Originally posted by Emane19

In my opinion, Vanguard died because it was released too close to Everquest II,

Usually, I find it appallingly hilarious when people don't do even the most basic of fact checking before posting an opinion that just makes them look...like they didn't do even the most basic of fact checking.

But in this case...I stand by you in solidarity, my friend...

Everquest II Release Date: November, 2004

Vanguard Release Date: January, 2007

I agree that Vanguard was released too soon to EQII - 2.25 years wasn't NEARLY long enough.

P.S. I fact checked that in about 90 seconds.

...On my phone.

...Sitting on the toilet at work.

Well, hovering over the link shows that it actually does link to battle.net, so if it's a scam it's a damn clever one, what with using Blizzard's actual servers and all.

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Originally posted by currymage
i'm looking for a new mmo!
i loved wow to death
got to end game raiding in bc and wotlk
but am no longer feeling the love its just become far too easy to complete end game content
i want a game that is really a challenge with a decent player base
any suggestions?

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18 months ago, I quit playing WoW.

2 months ago, I picked my LotRO sub back up, and it doesn't feel like WoW any more. It still is a Fantasy Quest Based Game, but after a break (and an additional three years and two expansions worth of development) the differences from WoW stand out more than the similarities. (to me)

Comedy Option: APB.
This is where I'm spending most of my time these days (a couple hours a night). Despite all the poor press and whatnot, it really is a hillariously fun (and cheap!) game to play.
No, it's not a game that you're going to want to spend 8 hours a day in front of, and the people who do that are correct when they say it's repetitive.
However, if you want a game you can jump in for an hour or three, it's awesome.
Even if you just play your free 50 hours and never touch it again, you'll not have wasted your money.

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Originally posted by hercules
Too true.it amazes me that not so many years ago a panel of devs sat down and agreed most AA mmorpg would be proftiable with 50k subs within 2 years.But fact 1 mmorpg called WoW made so much seems to mean to people anything less is rubbish .
So basically we all poor and should hang our heads in shame because we are all poorer then Bill Gates

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World War II Online celebrates it's *10 year* anniversary in about 6 months.

~20 people have been gainfully employed for half of their working lives thanks to the subscriptions of a very, very, very small community (~15,000 players)

That smells a lot like success to me!

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Originally posted by SaintViktor
It is looking like APB right now ...

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Tabula Rasa was just...confusing.

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Originally posted by Reklaw
Have box sales of 1.5 million where the game topped at only having 300k subs playing doesn't really sound succesful

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1.5 million boxes sold ($75,000,000. Sony gets...30%?), and with the game averaging around 225k subscribers between 2004-2008 (300k in 2004, a little less than 150k in 2008) means SWG made roughly 162,000,000 for Sony Online Entertainment.

I don't see how $185 million in revenue over 4 years could be considered a failure?

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Originally posted by Thor79
2 of those are mine, one NA, and one EU...should have only gotten EU. I'm not paying anymore money (and I haven't since buying the copies of the game) to them until they fixed the seriously flawed game that currently exists. The frustration:fun ratio is too damn high right now...my time is better spent with other games where it's no where near as frustrating.

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I was in both the fall and spring rounds of beta, but due to some real life stuff happening, didn't get around to picking up Retail until about 3 weeks ago, so I'm pretty much *massively* outgunned by people who have been playing since Day Zero. So, I tend to solo, and play with LTL weapons. I find that a HUGE number of criminals playing solo are just...bad at it. They may have three upgrades on their person, and three slots filled on their weapon, but they're shit for tactical thinking. My little Stabba CCG some patience, and some effort outsmarting (flanking) the Crim, and I find I win more than I lose.

I like that it's a game that I can get in and out of quickly - I don't have to block out a huge chunk of time to feel like I accomplished something. I can hop in, run a mission or two, then hop back out and go make dinner or mow the lawn, or put the kid to bed, etc.

If you think it's boring and repetitive, maybe you're playing too long at a stretch?

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Originally posted by Nephaerius
Pretty sure the number I've seen tossed around was about $80 million on development. The last (and most believable, actually) number I've seen was "Around 30 million".

The 100 million number comes from some fluff piece back in 2009 on a small website that talked about "The Most Expensive MMOs In History" - then they misquoted basically every figure. In APB's case, they counted every penny of VC and other income that RTW had gotten as being spent on APB, and ignored Project MyWorld costs, etc.

In addition, as I mentioned earlier not all of those subscribers are paying.  Because of the way the system is set up you can sell in-game items for play time and many players have accumulated over a years worth of playtime.  This means that they don't actually have 130,000 subscribers they have 130,000 purchasers of the product.  The actual number of subscribers is unknown.

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Yes, you can trade items earned in game for RTW Points, then use those RTW Points to buy additional game time. It works out to $7 (280 points) for 20 (non-consecutive, non-expiring) hours, or $10 for 720 (consecutive, expiring) hours.

HOWEVER - the bit that's missing is that RTW points is a *closed* economy. There are no NPCs conjuring RTW points out of thin air, the way they do with APB $. The only source of RTW points is to buy them from RTW with cash money.
*You* don't have to buy them - but *someone* does.

Example:
16 people each spend just $5 to buy 200 more RTW points (above the 100 that you get with the game).
Each of those people buys a theme or spray or decal from you that you created and posted for 300 RTP.
They all now have 0 RTW Points, and you have 4800, which you can use to pay for your next year of playtime.
The RTW point economy means that the time you spent being creative has a definite dollar value - in this case, $120.

Originally posted by Telon

Originally posted by shr4pnel

This is why I don't play these small MMO games (APB, Darkfall, Vanguard, etc.)---their future in uncertain. I will only trust MMOs that are backed by BIG companies like Blizzard, EA BioWare, etc.

 

You do realize that APB was backed by EA and Vanguard was backed by SoE, not gonna get much bigger than that for an mmo.

 

Prior to being backed by Sony Online Entertainment, Vanguard was backed by none other than [b]Microsoft[/b].

Now the reason for the Lead Designer's departure is clear.

This is either his parting "gift" to us players, or they've asked him to leave because nobody can stand his...peculiar...sense of humor anymore. :)

And here I was expecting details on a new form of PvP taken from APB - one where you could arrest someone, and then hang them at the (literally) new Gallows.

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Originally posted by Majestico
I was just wondering if anybody knew if any celebs, or famous people who play MMO's?  I am betting that WoW must have some, especially since a whole episode of South Park was dedicated to the programme.
I understand that Johnny Vegas (a large comedian from the UK) plays them, although I do not know which ones.  Be interested to hear any anectdotes anyone might have about this.

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Clearly, the person saying..erm...yelling that, had no idea that *the* Richard Bartle was not 30 meters away from him in game. :)

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Originally posted by Dragoshan
Got one too, always wanted to try this game. Will I have to buy the game box after the 30 days expire or just the 15 bucks for monthly subscription?

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Originally posted by Vindicta
Wow. Level 43 stuff. Didn't the game come out like, a couple weeks ago? I know people will just plow through content if they want to, but man...in a Cryptic game...kind of makes me feel sorry for y'all. But I didn't even make it to the end of the tutorial, so what do I know, right?

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I've been playing (time-casually) since headstart, and I just hit LtC 2. I'm glad to know that when I (eventually) get there, that stuff will be fleshed out.

New Lieutenant content does me no good.

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Originally posted by nekollx
 and i'll bet they still havent fixed the broken pree order items...

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Within the limits of the NDA I'm (still) under from the first round of closed beta (which *does* say that I can say I was in that round of beta, but says that I can't share any information about the game, including my impressions of the game), I can only say that I'm baffled by this news, and don't understand why a delay would be felt to be necessary.

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Originally posted by wgc01
most companies say 300k is a good money maker

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So, if you're holding STO up to the WoW or Final Fantasy bar, yeah, everything's a 'failure', but when you hold it up to more reasonable long-term player retention standards (EQ, EQII, CoX, Lineage, Lineage II, FFXI, DAOC, etc.) a half-million is a runaway success, and a quarter-million is more than enough to keep the lights on.

I mean, let's be real here...
STO won't 'kill' WoW, but would you say that it's likely have more success than A Tale In The Desert or World War II Online or Anarchy Online?

FWIW, those three all keep the lights on, month after month after month, with less than 20,000 subscribers.

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Originally posted by mrputts
Fix the <expletive deleted> vertical flying problem you <insult deleted>. That's the number one thing needs changed.

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I'm sorry, but "vertical" flying is an expectation you have of the title that does not match with the limits of the original IP.
Go watch The Original Series - Enterprise vs. Klingon/Romulan were always "facing up".
Go watch Wrath of Khan...same thing, even in the dust cloud.
Go watch DS-9's huge battles...

Contrary to your personal preference, it's not 'broken', and can't be/shouldn't be 'fixed'. The Star Trek Universe has an "up" and a "down" to it.

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Originally posted by Praetoriani
Redemption rate. Redemption rate? Don't they mean retention rate?

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Those are "Un-redeemed" keys.

Then they talk about Concurrent Users being a percentage of the keys that are redeemed.

* You sign up for Open Beta, find the key in your SPAM folder, *use it*, then go play ME2. That's a redeemed key, but you never count as a 'concurrent user'.

Get it?

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Originally posted by Knightsoul

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Originally posted by jonaylward

 
If you're trying to put in your keys, two paths will get you there -
A) Exceptional patience and persistence - the keys will go through eventually.
B) Wait until tomorrow.

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I lolled: great ways to satisfy your customers! 

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You were expecting today to be damn busy - you were going to be running your ass off, trying to get everything you have to do today done, and you knew it.
Now, you find out that you're going to have to serve, far, far, far more customers you were expecting today (doing whatever it is you do - whether that's being a computer guy, a bank teller, a shoe salesman, a plumber, a Customer service rep, a stockbroker, or a barista for 2 hours tonight at your Student Union Coffee Shop)

Whatcha gonna do? Hmm?

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Plus what company that wants to make money dilibrately makes a crap game?

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They didn't even tweak the interface for the quest delivery to be compatible with the on ship view screens. In fact, there's not a single instance in the whole game where they even utilize the view screen. The tutorial was a perfect opportunity to do this. Instead they use the same window that Champions uses. Thats one of many no-brainer core aspects of Star Trek that they didn't even try to get into the game. Almost every single episode of every Star Trek series and every movie had view screen communications.
[color=#ff6600]If you followed this game at all you know the Bridges were thrown in at the last second due to their fans wanting them added.[/quote]
"Cryptic Studios has revealed that bridge gameplay will indeed make it into the game for launch, and will serve as a social hub where players can socialize with others."

Cryptic didn't even announce Bridges until November 13th, 2009.
Having *anything* bug free and playable as a social setting in 10 short weeks is *amazing* - even if it doesn't live up to some folks' expecations at this time.

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Originally posted by RavingRabbid
Sooooooooooooooo I went out and bought the game......got home.....attempted to input info and whammmmooooo Account server is down maybe? Problem is that they keep asking me for info This blows dead bears.....
CC is good. My info is up to date.
Ive never had iassues in any game ive played loggin in and playing.
Ive been on hold for an hour now......
(DDDDDDDDDDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH fires plungers at crytic studios!!!!!)

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Cryptic is adding hardware to the cluster as fast as it shows up on the loading dock. They've been *exceptionally* communicative on this (and every other) issue, (including the overwhelmingly positive response rate during Open Beta) and I see that as a huge plus.

If you're trying to put in your keys, two paths will get you there -
A) Exceptional patience and persistence - the keys will go through eventually.
B) Wait until tomorrow.