Crowfall Taking It 'Slow And Steady' Amid Low Player Count Concerns | MMORPG.com

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Crowfall Taking It 'Slow And Steady' Amid Low Player Count Concerns | MMORPG.com

Crowfall launched officially earlier this week, and while the server instability and DDoS attacks seem to behind them, one issue that is cropping up in the community is that of player count.

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Viper482

Was a huge mistake to release around the same time as Aion Classic, Sword of Legends Online, Burning Crusade, along with major patches from other MMOs.

Dattelis

The pvp focus kind of seemed like it would only target a small sub-set of players anyway, but maybe I'm wrong and a lot of people like pvp-focused games. That said, hopefully they can turn things around with the combat and whatever other issues the game might have.

Malathoos

Just doesn't feel like the spiritual successor to shadowbane.....

Mendel

While the PvP focus does not help then (in my case), I think the bigger issue is the semi-persistent world.  Your main base is the only thing that is persistent.  Otherwise, the 'world' is a periodic battlefield with some kind of duration.  And world can be plural, with vastly differing rules.  I think that idea, while moderately clever, just confuses many potential players.

Acalex

It also helps if your game is worth playing

Aeander

No such thing as slow and steady in the MMO world. If you aren't a success out the gate, you aren't a success.

Tiller

Aeander said:

No such thing as slow and steady in the MMO world. If you aren't a success out the gate, you aren't a success.

You forgot about Albion.

Aeander

Tiller said:

Aeander said:

No such thing as slow and steady in the MMO world. If you aren't a success out the gate, you aren't a success.

You forgot about Albion.

I'm sure Albion probably had more than 3k users.

Slapshot1188

When the weeks and months before launch had empty servers, and sites like this couldn't even give all the free keys away it was a bad sign. When this was pointed out, the defenders were quick to jump in and claim such talk was just hater talk. Heck one guy even point blank said he had a guild of 400-500 players that would be there on day 1.

Well, that was all bullshit.

Even if we take what Coleman said... only 25% of account holders have logged in so far? WTF?

I want the game to succeed, but it's time for these defenders to get out of fantasyland and acknowledge the reality that is right in front of us all. Crowfall can come back, maybe starting this weekend, but maybe we can start spouting bullshit about 500 player guilds ready to login on day 1.

Celcius

The first sign your MMO is not doing well is that you have to defend the numbers of an unofficial source on Twitter. Everyone knew this game was going to flop and no developer with a launched product says they are focusing on slow and steady. That is absurd. Oh our numbers are bad but we want high quality! The reality is: If you have a high quality game people will play it. End of story.

Antarious

This is one of two (or three? lol) games I ever backed. I have zero opinion on the game... Simply because ya I funded it a long time ago and kind of forgot about it. It's out now and what free time I have is invested in other games or doing stuff with the family.

I think I did back three games in total. One came out and maybe is still around (I have no idea). This one came out and the other is still in "development" and I probably won't ever play that either.

So from my personal perspective... I am not surprised there is a low player count. It all just kind of faded into the background noise for me.

Kitsunami

Not surprising since they Decided to abandon the pve aspects of pve only worlds and dungeons and exploration then are relying on player driven stuff.

Also doesn't help that the support teams suck. I lost access after a trusted friend of ten years took my copy and ran off. (They'd promised to gift me a copy back in return the month after).

Support told me that even if I re buy the game I can't have any of the backer rewards I lost back and it's tough luck.

Sooo...total none purchase. Just not worth it.

Ungood

Slapshot1188 said:

Heck one guy even point blank said he had a guild of 400-500 players that would be there on day 1.

That was me, by the way, my guild has 493 active members, and my guild has in fact been active since day one, we commonly have around 75 - `100 active players on at any given time. If you somehow thought we were would all be on at the same time, paying 24/7 together, as opposed to spread out across various timezones, that was your own naive' foolish delusions.

Slapshot1188

Ungood said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Heck one guy even point blank said he had a guild of 400-500 players that would be there on day 1.

That was me, by the way, my guild has 493 active members, and my guild has in fact been active since day one, we commonly have around 75 - `100 active players on at any given time. If you somehow thought we were would all be on at the same time, paying 24/7 together, as opposed to spread out across various timezones, that was your own naive' foolish delusions.

With all due respect the only “foolish delusions” were people like yourself that insisted having 100ish players total online for the weeks and months before launch wasn’t a problem.  It was a huge sign of disinterest which we now see proven at launch.  Your supposed 100 players on “at any given time” doesn’t ring true at all unless your GM just stood around and spam invited every random unguided person that logged in.

But sure, maybe your guild magically makes up 10% of the players on your server at any given time.  Even if they do,  the fact we peaked at 3k population (all servers COMBINED) on launch week is fucking B.A.D. 

And that’s far more important than your magical guild that is an aberration to everyone else.  Even Coleman admitted only 25% of people that bought the game gave even logged in once since release....

Slapshot1188

@Ungood

PS: here are the live screenshots of population around 9PM on Friday after launch day.  "Foolish Delusions" indeed...

cyrician

This is so amusing

They tell you all this but arnt talking to the player base or trying in anyway to quell players fears.

Thier policy seems to be dont communicate to the players.

Slapshot1188

cyrician said:

This is so amusing

They tell you all this but arnt talking to the player base or trying in anyway to quell players fears.

Thier policy seems to be dont communicate to the players.

The issue is what it always has been.   They sit in the "Unofficial Discord" with some of the hardcore guilds and chat away, but that info takes awhile to trickle down to the other 90% of the playerbase. If it ever does.

It's the Ivory Tower effect.

Sylvinstar

Tiller said:

Aeander said:

No such thing as slow and steady in the MMO world. If you aren't a success out the gate, you aren't a success.

You forgot about Albion.

I don't know about Albion' launch..but I would add to that ESO was a buggy mess out of the gates and is still kicking.

Ungood

Slapshot1188 said:

@Ungood

PS: here are the live screenshots of population around 9PM on Friday after launch day.  "Foolish Delusions" indeed...

Oh.. @Slapshot1188, Wow, that shows some great population numbers.. All those.. Umm numbers.. yah.. informative.. anyway, did you miss the DDOS attack that happened at launch? Why golly, I can't imagine why everything is not full.

Slapshot1188

Ungood said:

Slapshot1188 said:

@Ungood

PS: here are the live screenshots of population around 9PM on Friday after launch day.  "Foolish Delusions" indeed...

Oh.. @Slapshot1188, Wow, that shows some great population numbers.. All those.. Umm numbers.. yah.. informative.. anyway, did you miss the DDOS attack that happened at launch? Why golly, I can't imagine why everything is not full.

It's FRIDAY NIGHT the week of launch.  Haven't had a DDOS attack in 3 days. All the servers are LOW.  US EAST, LIGHT, US EAST 2 LIGHT, US EAST 3 LIGHT, US EAST 4 LIGHT, DREGS LIGHT.  

Why the continued "Foolish Delusions"?

It's plain to see for all... No hiding behind what you think is gonna maybe happen anymore.  This is Friday night right after launch.  Live.

MightyUnclean

How long do you guys give it before it's in maintenance mode or the plug is pulled? Six months, a year? This doesn't seem like the type of game that can rely on a few whales to keep it afloat, eh?

Scorchien

Slapshot1188 said:

Ungood said:

Slapshot1188 said:

@Ungood

PS: here are the live screenshots of population around 9PM on Friday after launch day.  "Foolish Delusions" indeed...

Oh.. @Slapshot1188, Wow, that shows some great population numbers.. All those.. Umm numbers.. yah.. informative.. anyway, did you miss the DDOS attack that happened at launch? Why golly, I can't imagine why everything is not full.

It's FRIDAY NIGHT the week of launch.  Haven't had a DDOS attack in 3 days. All the servers are LOW.  US EAST, LIGHT, US EAST 2 LIGHT, US EAST 3 LIGHT, US EAST 4 LIGHT, DREGS LIGHT.  

Why the continued "Foolish Delusions"?

It's plain to see for all... No hiding behind what you think is gonna maybe happen anymore.  This is Friday night right after launch.  Live.

   I dont know why your bothering Slap , the few fanbois of this debacle will need to figure it for themselves ..

  Crowfall is an abject failure ..

  And will go f2p inside 13 months as i said long ago and will shutter inside 3 years ..

        They failed on many layers to deliver the game the community backed (me included).

          A glorified BR that is boring....

Ungood

Slapshot1188 said:

Ungood said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Heck one guy even point blank said he had a guild of 400-500 players that would be there on day 1.

That was me, by the way, my guild has 493 active members, and my guild has in fact been active since day one, we commonly have around 75 - `100 active players on at any given time. If you somehow thought we were would all be on at the same time, paying 24/7 together, as opposed to spread out across various timezones, that was your own naive' foolish delusions.

Your supposed 100 players on “at any given time” doesn’t ring true at all unless your GM just stood around and spam invited every random unguided person that logged in.

I just logged in.. 77 Active mambers.

Spare your pathetic pitiful cries about what my Guild does and does bring to the table, I might check again before I go to bed, just to see.

Also, I suppose in a venture that you could never imagine, my guild is actually led by a group of people, not one grand standing soloist that thinks they have to do everything themselves. Treating people like equals in a leadership no doubt is something I wager you can't grasp, so I won't waste time trying to explain it.

As far as what some guilds can and do bring to the table, there were guilds in GW2's WvW that made up over 20% of the Servers WvW player base, sometimes even more than that.

Also.. 100 out of 3,000 is 3% not 10%, can you at least math right when you make cries like this?

Ungood

MightyUnclean said:

How long do you guys give it before it's in maintenance mode or the plug is pulled? Six months, a year? This doesn't seem like the type of game that can rely on a few whales to keep it afloat, eh?

Since they have made it clear that they plan to license the engine, I wager they will keep the game going to keep live testing the engine, and seeing what they can do with it.

Given that some numbers I got a while back showed that backers provided 6 million and licensing provided 4 million, and that was still after cries from the masses about how they should not be allowed to license out the engine till the game is made, I can only imagine that this might become little more than an active Demo, for where the real money they were looking for sat.

As for whales, for the life of me, I have no idea what people would spend money on in this game, gonna ask my guild on that one.

Kyleran

Guess I'll share this here as well, from the "good ole' days" of 2018. Not sure CF is a shining beacon for delivery on what the engine promised it would improve.

"ArtCraft Entertainment, the studio developing the PC massively multiplayer online role-playing game Crowfall, announced today that it will begin licensing its MMO-making engine and tools. ArtCraft is calling the new stack of technology the Artisan Engine."

Some highlights:
"The Artisan Engine will help developers create large MMO worlds. It will offer tools for RPG staples like characters, inventory, equipment, monsters, AI, harvesting, races, classes, subclasses, powers, banking, secure trading, skills, and leveling. ArtCraft believes that using these tools can save studios time (two to three years) and millions of dollars ($10 million) when creating their own MMOs."

“We think this may be a chance for people to have a shorter iteration cycle, for them to learn faster,” Walton continued. “The second and third and fourth MMOs I made were better because I made the previous ones." (yeah, sure)

Keep in mind this game took 5 plus years to deliver in what appears to be a very MVP state and they raised more money ($35M) than almost every other indie MMO save for Star Citizen.

So far I'm calling the whole thing an epic fail, but perhaps they can build some momentum and recover.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/10/crowfall-studio-artcraft-will-license-its-mmo-making-tool-artisan-engine/