How come you are not talking about AoC numbers last week. Was it because AoC actually had second largest gameactivity ever (sine backflow of players started) this sunday?
looks to me as if it is simply holding steady comparing Sunday to Sunday numbers
Sunday Feb 22 - 7691, Sunday March 01 -7505, Sunday March 08 - 6919, Sunday 15 March 7543. Nothing really to discuss there
Oh an Avery if you rereread my post on the website numbers you will notice I already threw out the numbers at launch because any launch numbers are abnormalities due to initial hype. The numbers really don't start to mean much until mid to late July when the initial launch hype was over and done with and the initial people who were just trying it for the first 30 to see what all the hype was over had canceled. Even starting in mid July the drop was pretty dramatic all the way through September where it leveled off sometime in October and started to climb back up a bit over the Holidays and the server merge time frame. Looks like the initial excitement over the server merge has died out and the number have been dropping pretty steadily again since mid February. Nah anyway you cut it the game is hanging in there by the skin of it's teeth and next patch will regulate it down to a threat to Vanguard as the biggest overhyped turkey ever released or it still may start a slow climb back out of subscription hell.
I feel for you guys trying to peform CPR on this game I really do. I would not want to see the game fold and people lose thier jobs but I can't see how Funcom can continue if it continues to bleed money the way it has the last 6 or 7 months.
CPR ehh? Well in that case, you compete with yourself trying to make each post more incorrect than the other. I have hardly read anything as totally screwed as the "facts" you try to present. Even Litigators inventive crystalballing is more on than your stuff. Come on, you give us a link and tell us the trend is down, and then it goes up??? what the hell. Look Xfire-doctor, take your favourite tool and recognize that gameactivity has probably gone up like 50% since November. Same goes for number of Xfire logins. You see you can't swap tools as trend turn around.
They need the hype there used to be a saying about females, well it can be modified for AoC:
Never trust anything that bleeds for 9 months and never dies! I do find it funny that Funcom managed to get rid of pretty much all players that would critisize them. Those critiques were who they needed to survive IMO, the hardecores that eat, sleep, and breathe the game they play and are better connected to bring in new blood.
Oh well the game has always had shills and avid fans that try to recruit people and declare that AoC is completly diffrent and 100% improved and awesome. The game hasn't changged that much at all, Funcom didn't focus on it, they focused on the expansion, which is pretty easy to see in a few minutes of PvP and an instance run after a long break.
Originally posted by Jasma CPR ehh? Well in that case, you compete with yourself trying to make each post more incorrect than the other. I have hardly read anything as totally screwed as the "facts" you try to present. Even Litigators inventive crystalballing is more on than your stuff. Come on, you give us a link and tell us the trend is down, and then it goes up??? what the hell. Look Xfire-doctor, take your favourite tool and recognize that gameactivity has probably gone up like 50% since November. Same goes for number of Xfire logins. You see you can't swap tools as trend turn around.
you need to calm down a bit dude. Xfire numbers can be manipulated easily. all it takes is for a few dedicated fans or whatever to leave their accounts logged in when they are at work or sleeping or whatever. Web site traffic is harder to doctor. As far as my facts here they are in all their glory.
Originally posted by Jasma CPR ehh? Well in that case, you compete with yourself trying to make each post more incorrect than the other. I have hardly read anything as totally screwed as the "facts" you try to present. Even Litigators inventive crystalballing is more on than your stuff. Come on, you give us a link and tell us the trend is down, and then it goes up??? what the hell. Look Xfire-doctor, take your favourite tool and recognize that gameactivity has probably gone up like 50% since November. Same goes for number of Xfire logins. You see you can't swap tools as trend turn around.
you need to calm down a bit dude. Xfire numbers can be manipulated easily. all it takes is for a few dedicated fans or whatever to leave their accounts logged in when they are at work or sleeping or whatever. Web site traffic is harder to doctor. As far as my facts here they are in all their glory.
and dropping on Alexa also , not quite as badly though since less than a third of the fans seem to be US based.
the charts don't lie. There are fewer and fewer people interested in AoC every day.
My appologies, reading my post again I come off more pissed off than I actually am/was. lol (sorry again), BUT be aware of that I actually read your posts Jackdog, and you come accross as inconnsistant and wobbly in your references as of late. You sort of MAKE the story you like. Well, your story is always the same, but you just keep pulling in anything but a kitchen sink to keep telling your story. AND you don't mind that your "proof" is getting thinner and thinner. Last time it was one single post in the AoC forum that aledgedly should have turned the Xfire world around (gradually over two months)... This time it's something else. Come on... If you want to discuss trends, you at least have to keep refering to the same tools.
My appologies, reading my post again I come off more pissed off than I actually am/was. lol (sorry again), BUT be aware of that I actually read your posts Jackdog, and you come accross as inconnsistant and wobbly in your references as of late. You sort of MAKE the story you like. Well, your story is always the same, but you just keep pulling in anything but a kitchen sink to keep telling your story. AND you don't mind that your "proof" is getting thinner and thinner. Last time it was one single post in the AoC forum that aledgedly should have turned the Xfire world around (gradually over two months)... This time it's something else. Come on... If you want to discuss trends, you at least have to keep refering to the same tools.
Sometimes tools break or become unreliable. Look at it this way if you have three thermometers and plot the temperatures from each daily and all are in synch with each other then suddenly one starts reading 10 degrees higher than the others and is totally out of synch do you assume the two that mirror each others readings broke or is something wrong with the one that went spastic?
XFire became inconsistent back in December. From launch until December the XFire, Alexa, and Quantcast numbers showed identical data trends then all of a sudden XFire went up 25 to 30 percent. For a sudden increase in XFire numbers there is always some outside factor sparking it, such as a patch or free trial or a expansion or something stimulates interest in the game which causes more people to start visiting the web site and then more people playing would cause the Xfire numbers to rise. When Xfire suddenly rises rises 25 to 30 percent in a week or two without something generating that sudden interest and if website traffic in not in synch something is wrong.
Oddly enough this was just after Thoresen published his estimates of AoC's population using Xfire as his data source back in November. In December threads on both the European and US forums appeared pleading with players to start using Xfire and also the stock price started to climb a bit. Coincidence? Maybe and then maybe not. Remember we are talking about a company whose stock and subscriptions dropped 90 percent over a six or seven month period.
Anyway read my posts don't read them or whatever. Draw whatever conclusions you want from the data. For me following MMORPG's is just a hobby for me, not my profession.
You have no idea how much I want to play AOC again. I just hate the combat system <^>^<>^<^> Does nothing for me. I know it was inventive but meh give me abilities I push a button done and done. Besides that I loved the game.
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". No one can stop anyone from pursuing happiness, but life and liberty are said to only exist if they are deliberately sought and paid for".
You have no idea how much I want to play AOC again. I just hate the combat system <^>^<>^<^> Does nothing for me. I know it was inventive but meh give me abilities I push a button done and done. Besides that I loved the game.
I take it you never played a spellcaster then. They split it into "melee" action based classes with multiple attack modes, and then you had spellcasters who could push one button and be done/
Maybe you do need to load it up again, an see what you are missing.
Exploring dark dungeons with a torch will be an adventure. Just check this movie ... www.mortalonline.com The beta signup have just started and the release is expected this may -09.
Look Ma....another sandbox MMO with no major development company behind it
(*cough* Adventurine *cough*)
As to that release date...the alpha combat system was just posted in December. Why not try May of 2011 to get a little closer to the real release date. Either that or it will follow the release schedule of the game it is copying...Darkfall (8-10 year release window maybe?)
Funny post though...hyping vaporware in a thread about hyping a released game...priceless.
My appologies, reading my post again I come off more pissed off than I actually am/was. lol (sorry again), BUT be aware of that I actually read your posts Jackdog, and you come accross as inconnsistant and wobbly in your references as of late. You sort of MAKE the story you like. Well, your story is always the same, but you just keep pulling in anything but a kitchen sink to keep telling your story. AND you don't mind that your "proof" is getting thinner and thinner. Last time it was one single post in the AoC forum that aledgedly should have turned the Xfire world around (gradually over two months)... This time it's something else. Come on... If you want to discuss trends, you at least have to keep refering to the same tools.
Sometimes tools break or become unreliable. Look at it this way if you have three thermometers and plot the temperatures from each daily and all are in synch with each other then suddenly one starts reading 10 degrees higher than the others and is totally out of synch do you assume the two that mirror each others readings broke or is something wrong with the one that went spastic?
XFire became inconsistent back in December. From launch until December the XFire, Alexa, and Quantcast numbers showed identical data trends then all of a sudden XFire went up 25 to 30 percent. For a sudden increase in XFire numbers there is always some outside factor sparking it, such as a patch or free trial or a expansion or something stimulates interest in the game which causes more people to start visiting the web site and then more people playing would cause the Xfire numbers to rise. When Xfire suddenly rises rises 25 to 30 percent in a week or two without something generating that sudden interest and if website traffic in not in synch something is wrong.
Oddly enough this was just after Thoresen published his estimates of AoC's population using Xfire as his data source back in November. In December threads on both the European and US forums appeared pleading with players to start using Xfire and also the stock price started to climb a bit. Coincidence? Maybe and then maybe not. Remember we are talking about a company whose stock and subscriptions dropped 90 percent over a six or seven month period.
Anyway read my posts don't read them or whatever. Draw whatever conclusions you want from the data. For me following MMORPG's is just a hobby for me, not my profession.
Nice example with the thermometers, BUT I think part of the problem is you want one of your thermometers to be broken while it is still fully functional. Dont junk the data even though you dont understand them. Here are your two scenarios and I will try once again to get the point across that I belive most other people have no problem at all to recognize and deem as plausible (more than plausibel, likely in fact)
1. Decreasing Alexa and decreasing Xfire numbers
2. Decreasing Alexa and increasing Xfire numbers
1. Describes a game in decline. The Alexa numbers are decreasing for multiple reason. Hype is wearing off, A lot of the players quit as well as the game also in fact get a steady stream of fixes and gets better that again will reduce bitching drastically. If you want to check out on how much of Alexa trafic is due to bitching you should find a know bugfix patch like 1.02. this is the patch that killed memory leaks. See how much the traffic was reduced after that patch, and that is all due to less bitching (hope this is a clear demonstration for you). But of course patch 1.02 did not turn things entirely around, hype were still wearing off as well as more people quit. BUT the problem is that you put = between Alexa numbers and subscribers, while Alexa numbers is a function of at least 4 other variables like hype, bitching and bugs, new content/events...etc... Looking to post 17th Sep Alexa trend I will say that buggs and game quality is the factor lowereing Alexa numbers the most.
2. Describes a game in progress. For reasons described above, Alexa numbers keep getting lowers proportional with the number of bug squashed pr patch. Xfire numbers increase because more people play or at least the guys that already played play more. BECAUSE the game just got so much better now.
For your other comments on Xfire trend, those are incorrect (and I am sure you know). You know very well that Thoresens Xfire based population estimate (70 k) came out in late November. Xfire was on all time low like 3 weeks after that. And from mid December of till a week after polish launch the game consistantly gained xfire log on numbers and gaming hours (and have been sort of stable since than). That can't be orchestrated by some smartass celler dudes. Sorry, i am not going to be that paranoid that I am going to belive that about 600-800 guys would stay in touch over 2 months and gradually phase in their Xfire boost just to fool me and you. Come on dude. You know I am right.
I was told from one of my guild mates in EQII that you could have sexual relations with bar maids. Is that true. And if it is why would put something like in a game? lol
I was told from one of my guild mates in EQII that you could have sexual relations with bar maids. Is that true. And if it is why would put something like in a game? lol
Nope thats not true. Well the bar maids point at you with their giant hooters and bounce them some for ya, but no... No clothes come off
@ jasma ...does not rerally matter at this point anyway. If the numbers continue to drop in the1st and 2nd quarters financial reports the game is as good as walking dead anyway. All the "ohmygawd the game has improved so much and is the best thing since consensual sex " won't save it. Looks like it is destined to be another Vanguard/ Horizons/ AO 30K niche game. Maybe FC will have better luck with their next MMO. Third time is supposed to be the charm they say.
@ jasma ...does not rerally matter at this point anyway. If the numbers continue to drop in the1st and 2nd quarters financial reports the game is as good as walking dead anyway. All the "ohmygawd the game has improved so much and is the best thing since consensual sex " won't save it. Looks like it is destined to be another Vanguard/ Horizons/ AO 30K niche game. Maybe FC will have better luck with their next MMO. Third time is supposed to be the charm they say.
Well ,now you are on to something totally else and I agree fully with you. If guided Q2 revenue is lower than Q1 revenue numbers that is a clear sign of population decrease. There is a minor revenue boost in Q1 compared to Q2 due to 6 month sign up in July and beginning August (probably about 150 000). This is however just a minor contribution to the Q1 numbers as they run out in the first month (Jan). Lets say 10% of the 150 000 clicked 6 months and 75% of those again when to idle. This would equal a artificial revenue boost = 15 000*14$ *0.75 = 0.17 Mill. 0.17 Mill is close to neglible so indeed if guidede revenue range in Q2 decrease that would mean population is decreasing as well. However I am more than sure that we will see at least the same revenue guiding for Q2 that we had in Q1 (if not even higher depending on when trial is coming).
@ jasma ...does not rerally matter at this point anyway. If the numbers continue to drop in the1st and 2nd quarters financial reports the game is as good as walking dead anyway. All the "ohmygawd the game has improved so much and is the best thing since consensual sex " won't save it. Looks like it is destined to be another Vanguard/ Horizons/ AO 30K niche game. Maybe FC will have better luck with their next MMO. Third time is supposed to be the charm they say.
Well ,now you are on to something totally else and I agree fully with you. If guided Q2 revenue is lower than Q1 revenue numbers that is a clear sign of population decrease. There is a minor revenue boost in Q1 compared to Q2 due to 6 month sign up in July and beginning August (probably about 150 000). This is however just a minor contribution to the Q1 numbers as they run out in the first month (Jan). Lets say 10% of the 150 000 clicked 6 months and 75% of those again when to idle. This would equal a artificial revenue boost = 15 000*14$ *0.75 = 0.17 Mill. 0.17 Mill is close to neglible so indeed if guidede revenue range in Q2 decrease that would mean population is decreasing as well. However I am more than sure that we will see at least the same revenue guiding for Q2 that we had in Q1 (if not even higher depending on when trial is coming).
Just where are you pulling this 150K number from. I hope you washed your hands after you pulled it out of your nether regions. I am willing to bet that the projected numbers will be equal to roughly 100K and most likely will be less than that.I figure by the end of the second quarter it will be around 50K or less, depending on a few factors which are yet to be seen and I won't go too far in my speculations till I see what patch 1.05 brings or does not bring as it may be.
ROFL at least you guys have gotten over tossing around 250K and 300K numbers so you are at least headed back down to Earth, I still would not take the oxygen mask off just yet if I were you though.......
this is TOTALLY par for the course for funcom. same thing happened with anarchy online. i mean EXACTLY the same thing.
game was completely broken at launch, everyone bailed.
didnt really get fixed until gaute moved to the aoc team, except they went thru 2 other game directors and 4 or so years before promoting then community manager sirillion to game director. he got the team to fix a TON of issues.
now ive said this before in other posts, im a huge fan of craig, however, i do question his ability to creatively come up with NEW ideas. Lost Eden kind of sucked as an expansion. The Battlestation was a STUPID idea. At least giving winners the ability to one shot any attackers at their clan towers from it. It REALLY screwed up pvp.
I still think gaute should come back as a creative director or creative executive producer or something. The guy is unbelieveable at coming up with new ideas. but hes horrible at getting teams to get things done, and hes horrible at looking at the facts of the reality of what is going on in the game. He's holds his designs too close and doesnt want anyone to change them.
which is why i think he should come back, lead the development teams. Then once a game goes live, move it to the live team, and let craig run it. best of both worlds and very similar to blizzards development process with regards to teams.
only wildcard is ragnar tornquist is pretty damned creative too. I dont think gaute will ever come back. I hope after secret world launches they let ragnar have gaute's old job and let craig balance what he does out.
Games i'm playing right now...
"In short, I thought NGE was a very bad idea" - Raph Koster talking about NGE on his blog at raphkoster.com
@ jasma ...does not rerally matter at this point anyway. If the numbers continue to drop in the1st and 2nd quarters financial reports the game is as good as walking dead anyway. All the "ohmygawd the game has improved so much and is the best thing since consensual sex " won't save it. Looks like it is destined to be another Vanguard/ Horizons/ AO 30K niche game. Maybe FC will have better luck with their next MMO. Third time is supposed to be the charm they say.
Well ,now you are on to something totally else and I agree fully with you. If guided Q2 revenue is lower than Q1 revenue numbers that is a clear sign of population decrease. There is a minor revenue boost in Q1 compared to Q2 due to 6 month sign up in July and beginning August (probably about 150 000). This is however just a minor contribution to the Q1 numbers as they run out in the first month (Jan). Lets say 10% of the 150 000 clicked 6 months and 75% of those again when to idle. This would equal a artificial revenue boost = 15 000*14$ *0.75 = 0.17 Mill. 0.17 Mill is close to neglible so indeed if guidede revenue range in Q2 decrease that would mean population is decreasing as well. However I am more than sure that we will see at least the same revenue guiding for Q2 that we had in Q1 (if not even higher depending on when trial is coming).
Just where are you pulling this 150K number from. I hope you washed your hands after you pulled it out of your nether regions. I am willing to bet that the projected numbers will be equal to roughly 100K and most likely will be less than that.I figure by the end of the second quarter it will be around 50K or less, depending on a few factors which are yet to be seen and I won't go too far in my speculations till I see what patch 1.05 brings or does not bring as it may be.
ROFL at least you guys have gotten over tossing around 250K and 300K numbers so you are at least headed back down to Earth, I still would not take the oxygen mask off just yet if I were you though.......
Jack you did not understand my post, that 150 000 is not the number of subs. Let me take it from the start (but please be patient and read it all...slow..)
When a huge MMO launch, the game population will always be askew the first 6 months for the reason that there is like 700 000 people injected into the game at one go, wether they like it of not. Some of these launch or right after launch subscribers click 6 months subscription because they belive they will play for a loooong time when the hype is at max (and they also want to save that 1 $). But then they quit playing, still paying those 14$ pr month. I am saying this is a lot of extra revenue for MMO developers without people actually playing. Thats what I was talking about. Say 10% clicked 6 months of those initial 700 000 that bought AoC by end of Jun. In that case there would be 70 000 players paying 14$ pr month through out Q4 2008 (regardless if they were playing or not). Lets say about 75% of the 6 month subs were not playing, that would mean, even though FC had the same amount of active players in Q1 than in Q4, revenue should drop in the scale of 2.5 Mill just simply for the reason that the nonplaying 6 month subs would drop out. (what is interesting here is that FC only had a 1.5 Mill drop from Q4 to middle guided Q1.... Could that mean there was an increase of active players... Xfire certainly seem to suggest that. Well, back to the number 150 000 that confuses you. I am saying that people that bought the game late Jun,July and Aug was probably about 150 000 (based among other on that Q2 financial report said they had sold over 800 000 boxes, while end of June message was that there had been sold 700 000). The reason again we are interested in this number is that it represents a unconformity for the Q1 numbers since there would be an slightly higher than normal idle 6 months subs running in that Quarter. What I however tried to explain you is that this effect is unlikely to be higher than 0.2 Mill... Therefore, ideed if Q2 guided revenue is lower than Q1(at least if revenue is lower than 0.2), that is real and means the number of subs are decreasing.
BUT as I said before revenue guiding is very likely to be higher in Q2 due to trial and other rumors. Let's wait and see what happens though
Your math is off a little. Funcom has already announced that revenues will be decreasing by 25%... I see why you are backpeddling though... I mean, even Funcom is saying revenues will be decreasing, so now you are finding any outragious reason as to how a game that is growing (as you claim) is dropping 25% in revenues.
There is no way that 25% of all players in the 4th quarter were 6 month subscriptions who aren't planning on resubscribing.
It's also funny that a guy named Orion said the exact same things a few months ago. He was saying the game had 350k subscribers in December and the game grew by 50% ( ironically, I saw you say that same thing recently). But after Funcom released their official numbers, Orion disappeared in shame.
So yeah.. keep saying ' we'll wait and see'... my guess is you'll be joining Orion and never post again after your ' AOC is growing, but lost 25% in revenues because of 6 month subscribers' is shown to be wrong again by Funcom.
I don't fully understand the relationship of using the AoC website and playing AoC itself. I played WOW for 3 years but probably only visited the website/forum combined...about 3 times..all in the last year of play.
I played at launch, resubbed last month, gotta say not much has changed. Same ole instanced dungeon gankfest with minimal penalities to both the one who dies and one who does the killing. Was playing on Tyranny, the population was alright. I just find it somewhat stupid that one minute some guy is ganking you 5 times in a row to get his daily PVP XP off of you then he's asking you to group up with him to do a dungeon or the same thing to some other poor fellow.
To the OP:
hype -noun
1: deception , put-on
publicity ; especially : promotional publicity of an extravagant or contrived kind
I played at launch, resubbed last month, gotta say not much has changed. Same ole instanced dungeon gankfest with minimal penalities to both the one who dies and one who does the killing. Was playing on Tyranny, the population was alright. I just find it somewhat stupid that one minute some guy is ganking you 5 times in a row to get his daily PVP XP off of you then he's asking you to group up with him to do a dungeon or the same thing to some other poor fellow. To the OP: hype -noun 1: deception , put-on publicity ; especially : promotional publicity of an extravagant or contrived kind
So you are mad at someone who plays the game for the game instead of it being a race to max level or a need of life or limb? Sounds like he can put the issue of kill or be killed behind and let the game be fun whether ganking or grouping.
This has nothing though to do with the quality of the game. It was not for you, and that happens.
Hopefully you find the game that does not have ganking in FFA PvP (and please come and let me know this miracle game...)
I played at launch, resubbed last month, gotta say not much has changed. Same ole instanced dungeon gankfest with minimal penalities to both the one who dies and one who does the killing. Was playing on Tyranny, the population was alright. I just find it somewhat stupid that one minute some guy is ganking you 5 times in a row to get his daily PVP XP off of you then he's asking you to group up with him to do a dungeon or the same thing to some other poor fellow. To the OP: hype -noun 1: deception , put-on publicity ; especially : promotional publicity of an extravagant or contrived kind
So you are mad at someone who plays the game for the game instead of it being a race to max level or a need of life or limb? Sounds like he can put the issue of kill or be killed behind and let the game be fun whether ganking or grouping.
This has nothing though to do with the quality of the game. It was not for you, and that happens.
Hopefully you find the game that does not have ganking in FFA PvP (and please come and let me know this miracle game...)
Cheers
Yeah...I'm with you openedge1. Pretty strange for epoq to complain about getting ganked and then a group invite from the ganker...well it would be if Tyranny wasn't clearly marked as a PvP server. I'll admit (having 1 character on Tyranny) that it does have more than it's share of gankers...PvP spammers and immature shite talkers...and also a good many straight up gamers and pvpers. That's why it is a PvP server..for those who like the free for all thrill of that type of atmosphere. I myself just like to try it out once in a while.
Comments
looks to me as if it is simply holding steady comparing Sunday to Sunday numbers
Sunday Feb 22 - 7691, Sunday March 01 -7505, Sunday March 08 - 6919, Sunday 15 March 7543. Nothing really to discuss there
Oh an Avery if you rereread my post on the website numbers you will notice I already threw out the numbers at launch because any launch numbers are abnormalities due to initial hype. The numbers really don't start to mean much until mid to late July when the initial launch hype was over and done with and the initial people who were just trying it for the first 30 to see what all the hype was over had canceled. Even starting in mid July the drop was pretty dramatic all the way through September where it leveled off sometime in October and started to climb back up a bit over the Holidays and the server merge time frame. Looks like the initial excitement over the server merge has died out and the number have been dropping pretty steadily again since mid February. Nah anyway you cut it the game is hanging in there by the skin of it's teeth and next patch will regulate it down to a threat to Vanguard as the biggest overhyped turkey ever released or it still may start a slow climb back out of subscription hell.
I feel for you guys trying to peform CPR on this game I really do. I would not want to see the game fold and people lose thier jobs but I can't see how Funcom can continue if it continues to bleed money the way it has the last 6 or 7 months.
CPR ehh? Well in that case, you compete with yourself trying to make each post more incorrect than the other. I have hardly read anything as totally screwed as the "facts" you try to present. Even Litigators inventive crystalballing is more on than your stuff. Come on, you give us a link and tell us the trend is down, and then it goes up??? what the hell. Look Xfire-doctor, take your favourite tool and recognize that gameactivity has probably gone up like 50% since November. Same goes for number of Xfire logins. You see you can't swap tools as trend turn around.
They need the hype there used to be a saying about females, well it can be modified for AoC:
Never trust anything that bleeds for 9 months and never dies! I do find it funny that Funcom managed to get rid of pretty much all players that would critisize them. Those critiques were who they needed to survive IMO, the hardecores that eat, sleep, and breathe the game they play and are better connected to bring in new blood.
Oh well the game has always had shills and avid fans that try to recruit people and declare that AoC is completly diffrent and 100% improved and awesome. The game hasn't changged that much at all, Funcom didn't focus on it, they focused on the expansion, which is pretty easy to see in a few minutes of PvP and an instance run after a long break.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
you need to calm down a bit dude. Xfire numbers can be manipulated easily. all it takes is for a few dedicated fans or whatever to leave their accounts logged in when they are at work or sleeping or whatever. Web site traffic is harder to doctor. As far as my facts here they are in all their glory.
www.quantcast.com/ageofconan.com
down on the US centric Quancast
www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/ageofconan.com
and dropping on Alexa also , not quite as badly though since less than a third of the fans seem to be US based.
the charts don't lie. There are fewer and fewer people interested in AoC every day.
I miss DAoC
Lmao. That quote there is priceless.
It is preferable not to travel with a dead man.
you need to calm down a bit dude. Xfire numbers can be manipulated easily. all it takes is for a few dedicated fans or whatever to leave their accounts logged in when they are at work or sleeping or whatever. Web site traffic is harder to doctor. As far as my facts here they are in all their glory.
www.quantcast.com/ageofconan.com
down on the US centric Quancast
www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/ageofconan.com
and dropping on Alexa also , not quite as badly though since less than a third of the fans seem to be US based.
the charts don't lie. There are fewer and fewer people interested in AoC every day.
My appologies, reading my post again I come off more pissed off than I actually am/was. lol (sorry again), BUT be aware of that I actually read your posts Jackdog, and you come accross as inconnsistant and wobbly in your references as of late. You sort of MAKE the story you like. Well, your story is always the same, but you just keep pulling in anything but a kitchen sink to keep telling your story. AND you don't mind that your "proof" is getting thinner and thinner. Last time it was one single post in the AoC forum that aledgedly should have turned the Xfire world around (gradually over two months)... This time it's something else. Come on... If you want to discuss trends, you at least have to keep refering to the same tools.
Sometimes tools break or become unreliable. Look at it this way if you have three thermometers and plot the temperatures from each daily and all are in synch with each other then suddenly one starts reading 10 degrees higher than the others and is totally out of synch do you assume the two that mirror each others readings broke or is something wrong with the one that went spastic?
XFire became inconsistent back in December. From launch until December the XFire, Alexa, and Quantcast numbers showed identical data trends then all of a sudden XFire went up 25 to 30 percent. For a sudden increase in XFire numbers there is always some outside factor sparking it, such as a patch or free trial or a expansion or something stimulates interest in the game which causes more people to start visiting the web site and then more people playing would cause the Xfire numbers to rise. When Xfire suddenly rises rises 25 to 30 percent in a week or two without something generating that sudden interest and if website traffic in not in synch something is wrong.
Oddly enough this was just after Thoresen published his estimates of AoC's population using Xfire as his data source back in November. In December threads on both the European and US forums appeared pleading with players to start using Xfire and also the stock price started to climb a bit. Coincidence? Maybe and then maybe not. Remember we are talking about a company whose stock and subscriptions dropped 90 percent over a six or seven month period.
Anyway read my posts don't read them or whatever. Draw whatever conclusions you want from the data. For me following MMORPG's is just a hobby for me, not my profession.
I miss DAoC
You have no idea how much I want to play AOC again. I just hate the combat system <^>^<>^<^> Does nothing for me. I know it was inventive but meh give me abilities I push a button done and done. Besides that I loved the game.
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". No one can stop anyone from pursuing happiness, but life and liberty are said to only exist if they are deliberately sought and paid for".
I take it you never played a spellcaster then. They split it into "melee" action based classes with multiple attack modes, and then you had spellcasters who could push one button and be done/
Maybe you do need to load it up again, an see what you are missing.
Cheers
Look Ma....another sandbox MMO with no major development company behind it
(*cough* Adventurine *cough*)
As to that release date...the alpha combat system was just posted in December. Why not try May of 2011 to get a little closer to the real release date. Either that or it will follow the release schedule of the game it is copying...Darkfall (8-10 year release window maybe?)
Funny post though...hyping vaporware in a thread about hyping a released game...priceless.
Sometimes tools break or become unreliable. Look at it this way if you have three thermometers and plot the temperatures from each daily and all are in synch with each other then suddenly one starts reading 10 degrees higher than the others and is totally out of synch do you assume the two that mirror each others readings broke or is something wrong with the one that went spastic?
XFire became inconsistent back in December. From launch until December the XFire, Alexa, and Quantcast numbers showed identical data trends then all of a sudden XFire went up 25 to 30 percent. For a sudden increase in XFire numbers there is always some outside factor sparking it, such as a patch or free trial or a expansion or something stimulates interest in the game which causes more people to start visiting the web site and then more people playing would cause the Xfire numbers to rise. When Xfire suddenly rises rises 25 to 30 percent in a week or two without something generating that sudden interest and if website traffic in not in synch something is wrong.
Oddly enough this was just after Thoresen published his estimates of AoC's population using Xfire as his data source back in November. In December threads on both the European and US forums appeared pleading with players to start using Xfire and also the stock price started to climb a bit. Coincidence? Maybe and then maybe not. Remember we are talking about a company whose stock and subscriptions dropped 90 percent over a six or seven month period.
Anyway read my posts don't read them or whatever. Draw whatever conclusions you want from the data. For me following MMORPG's is just a hobby for me, not my profession.
Nice example with the thermometers, BUT I think part of the problem is you want one of your thermometers to be broken while it is still fully functional. Dont junk the data even though you dont understand them. Here are your two scenarios and I will try once again to get the point across that I belive most other people have no problem at all to recognize and deem as plausible (more than plausibel, likely in fact)
1. Decreasing Alexa and decreasing Xfire numbers
2. Decreasing Alexa and increasing Xfire numbers
1. Describes a game in decline. The Alexa numbers are decreasing for multiple reason. Hype is wearing off, A lot of the players quit as well as the game also in fact get a steady stream of fixes and gets better that again will reduce bitching drastically. If you want to check out on how much of Alexa trafic is due to bitching you should find a know bugfix patch like 1.02. this is the patch that killed memory leaks. See how much the traffic was reduced after that patch, and that is all due to less bitching (hope this is a clear demonstration for you). But of course patch 1.02 did not turn things entirely around, hype were still wearing off as well as more people quit. BUT the problem is that you put = between Alexa numbers and subscribers, while Alexa numbers is a function of at least 4 other variables like hype, bitching and bugs, new content/events...etc... Looking to post 17th Sep Alexa trend I will say that buggs and game quality is the factor lowereing Alexa numbers the most.
2. Describes a game in progress. For reasons described above, Alexa numbers keep getting lowers proportional with the number of bug squashed pr patch. Xfire numbers increase because more people play or at least the guys that already played play more. BECAUSE the game just got so much better now.
For your other comments on Xfire trend, those are incorrect (and I am sure you know). You know very well that Thoresens Xfire based population estimate (70 k) came out in late November. Xfire was on all time low like 3 weeks after that. And from mid December of till a week after polish launch the game consistantly gained xfire log on numbers and gaming hours (and have been sort of stable since than). That can't be orchestrated by some smartass celler dudes. Sorry, i am not going to be that paranoid that I am going to belive that about 600-800 guys would stay in touch over 2 months and gradually phase in their Xfire boost just to fool me and you. Come on dude. You know I am right.
I was told from one of my guild mates in EQII that you could have sexual relations with bar maids. Is that true. And if it is why would put something like in a game? lol
Kick to the Face.
Nope thats not true. Well the bar maids point at you with their giant hooters and bounce them some for ya, but no... No clothes come off
@ jasma ...does not rerally matter at this point anyway. If the numbers continue to drop in the1st and 2nd quarters financial reports the game is as good as walking dead anyway. All the "ohmygawd the game has improved so much and is the best thing since consensual sex " won't save it. Looks like it is destined to be another Vanguard/ Horizons/ AO 30K niche game. Maybe FC will have better luck with their next MMO. Third time is supposed to be the charm they say.
I miss DAoC
Well ,now you are on to something totally else and I agree fully with you. If guided Q2 revenue is lower than Q1 revenue numbers that is a clear sign of population decrease. There is a minor revenue boost in Q1 compared to Q2 due to 6 month sign up in July and beginning August (probably about 150 000). This is however just a minor contribution to the Q1 numbers as they run out in the first month (Jan). Lets say 10% of the 150 000 clicked 6 months and 75% of those again when to idle. This would equal a artificial revenue boost = 15 000*14$ *0.75 = 0.17 Mill. 0.17 Mill is close to neglible so indeed if guidede revenue range in Q2 decrease that would mean population is decreasing as well. However I am more than sure that we will see at least the same revenue guiding for Q2 that we had in Q1 (if not even higher depending on when trial is coming).
Well ,now you are on to something totally else and I agree fully with you. If guided Q2 revenue is lower than Q1 revenue numbers that is a clear sign of population decrease. There is a minor revenue boost in Q1 compared to Q2 due to 6 month sign up in July and beginning August (probably about 150 000). This is however just a minor contribution to the Q1 numbers as they run out in the first month (Jan). Lets say 10% of the 150 000 clicked 6 months and 75% of those again when to idle. This would equal a artificial revenue boost = 15 000*14$ *0.75 = 0.17 Mill. 0.17 Mill is close to neglible so indeed if guidede revenue range in Q2 decrease that would mean population is decreasing as well. However I am more than sure that we will see at least the same revenue guiding for Q2 that we had in Q1 (if not even higher depending on when trial is coming).
Just where are you pulling this 150K number from. I hope you washed your hands after you pulled it out of your nether regions. I am willing to bet that the projected numbers will be equal to roughly 100K and most likely will be less than that.I figure by the end of the second quarter it will be around 50K or less, depending on a few factors which are yet to be seen and I won't go too far in my speculations till I see what patch 1.05 brings or does not bring as it may be.
ROFL at least you guys have gotten over tossing around 250K and 300K numbers so you are at least headed back down to Earth, I still would not take the oxygen mask off just yet if I were you though.......
I miss DAoC
@comablak18
this is TOTALLY par for the course for funcom. same thing happened with anarchy online. i mean EXACTLY the same thing.
game was completely broken at launch, everyone bailed.
didnt really get fixed until gaute moved to the aoc team, except they went thru 2 other game directors and 4 or so years before promoting then community manager sirillion to game director. he got the team to fix a TON of issues.
now ive said this before in other posts, im a huge fan of craig, however, i do question his ability to creatively come up with NEW ideas. Lost Eden kind of sucked as an expansion. The Battlestation was a STUPID idea. At least giving winners the ability to one shot any attackers at their clan towers from it. It REALLY screwed up pvp.
I still think gaute should come back as a creative director or creative executive producer or something. The guy is unbelieveable at coming up with new ideas. but hes horrible at getting teams to get things done, and hes horrible at looking at the facts of the reality of what is going on in the game. He's holds his designs too close and doesnt want anyone to change them.
which is why i think he should come back, lead the development teams. Then once a game goes live, move it to the live team, and let craig run it. best of both worlds and very similar to blizzards development process with regards to teams.
only wildcard is ragnar tornquist is pretty damned creative too. I dont think gaute will ever come back. I hope after secret world launches they let ragnar have gaute's old job and let craig balance what he does out.
Games i'm playing right now...
"In short, I thought NGE was a very bad idea" - Raph Koster talking about NGE on his blog at raphkoster.com
Well ,now you are on to something totally else and I agree fully with you. If guided Q2 revenue is lower than Q1 revenue numbers that is a clear sign of population decrease. There is a minor revenue boost in Q1 compared to Q2 due to 6 month sign up in July and beginning August (probably about 150 000). This is however just a minor contribution to the Q1 numbers as they run out in the first month (Jan). Lets say 10% of the 150 000 clicked 6 months and 75% of those again when to idle. This would equal a artificial revenue boost = 15 000*14$ *0.75 = 0.17 Mill. 0.17 Mill is close to neglible so indeed if guidede revenue range in Q2 decrease that would mean population is decreasing as well. However I am more than sure that we will see at least the same revenue guiding for Q2 that we had in Q1 (if not even higher depending on when trial is coming).
Just where are you pulling this 150K number from. I hope you washed your hands after you pulled it out of your nether regions. I am willing to bet that the projected numbers will be equal to roughly 100K and most likely will be less than that.I figure by the end of the second quarter it will be around 50K or less, depending on a few factors which are yet to be seen and I won't go too far in my speculations till I see what patch 1.05 brings or does not bring as it may be.
ROFL at least you guys have gotten over tossing around 250K and 300K numbers so you are at least headed back down to Earth, I still would not take the oxygen mask off just yet if I were you though.......
Jack you did not understand my post, that 150 000 is not the number of subs. Let me take it from the start (but please be patient and read it all...slow..)
When a huge MMO launch, the game population will always be askew the first 6 months for the reason that there is like 700 000 people injected into the game at one go, wether they like it of not. Some of these launch or right after launch subscribers click 6 months subscription because they belive they will play for a loooong time when the hype is at max (and they also want to save that 1 $). But then they quit playing, still paying those 14$ pr month. I am saying this is a lot of extra revenue for MMO developers without people actually playing. Thats what I was talking about. Say 10% clicked 6 months of those initial 700 000 that bought AoC by end of Jun. In that case there would be 70 000 players paying 14$ pr month through out Q4 2008 (regardless if they were playing or not). Lets say about 75% of the 6 month subs were not playing, that would mean, even though FC had the same amount of active players in Q1 than in Q4, revenue should drop in the scale of 2.5 Mill just simply for the reason that the nonplaying 6 month subs would drop out. (what is interesting here is that FC only had a 1.5 Mill drop from Q4 to middle guided Q1.... Could that mean there was an increase of active players... Xfire certainly seem to suggest that. Well, back to the number 150 000 that confuses you. I am saying that people that bought the game late Jun,July and Aug was probably about 150 000 (based among other on that Q2 financial report said they had sold over 800 000 boxes, while end of June message was that there had been sold 700 000). The reason again we are interested in this number is that it represents a unconformity for the Q1 numbers since there would be an slightly higher than normal idle 6 months subs running in that Quarter. What I however tried to explain you is that this effect is unlikely to be higher than 0.2 Mill... Therefore, ideed if Q2 guided revenue is lower than Q1(at least if revenue is lower than 0.2), that is real and means the number of subs are decreasing.
BUT as I said before revenue guiding is very likely to be higher in Q2 due to trial and other rumors. Let's wait and see what happens though
Your math is off a little. Funcom has already announced that revenues will be decreasing by 25%... I see why you are backpeddling though... I mean, even Funcom is saying revenues will be decreasing, so now you are finding any outragious reason as to how a game that is growing (as you claim) is dropping 25% in revenues.
There is no way that 25% of all players in the 4th quarter were 6 month subscriptions who aren't planning on resubscribing.
It's also funny that a guy named Orion said the exact same things a few months ago. He was saying the game had 350k subscribers in December and the game grew by 50% ( ironically, I saw you say that same thing recently). But after Funcom released their official numbers, Orion disappeared in shame.
So yeah.. keep saying ' we'll wait and see'... my guess is you'll be joining Orion and never post again after your ' AOC is growing, but lost 25% in revenues because of 6 month subscribers' is shown to be wrong again by Funcom.
I don't fully understand the relationship of using the AoC website and playing AoC itself. I played WOW for 3 years but probably only visited the website/forum combined...about 3 times..all in the last year of play.
I played at launch, resubbed last month, gotta say not much has changed. Same ole instanced dungeon gankfest with minimal penalities to both the one who dies and one who does the killing. Was playing on Tyranny, the population was alright. I just find it somewhat stupid that one minute some guy is ganking you 5 times in a row to get his daily PVP XP off of you then he's asking you to group up with him to do a dungeon or the same thing to some other poor fellow.
To the OP:
hype -noun
1: deception , put-on
publicity ; especially : promotional publicity of an extravagant or contrived kind
So you are mad at someone who plays the game for the game instead of it being a race to max level or a need of life or limb? Sounds like he can put the issue of kill or be killed behind and let the game be fun whether ganking or grouping.
This has nothing though to do with the quality of the game. It was not for you, and that happens.
Hopefully you find the game that does not have ganking in FFA PvP (and please come and let me know this miracle game...)
Cheers
So you are mad at someone who plays the game for the game instead of it being a race to max level or a need of life or limb? Sounds like he can put the issue of kill or be killed behind and let the game be fun whether ganking or grouping.
This has nothing though to do with the quality of the game. It was not for you, and that happens.
Hopefully you find the game that does not have ganking in FFA PvP (and please come and let me know this miracle game...)
Cheers
Yeah...I'm with you openedge1. Pretty strange for epoq to complain about getting ganked and then a group invite from the ganker...well it would be if Tyranny wasn't clearly marked as a PvP server. I'll admit (having 1 character on Tyranny) that it does have more than it's share of gankers...PvP spammers and immature shite talkers...and also a good many straight up gamers and pvpers. That's why it is a PvP server..for those who like the free for all thrill of that type of atmosphere. I myself just like to try it out once in a while.