Originally posted by dhayes68

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by randomt

 

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Originally posted by dhayes68
I don't know what to tell you. 800k bought it at launch and 600k walked away. You say players are clueless, I say FC dropped the ball. Either way, the numbers spell a failing game.

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200k is about right for a good niche (except for wow, who happened to snag the biggest niche type).

Most long running successful mmo's have done so with around 200k or so.

 

 

better cut that number almost by half and before some ass demands proof no I do not have anything except watching the XFire, Quantcast, and Alexa.

I think their numbers leveled out at the end of October and have remained pretty steady since with a few bumps during the Holiday season and server merge time periods. Xfire is up a bit but we all know that can be manipulated, the web data is much harder to fool. The Alexa and the Quantcast data mirrors each other and are roughly where they were end of October.

The 1st quarter report which will be made in May will tell the true tale as far as the games success goes so it's not even worth arguing over now.

Yeah, I know its probably closer to between 70k and 125k but the fanbois won't accept that so I make my point using 200k since its still valid to argue that a game in which 75% who tried, walked away from has a problem.

What would you say to this guy? http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/UnSub/022009/3238_Warhammer-Online-vs-Age-of-Conan-One-Quarter-Out-WAR-Leads-In-Race-to-the-Bottom  So are you saying there is a problem with those who continue to pay to play for a game they are happy with, or degrade them in anyway for having a different viewpoint. What ever happened to respect in the community. We get it, some, "A lot" of people left the game. Majority after 3 months, that was 7 months ago, since then you will generally find those that have subbed continously will tell you the game is better. So at the end of the day it is what you find fun. Do you find it fun to continue to play? or do you find it fun to badger away so many months after the rest have moved on, like normal (MOST) people?

As someone who played AOC when it was released as well as I resubbed recently, I'd have to say that the game has indeed become a pretty serious failure. At release, the game was simply crap imo, riddled with bugs, incomplete game mechanics made the game a painstaking process to play. Having resubbed a few weeks ago, I'd have to say Funcom has definetely improved the game by squashing bugs, but the core games ugly head still rears. The game mechanics seem thrown together and uninspired, the combat system when it comes to PVP, simply leaves alot to be desired. Long range classes have a major upper hand in this game in PVP. Skill seems to revolve around who can consume the biggest pots and running around rocks. Stupid, is the word that comes to mind. The graphics are good, despite the lack of any discernability between lower and higher level armor sets, but I cant get past the unfortunate fact, the games systems are just unengaging, uninspiring and playing it feels like I'm in a bad beta for a game that really should be free.

Originally posted by Vato26

Originally posted by finaticd

Originally posted by youngeblood

             Im getting really tired of hearing people whine about how they think Funcom did such a bad job and how AoC has failed. We get the point , you dont like AoC , so do us a favor and go back to WoW.

 

There are 17 other games failing to a lesser degree than AoC or succeeding (Opinion), they could try one of those!  Or FFXII and EQ2 seems to be in the same league as AoC (Opinion), though those games have way way more content as they have been out longer. (Fact)

WoW is more popular than AoC (Removed the opinions to make it factual), whic is strange because AoC was the 4th largest selling PC game last year, how did that happen?

There.... now people can read your post more accurately and tell the facts from the opinions.

Not my opinion the opinion of ALL PC gamers in the world, as those 17 games are the ones that are played more than AoC. Sorry, after following AoC for a while I realize most AoC players don't understand basic math, so statistics is way above them, so either study up or look  ignorant.

www.xfire.com/games/

Here is my opinion though: There are a few thousand games better than AoC, Most are not MMOs and many are not even PC games but in the last 10 years - because 99 had great games, there are enough better games to play that you need not wase your time in this marketing scam.

*******************

Anyways, War Vs. AoC.

Going by my friends list most of the fast levelers quit, I know this....but it seems War has leveled off at about 3 times the population of AoC and it's been out for 6 months.  If war has 300k players and three times the Xfire numbers as AoC, wouldn't that mean AoC has 100k or fewer players? Remember back in the day when AoC was number 4 on Xfire? Now it is 44 and War is 16!

Originally posted by finaticd

Originally posted by Vato26

Originally posted by finaticd

Originally posted by youngeblood

             Im getting really tired of hearing people whine about how they think Funcom did such a bad job and how AoC has failed. We get the point , you dont like AoC , so do us a favor and go back to WoW.

 

There are 17 other games failing to a lesser degree than AoC or succeeding (Opinion), they could try one of those!  Or FFXII and EQ2 seems to be in the same league as AoC (Opinion), though those games have way way more content as they have been out longer. (Fact)

WoW is more popular than AoC (Removed the opinions to make it factual), whic is strange because AoC was the 4th largest selling PC game last year, how did that happen?

There.... now people can read your post more accurately and tell the facts from the opinions.

 

Not my opinion the opinion of ALL PC gamers in the world, as those 17 games are the ones that are played more than AoC. Sorry, after following AoC for a while I realize most AoC players don't understand basic math, so statistics is way above them, so either study up or look  ignorant.

www.xfire.com/games/

Here is my opinion though: There are a few thousand games better than AoC, Most are not MMOs and many are not even PC games but in the last 10 years - because 99 had great games, there are enough better games to play that you need not wase your time in this marketing scam.

*******************

Anyways, War Vs. AoC.

Going by my friends list most of the fast levelers quit, I know this....but it seems War has leveled off at about 3 times the population of AoC and it's been out for 6 months.  If war has 300k players and three times the Xfire numbers as AoC, wouldn't that mean AoC has 100k or fewer players? Remember back in the day when AoC was number 4 on Xfire? Now it is 44 and War is 16!

 

"All the opinions of all PC gamers in the world?" lol you just can't get the grasp of properly putting across what you say and time and time again get it wrong.

You mean the few people that have xfire and according to that small amount of people that do have it? Xfire being going 10 years?

Is it not time you moved on already? hasn't xfire got some forums? Is anyone else seeing the flaw here?

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Originally posted by finaticd

Originally posted by Vato26

Originally posted by finaticd

Originally posted by youngeblood

             Im getting really tired of hearing people whine about how they think Funcom did such a bad job and how AoC has failed. We get the point , you dont like AoC , so do us a favor and go back to WoW.

 

There are 17 other games failing to a lesser degree than AoC or succeeding (Opinion), they could try one of those!  Or FFXII and EQ2 seems to be in the same league as AoC (Opinion), though those games have way way more content as they have been out longer. (Fact)

WoW is more popular than AoC (Removed the opinions to make it factual), whic is strange because AoC was the 4th largest selling PC game last year, how did that happen?

There.... now people can read your post more accurately and tell the facts from the opinions.

 

Not my opinion the opinion of ALL PC gamers in the world, as those 17 games are the ones that are played more than AoC. Sorry, after following AoC for a while I realize most AoC players don't understand basic math, so statistics is way above them, so either study up or look  ignorant.

www.xfire.com/games/

Here is my opinion though: There are a few thousand games better than AoC, Most are not MMOs and many are not even PC games but in the last 10 years - because 99 had great games, there are enough better games to play that you need not wase your time in this marketing scam.

*******************

Anyways, War Vs. AoC.

Going by my friends list most of the fast levelers quit, I know this....but it seems War has leveled off at about 3 times the population of AoC and it's been out for 6 months.  If war has 300k players and three times the Xfire numbers as AoC, wouldn't that mean AoC has 100k or fewer players? Remember back in the day when AoC was number 4 on Xfire? Now it is 44 and War is 16!

 

 

"All the opinions of all PC gamers in the world?" lol you just can't get the grasp of properly putting across what you say and time and time again get it wrong.

You mean the few people that have xfire and according to that small amount of people that do have it? Xfire being going 10 years?

Is it not time you moved on already? hasn't xfire got some forums? Is anyone else seeing the flaw here?

He's just another one of these guys thats not playing the game, but still try to tell the guys playing how AoC is. lol. I find it equally amusing every time they stop by.

You just don't get statistics or choose to ignore them.

@Jasma, sory but your opinion is the minority as the vast majority of players quit. Also, I did play last month, the game is boring and broken.

Are you saying when AoC fell from #4 to #44 it was because the people using X fire left and others remained?

EDIT: I will refine my thesis though to exclude Asia as it doesn't seem like they use Xfire....as I'm sure there are enough korean MMOs to push AoC to the 30th spot in terms of popularity.

Hardly anyone uses X fire, I don't, but the percentage of people using X fire should be consistant in all games, even the demographics are similar which makes it more valid.

Males whose avg age is 28-years-old who own a PC and play social games, especially MMOs! Look if you like the game, fine, but out of all PC gamers most have choosen one of the 17 other PC games.

Funcom is a casual MMO and compares itself to 4 other casual MMOs who are all doing better, so there are even more than 17 MMOs doing better:

www.funcom.com/funcom/frontend/files/CONTENT/Funcom_Q208_presentation.pdf  Pg. 13.

Hobo hotel:  annual revenues: 77 million, users: 8 million.

Club Penguin: ARev. 65 million, 700k users.

Runescape:  Arev. 60 mil, 1 mil subs.

maple Story: Arev 72 mil, 200k users.

*******************

To make a long story short, if a game has more X fire users than the old #4, it's pretty much certain it has more players. Though it's best to look at how many players each game has as that is what is accurate.

Originally posted by finaticd

You just don't get statistics or choose to ignore them.

Are you saying when AoC fell from #4 to #44 it was because the people using X fire left and others remained?

EDIT: I will refine my thesis though to exclude Asia as it doesn't seem like they use Xfire....as I'm sure there are enough korean MMOs to push AoC to the 30th spot in terms of popularity.

Hardly anyone uses X fire, I don't, but the percentage of people using X fire should be consistant in all games, even the demographics are similar which makes it more valid.

Males whose avg age is 28-years-old who own a PC and play social games, especially MMOs! Look if you like the game, fine, but out of all PC gamers most have choosen one of the 17 other PC games.

Funcom is a casual MMO and compares itself to 4 other casual MMOs who are all doing better, so there are even more than 17 MMOs doing better:

www.funcom.com/funcom/frontend/files/CONTENT/Funcom_Q208_presentation.pdf  Pg. 13.

Hobo hotel:  annual revenues: 77 million, users: 8 million.

Club Penguin: ARev. 65 million, 700k users.

Runescape:  Arev. 60 mil, 1 mil subs.

maple Story: Arev 72 mil, 200k users.

*******************

To make a long story short, if a game has more X fire users than the old #4, it's pretty much certain it has more players. Though it's best to look at how many players each game has as that is what is accurate.

So bottomline you are back to that Britney Spears is better that Soulwax just because she is more popular just right now. lol.

Ohh, what's that, you have not heard about Soulwax? Well, it just have to be bad then, right? lol.

I think I'd better throw in a soulwax mix for you. www.youtube.com/watch

Originally posted by Jasma

 

So bottomline you are back to that Britney Spears is better that Soulwax just because she is more popular just right now. lol.

Ohh, what's that, you have not heard about Soulwax? Well, it just have to be bad then, right? lol.

I think I'd better throw in a soulwax mix for you. www.youtube.com/watch

Your argument failed when AoC became the number 3 per them 4 per other sources best selling PC game last year, everyone has heard of it.

The other games doing better atm were not marketed so much and were more niche, most of which I doubt ever sold 900,000 or whatever number of boxes.    If anything AoC was the Britney of PC games, it's just most gamers have better taste.

EDIT: I  prefer Saul Williams, he obviously got burned by Funcom: www.youtube.com/watch

Originally posted by finaticd

Originally posted by Jasma

 

So bottomline you are back to that Britney Spears is better that Soulwax just because she is more popular just right now. lol.

Ohh, what's that, you have not heard about Soulwax? Well, it just have to be bad then, right? lol.

I think I'd better throw in a soulwax mix for you. www.youtube.com/watch

 

Your argument failed when AoC became the number 3 per them 4 per other sources best selling PC game last year, everyone has heard of it.

The other games doing better atm were not marketed so much and were more niche, most of which I doubt ever sold 900,000 or whatever number of boxes.    If anything AoC was the Britney of PC games, it's just most gamers have better taste.

 

So AoC = Britney Spears .... Are you trying to say AoC is the most popular game right now?

Well, maybe it is, AoC get a lot of praise fromreturning people so.. Check out this thread, are you able to find one bad word from a returning player :) forums.ageofconan.com/forumdisplay.php

Edit: Another thing, you replied to my post faster than the lenght of soulwax song! Did you not even listen to it? You know that tells me you are a person not open to changes. A somebody not able to accept change. And you know what, that is exactly what best describes you. For how long time have you been trolling AoC forums on outdated information now? 6,7 or is it 8 months now since you got banned? Listen to the song, it's a good song. Sometimes the best stuff comes from places you expect it the least.

I  have heard that song, most of the stuff I listen to on Pandora is techno, trance, or electronica.

Anyways, I would link the Cris Crocker, "leave Britnay alone" video, but you would probably watch it again, which is redundant.

Originally posted by Jasma

I know, and I think pretty much all AoC players feel it this way. The moment we mention that there is a lot of player growth in AoC... Some dude that have not played the game for 6 months feel compelled to pop in and tell us that what we see is not real. Funny. I never understood that thing.

It's the same thing with Lord of the Rings Online, my current MMO, so it's not an exclusive Age of Conan-thing, maybe an exclusive mmorpg.com-thing perhaps.

Anyhow, for the record, LotrO is a game that has seen a steady population incresase since the introduction of the Mines of Moria-expansion, with more people than ever before playing,  and you'll find them on all levels and in all areas of the current gameworld.

And still on a regular basis there are the self-proclaimed experts who's not played for at least six months (or more likey, they've never actually played the game at all) how the population rate is DROPPING and everybody is LEAVING. I lol every time :)

Originally posted by Ordero

Originally posted by Jasma

I know, and I think pretty much all AoC players feel it this way. The moment we mention that there is a lot of player growth in AoC... Some dude that have not played the game for 6 months feel compelled to pop in and tell us that what we see is not real. Funny. I never understood that thing.

It's the same thing with Lord of the Rings Online, my current MMO, so it's not an exclusive Age of Conan-thing, maybe an exclusive mmorpg.com-thing perhaps.

Anyhow, for the record, LotrO is a game that has seen a steady population incresase since the introduction of the Mines of Moria-expansion, with more people than ever before playing,  and you'll find them on all levels and in all areas of the current gameworld.

And still on a regular basis there are the self-proclaimed experts who's not played for at least six months (or more likey, they've never actually played the game at all) how the population rate is DROPPING and everybody is LEAVING. I lol every time :)

Ok, AoC recently merged and got rid of most of their servers.  So the population isn't up, the game is just a lot smaller. Players see more players but only because players from all the other servers that were trashed were put onto their servers. So population ISN'T up.

Does that apply to LoTRO?

Originally posted by finaticd

Originally posted by Vato26

Originally posted by finaticd

Originally posted by youngeblood

             Im getting really tired of hearing people whine about how they think Funcom did such a bad job and how AoC has failed. We get the point , you dont like AoC , so do us a favor and go back to WoW.

 

There are 17 other games failing to a lesser degree than AoC or succeeding (Opinion), they could try one of those!  Or FFXII and EQ2 seems to be in the same league as AoC (Opinion), though those games have way way more content as they have been out longer. (Fact)

WoW is more popular than AoC (Removed the opinions to make it factual), whic is strange because AoC was the 4th largest selling PC game last year, how did that happen?

There.... now people can read your post more accurately and tell the facts from the opinions.

 

Not my opinion the opinion of ALL PC gamers in the world, as those 17 games are the ones that are played more than AoC. Sorry, after following AoC for a while I realize most AoC players don't understand basic math, so statistics is way above them, so either study up or look  ignorant.

www.xfire.com/games/

Here is my opinion though: There are a few thousand games better than AoC, Most are not MMOs and many are not even PC games but in the last 10 years - because 99 had great games, there are enough better games to play that you need not wase your time in this marketing scam.

*******************

Anyways, War Vs. AoC.

Going by my friends list most of the fast levelers quit, I know this....but it seems War has leveled off at about 3 times the population of AoC and it's been out for 6 months.  (Not from what I've heard)  If war has 300k players and three times the Xfire numbers as AoC, wouldn't that mean AoC has 100k or fewer players? Remember back in the day when AoC was number 4 on Xfire? Now it is 44 and War is 16!

 

Apparently you can not get this through your skull.... xfire DOES NOT mean solid, unquestionable statistics!  There are sooo many ways to manipulate that program to produce better results than normal.  And, there is no knowledge on the % of players of games that use xfire vs. the total population of gamers for each game.  Therefore, xfire is questionable at best. 

Oh, and before you suggest xfire is actual statistics, maybe you should actually read what makes good statistics.  There's a little thing called control... which xfire has absolutely none of.

Oh... and stop derailing this thread with War vs. Aoc... no one asked about that.

It does not matter how many subscribers AoC has, what ever the number it is not enough.  FUncom lost $23million last year and only has around 50 million left. Its clear from those numbers AoC is a complete  failure at generating revenue for FUncom.

Originally posted by finaticd

You just don't get statistics or choose to ignore them. (talk about irony)

@Jasma, sory but your opinion is the minority as the vast majority of players quit. Also, I did play last month, the game is boring and broken.

Are you saying when AoC fell from #4 to #44 it was because the people using X fire left and others remained?

EDIT: I will refine my thesis though to exclude Asia as it doesn't seem like they use Xfire....as I'm sure there are enough korean MMOs to push AoC to the 30th spot in terms of popularity.

Hardly anyone uses X fire, I don't, but the percentage of people using X fire should be consistant in all games, even the demographics are similar which makes it more valid.  (You got proof to back up that statement?  Oh, something like, actual % of people who USE X-fire vs. the total population of players for each game?  No?  Did not think so.  Therefore, you have no clue as to the trend of the non xfire users for each game, which they could have changed much differently than the xfire crowd.  Thus, this is why you can not make that statement without being questioned on it.  Which means xfire is not unquestionable.)

Males whose avg age is 28-years-old who own a PC and play social games, especially MMOs! Look if you like the game, fine, but out of all PC gamers most have choosen one of the 17 other PC games.  (Again... opinion... nothing to back this up one bit as fact)

Funcom is a casual MMO and compares itself to 4 other casual MMOs who are all doing better, so there are even more than 17 MMOs doing better:

www.funcom.com/funcom/frontend/files/CONTENT/Funcom_Q208_presentation.pdf  Pg. 13.

Hobo hotel:  annual revenues: 77 million, users: 8 million.

Club Penguin: ARev. 65 million, 700k users.

Runescape:  Arev. 60 mil, 1 mil subs.

maple Story: Arev 72 mil, 200k users.

*******************

To make a long story short, if a game has more X fire users than the old #4, it's pretty much certain it has more players. Though it's best to look at how many players each game has as that is what is accurate.

Now... that was during August of '08.  Hmm... It's March of '09 now.  Therefore, it's been... oh... 7 months... over half a year ago.  Therefore, how do you know those games haven't changed as well?

This also was made during the Gaute era.... and Gaute was a fracking dumbass.  IMO, he should have been kicked really hard for even comparing a pay2play game vs. free2play games.  There is one major difference to them... they do not have a subscription to pay. Therefore, they naturally have higher subs as a lot of the people that can not afford the subscriptions (or do not want too) will play this game over a subscription-based game.  Therefore, it was very asinine of him to even bring up that point in the quarterly reports.  Thank goodness he is gone now.

We don't need to use XFire to determine that AoC is failing.  How about you pay attention to Funcom's falling revenue? 

They are the ones predicting that revenues are going to drop this quarter compared to last quarter.  It means the game is losing subscribers.  Case closed.  Age of Conan, minus maybe 1 million dollars from Anarchy Online, is Funcom's only source of revenue.

Pretty simple stuff folks.

Originally posted by Litigator_AB

We don't need to use XFire to determine that AoC is failing.  How about you pay attention to Funcom's falling revenue? 

They are the ones predicting that revenues are going to drop this quarter compared to last quarter.  It means the game is losing subscribers.  Case closed.  Age of Conan, minus maybe 1 million dollars from Anarchy Online, is Funcom's only source of revenue.

Pretty simple stuff folks.

but.. but..... but.... my server seems like it has more people on it now then it did in December.  (/sarcasm at people who fail to notice that their server was combined with 3 other servers).

Originally posted by steven1966

 

but.. but..... but.... my server seems like it has more people on it now then it did in December.  (/sarcasm at people who fail to notice that their server was combined with 3 other servers).

Does it matter? As long as I can find a group for a dungeon or group quests I'm happy. I didn't have a problem before the merger either.

My god if you enjoy the game great. People that have to knock a game they don't even play constantly need to seek professional help.

Originally posted by Vato26

Now... that was during August of '08.  Hmm... It's March of '09 now.  Therefore, it's been... oh... 7 months... over half a year ago.  Therefore, how do you know those games haven't changed as well?

This also was made during the Gaute era.... and Gaute was a fracking dumbass.  IMO, he should have been kicked really hard for even comparing a pay2play game vs. free2play games.  There is one major difference to them... they do not have a subscription to pay. Therefore, they naturally have higher subs as a lot of the people that can not afford the subscriptions (or do not want too) will play this game over a subscription-based game.  Therefore, it was very asinine of him to even bring up that point in the quarterly reports.  Thank goodness he is gone now.

Of the 17 MMOs that seem to be doing better than AoC, over half are free to play.  No MMO has had such a fall in subs over any one year period as AoC.  They had the highest subs and then crashed,  SWG didn't even come close, so it is unlikely that these fell, but for at least 2, X fire shows them at higher subs still.

****************

Good point, people pay for quality, which AoC lacks as there are still a good number of games people are willing to pay for: Lineage 2, War, WoW, LOTOR, etc that have higher subs, and only WoW sold as many copies as fast.

****************

The new guy should look into improving quality or this is a FTP / 70k or less payed subs game all over again just like AO, and AoC followed the format so far.

Originally posted by finaticd

Originally posted by Vato26

Now... that was during August of '08.  Hmm... It's March of '09 now.  Therefore, it's been... oh... 7 months... over half a year ago.  Therefore, how do you know those games haven't changed as well?

This also was made during the Gaute era.... and Gaute was a fracking dumbass.  IMO, he should have been kicked really hard for even comparing a pay2play game vs. free2play games.  There is one major difference to them... they do not have a subscription to pay. Therefore, they naturally have higher subs as a lot of the people that can not afford the subscriptions (or do not want too) will play this game over a subscription-based game.  Therefore, it was very asinine of him to even bring up that point in the quarterly reports.  Thank goodness he is gone now.

 

Of the 17 MMOs that seem to be doing better than AoC, over half are free to play.  No MMO has had such a fall in subs over any one year period as AoC.  They had the highest subs and then crashed,  SWG didn't even come close, so it is unlikely that these fell, but for at least 2, X fire shows them at higher subs still.

****************

Good point, people pay for quality, which AoC lacks as there are still a good number of games people are willing to pay for: Lineage 2, War, WoW, LOTOR, etc that have higher subs, and only WoW sold as many copies as fast.

****************

The new guy should look into improving quality or this is a FTP / 70k or less payed subs game all over again just like AO, and AoC followed the format so far.

 

If Funcom made AoC a FTP game with some-kind of cash shop, do you think it would help or hurt their population and revenues?