f13.net

So, those Black Friday sales didn't do a thing for WAR, not surprising... (sorry if it's been posted, been away on business)

Link: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/56329      (http://www.pcworld.com/article/155384/top_pc_game_sales_for_november_2008.html)

List:

"1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
2. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Ed.
3. Call Of Duty: World At War
4. Spore / EA Maxis
5. Fallout 3 / Bethesda
6. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
7. The Sims 2 Deluxe
8. Left 4 Dead
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack
10. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
11. World Of Warcraft
12. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Exp.
13. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy
14. EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey
15. Far Cry 2 / Ubisoft Montreal
16. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
17. BioShock
18. Spore Creepty & Cute Parts Pack
19. IGT Slots: Little Green Men
20. Assassin's Creed"

For what it's worth, WAR was 5th in October, then dropped off the face of the earth for November.

Link: http://news.bigdownload.com/2008/11/15/fallout-3-tops-pc-game-sales-in-october/

List:

"1. Fallout 3 - Bethesda Softworks
2. Spore - Electronic Arts
3. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy - Her Interactive
4. Far Cry 2 - Ubisoft
5. Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning - Mythic/EA
6. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
7. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
8. Fallout 3 Collectors Edition - Bethesda Softworks
9. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
10. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Electronic Arts
11. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
12. Civilization IV: Colonization - Firaxis/2K Games
13. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
14. Crysis: Warhead - Crytek/EA
15. Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway - Ubisoft
16. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Premier Edition - Electronic Arts
17. Dead Space - Electronic Arts
18. Spore Creature Creator - Electronic Arts
19. Civilization IV - Firaxis/2K Games
20. The Sims 2 FreeTime - Electronic Arts"

EA fills several slots in there, but to see WAR go from 5th in sales from one month and completely out of the top 20 the next is not something I would be happy about if I was a current sub. EA will see those numbers, adjust accordingly with their staff, and move forward. It's the same as any major corporation out there. You develop A, B, C, and D. First three are booming, D fails to hit the mark. Move most of D staff over to A, B, and C development, marketing, etc... follow the money and capitalize on successes.

Guess we'll have to wait and see for the December numbers but I suspect they will show the same indications. WAR has settled and will only continue to slowly bleed out. If I were Mythic I would ask if they can go ahead and move forward with Origins. Salvage what player base they have left and try to make some dough.

Thoughts? Comments?

Jesus fucking Christ, WoW is numbers 1, 2, 6, 11, and 16. One quarter of the top 20 are WoW products. The original non-expansion WoW box is number 11 four years after coming out. Jesus.

Whenever someone tells me PC gaming isn't dying, I just count the Blizzard titles on the list. There's a reason why PC shelf space is rapidly shrinking in gaming stores.

Did BioShock and Assassin's Creed re-release or something?

Oh, c'mon guys, people were just waiting for the patch to come out, right?

Hinterland missing. Shame.

Wow. I really didn't think it was THAT bad.

Spore Creepty & Cute Parts Pack beat out Warhammer? Haha

<insert WotLK Throne Image here>


Blizzard virtually IS the PC game industry at this point.

They should have released WAR at the start of December, WoW players were going to buy wotlk anyway.  Being in the top ten for pc games would have had more people buying WAR as a present, before word of mouth got out.

Well, Warhammer is in a little different position than Warcraft right now.  Blizzard only really has to focus on keeping the players they have and they will still be wildly successful.  WAR has to keep getting new subs and keep what they have.  They don't seem to be doing either right now.

It's a domino effect. This is why Devs need to realize that leaving customers don't really equal one less 'current subscriber'. Look at us in this forum, we've been spewing bile and highlighting their stupidity. Visitors who read this are probably having second thoughts on getting the game.

Same case for me in real life, I told my friends to leave the game alone for a few months while they fix the fortress siege and tell them if they want to PVE, there's a perfectly good game made by Blizzard, there's no need to torture yourself in here just to please your inner RVR person.

One less current subscriber could mean the loss of three to five future subscribers. That is all.

Keeping the customers they have? ORIGINAL WOW IS STILL A TOP SELLER 4 YEARS LATER.

That's from the purchase of consoles as christmas presents - people tend to buy a few games to go with them. Assassin's Creed and Bioshock are two of the bigger, and more recognisable ones.



Anyway, kudos to Blizzard. I'm anxious to see how their sales do once they release Starcraft and D3; they could well have 9 out of the top 20 after Starcraft's 3 games.

Those are all PC games, has nothing to do with consoles.

The fact that War got outsold by year+ old games, and spore creature pack, is sad beyond words.

You're absolutely correct. 11m+ players. China or no China, South America, Korea, etc. These people are not all "Blizzard fans". Most of them joining up at this stage have to be word of mouth sales.
(And goldfarmers buying new accounts to turn over.)
 :why_so_serious:

That's the positive juggernaut snowballing of good word of mouth, a professional, finished product and all the rest. WoW's initial success may have been an unexpected and happy accident, but that's not why they've managed to stay so far ahead of the pack. That's why MJ and his old-school devs-vs-players grindfest unfinished bullshit is dying a slow quick death.

I'll leave my mistake up for all to gawk at. Thankyou for the correction, now I look like a fool :-P .

Anyway, high-profile games do tend to see increased sales at Chritsmas.

Sad, but inevitable with their attitude.

Telling customers "You're playing the game wrong" is never a good idea.

I know it's not PC, but I picked up a copy of Assassin's creed CE (PS3) for $19 brand new. I'm guessing Ubisoft is slashing to move the units.

And the EQ2 expansion. It is a good expansion, but c'mon. If EQ2 has 150k actives I would be surprised. I like the game myself, but it isn't and never was a big player.

Large budget MMO's failing to meet long-term goals:

Tabula Rasa: check

Age of Conan: check (but not dead yet... still a glimmer of hope)

Warhammer Online: check

Money is getting tighter... let's see if investors (and publishers) have learned anything.

I'd expect they've learned "Don't invest in anything not Blizzard."  Depends on their level of research and where they're reading, but "MMO companies largely have no idea what they're doing" proably makes it to the executive summary page.

And from sales numbers like that, who would blame them?

Electronic Arts stock hit a 52 week low 5 days back, then had massive sales volume seen across the board. Ticker ERTS, fancy graph and chart for you all here, http://finance.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:ERTS

It should go back up after last nite's video gaming awards over here in the states in addition to the introduction of some new games like this: http://www.dantesinferno.com/home.action

how many of those games are EA?  Or earn EA any money?

Quick glance, maybe 6-8 from the November list. Top 3 are Activision Blizzard, and to have 5 WoW titles on the list is just insane. I would have liked to see a breakout of numbers to see just how many copies 1st and 2nd place sold comparative to the rest of the list.

First time I have seen a game I worked on in NPD monthly top 20.

The popularity of Nancy Drew continues to amaze us all.

I think you had a 50% chance based on that list and got it wrong. Nancy Drew is more interesting than the product I worked on. What amazes us at our company is that the least interesting products we do are also the most popular.

Judging by the response, I think I know *where* you worked, but if you don't mind me asking, where did you work. Feel free to PM me.

The fact that Nancy Drew falls from #3 to #15 in a month's time and WAR falls from #5 to OUT in the same amount of time is sort of sad.

Nancy Drew has better PvP than WAR.

The bolded statement.

THIS
is why you really DO need official forums. So that newbs, noobs, bored casual gamers and other innocent folks don't get hijacked by cynical assholes like you guys (I mean that in the nicest way). Really, I do think MJ is pretty unprofessional and more than a little bit pathologically childish in his "hate" for official forums. A multimillion $$$$ game's "word of mouth" has been completely been taken over by guys like you all at F13 (me included i guess) or drooling fanbois; either of which you do not want to be doing the "word of mouth"-ing.

I am patiently awaiting December's numbers... I am secretly pulling for Nancy Drew to stay in the top 20 and have no resurgence from WAR but time will tell.

It isn't exactly rocket science that 'message control' is the primary plus for official forums, from a company's perspective. If/when they do go down that route, that'll be the reason.

If your game is doing well, or even 'ok', then I guess you can afford for fans to be getting their community on elsewhere; there are advantages to distributed free marketing. If it is tanking, and every fan forum is a cesspit you'd want to be sure that you can respond to criticism quickly, and that your response is the first (or only) thing the players see. They can moderate the crap out of the place.

You seem to be suggesting that official forums have reduced proportions of drooling fanbois, cynical assholes, and whining dickheads.

What evidence do you have for this surprising conclusion?



Not having official forums is one less stupid distraction for community relations to worry about. However, community relations have around 20 billion stupid distractions to worry about - so one more or one less doesn't really make much difference.

So is this game worth playing yet or what?

uh you can start now. At this point, subscription rate will not grow. There will be no massive influx of new subs until the next expansion perhaps. Pick a healthy server and work your way up. Heheh.

I've been playing pretty heavily now that theres been non stop orvr going on every time i log in.  Leveling is still too slow, but renown and influence come pretty fast, theres lots of pvp action every night and the advantages of defenders makes it so even if massively outnumbered you can score a win here and there on keep defenses.  One thing i've realized though is that the end game simply does not work in its most basic form and needs a complete remake.  Even if they fix the crashes and lag, if they balance the classes and miraculously even up the sides then what you are left with is the fact that is simply impossible to reach the end game (city sieges or even fortresses) if both sides were equal.  The only reason theres any fortress or city sieges at this point is because one side way outnumbers the other, and even so defense is pretty easy most of the time, you would never see any prime time wins for either side if the game was balanced.

This, to a point...

The end game is broken, period. VP is still borked, Forts are still crashing left and right, the whole game post T2 is just fail. I am guessing at this point they are going to have to pull some huge massive Frontiers type overhaul to fix the end game. Unfortunately that's too late for a massive amount of their once decent player base.

I at first thought they might still hold 300k through December, but seeing the posts all around WHA forums and the VN boards (plus random blogs) it's not looking good at all...

The city sieges work, but the fortresses are broken most of the time, and that blocks the players from getting to the endgame.

Endgame PvE still works and also ORVR in general.

What they need to do now is instance the fortress zones to 150v150and work from there.

Good post here sums most of what we are talking about up:

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=224563

End game PvE still working, <blank stare>. Seriously dude? I know I signed up for WAR for the end game gear raids, woohoo! Hell this game is more gear intensive for raiding and PvP then WoW was, which I never thought would happen, ever. Sure certain classes in WoW need gear to live, but nothing like WAR. If you don't have your wards prepare to get wtfowned in Forts and anything above Bastion.

Like it or not, it's working as intended.

You quoted a Dash post.  :grin:

So, it's a PvP-centric game where most of the PvP stuff is broken to the point where people can't even see all of it.  But some of the PvE stuff works.  Do I have that right?

Yeah... pass.

Yeah pretty much

I still enjoy the ORVR though. From what I hear, the PvP "endgame" everyone wants to see get fixed so badly is pretty much just a lot of public quests (City sieges), so I was kind of "meh" about it from the beginning

Dash wasn't a horrible person outside of Politics.  Unfortunately he very rarely left that section.

our guild had a meeting announcing they would be starting a guild in WoW due to demand and the number of people leaving WAR

pretty large hardcore guild so, yeah.

Ward gear is REALLY easy to get. Most everyone I know has between 3-5 pieces of Anhililator from doing RVR only. From RVR I've gotten everything I need (and more) for fortress sieges and would have been "ok" for city sieges. In a single run of Sigmar's Crypts dungeon, which took a grande total of 45 minutes, I got 3 pieces of Sentinel gear which is enough for the next dungeon and is perfect for city sieges, which is the next step. The gear grind is nothing, I was basically done in 45 minutes.

Warcraft, I had at least 4 different gears sets I went through, just to get through BC. That doesn't even include resist gear.

Seems like people freaked out about the gear grind without actually experiencing it, which I would describe as pathetically easy right now. Almost all of the grind is done doing RVR, which doesn't feel like a grind at all to me at least. I don't really see too many posts about gear grind problems these days, most gripes with the game come from witch elves, AE CC, and fortresses, all problems that can be worked out. The open rvr is quite fun and replaying tier 1-2 is both needed and as fun as T4. T4 with a good alliance is also very fun as well, very strategic, very interesting.

I had a nice chuckle at my local Best Buy tonight, they've got a whole set of three shelves covered in WAR merchandise.  Hundreds of copies of the game and strat guides. 

I realize that's no indication of sales and such, but it's still pretty funny to see it sitting there. 

I am not saying that official forums are totally bereft of drama queens, cynical assholes, whining dickheads and other fun denizens. Plenty there, but in a well run and tightly moderated forum - they can be controlled and management's message to the players would not be hijacked for what ever reason. On the other hand, "well run and wisely moderated" is hard and all that but thats how "community handlers" earn their money.

My point being is that generally - the hypothetical "innocent noob player" would tend to gravitate towards official forums. The absence of official forums would basically imply (IMO) that all forums discussing Warhammer Online are just about equal. F13 having as much relevancy as say VN boards, Warhammer alliance and others (actually, not being a WAR fanboi - I can't think of any other major WAR forums apart from F13 and those 2 - and I googled them). There is no WAR forum with the OFFICIAL mark of approval that the hypothetical innocent can turn to.

Here at F13, WAR has been relegated to the gaming graveyard and the cynical assholes insightful commentators here are dancing atop its tombstone discussing its many issues. Nothing Mythic can do about it, and since all forums are equal and unofficial, the message here carries as much "word of mouth" weight as any of the other forums that Mythic "community managers" choose to flit about on. Not having an official forum just about gives license and credibility to all the rampant negativity about the game. It is about losing control of the message you're trying to get out.

While we are at it, in the absence of official forums - what does Mythic's "Community Relations" do that is quantifiable apart from putting out assclown youtube videos?

I believe they spend all day avoiding reading threads like this one (http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109828859/p1/?51).

no.

December's Best-Selling PC Games for 2008 (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/56811)

   1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
   2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
   3. Spore / EA Maxis / $47 (Average)
   4. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
   5. Call Of Duty: World At War / Treyarch / $50 (Average)
   6. Left 4 Dead / Valve / $48 (Average)
   7. Fallout 3 / Bethesda / $49 (Average)
   8. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $38 (Average)
   9. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
  10. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Exp. / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
  11. Bejeweled Twist / PopCap / $19 (Average)
  12. Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
  13. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 / EA LA / $49 (Average)
  14. Grand Theft Auto IV / Rockstar North / $49 (Average)
  15. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $28 (Average)
  16. The Sims 2 Pets Exp. / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
  17. The Sims 2 Seasons Exp. / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
  18. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy / Her Interactive / $20 (Avearge)
  19. The Sims 2 FreeTime Exp. / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
  20. The Sims 2 University Exp. / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)




Warhammer, where r u?! Beat out by Nancy Drew and an expansion for The Sims 2 which added pets?  :ye_gods:

Warcraft Warcraft, Sims, Sims, Warcraft.  :why_so_serious:

Have I finally lived long enough to see the decline of the human race? I'm deeply disturbed by this.

I highly doubt we see WAR on that top 20 list ever again.

Niche based game, maybe 200k subs at this point. Might lose even more if they dont do a T4 overhaul patch very soon. They could even throw in the Choppa/Slayer and I highly doubt they gain 5-10% back with all the issues in the game.

When your game is beat out by Nancy Drew, it's time to admit that there may be a problem. 

T4 sucks, leveling via PVE is boring as hell and way too long, and high end gear is acquired mainly by even more boring PVE. Yeah, no wonder its not in the top 20 anymore.

And if Warhammer was #1?


Precisely.

Warcraft, Warcraft, Sims, Sims, Warcraft.

Sorry, I"m not seeing the problem in this. Granted I only see 3/5ths of this as fun but I recognize that some see the other 2/5ths fun as well. A large number do. I'm really beginning to wonder why WAR is still even being discussed. It's a failure of GIGANTIC proportions. It's NOT FUN. All things Warcraft and all things Sims do seem to be in some way fun for most people if not all people. I'll give you my personal feeling why. Both franchises have managed to meld together games and toys. When I play any of the Warcraft games, all the characters, pieces, scenery, etc. are fun to look at and make me want to play with them. I imagine it's the same with the Sims. I'm not into that whole doll house thing but I can imagine that the visceral reaction is the same to those that are hooked in by that sort of game. There's also something engaging in the games, something almost intangible. If there wasn't, both franchises wouldn't have the number of new subs that they do. Both have hit that magic mix of gameplay, graphics, fun and freedom that entice new people in and keep old people playing. Mythic failed by trying to implement too many rules in their tiers, levels, and basic tomfoolery of who can play when, where and how, and making their game world so generic and boring that it hurts the eyes and brain to look at and respond to. It's over. Put a fork in it. It's done.

I should conclude this by saying that I've had an awful lot to drink tonight and I'm not in the brightest and shiniest of moods, but that I would love a decent PvP styled game in which I could PvP with impunity and feel so much better about myself. The last game that let me do that was Daggerfall.

According to NPD (http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/01/18/npds-20-best-selling-pc-games-of-2008-in-us-retail-stores/), WAR was the 5th best selling game of 2008 in the US.

1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
2. Spore - Electronic Arts
3. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
4. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures - Funcom/Eidos
5. Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning - Mythic/EA
6. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Activision
7. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
8. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition - Blizzard
9. Fallout 3 - Bethesda Softworks
10. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
11. Call Of Duty: World At War - Activision
12. The Sims 2 FreeTime - Electronic Arts
13. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
14. Sins Of A Solar Empire - Ironclad Games/Stardock
15. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard
16. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
17. Crysis - Crytek/EA
18. Left 4 Dead - Valve
19. Diablo Battle Chest - Blizzard
20. The Orange Box - Valve

Wow Sins Of A Solar Empire was #14, that's amazing.

I reject your reality and substitute my own. That just can't be right. If it is, it speaks volumes about the hopes and fears of the MMOG community. What we want and what we get are two very different things. I hope we learn from this and in the future don't fall for such tricks again.

/shrugs

It says what it says. If the measure of a MMO's success is box sales at launch, both War and AoC have done well.

That we can safely say AoC was *also* a big pile of fail (and even beat War) means that isn't quite the case  :oh_i_see:

Mark found the thread over on VN (http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109992820/p4) about the december sales numbers and has been posting like crazy on it, here's some good material to chew on:

I think he's confusing all the BS accounts the gold spammers are starting up with fake Credit cards in order to spam the server with real accounts.  :awesome_for_real:

You forgot to point out that the endgame is itself instanced PvE, which by some accounts isn't even fully implemented yet.  Almost as though "no one could have expected players to reach the end so quickly!"   :awesome_for_real:

Uh... his game is being outsold by Nancy Drew. Where does he expect us to believe all these new people got the game from?

Is NPD still ignoring direct download sales? If so, that could be a source of new, undocumented sales.

EDIT: Yep, those NPD numbers do not count downloaded sales. That doesn't mean it sold well, but it doesn't mean that NPD tracks all the sales either.

Well said Sir.   L4D anyone? 

Mark also forget to mention that WAR has a recruit a friend program going.

In other words his statement that more new people are trying WAR today than a month of two ago tells us absolutely fucking nothing about their sales or subscription numbers.

More people on in January than November or December on a specific day - let's see. Jan 17: Saturday. Dec 17: Wednesday. Nov 17: Monday. And yes Jacobs, I DO think you'd engage in semantics. Or else you'd just release player numbers.

Personally I don't call WAR a failure because it didn't get WOW numbers. I call it a failure because it got so many things wrong, including basic design issues.

I really don't want to hear shit out of Mark/EA/Mythic besides "We have X number of paying subscribers". But they aren't going to say that because it'll just validate the flop stench coming off this thing.

I personally call it a failure because I found it completely and utterly boring.  Seems some others feel that way too :awesome_for_real:.

Jeez, Mark's nerd-rage is a pretty funny read on the VN boards but he really needs to stop with the VN posts, seriously. He has a PR team, let them do their jobs. If he wanted to nerd-rage post on some boards, he would do better to just monologue it and throw it on his blog.

His spin on population numbers (and server closures) is nauseating.

It's just how he rolls. The only difference now is more people see it then the old DaoC days.

He's "promised" to release player numbers in that thread if EA doesn't. We'll see.

It is interesting to read Mark's comments.  I really wonder if he has even played the game for more than a few minutes at a time.  He also likes to use "LOL" a lot in his posts.  That is cool.

I read all 20 pages of the VN thread.  My favorite part of it was the guy blaming Wal Mart for the fall in sales of WAR. 

It's wonderful that people still enjoy the game.  I just wonder why so many that remain are holding on with such blind faith.  Perhaps that's a statement of our society at large. 

The sheer idiocy of not having offical forums is highlighted by my morning reading and the top post at the "fan" sites mythic link's.  Weather intended or not and as a result of not having their own fourms, Mythic lends credibility to the linked sites, they are pushing people to places that reinforce the failure of the game  /boggle

Only War

1.  Good argument to population issues
2.  War T1-T3> 4
3.  End of January Announcement



You can't tell me that anyone actually still believes that farming forums out to "fan sites"  is a net win.    Mythic is pushing their current and potinteal customers to get information they don't control, that is pretty much professional malpractice. 

Well, Walmart is clearly evil.  I love a good conspiracy theory :drill:.


It is a bit baffling the number that will continue to pay 15 bucks a month for something they don't think is that good.  That is 180 bucks a year and 50 bucks for the box for a total of 230 dollars.  That is like buying a good "offline" game every other month.  That is enough to keep me occupied.

My favorite part was him saying he leaves the PR to Paul.

I can't think of anyone I trust less than that sheisty dirtbag.

Wait, which one is the sheisty dirtbag again?  :grin:



Ghost: If he's played the game for more then a few minutes, it's been the 'cheating' way. Not having to level/grind/gear the characters and just using generated toons. That or he's crazy and stands behind all the design decisions.

Either or!

It still cracks me up that Mark Jacobs doesn't get the internet. I don't think it will ever stop amusing me.

He just replied again to another thread on the VN...

http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/110006509/p5/?107

An excerpt: "You do know that we were one the best selling PC games of the year right? In 3 weeks we'll be able to say just how well we did sell both through retail and digital downloads. We sold fantastically in Sept/Oct (top five game), dropped in Nov, went back up in Dec (but still didn't crack the top 20 for retail sales) and are doing nicely in January."

Good old Mark, but hey they are doing nicely having dropped completely off the top 20 in both November and December...

I guess all those new players quit in T3 because we sure don't ever see new people in T4.

Every post he makes about how the sky is really not falling and everything is peachy-keen should simply be replied to simply by quoting that post he made that was "If we aren't opening new servers 6 weeks after release, the game will be a failure."



Indeed.