I personally really don't care how many subscribers a game has as long as:

1) There are enough to keep the game up and running

2) There are enough for me to have a positive gaming experience when I log on

Originally posted by Phall

"Strain left NCsoft last summer to build a creative studio around the most talented – and zombie-loving – developers in the industry, and to pioneer a new development model that will create a new breed of MMO built from the ground up for console gamers."

I've got a feeling he was "suggested" to leave for other reasons.

Apart from that I'm unsure if I can take another zombie movie/game/(audio) book/comic/song... We'll see.

Why would they suggest he leave? He had a huge hand in the original World of Warcraft and pioneered the creation of Guild Wars - two extremely successful games.

I've loved everything he's worked on. This will no doubt be equally as awesome.

Haha, over here we have strict bandwidth caps and internet protocol shaping, resulting in the protocols used for gaming being given a lower priority than HTTP traffic, for example.

It's really not the end of the world...shaping is about the only issue gamers have to worry about, not bandwidth caps. Thankfully, we're experiencing the opposite phenomenon here as undersea cables for...Africa...are being laid and prices are dropping drastically.

Strange to see Guild Wars absent from the list...the game that proved that P2P quality is available on a "F2P" basis.

Originally posted by Euphoryk

Originally posted by Lydon

Is this restricted to North America, or not? I'm trying to log in with my European trial account from a few weeks back, but with no success.

 

Aren't Euro accounts handled by GOA?

I didn't realize Euros could login to the NA servers with a Euro account.

I'm not trying to log into the NA servers? I'm trying to log into the EU servers.

But anyway, judging by the news on their site it seems it's going to be implemented soon. Maybe it takes a while for the change to reflect on accounts.

Is this restricted to North America, or not? I'm trying to log in with my European trial account from a few weeks back, but with no success.

 Yes I would. Gameplay > graphics by FAR.

Originally posted by Talin

Xfire statistics mean nothing. Zip. Zilch.

 

Subscription #s? Now THAT matters.

 

What's the term you kids use these days? FAIL?

When you take a random sampling of gamers and track their trends, you get a fairly good indication of a general trend. It's exactly the same concept that political polls, television polls, music polls etc. are based upon. Just over 1000 people, for example, and what they watch, decides what our entire country of 50 million will have offered to them on public television. A random sampling over such a small number of people. Are Xfire users a random sample? Yes. The only thing they have in common is that they all decided to sign up for Xfire. Is it a fact that among Xfire users, both of these games' playtime has decreased drastically since release? Yes. 

How you can dispute that is beyond me, considering we all know that World of Warcraft is the biggest MMO, Guild Wars is about the only MMO in the Western world to come close to WoW's success and that both AoC and WAR have declined rapidly since release. Look at random MMO's like Ryzom or Vanguard, check their estimated subscription figures, then check their places on the Xfire list. In the large majority of cases, subscription figures are reflected by Xfire rank. 

So whether you like it or not, Xfire stats do mean SOMETHING. They, at the very least, mean that among Xfire users, these two games aren't as played as they once were. That disproves your first three sentences. However, I, for one, believe they are a far greater indication. 

 Ryzom is about as far from WoW as you can get. 

Originally posted by captainnl

Originally posted by Lydon

Awesome! I love Alterac Valley. A Guild Wars version of it is going to be so legend.

 

HELL NO!!! This system is going to be so much bigger than a mere battleground of WoW.. Imo not even comparable if it will be like ANET stated.

Note, I said a "Guild Wars version of it." ;)

That naturally means bigger and better.

Awesome! I love Alterac Valley. A Guild Wars version of it is going to be so legend.

 Yes, I will definitely continue to play =)

I think the OP may be being sarcastic...I hope they are. Most stable MMO launch ever obviously doesn't remotely belong to Aion.

I can't help but laugh when people can't look past graphics and appreciate the gameplay. Considering that these days - on average - graphics are far from looking photorealistic, I can't help but wonder what all the fuss it about.

Have some imagination already.

I'm loving Aion more by the day.

However, it's beyond me where the comments on the client being so awesomely efficient is coming from. I, as well as my friends, all seem to be having issues getting it to run smoothly...regardless of our rigs.

Not sure if this has been applied to the EU servers, but I've DEFINITELY noticed a huge improvement when playing today as opposed to yesterday. I got like 1 or 2 whispers, where I'd be getting one around every 15 minutes previously.

What people don't seem to realise is that what makes World of Warcraft a "themepark" MMO is its quest system.

Guild Wars 2's quest system is TOTALLY different. I'm not sure if it's unique, but I've certainly never seen it. It takes public quests to a whole new level and doesn't force you to level by doing PvE.

Can't say I've ever heard of the game, but reading through its website I love its concept immensely...

Great! Thanks =)