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• • oh well WAR was/is a huge let down...

  • Originally posted by Pappy13
    

    You are in denile. 

    According to X-fire, the game topped out at #4 on 9-24 less than a week after it released, it held steady at number 5 for a couple weeks and then yesterday dropped to 6th although today it's back up to 5th.  That's not good for a game that has been out for less than a month.  If the game was seeing a steady increase in play time, then that would be reason for optimism, but a decline in numbers less than a month from release indicates that it's not gaining momentum, rather it's losing it from a strong launch.  AoC did about the same thing when it was released, hovered around the top 5-10 for the first month, but has since dropped like a stone to #34.

    http://www.xfire.com/genre/mmo/massively_multiplayer_online/

    Check out Amazon.com and look at the top games.  It's number 11 on the list.  They sold about a 1/2 million copies either pre-release or in the first couple days and then topped out at around 750 thousand copies sold.  It's slipping week to week.

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/videogames/12508701/ref=pd_ts_zbw_vg_12508701_more?&pf_rd_p=302739501&pf_rd_s=right-4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=229575&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=120JH4ZJ6ATPSH1S746W

    It started out on Gamerankings.com with a score of around 91 which is very close to WoW's score, but since it has dropped to 87.3.  That's still VERY good, but DaOC had a better score and LOTRO was very close.

    http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/simpleratings.asp

    I'm sorry that this is hard for you to swallow.  It must be very frustrating.  It's very much like when Warhammer 40K, Dawn of War was released for me.  I LOVED the game and told everyone I knew how great it was and that they should all get it, but very few people did.  I've bought all the expansions and have told everyone I can that it's a great game, but unfortunately it just never caught on like some other games that were inferior to it in my opinion.  It still has many loyal customers including myself, but it's never had the success I thought it deserved.  I love the Warhammer universe and I really did want War to do well.  My desire to play WoW has waned from what it was a year ago and I truly have been looking for a good alternative, but it has not materialized.  I tried Tabula Rasa.  I tried Guild Wars.  I tried LOTRO.  I attempted to try AoC, but I could never get into the beta nor could I ever get a trial key from anyone (is that even working yet?).  And now I've tried War.  I thought enough of the beta to purchase the game and if WoTLK was not coming out next month I probably would have renewed for another month, but from what I have seen WoW is still the better product and since it has such a HUGE lead as far as subscriptions go, the other games just haven't been able to make a dent.

    I have been playing games with a group of about 10 guys for about the last 5 years or so.  I did manage to convince 1 guy to give War a try.  He got into the beta with me and quit playing it in like 2 days and went back to WoW saying it wasn't as good.  I couldn't convince any of the rest of the guys to even try it.  For whatever reason, there just isn't a whole lot of interest in the game.  Perhaps that's because people are waiting for WoTLK.  Perhaps it's because after 4 years of WoW people are a little burned out on MMO's and looking for something different.  I don't know, I only know that it's not catching on.  That's not because it's a bad game, but it might be because it's not a better game than WoW.  Why should I play a game that none of my friends are playing, when I can return to the game that they all are playing? 

    I'm not spreading lies.  You are ignoring the facts.

    That's just my opinion.  I could be wrong.

    
     

    Pappy13: You should really look at the data you just showed me. And just to be clear - the discussion is not whether WAR will surpass WoW in subscription numbers since this is something no one knows anything about - the discussion is moot. This is about whether WAR has had a successfull launch so far.

    You said that the launch had failed and that WAR will end up as AoC and that this is supported by objective data. I am telling you that this might be your hope but that there is no data to support it.

    Ask yourself the following questions and answer honestly (without numbers):

    - Will a newly launched game sell alot in the first week of sales and then sell slightly less in the weeks later to then reach some sort of steady state (X number of new sales per week) with a slight decline per time unit?

    - Will Y% of a population that buys the game stop playing it within a pretty short time of purchase (do not like it, performs poorly on their machine etc)?

    - Will every game with loyal customer have a loss of these customers of Z% per time-unit (played it enough even if they enjoyed it) - attrition?

    If you answer yes*3 above (which I know you will) you will get a game activity that spikes the first week or so, declines rather sharply  after that. The decline will then continue but start to flatten out until X>Z and the game actually grows from there.

    So this is 100% predictable. This is exactly the WAR curve on X-fire. And now WAR is growing on X-fire again which is exactly in accordance with the above numbers.

    Hence - your statements are close to 100% wrong, and nor you nor I can predict what the future holds for the game (how big it will be and so on). All we can say is that the launch has been very succesfull and that your statements in your subscription posts are factually wrong and a mirror of your personal views and bias.

    Regarding your other posts regarding amazon and gamerankings I cannot comment on them. Game rankings are very bad at predicting how well a game fares unless the score is very low (when there is a correlation to poor performance). How predictable Amazon is I do not know - do you have data that says how Amazon numbers translate to long-term success of a game?

  • Posted: 10/17/08 6:07 PM
    World of Warcraft
• • oh well WAR was/is a huge let down...

  • Originally posted by Pappy13

    Sorry, but the game just lacks a lot of stuff that is expected in an MMO.  Don't believe me though, just look at the indicators.  Sales of the game have slowed.  XFIRE numbers are dropping.  Recent reviews have been tougher on the game.  Subscription numbers will be coming out soon and it's not looking good.  It's gonna do about as well as AoC did, maybe a bit better, but that's it.  It's not even gonna do as well as LOTRO.  Mythic didn't knock the ball out of the park.  They took a swing and they fouled it off.  It could have been so much better especially coming from a developer that already had 1 MMO under their belt.

    That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

    
     

    Pappy13: You know I really played WoW for a long time and give the game alot of credit. It is the kind of nonsense above that scares me from someone that praises himself to be objective.

    Just like anyone could predict X-fire numbers grew like mad in the early days of WAR release. After that there has been a decline since some players do not like the game and the players that do play the game play slightly less than in the first 2 weeks of crazy ranking up.

    After that there has been a steady inflow of players and now the X-fire numbers are growing again after release on a week-to-week comparison basis.

    All of this is as expected after a massive release (it is exactly how numbers would play out if you would model it). When someone then states that 'sales have slowed', 'X-fire numbers are dropping' etc without any reasoning to back it up it is borderline ignorant.

    My hope is that both WAR and WoW will become strong brands in the market. WoW already is. So far WAR is delivering exactly what you can expect from a game that will become a strong brand. What the coming months will show is unknown however.

    Stop spreading lies.

  • Posted: 10/17/08 11:34 AM
    World of Warcraft
• • oh well WAR was/is a huge let down...

  • Originally posted by Pappy13
    

    There were 19 dungeons (some with mutliple parts) in WoW at release.  You could pretty much level up doing nothing but dungeons.  I'm sticking with my original assessment.
     

    
     

    Pappy - at least be honest enough that 'no dungeons to speak of' is much less than the list I provided - and hence you were misinformed.

  • Posted: 10/17/08 8:31 AM
    World of Warcraft
• • Anyone noticing lower populations on their server?

  • Like I have said in many other threads I believe X-fire is very good are trending individual games (be careful with any cross comparisons).

    As I also have said at a launch you will have a surge in player activity - new subs and each individual player plays like mad. After that you will have a slump - some people quit (for whatever reason) and the people that like the game play slightly less than during the first 2 weeks.

    After that new subs will start to out grow attrition and the game will grow to an unknown level of steady state subs (and this number is close to impossible to predict).

    I believe Mythic went over board with the amount of servers at release which was a mistake. Having said that Warhammer has passed the initial slump and is this week growing in player activity (week to week comparison) again - after the release bump. So all looks good and I would just hang in there since the servers will fill out. If you really hate your current population - reroll. A two week investment in a game is nothing.

    To be honest there are too many political views on these Boards - either you want a game to succeed or you want it to fail (why would anyone want that - but whatever floats your boat). X-fire is a nice calm objective measure in the middle of that menure.

  • Posted: 10/17/08 8:25 AM
    WAR (Warhammer Online)
• • WAR passes 750,000 mark in players

  • Originally posted by Cronjob
    

    I'm on Dark Crag (a heavily populated server) and I have no idea where all these people are at. PQs are empty 98% of the time. RvR svenerios just have the same people round after round... after day after day. Towns/chapters/areas other than, say, Altdorf itself -- are almost desolate.

    
     

    I cannot see this to be a truthful statement. I am on a high/high to full/full server and there are people everywhere. Scenarios pop within 15-30sec during prime-time. The bank in Altdorf is filled with people outside etc. If you are a low pop server that is still building up I can see what you describe but not on a high/high to full/full (the only way I interpret your 'heavily' populated wording).

    Having said that they need to incentivize open RvR more in T1 to T3. The exp change is a step in the right direction.

  • Posted: 10/11/08 1:17 PM
    WAR (Warhammer Online)