All Posts by Gishgeron

Originally posted by Ascension08

I will agree with the guy that WoW has spoiled many, many players who WERE NOT there at the release. They came in when WoW was in it's polished state and have since grown bored (1 or 2 years). Now they expect things to be as WoW is at launch, but we know that's not possible in an MMO. The rest is just making AoC look bad (well, worse than it really is...)

  Meh, its not even the polish that makes it tick.  Well, not polish as in "unbuggy".  The game really does rock some of the best UI tools ever imagined (some of which came straight from the community, as former game mods).  Hell, thats another thing...the community actually helped make WoW what it was, because they actually paid a ton of attention to us.  It may have taken them awhile to change some things...but in the end, thats still a ton better than any company I had seen before it.  SOE was pretty much the market leader before them...and they NEVER listened. 

  I don't think that WoW spoiled people....I think that WoW showed us what CAN be done in terms of making a solid game, even if it ISN'T offering anything really new.  I don't fault former players for expecting the other teams to pay attention to what has already been done....Blizzard did, after all.  Why AREN'T these guys taking elements from these games that really matter?  Why should anyone accept moving backwards in terms of usability and user friendly structure?  Why should we not expect to get from the developers exactly what they promise? 

  Oh, I should mention to the WoW fans that even Blizzard didn't COMPLETELY deliver on everything it promised at first either.  Blizzard, however, learned from that mistake and moved forward.  Now, anytime they say something is coming...it comes.  Sometimes that means that not much is coming very soon...and thats a lot better than the alternative.  I wish everyone else would do that...just shut up until its 100% official.  Blizzard took so much flak early on that even their Forum CM"s would refuse to offer even the GUESS of a date or content until it was 100% cleared by everyone that it was ready, and set.

  I rant, and I apologize.  Maybe I just wanted to move this thread away from its very stupid roots and into something that actually lived in reality.  You can't blame me for that, can you?

Originally posted by Ascension08

I wanted to see AoC "succeed" so that 1) the fanbois will be happy (they're just people looking for a new game, right)? and 2) we'd have two or more big kids on the block to take a big chunk away from Blizzard. Seeing the game now I'd say there's going to be only one, but I think if Funcom doesn't keep going the way it's going in a few months it can be a game with a strong fanbase that will grow steadily over the next year.

  See, I'm a little different.  I do not WANT to see Blizzard lose any subs unless the game is actually better.  I don't mean better in the traditional sense of the word...I mean, using WoW as a base to set the bar for basic functions and ease of use (Simple, common things that all MMO's strive for) I would like to see the game offer at LEAST the same degree of attention to its game as that, and then move forward some.

  I would be okay with Blizzard losing every player they have...so long as the game, and the company, are truly a step ahead of that design.  My more vindictive side really wants Funcom to go belly up for not even really TRYING to push the bar at all...they didn't even stand tall enough to reach it. 

  All Blizzard losing a chunk of players to another junky MMO is going to accomplish is ensuring that this genre will stay every bit as stagnate as it has been for 10 years now.  Frankly...I'm just tired of it.  I feel that if we cannot strive for better, and innovate more, then WoW should be the only MMO left on the market.  For too long now we have seen company after company, dev after dev, throw away every last ounce of logic and ingenuity for the sake of adhering to a mold that is ebbing away.  I'd just like for ONE company to at least seriously TRY (with a decent budget and solid team) to make something fresh again.

Originally posted by HashBrick

 

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Originally posted by Gazenthia
What makes you guys so sure that he really doesn't have an insider? Somebody, actually quite a few somebodies, have to know the actual statistics. If I had an insider, I wouldn't expose him either.

 

From what I personally saw and believe, I think he is right on the money.

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Why? Cause he made a pie chart using the MS suite. He doesn't have an insider, that's just a claim to backup his bullshit numbers and information.

The game is too new to dive into lower than 100k subscribers, with an estimated 1million copies sent to retailers 70k is just way to low.

I call bullshit and many others can smell it too.

   Completely agree here.  I am among those who think it doesn't deserve even 70K....but I'm no dummy.  They WILL get their piece of the pie, especially since they are the only ones marketing to high end users right now.  High end users who want a mature rated game.   Its no more "niche" than the LoTR MMO, and all it appealed to were PvE players who LOVED the lore.  I mean, it didn't even appeal to ALL PvE players...and it still has over 100K.  I see NO reason this game should fall under that, even WITH its issues.

  But, I may see the day I eat crow over this.  There IS that nagging voice in my head which reminds me that they didn't even release an RPG with working stats....thats a pretty big foul, it could hold major consequences when the big dogs come to play.  But, right now?  Hell no...hell no times a farking million.  It has nothing but WoW to fight with, and people leaving that game aren't looking to go back.  No, its probably still raking in from its initial buyer base.  Its still to early to even tell what their TRUE retention is (hell, most players haven't even made it through their free month...if ANY have).

Originally posted by Vistaakah

Games over the past 10 years are really just clones of one another. The only thing WOW added to the flavor pool that stood out was the Auction House system.

 

  First, and I'm not going into detail about this (its just an aside), I really disagree with just about everything you had to say about WoW. 

  But even then, you give them too much credit with this little bit.  EQOA actually had a BETTER Auction House system.  It was basically JUST like WoW's...except you could access it ANYWHERE in the world.  The items you bought went into your bank, so you did have to go to town to retrieve them.  But it made for a really nice distraction while out doing boring stuff, to float through the AH items for a bit.  I even used to do it while healing (because, frankly, none of your "mature" and "hard" games were really all that hard.  In fact, from a mechanical level WoW is probably a few thousand times more difficult than anything that came before it.  I'm sorry you found tank-n-spank's to test your skill, its very upsetting that it would take all of your grey matter to work around such simple systems.)

  I'm a hater too....but this is just jibberish.  The whole thing screams "I'm another game's fanboy, so lets make stuff up and then talk sweet about MY game!"

  I seriously doubt anyone at funcom has provided him with such a chart.  ESPECIALLY if it were true...these people NEED the jobs they have.  From the bottom, all the way to the top.  The people employed here need jobs...and handing something like this over is slitting their own throats.  This isn't like the Lucas Arts leaks...those guys already LOST their jobs.  In that case, Lucas slit his own throat. 

  Whole article is pretty much garbage, and I do not support anyone (not even those whom agree with his "points) to bother with it again.  We have plenty of legs to stand on to hate this game without resorting to lies outright.  Doing such a thing just makes the other points (which are actually valid) appear weaker as a result.  I do not particularly enjoy someone weakening my stance by association. 

  I promise, not all of us whom hate Funcom are like that guy.

Originally posted by Vortigon

Originally posted by WiccanCircle

Retention Rate?  The aggregate will be Greater than 100%.

It will be like every other well-made, fun game, it will have a rolling increase in population.  Some will leave some will stay, but the numbers joining will cause the population to rise over the next year or more.

 

Sorry but MMOs don't normally work this way.  They usually hit their peak between release and 12 months, after that its downwards all the way to a stable level, and AOC may even push that back to the period between release - 6 months.

Industry norm' is about 35% retention rate after the initial release.  Which in about 8 months will mean(if their lucky) about 120k - 170k stable subscription base.  IMO.

 

  This is true.  In fact, I do not think even WoW held every last one of their initial "boom" subscribers.  The first time I recall a massive influx of players was actually around Christmas time that following December.  They had already been steadily gaining players past their initial retention, and then launched a massive promo for free trials around that time.  They also tossed in a holiday special, in which you could buy the game as a gift for someone for only 20$ (at the time the game still sold for 50$, I believe).  It was THEN that they began to boom far beyond their means.  That christmas was the first time I began to see massive queues to log in.  The game went straight from "No problem" to "You are #600 in line" over a week.

  My favorite piece from that collection was the part in which the guy asks torres a question, and then follows it up with this:

  "Also, also...you  CANNOT use the terms "iconic or Star Wars-y""

  Talk about being disconnected with ones users...

  Ah well, its not my problem.  They're the ones who now have to deal with 200K+ worth of viral "anti-marketers" as a result of being a gang of the filthiest trash to ever be considered a game company.  All told, I think they were dealt exactly the hand they deserved from it.

Originally posted by pencilrick

Originally posted by chryses

Love or hate the game they have shipped 1 million copies already and i can see them shipping more.  Its probably the biggest MMO success since WoW.  So when you have 1 million people sign up at least 10-20% will hate it so that equals 200,000 trolls on the forums.  On the other side at least 20% will love it so you have 200,000 fanbois hitting back.  In the middle is the content 400,000 and I happily place myself there.  The game has enough content to keep me occupied until christmas at least and by that time there will be a lot more content.  Unusually I want to play a at least 6 different classes because they all play so differently.

 

 

All I can say is that if you can make it through Tortage six times, then you deserve some special kind of award.

  City of Heros probably has a badge for that....

Originally posted by Praxus

Considering how popular the game is; its surprising there's so much hate and whining on these forums..

But the facts speak for themselves - the game is doing well. So the whiners can have fun bitching and complaining until Warhammer comes out; at which point they can start the whole process again.

  We have no facts, actually.  The only number any of us have (that is legit) are the "shipped" figures.  We do not know what the subs are, what the retention from initial sales are, what the average monthly growth is...ect.

  Until ALL of those three things become apparent, we know nothing.  Everything is purely speculative at this point, and even the industry professionals would agree with that.  Shipped boxes means nothing, it isn't even reflective of sales...as the PS3 had a ton of "shipped" boxes that are still sitting on shelves.   All the shipping number means is that they are actively preparing for whatever projected demand they assume they may have based on interest.  It does not mean there actually IS said interest, or that there is even demand for half of what they project.

  It also doesn't mean there isn't.  I don't know, anything I could say here would be just as speculative as everyone else.  The game, however, is not a success yet.  Success in a returning customer system is entirely based on how many returning customers you have.  We do not, after all, think Mc'Donalds to be a success just because they sold a ton of hamburgers on their first day.  Its the fact they do it EVERYDAY that makes us notice them in that industry.  The same holds true here.  We need sub numbers, we need average growth figures. 

  We have neither.

Originally posted by Antikythera

After that there's 5 months left in the year. 5 months to setup and run a public Beta , Fix any issues that pop up and prepare for a commercial launch.

Who actually believes this is going to happen? I mean c'mon let's be realistic. It's simply NOT going to happen.

So if it doesn't happen than what exactly was the purpose of Tasos announcing this? 

Was it a straight up lie designed to string along people some more?

Was it him actually believing it can and will be done? which would point to complete incompetence.

The mystery deepens!

  This is not news to most of us.  This particular scenario has played itself out for years now, over and over...repeating the same song and dance it has each and every time.  Only the new meat can see it and feel anything, for the rest of us...it is a Corpse Marionette Theatre.  The thing may move and shake, but it is dead all the same.  Its strings being pulled against its very will (were it to have a will at all), a macabre unlife that it is forced to live at the behest of those who cannot simply bury in the grave to which it belongs.

Originally posted by Zindaihas

Can I just say a quick word here about game sales.  I think companies have a distinct advantage when it comes to the sales of their games because, unless you've beta tested it, most people have little or no clue about how it's going to play.  And since everyone is looking for a great game to fill the void of the last game they left, they are willing to give it a try whether it's good or not.

That was the case with in every game I've played since EQ.  I played EQ for 2 years and finally got bored with it.  I immediately began to look forward to the next great MMO.  Since that was my first, I figured they would continue to improve.  They would keep adding more content, more options and the graphics would just keep getting better.  Well the graphics did get better, but that was about the only thing that improved.

At the time I quit playing EQ, EQ II was well in development.  Most single player games I played got better with each version.  It was only natural to assume that MMOs would be the same way.  2 would be better than 1.  Boy was I wrong about that.  So I gave up on EQ II and was so let down that I didn't even bother with WoW.

As a result, the void never got filled.  I waited for the next game and was disappointed by that one.  And then the next game and that was disappointing as well.  By the time AoC came out, I had very low expectations for that game, but since there was nothing else on the horizen, decided to give it a try.  Sure enough, it turned out to be poor.

So if there are a lot of people out there like me who are hungry for a game that gives them exactly what they want, companies are going to continue to get decent sales numbers upon the release of their games.  It's how long those numbers last that will better tell how good it is.

WoW?  I can't explain why WoW's numbers are so high and stay that way other than it being the first MMO for so many people.  And being the first, that is their impression of what MMOs are supposed to be like and so are not as disappointed as those of us who have more experience with them.  Also, in fairness to Blizzard, it did do some things extremely well, like make a relatively bug free game and also make a game that doesn't require high specs.  So that probably compensates for the mediocre gameplay.

Boy, I thought this was going to be a quick word.  Guess I was wrong there.

  I can help you understand this a bit better.  EVERY MMO offers mediocre gameplay.  To try and metaphor this....

  If all restaurants cooked the same dish, you'd choose the one with the shortest drive and best seats.  WoW is just that, the easiest MMO to get to (Low Reqs) and has the best seats (fluid UI with easily the most user-friendly functionality every produced).  Blizzard didn't change the dish, they just made everything else better.  This formula shouldn't surprise you, as its the same principle they have applied to EVERY game they make.

  The RTS games were, after all, the same dish as well...simply served in a setting that was much more appealing to its customer.  Hell, the most innovative GAMEPLAY they have actually done was with the Diablo series.  Realistically, they still didn't invent the hack n' slash.  They just, essentially, invented the fully randomized dungeon.  I'm not even completely sure about THAT.  I think some sega RPG's actually did it first...but I can't remember.

  You know what, I take that back.  The actual gameplay was still borrowed from other games.  The combat was fairly borrowed from the "legend of -" games and everything else was, basically, UI changes to make it easier and faster for the user to work with.  Blizzard have long been kings of taking the wheel already invented, and placing it effectively on a bicycle that is much easier to use than everyone else's B.C. "spoke" to ride on.

  I liked Lunia.  Its combat and game flow were a very nice break from the norm.  I really enjoyed how story driven the game was, and how "active" the combat felt.  It hearkened back to Legend of Zelda games from years past, and had a single player RPG feel with an MMO element set into it.  It also ran very smoothly (which, given its graphic choice, is a no brainer) and had a feel all its own.

  That said, I am not playing it currently.  I removed it from my PC to make room for other adventures, and only notice its gone on occasion.  I do sort of regret doing so, though, because there are many a day that come by in which I would like something like it to jump into when the REAL MMO games are dragging me down. 

  My honest final opinion is this:

  It is NOT going to replace a real MMO.  But its totally worth having on your PC to play around with from time to time, easily.  Its certainly a solid game, for what it is, and you should give it a whirl.

  The sandbox is dead because the players that lived in it chose to make the game miserable.  I hate the EQ style, but it at least gave new players a game they could actually play.  FFA-Full Loot games do not, and thus will never again work to the degree we wish it would.

  There will always be a market for content which can be easily accessed and quickly consumed.  I CAN see how a multiplayer aspect will attempt to work its way into everything.  In many ways, if properly done, such an aspect COULD work its way into everything successfully.  I do NOT, however, think that the designers in ANY market have enough of a clue as to how to MAKE such a thing work yet.  We can barely make the simplistic MMO structure work, hell...the XBL crap outplays it at every turn.  Think about how many truly horrid games the achievements list has found players playing.  Given what I see in our industry...I think that almost everything is running stagnate, and that we are trying to use these multiplayer aspects to salvage what is, otherwise, the most apparent case of writers block I have ever seen.

  Right now, we aren't using Multiplayer for anything more than a bandaid to fix the fact that we have run out of ideals to improve the games anymore.

Originally posted by Souldrainer

I predict AoC will cap at 3-5 million subs. 

  I wouldn't predict something like that for a game I thought was 1000 times better than anything ever made.  I'm well aware that what happened to WoW was an anomaly, and that the players LEAVING WoW will be a diverse mix of demands that no one game can hope to meet and retain all of them.  To move forward, we WILL see more focused design choices going on (like WAR and its focus on PvP) to appeal to each branch of those leaving players.  Even then...many players still will be leaving WoW to never rejoin the market again.  In no way can we expect any MMO to achieve  millions of players ever again, for doing so (and planning ones' financial future and budget around such) will end only in complete failure and a likely repeat of what happened to SWG.

  Nay, I say.  I think we should consider even 500K a major success for any game.  I can SEE someone getting a million players, for sure, but that comes with the assumption that they do everything right.  I think that we can ALL agree that Funcom did NOT do everything right.  The choices they made helped them in the short run (getting extra subs early on) but will ensure that their initial players will be divided amongst the new games that are coming out. 

Originally posted by doffmann

Originally posted by Jackdog

 

As far as moving on , get a grip dude. I bought it, I played it for a short period of time now I will comment on it.

 

abunch of peeple bout this game and found out that there woodoo2 grafices card was just too old to run it so they desided to hate what they cant have

  Really?  I'm glad to hear that simply upgrading ones graphics card will automatically make their stat system work, their Tier 3 cities open, their entire PvP system they promised install, the DX10 support show up, and for content past tortage to magically appear.  I've really been waiting for someone to clear that up for me, thanks.

  Perhaps YOU need to learn how to read what the haters are saying, and stop opening your mouth until you can actually make a response that makes sense.

  I offer the same prediction I've made since even BEFORE all the horrible negative elements were discovered.  150K players.  I cannot say what percent that number is, as I have seen no actual subscriber numbers on which to BASE such a thing.  I would assume that 150K is around a third retention, but that also assumes that they have around 500K players at the moment.  I would feel safer assuming 300K, and that would make their rate around 50%. 

  Frankly, I don't think they deserve even that since they couldn't even manage a working stat system...but thats me.  Given what I see the fans say on this board, I guess I just expect TOO MUCH.

Originally posted by Ascension08 

Right, I think if you play something it's hard to review 100% unbiased. And when you throw money in the mix well it's even harder. I do expect all sites to be as unbiased as possible of course, and I attribute the 90+ ratings to the fact that AoC polished Tortage.
 

   Its also important to note that the problem with stats would not have been noticed in the newb zone because you only had very basic gear and it was replaced relatively soon.  The broken feats would also have not shown light on themselves as well.  IN fact, the vast majority of the BIG issues in this game would have never been seen from Tortage...which only goes to prove that they forced their beta players to cap at 13 for a REASON.

  This was all very deliberate.

Originally posted by Balthaazar1

I frankly don't give two sh*ts what the disgruntled whining half the community has to say, but Funcom, does care. They are listening to us, you whine when you don't feel justice is done by this game, and well, looks like you whine when they do offer what you were whining about to begin with. It's all very amusing. I for one say Kudos, to Funcom, for realizing what we want and going above and beyond in scope of those offerings so desired. If you don't like it, well who gives a sh*t really?

  My, you require so very little to appease yourself.  I'd be first in line to commend them...if they had given even half of what they hyped.  Not only did they leave out a fair portion of the hyped content (including small things like dx10 support), but they left out one of the most critical things to HAVE in a MMO....stats.  They don't even have a working stat system, and that is by and far the single most pathetic thing I have ever seen.

  I could probably swallow just about everything else they've done wrong BUT that.  If the junky free to play guys can get a working stat system on a budget that would barely keep Mcdonalds open a day....I feel that Funcom should be able to as well.

Originally posted by jondifool

 

 

This link is properly the fastest way to get an insight in the classes atm

http://www.massively.com/2008/06/04/massively-goes-to-war-the-classes-of-warhammer-in-a-nutshell/

  You know what, you just sold me completely on the game with that link.  I wasn't really on the fence, but I WAS going to wait till a bit after release to check into it.  However, the Engineer class just gave me an MMO woody.  I really liked the concept so much, I'm probably going to pre-order.