Originally posted by Loktofeit Originally posted by Greymoor The success of a company is usually determined by its values. If a company aims to be Carbon neutral, does not achieve this but makes profit. The owner could say the company is unsuccesful. Yes games who's population is slowly growing after a rocky start could be labled a success, aslong as they're still developing. Mortal Online is not yet an example of this, the games population remains decreasing/small. Darkfall is a better example, it's population has recently being going up by a noticable amount. WAR could be considered a success when compared to the above two games because it has a bulk of subscribers as pointed out. Vanguard, don't know.
Do you have the numbers for these games?
The developers are the only people with actual numbers from these games right now.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
How is it possible to put both WAR next to Mortal Online? WAR sold over 1 million copies and has a subscriber base of, aproximately, 150-200k.
As a comparison I doubt MO sold more than 50k copies and probably has less than 10k active subscribers and was practically unplayable at launch.
No way you can equate those. However I do think WAR failed to meet the expectations of the producers, and most of the fans, so in that regard it is a failure.
I was basically going to say this.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
well war sold 1 million boxes so im going to call that a success, they have spent no money since they developed the game so i guess they have made a profit on their initial investment.
The success of a company is usually determined by its values.
If a company aims to be Carbon neutral, does not achieve this but makes profit. The owner could say the company is unsuccesful.
Yes games who's population is slowly growing after a rocky start could be labled a success, aslong as they're still developing. Mortal Online is not yet an example of this, the games population remains decreasing/small. Darkfall is a better example, it's population has recently being going up by a noticable amount. WAR could be considered a success when compared to the above two games because it has a bulk of subscribers as pointed out. Vanguard, don't know.
Do you have the numbers for these games?
The developers are the only people with actual numbers from these games right now.
Thanks you. So there's really no actual basis to his statements.:)
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Any MMO that has a dedicated player base that causes it to achieve large updates and expansions should be considered a success. Examples of this would be Eve, LoTRO, DAoC, Runescape, Ultima, SWG(though their updates destroyed the original community), EQ 1 and 2, DDO, WoW, CoX, and a few others. This would be an example of covering development costs and sustaining profitability afterward.
When a game with the hype and budget of WAR, FFXIV, STO, CO, AoC, and the like, rush out of the gate and then drop their player base almost immediately, it should be deemed a non-success. Not quite a failure, since the games are continuing on and attempting to attract new core players through new payment models and updates.
Then there is of course games like Vanguard, that were hyped and then the business end of things killed the game before launch. Not a success, but frankly the fact that it's been around 4 years now with a skeleton team and playerbase shows a small level of success in at least salvaging what should have never been salvageable.
If you want catastrophic failure though, look no further than APB and Tabula Rasa.
Success means one thing, profitability. And not just making more money than it costs to produce. A return needs to be provided that is higher than what they can do with a safe venture or its pointless. Also, there is opportunity cost, that is, would they have made more money if they used the money on something else.
Certainly MO and Vanguard were failures, it is possible that WAR achieved this but unlikely.
It employed a team of developers for years, paid their bills, made nice lines on their resumes, etc
It entertained thousands of people
So who are you to define what "success" means? All it does is beg the question; Successful at what?
RG was successful, TR though was not. Yes, it had a playerbase, but all games do. NC Soft paid the developers, and at some point they decided the game wasn't being profitable and wouldn't become such, so they shut the game down. TR is a perfect example of publisher and developer management gone catastrophically bad. Garriott got into space because they dumped a shit load of money into his lap and then he half assed his job.
I consider an MMO successful as long as it continues to make profit...no matter how much profit it is...as long as it doesnt lose it's at least somewhat successful.
PLAYING: NOTHING!!! PLAYED:FFXI, LotRO, AoC, WAR, DDO, Megaten, Wurm, Rohan, Mabinogi, RoM
"Success" is always reflexive or referential, in that it pertains to some other action. "Succeeds at what?"
To say that someone or some THING is successful is to refer to some explicit or heavily implicit standard, or it is nearly meaningless.
On the internet, where everything is at risk of being more nearly meaningless than elsewhere, the standard had best be heavily explicit or the question of whether a thing is successful-- posed there-- is pretty useless.
The utility of this thread will be found in the discussion of what constitutes success, if anywhere, and the most interest found in those things not mentioned in the OP question, like... Darkfall.
If any one of you were choosing a game to play based on how you'd be judged for choosing that particular one to play, one might have already lost, as in the larger scheme of things gaming itself does not make one cool and can be said (because saying stuff is cheap) to make one definitely not cool.
Casilda Tametomo, Priestess of Soldeus | AKA Lepida Aegis-Imperium.com
«Si oblitus fuero usque ad finem omnia opera eorum»
VG had a bad launch, but the game became a very good game imo, but people are not very foregiving and it never seemed like once they optimized it and fixed a lot of bugs that Sony was really interested in developing and relaunching it, like they promised to the community.
SWG needed more content and some balancing, but it had a lot going for it, including it being developed by a ton of Ultima Online people, if you ever go through the list of the two games, its pretty crazy....So sure it had needs, but the parts were in place for the improvement to make it a great game for a long time. It didn't need a remake, just needed some work, and the CU/NGE killed it for many people.
WAR - I heard its a better PvP game now, don't know though, it had the worst crafting I had ever seen, and the RvR was not too well thought out, could hardly ever get people to stand and fight, they just chased points...I know they revamped stuff, but I didn't hang around to see it. I had some fun with it, and got my money worth imo though.
MO - Never tried it, like the idea, but seemed to be too much hacking/dupping, and cheating of all kinds from what I read, those things drive me away...Hate thinking of myself working for something and putting a lot of time into, and then some jerk is sitting around duping things or making 'broken' items that are overpowered,...I would be willing to give it a go, if a lot of stuff was resolved, a new server started, and no transfers.
DF - I downloaded the trial, and I loathed the UI, and I uninstalled...I admit, I should of gave it more of a chance, but it irked me that it seemed like they didn't mave much of a good reason for the setup being like it was. I know its fps type combat ect....But the keymap and some other things just seemed backwards...It turned me off.
Comments
The developers are the only people with actual numbers from these games right now.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I was basically going to say this.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
well war sold 1 million boxes so im going to call that a success, they have spent no money since they developed the game so i guess they have made a profit on their initial investment.
1. As a player I don't care whether an MMO is successful; only if it's fun.
2. If these companies make enough to keep the product alive for the players who enjoy it, the game is successful.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Thanks you. So there's really no actual basis to his statements.:)
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Even Tabula Rasa was successful at many things:
It got RG into space
It employed a team of developers for years, paid their bills, made nice lines on their resumes, etc
It entertained thousands of people
So who are you to define what "success" means? All it does is beg the question; Successful at what?
Any MMO that has a dedicated player base that causes it to achieve large updates and expansions should be considered a success. Examples of this would be Eve, LoTRO, DAoC, Runescape, Ultima, SWG(though their updates destroyed the original community), EQ 1 and 2, DDO, WoW, CoX, and a few others. This would be an example of covering development costs and sustaining profitability afterward.
When a game with the hype and budget of WAR, FFXIV, STO, CO, AoC, and the like, rush out of the gate and then drop their player base almost immediately, it should be deemed a non-success. Not quite a failure, since the games are continuing on and attempting to attract new core players through new payment models and updates.
Then there is of course games like Vanguard, that were hyped and then the business end of things killed the game before launch. Not a success, but frankly the fact that it's been around 4 years now with a skeleton team and playerbase shows a small level of success in at least salvaging what should have never been salvageable.
If you want catastrophic failure though, look no further than APB and Tabula Rasa.
Success means one thing, profitability. And not just making more money than it costs to produce. A return needs to be provided that is higher than what they can do with a safe venture or its pointless. Also, there is opportunity cost, that is, would they have made more money if they used the money on something else.
Certainly MO and Vanguard were failures, it is possible that WAR achieved this but unlikely.
Remember Old School Ultima Online
RG was successful, TR though was not. Yes, it had a playerbase, but all games do. NC Soft paid the developers, and at some point they decided the game wasn't being profitable and wouldn't become such, so they shut the game down. TR is a perfect example of publisher and developer management gone catastrophically bad. Garriott got into space because they dumped a shit load of money into his lap and then he half assed his job.
It also got RG fired from NCSoft.
WOW = at least 5 million + players in US/EU (give or take in a very conservative manner).
EVE = at least 350 K players (last mentioned peak 6 months ago).
All the rest of the P2P bunch (and published more than a year ago) = 100K or far under .
You decide if that is even a competition or a rat race to stay alive and gain some pocket money from naïve players.
If one game has at least 50 times more players than the dozen other copies in the same "industry", it shows something.
I don't think you can talk of succes in any of these games if they can't even go near 1/50th of another game's pops.
And that's where it is @ ----> number of PLAYERS 1 year after launch.
Last I read Asia accounts for nearly 8 million of WoW's "subs". It is more like 3-3.5 million for North America/Europe.
Actually Asia only account like nearly 5 millions subscribers of WoW subs.
I consider an MMO successful as long as it continues to make profit...no matter how much profit it is...as long as it doesnt lose it's at least somewhat successful.
PLAYING: NOTHING!!!
PLAYED:FFXI, LotRO, AoC, WAR, DDO, Megaten, Wurm, Rohan, Mabinogi, RoM
WAITING FOR: Dust 514
I don't feel like answering. I do feel like spiking the question.
"Success" is always reflexive or referential, in that it pertains to some other action. "Succeeds at what?"
To say that someone or some THING is successful is to refer to some explicit or heavily implicit standard, or it is nearly meaningless.
On the internet, where everything is at risk of being more nearly meaningless than elsewhere, the standard had best be heavily explicit or the question of whether a thing is successful-- posed there-- is pretty useless.
The utility of this thread will be found in the discussion of what constitutes success, if anywhere, and the most interest found in those things not mentioned in the OP question, like... Darkfall.
If any one of you were choosing a game to play based on how you'd be judged for choosing that particular one to play, one might have already lost, as in the larger scheme of things gaming itself does not make one cool and can be said (because saying stuff is cheap) to make one definitely not cool.
«Si oblitus fuero usque ad finem omnia opera eorum»
Successful? Not really.
Good now, but they screw up? Yes.
VG and SWG are my #4-5 mmos off all time for me.
VG had a bad launch, but the game became a very good game imo, but people are not very foregiving and it never seemed like once they optimized it and fixed a lot of bugs that Sony was really interested in developing and relaunching it, like they promised to the community.
SWG needed more content and some balancing, but it had a lot going for it, including it being developed by a ton of Ultima Online people, if you ever go through the list of the two games, its pretty crazy....So sure it had needs, but the parts were in place for the improvement to make it a great game for a long time. It didn't need a remake, just needed some work, and the CU/NGE killed it for many people.
WAR - I heard its a better PvP game now, don't know though, it had the worst crafting I had ever seen, and the RvR was not too well thought out, could hardly ever get people to stand and fight, they just chased points...I know they revamped stuff, but I didn't hang around to see it. I had some fun with it, and got my money worth imo though.
MO - Never tried it, like the idea, but seemed to be too much hacking/dupping, and cheating of all kinds from what I read, those things drive me away...Hate thinking of myself working for something and putting a lot of time into, and then some jerk is sitting around duping things or making 'broken' items that are overpowered,...I would be willing to give it a go, if a lot of stuff was resolved, a new server started, and no transfers.
DF - I downloaded the trial, and I loathed the UI, and I uninstalled...I admit, I should of gave it more of a chance, but it irked me that it seemed like they didn't mave much of a good reason for the setup being like it was. I know its fps type combat ect....But the keymap and some other things just seemed backwards...It turned me off.