All Posts by Dracus

"Hundreds of thousands..." implies more than one set of a 100,000; a minimum of 200,000.

And from what I can remember of all SOE/LA PR statements and postings, not one has mentioned more than 200,000.  The last statement from a developer was over a hundred thousand about a year ago to put down a rumor that SWG had 25,000 or so (if cited sources are needed, perform a search here or on the web).

A Spin could have been weaved as to saying that hundreds of thousands of people have enjoyed. (Past tense rather than present tense)

There are some good numbers being reported in the above postings.

To add to them, although 400,000 or even 250,000 subscribers may be seen as a great amount of income per month; there are expenses and licensing issues.  Some titles provide up to 40% for income, while the other 60% go towards other parties.  So even using 400,000 as an optimistic number, reduce that income down by 20% (being generous I think, instead of 60%), so that equates effectively to 320,000 paying accounts.

But 320,000 seems like a good number, and it is for most MMO's.  $320k at $15/mo, is about $4.8 million a month towards Funcom's pocket.  Then add in another round of internal expenses.  And now that $4.8 million doesn't look all that hot when it also is needed to pay off investors (debt plus return). 

To add in more gloom, the number of subscribers is on a downward trend, so the amount of income is diminishing, not increasing.  One of the problems of releasing a hyped game before it was ready and charging high end market rates.

As for AoC being Doomed...  I do not think so.  It will live on, but not in glory.  Well I would say it depends on how WAR plays out and what Funcom can do fix AoC in six months.

Eh, screenshots can be altered and unverifiable.

I do wonder at what percentage are gold farmers.

Take another look as mentioned above during evening hours.

Originally posted by Warmaker

A parody from the film "Downfall" (which is really good, BTW).  Go see what Der Fuhrer goes through regarding his account on SWG.

Originally posted by Enigma

Because you and I both know that isn't what is happening. Anyone with an IQ above 23 knows a lot of members are coming from Forumfall (and creating alts) to bring other games down and hyping yours up.

Unfortunately the General IQ of a Mob decreases in direct value compared to the increasing size of the Mob.

As demonstrated.

Originally posted by Enigma

Its just a fanciful tool.

Indeed

Originally posted by Kyleran

The hype meter rating might be more relevant if there hadn't been an orginaized campaign over on the DFO forums to spam up (and drag down) the ratings here. 

I got to agree. 

Seeing how some DF fans made postings in other top Hype Games to bring them down ("DF Rulez") so that Darkfall could be top ranked.

Originally posted by erikk3189

I read in another forum that SWG is going back to the way it used to be.  Now, although I doubt this to be true I decided to ask now that I'm perusing this website. Is this true?

The indications have been that some of the old concepts are being restored, such as crafting or so.  Nothing about going back to CU or Pre-CU.

Originally posted by sookster54

 

It's inevitable, those billboards has been there since the combat upgrade but they weren't functional until after the NGE, you click on one and it says "cantina"... Planetside had billboards ingame but they originally had faction mottos (Fight for New Conglomate, etc.) but they changed it to actual SOE product advertising, coincidentally that happened when Planetside lost a large chunk of players (from 50K down to below 18K).

 

SOE will do anything to squeeze out the last bit of cash in their games.

Righty-O.

In-game advertisement will be the next step following the Trading Card Game for SWG to gain additional revenue.  I'm surprised that those billboards have not been put into effective use yet.  Maybe there were some technical glitches or the uproar of the community at the time was too great (can't be, SOE/LA listening to their customers?).

The implementation of advertisement will go as follows:

1. No prior warning
2. When pushed into the live, an announcement will be made (official forums and launchpad).
3. Due to rising costs of the infrastructure, administration and inflation; in-game advertisement is needed to offset those costs, to avoid raising the monthly subscription fees.
4. For Station Pass Members or those willing to add an additional $2.99/mo, the in-game advertisements will be removed.
5. Trial accounts will have a perma-UI window spamming advertisements
6. Making changes to Firewall port settings to block advertisement is a ban-able offense

Then about 6 months later (Enter the Battlefield 2142 adware):

1. As per the EULA, users agree for SOE/LA to install a "monitoring program" which checks for the integrity of the game files (to prevent exploitation/hacking).  In addition, the monitoring program will log the websites the user has visited and send the log to SOA/LA for marketing purposes (and to sell to 3rd parties, while keeping the user's identity private).
2. Failure to allow for the monitoring program to work or blocking port settings will result in SWG being unplayable.

Looking forward to it.

And since people are willing to pay for a monthly subscription and buy cards, they won't mind the in-game advertisement (Wanna Fontana?) that will come later.  After all the billboards are in place.

Originally posted by CaesarsGhost

Over the years I've attempted to engage Darkfall fans in conversations about the title. 

<edited to save space>

This forum is indeed an interesting place, it seems to be the most bipolar at this site (by bipolar, I refer to direct opposition; nothing of the mental aspect).

Although what I find lacking is the amount of information that the developers of Darkfall provide to their community.  This video was a good example of this.  While having the video did show that there is development of Darkfall, it left some concerns and questions; of which have not been answered. 

Did the developers provide any additional comments or supporting information with this video or just sent it out with little else to say?  (I do not know, I do not go to the official forums, I just check game sites once in a while.  And I haven't come across any supportive information from the company.)

Any-hoot, good luck to your title.

Originally posted by tfox2k1 

Frankly a sandbox will never work because MMO gamers are not smart enough to manage an open ended content environment.

This is stereotyping.  A better way to phrase this would be to say that the mass market for MMO's prefers simplification.

Supporting evidence, most serious gamer realize MMOing is about time spent, not skill. I think of all those debates in various MMOs with so called 'skilled' players when I tell them their 'skill' comes from their level and gear. Level and gear come with time. So skill in an MMO equates to time spent in the MMO.

A simple way to say this would be of the Learning Curve.  Any investment by time provides for better education and skill.  But this is off topic, back to sandboxes...

Those wanting a sandbox, really are not wanting a sandbox. They are wanting an evolving, guided dungeon, like the AD&D of old with a skilled Dungeon Master.

Again this is stereotyping.  There is a difference between Sandbox and Regulated systems, and even hybrids.

You want a game where you can adventure and its different each time. You want to walk along a dark road one night and see nothing but the moon hanging in the sky. The next time you walk down this dark road, you want to get jumped by four goblins and have to fight for your life. You want to fight epic bosses who don't follow the same script each time. You want adventures to the bottom a a dungeon, no one else except your party has visited before.

This is the sandbox you want. Well unfortunately technology is a LONG LONG LONG way from creating functional virtual world with chance encounters and intelligent AI. (I actually think this is proof of God)

Actually the technology is available.  The reason for the lack of sandbox systems is due to business decisions.  Sandbox systems are not the big cash-cows as compared to regulated systems, or so that is the belief.  Sandbox systems also require more effort and resources to develop than do regulated systems, and thus have a lower return on investment.

Since technology can't create the world you want, you have to rely upon other players to create this virtual world. Well guess what, they can't.

Actually players can, Second Life is an example of this.

What if we created virtual dungeon masters. Say volunteers who ran this online MMO content and gave it intelligence. These DM's could be trusted players who understand the game. Guess what would happen, greed, favroritism, and dishonosty. How long before these trusted DM's start giving out extra items or easier quests to their friends, alts, family?

May want to try out Rysom with the Player Created Mission system.

Therefore a true sandbox MMO is still many decades away (if ever).

No, true sandboxes exist today.  Give Starquest Online a try.  I could name some others as well. 

Sandbox MMO's are and will be provided by Indies and not by large publishers.

After seeing a demonstration of Champions Online and listening to the Cryptic Developers during the presentation, I'm calling the quits for Star Trek Online.  It will not be the game for me and I'll briefly explain why (even with STO being in early development):

- STO will target the Console Audience over the PC audience.  The PC Gaming Retail Gaming Market is dead, whereas the Console Gaming Retail Market is growing.

- Cryptic's Definition of Fun is the critical item.  If their definition of fun is in aligned with yours, then that is great, but if not, you are SOL.  The best way I can provide a short example would be of this:
According to Cryptic, playing Checkers is Fun, but playing Chess is not Fun.  So if you like playing Checkers more so than Chess, then you should like Star Trek Online.  But if you are a Chess player at heart... welp sorry.

So that will be it for me on these boards. 
STO is a game of Checkers and not of Chess.
I do have confidence that Cryptic will make a good game for those who like the type of fun that City of Heroes provides.

But for those seeking more depth and level of complexity as Chess would be over Checkers, STO is very unlikely to be the MMO for you.

Enjoy

Originally posted by Smithy021

not one word about darkfalls new video or even there beta applications What gives?

 you being paid by another company or what?

It is a 3 day weekend in the US (Labor Day Holiday), and I do notice that often during the weekends no news is reported by this site.

Wait for Tuesday for any news updates.

Just to add in of the perception of its failure...

(Oh now, not the Rulebook Lawyer Maneuver!) 

A past study (7 years ago I believe from the Thames* Group) had listed that 50% of new players would quit during the first month of playing an MMORPG.  However afterwards, the churn rate would drop to 5% to 8% for players who decide to player longer than one month.  So getting players past the one month was hardest part and retention stayed pretty health (for good games of course).  Even with a 50% drop out rate of new players, most games can continue to grow over time by selling more than those that quit.

Now with AoC...  suffering more than a 50% churn rate is not healthy.  Granted 50% of new players quit in the first month, but AoC should be selling a lot of more copies to overcome that loss, along with the expected churn rate loss.  This goes to show that the losses of players are exceeding the number of copies sold for new players/accounts.  This is Anarchy Online over again (in terms of subscriber performance).

* I keep misspelling that name...

Originally posted by ArcAngel3

So the Gorax card that gives you stat bonuses (+200 constitution and +200 luck) is "all fluff?"  It's not fluff.  It affects combat ability, and you just lied to everyone on these boards, and yeah, I'm calling you on it.

So in other words, real money can be used to have impact in the game world and combat ability... great. 

So in addition to a top end subscription plan there are micro-payments.

So then... when are those advertisements going to pop in (of course not passing the savings to the customer)?

Originally posted by pdxgeek

Right so to get any benefit out of the card game (loot cards) there is a cost. Therefore it's yet another SOE scam.

And those cards are subject to changes.

Originally posted by talanisen

Umm... less than 100 concurrent players on a MMO server at any time is pretty much the definition of failure. Particularly for a game based on a premium IP.

These numbers of active people are ... well ... interesting (sorry for being like Spock).

Each server originally supported 3,500 concurrent users right after launch I think...  I forget what the limit went to after the server upgrades, 5,000?  Yeah that is a lot of CPU power going to waste.

I know!  To help combat global warming by saving the Watt, SOE/LA should shut down the low populated servers!  Be Green.  Do it to Save The Planet! 

(Ok, I'm joking about saving the Watt)

Originally posted by pdxgeek

Also, don't think that because character transfers cost money that there is anything technically challenging about it. It's just another way to squeeze more money out of their dwindling player base.

I'm not saying you are wrong with that statement.  I think both possibilities are true; it is a difficult process, or a sneaker net process along with a means to generate more income.  Considering that the rate of $15/mo is still the norm...  (Why do MMO's go up in price or instantly become F2P over their lifetime, rather than go down in price gradually?  Just one of those things to ponder about...)