Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Forum » General Discussion » SOE sitting on GOLD MINE!

Originally posted by teddyboy420

Originally posted by Daffid011 

 I can promise you that if soe had millions of subscribers they would not be able to shut up about it.   The highest numbers soe has even releases were 550k for EQ, 300k for swg and 300k for EQ2 and that was many years ago.  All of those games have closed down all of their servers in the asian market since then and have had many server mergers. 

 

Just how many accounts do you think 1 mmo game server can support?  I'll give you a hint, it is not a 100,000 to 1 ratio.

 

World of warcraft has 241 servers for their estimated 2.5 million players in North America.

You really believe EQ2 handles millions of players with just 25 servers?  Or that everquest has up to 1 million with 25 servers?  Or that vanguard handles 3-400k with just 4 servers?

 

So yes I am telling you that I don't think 300-400k people have access to Vanguard.  I'll go even further to say I don't think that many people have access to all of those games combined.  

 

If this game had 300k+ players it would be getting paid expansions.  It would have more than 6 developers or whatever number it is now.  It would be the second or third largest mmo in the entire western market.

The parts I italiscied are just not true.

I can vouch for the fact that EQ2 has at least 300k-500k CURRENT subscribers spread over it's servers, not a single EQ2 server dips below Medium population during "prime-time" hours (from about 3pm-10pm EDT.

Also, EQ2 currently has servers in the Asian market. I know they at least have an active server or two in Japan, I can't speak for the rest of Asia as those regions are handled by another publisher.

EQ2 also has not had "many" server mergers....they had one round of mergers and that was it. After that, all of the servers have very healthly populations. I'm not talking WoW type numbers here, but healthly none-the-less.

EQ2 is currently SoE's "flagship" game, it has the highest number of subscribers, largest development team, and it the best supported out of it's 4 "major" MMOs.

I know the thread is about Vanguard, but I just wanted to refute the suggestion that EQ2 isn't doing well, or is struggling. It's not.

It looks like you are correct and there is at least 1 Japanese language server (maybe 1 russian server still, but that looks to have ended at ROK expansion).  So I do stand corrected.  However soe does run that server since square enix closed the door on EQ2 in 2006  squarehaven.com/news/2006/04/01/Square-Enix-drops-Everquest-II-like-bad-habit  www.rpgfan.com/news/2006/1167.html.  As to my comment, the entire "Everquest II east" project that I was referencing failed and closed shop.  That was SOEs asian initiative for their mmos.  Along with their Everquest, SWG all of which closed down and were merged into various US servers.   The japan server is most likely run in the CA offices and I can't find anything about localization post-square enix era.  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest_II:_East 

Combined together the SOE game servers have gone through many server mergers.  EQ2 went through the one large server merger as you mentioned.  However it also had at least one other smaller round of European PVP server mergers (as well as free character transfers for all of the european servers).  There was also the merging of the asian servers with US servers. Those are the 3 sets of mergers I have heard about, so you would be incorrect about there only being one merger.   Not to mention paid character transfers are coming to EQ2 as announced at fan faire.

eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive_content.vm  (story about the European mergers)

www.epicshadows.com/forum/viewtopic.php (story about the asian mergers to us servers in addition to being referenced in the wiki listing above)

As for EQ2 having 300-500k players, that is a pretty large margin don't you think for stating a fact?   That is almost +/- 50% margin of error there. 

You say the EQ2 servers dont have the same population as a WoW server.  A typical wow server has about 1500-2000 players online during prime time and supports about 10,000 accounts.  This also fits nicely into what several developers have stated about 20% of a games total population typically logs in during prime time hours. 

EQ2 has 21 active servers listed on their forums, not including the test server and Japan server.  21 wow servers would support roughly 210,000 accounts.  If EQ2 servers don't have as many players as a wow server....  Do you see where I am going with this? 

It is just simple logistics of how many players a server can handle in games of this type.  A game with 4 servers cannot possibly support 400,000 players on current servers.  No more than a game with 21 servers can support 500,000 players.  When a server gets to many players it splits.  To few players and they merge.  Some games need mergers sooned due to population being key to gameplay (warhammer/conan) and some don't, because the server doesn't need huge masses of people to still offer a decent play experience based on small groups/guilds (eq2, wow, vg, etc). 

Just to put Typwn to rest about claiming millions of subscribers.  Here is a press release from soe about their company just a few weeks ago.  Not the lack of talk about millions and the inclusion of non mmo related games. 

www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/everquest-ii-hp-offering-print-on-demand-service-to-decorate-your-home-with-all-things-everquest-and-free-realms

Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) is a recognized worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online games, with hundreds of thousands of subscribers around the globe. SOE creates, develops and provides compelling entertainment for the personal computer, online, game console and wireless markets.

Originally posted by drbaltazar

 your prob right hell wow put a cap on how many player can go in wintergasp at one time i beleive it 200 player 

that being said microsoft is working on a solution wich will help  mmo a lot so if your cap was 200 when w7 patch come next year it might be 2000 player instead of 200 in wintergrasp

i saw in a video they showed online an expemple and i can say right now they way microsoft goes for mmo is the futur

its not ready yet but they got a lot of it done

it probably wont work on older game or unpopular but something like wow would benefit greatly from microsoft tech.when its ready

 

Wait.

Does this mean that if I don't "upgrade" to windows 7 you all are shit out of luck?

Oh, forgot, would it also mean that it's over 9000 in Jita?

I think if they really wanted to revive Vanguard...or any company that might want to revive a game that never quite got off ground because of a bad start....the only way to do that and have a real success(measuring subs in excess of 300K or even 1M+) would be to use the old game as a skeleton, get a good dev team together, make a "new" game from the old(new as in redo all of the old content to bring it up to where it should be, add content as needed and basically polish the game from top to bottom without changing the basic game iteself...no new classes or revamping of skills or combat or major systems...just polish with extra content), then cal lit Vanguard 2 and release it fresh. You could give current players a discount for the new game or even a free copy, but otherwise start everything over from scratch, servers, characters etc.

This would bring a new set of hype(good or bad) and basically bring the game back into the forefront of everyone again. Only a small percentage of players want to go out and buy a game that has been out for over a year unless they have allready played the game in the past. However, 100% of the gaming community will at least look at a game if it is packaged as new and launched in the same way as a brand new game is launched. Just look at all the korean/asian games that get relaunched over here in the english markets after they have been out for a year or more.

Anything short of a major overhaul/revamp with a brand new launch where everything starts from scratch will not revive a failing game. This however, will cost money to redevelop and companies are usually not willing to put money into an idea they perceive as having failed, although the overall cost to overhaul a game like vanguard would probably be less then $10M vrs the cost to produce a new game from scratch would cost at least $30M.

Sony isn't exactly known for the effort they put in to maintaining and creating content for the games they offer.  They're also not especially well-known for being honest with their customers.  In my (reasonably long) experience with Sony, they seem to have gone out of their way to tank more games than any other company I've seen.

I tried Vanguard.  It was all right, but it wasn't especially exciting to me personally.

While I'm glad that you and others enjoy it, I would caution you not to hold your breath for SOE/SCEI to actually do anything to maintain or improve the game...and I certainly wouldn't hold my breath while waiting for SOE/SCEI to actually advertise for any of their games that don't have the word "EverQuest" in the title if I were you.

Sony's been sitting on several gold mines for quite some time - their ability to turn a gold mine into a lump of pyrite is simply astonishing.

"SOE is sitting on a GOLD MINE!"

lol, no their not.

This game launched years ago, it's old news and still has issues. Maybe if they made the station pass a free to play service maybe they might be onto something but SOE games a joke when it comes to the mythical western "AAA" quality.

 It is a good game, but does get a little boring after some time. I wouldn't mind it if they increased the difficulty a little.

Its turned into a good game and remember Sony has deep pockets if they wanted too they could do some things.

Hardcore style MMOs just aren't gold mines anymore.  Learn to adapt.

ONe of the biggest mistakes, in my opinion, that LOTRO did was to make the entire world just covered in mobs. Can't stand that. There are sections where I would love to just travel to my destinations but the field is covered in mobs. I prefer the way the world of Vanguard is set up.

I very much second this.  I love LOTRO to bits, but this one factor keeps annoying me majorly.  

In VG, because of the fact that you have areas where the mobs are thin on the ground, it actually feels more like you are wandering about in a real world, it's more immersive.  With LOTRO, the fact that THIS IS A GAME is being thrust at you all the time, by the sheer density of mobs.  You don't really get a chance to just soak up the atmosphere and wander around a bit (except in that one area north of the Breelands).

VG has more of a "fantasy sim" element in it than LOTRO - than, indeed, any other game on the market atm.

I just came back recently to this game and I must say that this game is awesome.  I agree with the idea its the best "virtual world sim" out there.

There are opportunties to group, I've found them, I wouldn't worry about server pops, its a self fulfulling thing either way.