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  1. #41
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Where did you find those numbers? >.>
    The 500k for EQ2 was someones guess on a forum I googled, but I'm seeing a lot of people say 250 or 200k in response - all of that is taken prior to F2P. Then I applied this article to swell that by 300%.

    So if it was 200k or 250k then it would be 600k or 750k after F2P, or if it were the 500k estimate then it would be 1.5M. They still have from the looks of it like 30-40 med-high pop servers in North America alone: that sounds impressive enough to support that (albeit fairly wide) range.

    For Rift, they released that their revenue was over $100 million as of Jan 2012, at $15/mo for 12 months a year - that's 555,000 subscribers. They also said in November 2011 that they were still growing, so it's likely that was still true as of Jan 2012 - and was the reason they didn't want to experiment with F2P. Also looking at it now, that's before they entered Asian markets - which was likely at least net positive for them. However, http://mmodata.net/ suggests it dropped to 250,000 before it went F2P.

    I can only seem to find articles that suggest a massive increase in players after moving to F2P - but the one I had found at work (at home now) had claimed a five-fold increase, which I had compared to the 200-250k estimates I was finding (ie. mmodata.net).

    True, F2P players can't be counted as "subscriptions" - but Riot has suggested that they actually earn on average more than $15/mo/capita from being F2P. Now, MMO's might not be as successful as MOBA's for this model - but with so little data to work with, I think it's a safe bet (which is probably why so many companies are embracing it).

    MMOdata.net is also my source for 1.5 million subscribers for SW:TOR before it went F2P. Combined with the 2 million increase in players mentioned here.
    Last edited by Yvaelle; 2013-08-20 at 01:06 AM.
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  2. #42
    Completely subjective. And it's not a matter of sub numbers. You could judge it on profitability but none of us know that information and you can't just guess at it. We have no view of costs or cash shop revenue and only a rough idea of sub income. Even the shareholders only have an indirect view of the profitability of individual games.

    GW2 revolutionised a lot of MMO concepts but didn't make a huge dent in the market player-wise. Was that a success? Depends how you define it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    They failed miserably in their intended goals (to have a subscription based game with millions of subscribers), and had to use drastic methods to get the game back on track (very deep layoffs and a huge period of time with no content).

    However, the game is now profitable and supported again. Initially, it wasn't a success and it failed to achieve its intended goals. However they've managed to turn it around and it could now very safely be called a successful MMO.
    Maybe this is true, maybe not. I find it odd how often people talk about whether MMOs are profitable or not - you and I have no way of knowing that. Unless you're in Bioware's accounting department. You're just assuming based on their press.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tojara View Post
    Look Batman really isn't an accurate source by any means
    Quote Originally Posted by Hooked View Post
    It is a fact, not just something I made up.

  3. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by Mormolyce View Post
    GW2 revolutionised a lot of MMO concepts but didn't make a huge dent in the market player-wise. Was that a success? Depends how you define it.
    http://techland.time.com/2013/08/16/...-more-records/

    They must be making some kind of dent...

  4. #44
    Well if it has an active community and it is profitable are the two very basic thresholds for being successful. after that I'd like to think steady numbers and growth.

  5. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    The 500k for EQ2 was someones guess on a forum I googled, but I'm seeing a lot of people say 250 or 200k in response - all of that is taken prior to F2P. Then I applied this article to swell that by 300%.
    The 300% increase was total players, not subscribers. So while they saw a good improvement, they were nowhere near even a million. If a Western MMO had a million subs, the developers would be putting out weekly press releases to brag about it : P

    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    For Rift, they released that their revenue was over $100 million as of Jan 2012, at $15/mo for 12 months a year - that's 555,000 subscribers.
    That's revenue, including box sales and the sale of account upgrades. So you can't attribute all $100 million to subscriptions alone.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    Also looking at it now, that's before they entered Asian markets - which was likely at least net positive for them.
    The game still isn't out in China yet, and they shut it down in Korea. So far the Asian markets haven't panned out for them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    However, http://mmodata.net/ suggests it dropped to 250,000 before it went F2P.
    While I don't like MMOdata because they don't really provide much evidence for their guess at subscriber numbers, I wouldn't be surprised if Rift was in the 250k range before going F2P.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    I can only seem to find articles that suggest a massive increase in players after moving to F2P - but the one I had found at work (at home now) had claimed a five-fold increase, which I had compared to the 200-250k estimates I was finding (ie. mmodata.net).
    I've been following Rifts post-F2P stuff pretty closely and don't ever remember seeing anything about a fivefold increase. Daglar and other devs have said they've very happy with the response, but they've given no numbers that I remember.

    Also, you can't compare Patron status to subscriptions anymore because the two function differently and have different goals. If they mentioned fivefold anything, it was likely revenue, and that would be driven by the cash shop.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    True, F2P players can't be counted as "subscriptions" - but Riot has suggested that they actually earn on average more than $15/mo/capita from being F2P. Now, MMO's might not be as successful as MOBA's for this model - but with so little data to work with, I think it's a safe bet (which is probably why so many companies are embracing it).
    Oh, I know F2P is a very lucrative business model. I've seen some of the internal numbers from a few companies and have seen how it's succeeded on a pretty big scale in the industry. Also, speaking of Riot, I remember a F2P analyst predicting they make between $5-10M a day. I think that's more than a bit high, but with a global playerbase of over 30 million, it's totally possible.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    MMOdata.net is also my source for 1.5 million subscribers for SW:TOR before it went F2P. Combined with the 2 million increase in players mentioned here.
    SWTOR was at 1.3 million at the end of Q1 of 2012 (when they announced the F2P transition). The following earnings call EA didn't give specific numbers, but said, "Well over 500k subscribers" which basically means between 550k-600k. Their subscriber numbers continued to drop until the F2P, and EA refused to even really acknowledge SWTOR on their Q2 FY13 earnings call, supporting the believe that subscriber numbers had dropped under 500k.

    Adding 2 million players post-F2P is just the total number of new accounts, not subscribers. They have seen an increase and stabilization in subscribers, but they've never gotten close to the 1 million mark again. As I said earlier, we'd have press releases out the wazoo if they hit that.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Mormolyce View Post
    GW2 revolutionised a lot of MMO concepts but didn't make a huge dent in the market player-wise. Was that a success? Depends how you define it.
    It's a financial success. It's still being actively supported with quick content updates, and sold 3M copies in the first 4 months of the games life cycle in the West alone. Last quarter the game generated roughly $36M in revenue, and this quarter it generated $28M in revenue. That's very successful.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mormolyce View Post
    Maybe this is true, maybe not. I find it odd how often people talk about whether MMOs are profitable or not - you and I have no way of knowing that. Unless you're in Bioware's accounting department. You're just assuming based on their press.
    It's actually pretty easy to know if a game is profitable or not. Look at the staffing and updates a game is getting.

    Examples: Warhammer gets zero updates and has a minimal development team. We can pretty safely assume the game isn't turning much, if any profit.

    Defiance: The games development team got seriously cut twice, and the studio they were working from has been closed down. The DLC that was supposed to be released a month after launch is just being released tomorrow, almost 5 months after launch. It's pretty clear that the game hasn't been profitable for Trion.

    GW2: ArenaNet hasn't seen any serious staffing cuts, has been reporting high earnings numbers, and has actually increased the rate at which content comes out. All signs indicate that the game has been financially successful.

    While they're awesome to have, you don't really need hard data to determine the financial health and well being of a game. Market and public facing factors can do that easily enough.

  6. #46
    The Insane Glorious Leader's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    They failed miserably in their intended goals (to have a subscription based game with millions of subscribers), and had to use drastic methods to get the game back on track (very deep layoffs and a huge period of time with no content).

    However, the game is now profitable and supported again. Initially, it wasn't a success and it failed to achieve its intended goals. However they've managed to turn it around and it could now very safely be called a successful MMO.
    Oh how convenient. It seems rather arbitrary that you've made this distinction between they were a failure and now they aren't a failure based as far as I can tell on nothing other than maybe you have some horse in the f2p race? Can you tell me how much money they make? as far as I'm aware they never actually stopped supporting the game. What it sounds like to me (and maybe I'm reading a tad to much into this) is that you think f2p is the future and you want to use some mythical swtor turn around as proof of that without actually having the proof...
    The hammer comes down:
    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    Normal should be reduced in difficulty. Heroic should be reduced in difficulty.
    And the tiny fraction for whom heroic raids are currently well tuned? Too bad,so sad! With the arterial bleed of subs the fastest it's ever been, the vanity development that gives you guys your own content is no longer supportable.

  7. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by Glorious Leader View Post
    Oh how convenient. It seems rather arbitrary that you've made this distinction between they were a failure and now they aren't a failure based as far as I can tell on nothing other than maybe you have some horse in the f2p race? Can you tell me how much money they make? as far as I'm aware they never actually stopped supporting the game. What it sounds like to me (and maybe I'm reading a tad to much into this) is that you think f2p is the future and you want to use some mythical swtor turn around as proof of that without actually having the proof...
    Wait what?

    Look at the game. From launch up through the first 6 months, the game was tanking. Hard. They were hemorrhaging subscribers and their attempts to stem the bleedout were largely unsuccessful. They needed more time to work on the game and they needed to lower the barrier for entry to bring people back in.

    When they made the F2P transition, they'd had time to work on a lot of the game and improve weak aspects while building out content for future updates. They've seen seen a resurgence of players and revenue and are now on a solid 8 week content cycle and EA is finally willing to talk about the game on earnings calls and say that they're finally pleased with its performance (something they didn't do after the first post-launch earnings call).

    Seriously, I'm just pointing out the facts of what happened with the game from launch until today. If it happens to support the theory that F2P can help struggling games, then that's fine. I'm not twisting anything or making things up, I'm simply describing the lifecycle for the first year and a half of SWTOR.

    I never stated they stopped supporting it, because they had too much invested to flat out drop it (would have been a massive financial hit and a huge hit to investor confidence) and they had an alternative path in a F2P transition. They made it, and it worked. Good for them.

    I have no horse in any race. I just call it like I see it. Sorry if that offends you or something.

  8. #48
    The Insane Glorious Leader's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Wait what?

    Look at the game. From launch up through the first 6 months, the game was tanking. Hard. They were hemorrhaging subscribers and their attempts to stem the bleedout were largely unsuccessful. They needed more time to work on the game and they needed to lower the barrier for entry to bring people back in.

    When they made the F2P transition, they'd had time to work on a lot of the game and improve weak aspects while building out content for future updates. They've seen seen a resurgence of players and revenue and are now on a solid 8 week content cycle and EA is finally willing to talk about the game on earnings calls and say that they're finally pleased with its performance (something they didn't do after the first post-launch earnings call).

    Seriously, I'm just pointing out the facts of what happened with the game from launch until today. If it happens to support the theory that F2P can help struggling games, then that's fine. I'm not twisting anything or making things up, I'm simply describing the lifecycle for the first year and a half of SWTOR.

    I never stated they stopped supporting it, because they had too much invested to flat out drop it (would have been a massive financial hit and a huge hit to investor confidence) and they had an alternative path in a F2P transition. They made it, and it worked. Good for them.

    I have no horse in any race. I just call it like I see it. Sorry if that offends you or something.
    What have they added since f2p? that wasn't being added during subscription? I don't see this huge change in the games support that your claiming. In fact the transition to f2p probably delayed ALOT of content. Are they adding dungeons and raids faster? Lot's of cosmetic things here and there but they added that crap during subscription to. Quite honestly I do not see the difference in the level they support the game.
    The hammer comes down:
    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    Normal should be reduced in difficulty. Heroic should be reduced in difficulty.
    And the tiny fraction for whom heroic raids are currently well tuned? Too bad,so sad! With the arterial bleed of subs the fastest it's ever been, the vanity development that gives you guys your own content is no longer supportable.

  9. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by Glorious Leader View Post
    What have they added since f2p? that wasn't being added during subscription? I don't see this huge change in the games support that your claiming. In fact the transition to f2p probably delayed ALOT of content. Are they adding dungeons and raids faster? Lot's of cosmetic things here and there but they added that crap during subscription to. Quite honestly I do not see the difference in the level they support the game.
    Feel free to check yourself: http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes

    They are no on an 8 week content cycle, releasing new Warfronts, Operations, Flashpoints, and more. Prior to the F2P transition updates where nowhere near as fast, and weren't even really any larger than the current updates the game is getting.

    SWTOR is unique in that it's got a shitty F2P business model that restricts the hell out of the game, and that it expands its cash shop faster than any other F2P MMO I've ever seen. However, despite my dislike of their implementation of the F2P model and their focus on the cash shop, the game is now objectively releasing higher quality content faster than it was during its first 6 months as a MMO (excluding say, the first major patch or so after launch, which was mostly finished by launch).

  10. #50
    The term for "content" is being used very lightly the last few years.

    In games like WoW/SWToR/Rift aka the Gear chase Western MMO type, the only thing that classifies as actual content is Dungeons and Raids, pet battles, cosmetics, PvP are just filler stuff, no matter how much they add of those it doesnt change the fact that they are considered fluff, people that cant see that are very easily entertained.

    Its been 1.5 years since SWToR released and they have added 2 raids that werent in the initial files as far as i know, of well according to their wiki at least, one in patch 1.4, and one in patch 2.0 (Not counting the 1.2 patch raid, that was already in the beta/game was just not ready).

    18 months for 2 raids, thats Dragonsoul level, so no, they arent adding content any faster.

    The only reason Rift as example had the name of "releasing content faster" is because they would always release a 10man raid and tons of useless fluff in between raid patches.

    As i said before, people use the term "content" way too easily..Something i can finish by playing a few hours after its added, as example Isle of Thunder in WoW, Ember Isle in Rift, etc etc isnt the same as releasing a raid.

    I wish companies would stop adding useless fluff and focus on what the games are about, Raids and gear from them.

    The same way Eastern leveling games focus on adding levels and levels for people to always level, the same way Western MMO's should be doing, focus on raids, not useless fluff.

    I mean, i remember when a Perfect World Entertainment game came out..I think it was Forsaken World, i knew a guy that was heavily into those type of games along with 100 others he played with from Perfect World International.

    All that game did the 4 months i remember him playing literally 12 hours a day at this net cafe nearby, they were simply adding 10 levels, and new areas to level pretty much every 2-3 weeks, therefor their players could never catch up, and god they were happy to not be able to catch up, cause thats the content of Eastern Games, grinding, farming and leveling.

    Western MMO's are all about raiding and getting gear to raid even more, companies lately forgot that and are adding all sorts of useless fluff.
    Last edited by potis; 2013-08-20 at 02:03 AM.

  11. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Feel free to check yourself: http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes

    They are no on an 8 week content cycle, releasing new Warfronts, Operations, Flashpoints, and more. Prior to the F2P transition updates where nowhere near as fast, and weren't even really any larger than the current updates the game is getting.

    SWTOR is unique in that it's got a shitty F2P business model that restricts the hell out of the game, and that it expands its cash shop faster than any other F2P MMO I've ever seen. However, despite my dislike of their implementation of the F2P model and their focus on the cash shop, the game is now objectively releasing higher quality content faster than it was during its first 6 months as a MMO (excluding say, the first major patch or so after launch, which was mostly finished by launch).
    Right I don't see the huge difference in the time in between. In fact between the launch and the first patch rakghouls the gap is pretty small. Subsequent patches are about the same. Their is no huge difference. The criteria the game wasn't being supported as well before is simple not true.
    The hammer comes down:
    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    Normal should be reduced in difficulty. Heroic should be reduced in difficulty.
    And the tiny fraction for whom heroic raids are currently well tuned? Too bad,so sad! With the arterial bleed of subs the fastest it's ever been, the vanity development that gives you guys your own content is no longer supportable.

  12. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by potis View Post
    The same way Eastern leveling games focus on adding levels and levels for people to always level, the same way Western MMO's should be doing, focus on raids, not useless fluff.
    Two raids plus additional raids that were in the data files (saying that "it doesn't count because it was in the data files" is stupid, most of Outlands was in the data files for classic WoW but you still count BC as a proper expansion), multiple flashpoints, new BG's, a series of new world events, an expansion that included a considerable amount of story, multiple daily hubs, and a whole host of other things.

    Dungeons and raids aren't the only content in games. Like, claiming that is objectively false. If you want to believe that, that's entirely up to you. But to attempt to pass off calling dungeons and raids the only form of "actual" content as fact is pretty bad.

  13. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Two raids plus additional raids that were in the data files (saying that "it doesn't count because it was in the data files" is stupid, most of Outlands was in the data files for classic WoW but you still count BC as a proper expansion), multiple flashpoints, new BG's, a series of new world events, an expansion that included a considerable amount of story, multiple daily hubs, and a whole host of other things.

    Dungeons and raids aren't the only content in games. Like, claiming that is objectively false. If you want to believe that, that's entirely up to you. But to attempt to pass off calling dungeons and raids the only form of "actual" content as fact is pretty bad.
    I didnt claim they are the only content, i claimed they are the actual content..I know you played Rift so i am gonna give that example.

    And dont even go into that, the same way River of Souls in Rift wasnt content since it was in the alpha/beta the same way i speak about SWToR, something that was 90% ready for a year and never finished in time, doesnt make it "content" because it was released 4 weeks after launch, actual content is what they release between expansions that did not exist in the original game files.

    TBC raids didnt exist in the game files, who cares about leveling areas? Those exist just for that -leveling- aka see the story once, get excited and then hate the game for having to do them again and again.

    How many hours did it take you to finish Ember Isle quests, its Raid Rifts and its events?

    Oh lets see, it took me a total of about 10 hours, and thats because i had to wait for the actual event to spawn, or else it would have been over in literally a total playtime of less than 4 hours, yay, 4 hours of content, what a major thing, now imagine the same amount of time put into Ember Isle if they had released Infernal Dawn 2-3 months earlier?

    The Western MMO type games have as a main objective the collection of gear that gives the player a sense of greatness against other players to battle the next raid, that IS the main aspect of the game, nothing else..When games forget that, they fail.

    WoW did it right in Vanilla, in TBC and half into WoTLK, then they forgot that and aimed to please the casuals, oh look at the sub drop..I know for a fact that the game isnt losing subs because its bad, its losing subs because people finish what they want to achieve much faster than before, and they simply unsub, i still remember how it went.. BWL in summer 2005, 5 months after and few days, AQ instance, even though delayed by the event, it was out, 5.5 months after Naxxramas.

    The same way SWToR failed, the game was too easy and for the average player it was a 2 month game tops, the same way LFR causes WoW to be a 2 month game tops on every patch ever since its release.
    Last edited by potis; 2013-08-20 at 02:18 AM.

  14. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by potis View Post
    I didnt claim they are the only content, i claimed they are the actual content..I know you played Rift so i am gonna give that example.
    They aren't though...Rift has chronicles, rift raids, hunt rifts, instant adventures, conquest, BG's, zone events, and world bosses. All of which count as content and all of which also contribute to character progression while leveling and at max level.

    Quote Originally Posted by potis View Post
    And dont even go into that, the same way River of Souls in Rift wasnt content since it was in the alpha/beta the same way i speak about SWToR, something that was 90% ready for a year and never finished in time, doesnt make it "content" because it was released 4 weeks after launch, actual content is what they release between expansions.
    Do you have proof that the stuff with tags in SWTOR was "90% ready"? Because like, seriously, partially finished content is included into builds months and months ahead of when the content is ready all the time.

    Quote Originally Posted by potis View Post
    How many hours did it take you to finish Ember Isle quests, its Raid Rifts and its events?
    Actually, I remember it taking me quite a while. I think spent a good week on the island poking around completing story and non-story quests and participating in the zone events, then stuck around for a bit longer to do dailies while getting the rep for some of the cosmetic gear.

    Quote Originally Posted by potis View Post
    Oh lets see, it took me a total of about 10 hours, and thats because i had to wait for the actual event to spawn, or else it would have been over in literally a total playtime of less than 4 hours, yay, 4 hours of content, what a major thing, now imagine the same amount of time put into Ember Isle if they had released Infernal Dawn 2-3 months earlier?
    Somehow I feel as if you're being disingenuous, or you rushed through it insanely quickly with raid gear. I wasn't raid geared and my duracell spec on my cleric wasn't the fastest at killing things.

    If you only believe that dungeons/raids are content, that's fine. You've got a skewed view, but I'm not going to get into it with you. However claiming that as a fact is where problems arise, because it's objectively incorrect.

  15. #55
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    I'll teach y'all a real neat formula for determining if an MMO is successful.

    A - B = C, where A is Income, and B is expense. If C is a number greater than 0, you have a successful MMO.

  16. #56
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    They aren't though...Rift has chronicles, rift raids, hunt rifts, instant adventures, conquest, BG's, zone events, and world bosses. All of which count as content and all of which also contribute to character progression while leveling and at max level.

    Do you have proof that the stuff with tags in SWTOR was "90% ready"? Because like, seriously, partially finished content is included into builds months and months ahead of when the content is ready all the time.

    Actually, I remember it taking me quite a while. I think spent a good week on the island poking around completing story and non-story quests and participating in the zone events, then stuck around for a bit longer to do dailies while getting the rep for some of the cosmetic gear.

    Somehow I feel as if you're being disingenuous, or you rushed through it insanely quickly with raid gear. I wasn't raid geared and my duracell spec on my cleric wasn't the fastest at killing things.

    If you only believe that dungeons/raids are content, that's fine. You've got a skewed view, but I'm not going to get into it with you. However claiming that as a fact is where problems arise, because it's objectively incorrect.
    1)All of which can be completed in minutes, chronicles are the biggest waste of time with Rift, you want people to see the raid? Give them a buff, remove drops, add an NPC with some cheesy dialogue and have them hit the bosses all happy, Chronicles are the same anyway with some tiny story and lots of trash.

    2)The proof is the alpha testers whining all over the internet ever since November with "I told you so", along with knowing an alpha tester that warned me about the fail of SWToR which caused me not to waste 60E to buy it, and god was he right! I looked extensively into SWToR the month before its release cause it was gonna hurt my guild in Rift, which it didnt because the players were back in a week.

    3)Yes, i loved Ember Isle's art and everything, the events and models etc etc, doesnt change the fact, the actual content of Ember Isle can be completely in a tiny amount of time considering its size and time to make.

    4)Yes, of course i had raid gear, but whats that supposed to mean? I am not counted because i can kill the mobs easily and finish the quest line faster than the average player?

    I like to watch the games the way the are, not with the eyes of someone that doesnt know what route to take into the game so he thinks he has many routes.

    Minor distraction that people cant do quickly because they lack the ability skill wise, doesnt mean anything, same with Dungeons, heroic or not, master mode or not flashpoints or whatever they are called.

    Just because people lack the skill and knowledge to do stuff properly and quickly, does not mean the game "has content".

    Rift didnt have the content it said it did, delusions.

    SWToR, content? Rofl really, if it wasnt for the fact its called "Star Wars" it would have been the biggest embarrassment in gaming history.

    Guild Wars 2 is doing quite wall by look at them, they said many times "No gear chasing!" during beta for years, then suddenly they added gear chasing..Why? Cause thats what Western Games are about.
    Last edited by potis; 2013-08-20 at 02:33 AM.

  17. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by potis View Post
    1)All of which can be completed in minutes, chronicles are the biggest waste of time with Rift, you want people to see the raid? Give them a buff, remove drops, add an NPC with some cheesy dialogue and have them hit the bosses all happy, Chronicles are the same anyway with some tiny story and lots of trash.
    They're a waste of time to you. Apparently enough people enjoy running them/the lore/whatever that Trion feels they're worth spending more development time on.

    Protip: Of nobody is doing a specific type of activity, a developer is either going to do a big push to try to get people back in, or they're just going to stop making that kind of content. Trion is doing neither of these with Chronicles, so apparently they must be reasonably popular.

    Quote Originally Posted by potis View Post
    2)The proof is the alpha testers whining all over the internet ever since November with "I told you so", along with knowing an alpha tester that warned me about the fail of SWToR which caused me not to waste 60E to buy it, and god was he right! I looked extensively into SWToR the month before its release cause it was gonna hurt my guild in Rift, which it didnt because the players were back in a week.
    Warning about the fail of SWTOR at launch isn't the same as claiming that flags for future content indicate that the content is nearly finished. I stayed away from SWTOR at launch as well because I had serious concerns about the quality and health of the game, so you're not really alone in that. BioWare disregarding serious feedback from alpha testers (I know people in alpha as well) was a very bad move on their part.

    Quote Originally Posted by potis View Post
    3)Yes, i loved Ember Isle's art and everything, the events and models etc etc, doesnt change the fact, the actual content of Ember Isle can be completely in a tiny amount of time considering its size and time to make.
    True, but how long does it take to complete a raid? I'm not talking about getting fully raid geared, but just to complete a raid? Repeating content doesn't mean there's more of it, it just means there's a reward you want from it. If they had added a chance for boss raid drops at the end of the Ember Isle quest chain each time you completed it, that would have made people spend more time there, but the amount of content wouldn't have changed. It would still be the same Ember Isle, it would just be repeated.

    And only releasing 1-2 types of content leads to fatigue for players. This is something that developers have discussed multiple times. They need to stagger content types to prevent one type of content from being "overdone".

    Quote Originally Posted by potis View Post
    4)Yes, of course i had raid gear, but whats that supposed to mean? I am not counted because i can kill the mobs easily and finish the quest line faster than the average player?
    No, but in any quest-based content, those with significantly better gear are going to spend less time doing it (even raids). You can't really design around making the people with the best gear take a long time.

  18. #58
    Quote Originally Posted by Sarac View Post
    Being the first in a growing market. That's the only reason WoW became popular.
    And it had the weight of the Warcraft franchise behind it.
    And it had the weight of Blizzard behind it.
    And it was more accessible than its contemporaries.

    Where's your evidence for the size of the MMO market anyway?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Kalyyn View Post
    I'll teach y'all a real neat formula for determining if an MMO is successful.

    A - B = C, where A is Income, and B is expense. If C is a number greater than 0, you have a successful MMO.
    Pretty much, at least from the developer's point of view. Of course, A and B are unknowns to us.

    Then there's the success from the players' point of view, and naturally that's subjective.

    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    It's a financial success. It's still being actively supported with quick content updates, and sold 3M copies in the first 4 months of the games life cycle in the West alone. Last quarter the game generated roughly $36M in revenue, and this quarter it generated $28M in revenue. That's very successful.



    It's actually pretty easy to know if a game is profitable or not. Look at the staffing and updates a game is getting.

    Examples: Warhammer gets zero updates and has a minimal development team. We can pretty safely assume the game isn't turning much, if any profit.

    Defiance: The games development team got seriously cut twice, and the studio they were working from has been closed down. The DLC that was supposed to be released a month after launch is just being released tomorrow, almost 5 months after launch. It's pretty clear that the game hasn't been profitable for Trion.

    GW2: ArenaNet hasn't seen any serious staffing cuts, has been reporting high earnings numbers, and has actually increased the rate at which content comes out. All signs indicate that the game has been financially successful.

    While they're awesome to have, you don't really need hard data to determine the financial health and well being of a game. Market and public facing factors can do that easily enough.
    This is conjecture. You assume that a game must be doing well financially if the publisher continues to back it - a reasonable assumption maybe. But don't forget companies still do send good money after bad sometimes. Considering the outlay required for an MMO they have a strong motive to pump more resources into it if it's not performing in the hopes of making it work, rather than scrapping it and taking all those losses.

    Also, for all we know Warhammer could be quite profitable. They may have simply decided to run down the book because it has no future - why invest in something they don't have confidence in? They can instead just reap the rewards of the remaining subscribers with no development overhead. Don't confuse the profitability of the game with whether or not it has a bright future.

    And none of this allows us to compare the profitability of games. Even if an MMO makes enough to cover its costs, that doesn't tell you how profitable it is compared to its peers. Just that it's worth it to keep it running (or so we assume). We might be able to get an idea of how much the company gets in subs (assuming they are sub-based, and assuming they release accurate sub info to the public) but their overheads could be wildly different. And if it's F2P or has a cash shop, we have little hope of gauging the income they derive from that.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tojara View Post
    Look Batman really isn't an accurate source by any means
    Quote Originally Posted by Hooked View Post
    It is a fact, not just something I made up.

  19. #59
    Deleted
    Players are happy (and playing), game is making money, staff aren't being laid off to reduce costs, content is frequent and not sporadic.

    Somewhat related, this infographic was linked in one of the articles used earlier and I found it interesting:

    http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress...nfographic.png

  20. #60
    A successful MMO is simply one that is operational and financially stable &/or turning a profit.

    Any other metric is personal opinion of no object value. Because few companies will maintain an ongoing loss of money just for the hell of it.

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