeing a small part of AoC. We all know AoC changes a lot after Tortage.

If you read AoC reviews I recommend you look at the date it was written. Most recent review of AoC was made by Eurogamer. It's was actually a re-review where they changed AoC score from 8/10(?) to 6/10.

This is what IGN and Game trailer said about a month after the game was released.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU1oPqxye0s

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL1V1AUUZ8U&feature=related

I don't understand how people missed these reviews! I decided not to play after the so called OB then waited for 6 months and now I`m giving it a try.

Don`t tell me those who were in CB did not know the State of the Game before release and yet they chose to pre-order the game.

If there is someone to blame,players should blame themselves for pre-ordering CE/ rushing on every single MMO released and then they whine for missing content

---

Originally posted by Ngeldu5t
This is what IGN and Game trailer said about a month after the game was released.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU1oPqxye0s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL1V1AUUZ8U&feature=related
I don't understand how people missed these reviews! I decided not to play after the so called OB then waited for 6 months and now I`m giving it a try.
Don`t tell me those who were in CB did not know the State of the Game before release and yet they chose to pre-order the game.
If there is someone to blame,players should blame themselves for pre-ordering CE/ rushing on every single MMO released and then they whine for missing content
 

---

Actually, I was in AoC Closed Beta for quite awhile and I can tell you right now that and overall majority of Closed Beta testers absolutely knew that the state of the game at Launch was going to be horrible. There were numerous post on the Beta forums begging FC to not launch the game because of all of the problems it was having.
Yes, the Closed Beta testers informed FC ALL THE TIME about ongoing bugs but these bugs never got fixed. Towards the end of Beta, FC started to acknowledge that there were alot of game breaking bugs in the game but that they had a "Miracle Patch" that they were going to put in right before Launch that would fix the majority of bugs as well as increasing game performance. Well, that "Miracle Patch" actually made the game worse.
Also, there were numerous posts on the Closed Beta forums asking the testers if they were going to pre-order the game and 80% of these testers voted that they would NOT be pre-ordering this game due to all of the issues that it was having, however they would consider buying the game about 2 or 3 months after Launch when the game got tweaked a bit more.
So, for those people out there who try to put ANY blame on the Closed Beta testers. We tested the game well and we documented all the bugs that we found and set them in like we were suppose to. If FC chose NOT to act of that information then it is solely FC's fault that AoC is in the stae that it is today and not the fault of poor testing of the game during Closed Beta.
Also, FYI, the Closed Beta group were always kept separate from the Open Beta crowd. Also, the Closed Beta testers were different from the Technical Beta(PvP testers) group as well.
If I remember correctly, the Technical Beta group were able to test the PvP content 3 or 4 times before Launch(correct, the PvP testing was done sporatically and wasnt a continual process)

Originally posted by Vespers

 

---

Originally posted by Ngeldu5t
This is what IGN and Game trailer said about a month after the game was released.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU1oPqxye0s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL1V1AUUZ8U&feature=related
I don't understand how people missed these reviews! I decided not to play after the so called OB then waited for 6 months and now I`m giving it a try.
Don`t tell me those who were in CB did not know the State of the Game before release and yet they chose to pre-order the game.
If there is someone to blame,players should blame themselves for pre-ordering CE/ rushing on every single MMO released and then they whine for missing content
 

---

 

Actually, I was in AoC Closed Beta for quite awhile and I can tell you right now that and overall majority of Closed Beta testers absolutely knew that the state of the game at Launch was going to be horrible. There were numerous post on the Beta forums begging FC to not launch the game because of all of the problems it was having.
Yes, the Closed Beta testers informed FC ALL THE TIME about ongoing bugs but these bugs never got fixed. Towards the end of Beta, FC started to acknowledge that there were alot of game breaking bugs in the game but that they had a "Miracle Patch" that they were going to put in right before Launch that would fix the majority of bugs as well as increasing game performance. Well, that "Miracle Patch" actually made the game worse.
Also, there were numerous posts on the Closed Beta forums asking the testers if they were going to pre-order the game and 80% of these testers voted that they would NOT be pre-ordering this game due to all of the issues that it was having, however they would consider buying the game about 2 or 3 months after Launch when the game got tweaked a bit more.
So, for those people out there who try to put ANY blame on the Closed Beta testers. We tested the game well and we documented all the bugs that we found and set them in like we were suppose to. If FC chose NOT to act of that information then it is solely FC's fault that AoC is in the stae that it is today and not the fault of poor testing of the game during Closed Beta.
Also, FYI, the Closed Beta group were always kept separate from the Open Beta crowd. Also, the Closed Beta testers were different from the Technical Beta(PvP testers) group as well.
If I remember correctly, the Technical Beta group were able to test the PvP content 3 or 4 times before Launch(correct, the PvP testing was done sporatically and wasnt a continual process)

Thank you for the clarification.

Originally posted by ganton 

I really cant think of a single major mmo that has released a free trial in the first six months. Correct me if Im wrong of course. Also, your post sounds very biased in the first place so I dont really know why Im answering this as it wont really do any good whatsoever.

The Chronicles of Spellborn will have a trial available right from the start.

Originally posted by Lydon

Originally posted by ganton 

I really cant think of a single major mmo that has released a free trial in the first six months. Correct me if Im wrong of course. Also, your post sounds very biased in the first place so I dont really know why Im answering this as it wont really do any good whatsoever.

The Chronicles of Spellborn will have a trial available right from the start.

Yes this is true. I just checked on their website. Very nice.

7. When the FreeToPlay Client will be available to download?
The FreeToPlay Client Online will be available to download the 5th of December 2008.

It tells me one thing: Developers are so confident on their product that they will let players test it first. This is excellent news for the MMO community and I hope more devs would do the same thing. We as players need to demand a right to test out the game first, even for just a couple of days.

FC couldn't have done this because they knew their product was unfinished and they would have lost MILLIONS once players saw how AoC is after Tortage and wouldn't have bought the game.

I don't know much about The Chronicles of Spellborn, I need to go read more.

Originally posted by Scaredgirl

Originally posted by Lydon

Originally posted by ganton 

I really cant think of a single major mmo that has released a free trial in the first six months. Correct me if Im wrong of course. Also, your post sounds very biased in the first place so I dont really know why Im answering this as it wont really do any good whatsoever.

The Chronicles of Spellborn will have a trial available right from the start.

 

Yes this is true. I just checked on their website. Very nice.

7. When the FreeToPlay Client will be available to download?
The FreeToPlay Client Online will be available to download the 5th of December 2008.

It tells me one thing: Developers are so confident on their product that they will let players test it first. This is excellent news for the MMO community and I hope more devs would do the same thing. We as players need to demand a right to test out the game first, even for just a couple of days.

FC couldn't have done this because they knew their product was unfinished and they would have lost MILLIONS once players saw how AoC is after Tortage and wouldn't have bought the game.

I don't know much about The Chronicles of Spellborn, I need to go read more.

It seems I read somewhere that Mortal Online will do the same