f13.net

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6200329.html

Found this nugget in an article about the EA layoffs:


Things not as gloomy as we think or was 800k the ceiling before people started cancelling?

Edit:  Changed Subscribers to Players in the title.

linky (http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ERTS/452566768x0x245319/f0a58760-2c38-408f-8779-2782cf681255/Q209%20ER_10.30_10am.pdf)

Think 800k is the high water mark.

linky (http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6200329.html)


Quoting because people are lazy with links.

that would have put about 8000 accts per server at the peak find it hard to believe

So WAR had to release to shore up EA proper's hemorrhaging.

Linky (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20893)


800k isn't subscribers, it's box sales that activated their free month.  They might not have intended it to sound like subscribers but if they only get a 75% conversation rate, there's going to be a big drop when/if they do publish real subscriber numbers.

To be fair or realistic, there probably is a fair number of people who have >1 months subscription and have just pressed paused to see if the game improves.  Things may get ugly by Dec., however, and the new sub rate I bet is flat. In short, they sold everything they were going to sell and there are no new entrants.  But who knows?

approx. 10k layoffs for EA though is sizable for any firm.

Edit: can't read -- it's 6% of 9,671

If they retained 800k out of 1.2 million sales then that's impressive.  Hard to say if that's what's going on though, since the bottom of the report says it's for the period ending on September 30th, which would mean everyone who bought a box would be currently "subscribed".   And if that were true, there would be 400k people who had bought the game and not registered yet---which makes no sense.

So, either the report accounts for data later than September 30th, or the difference between the 800k and and the 1.2 million is the difference between shipped and sold----which I honestly believe is the real "meaning" of the report.

Its sucks to watch my game flounder but I can at least take solace that its not propping up EA.

On subscribers, obviously the 1.2m box sales will also have improved since Sept 30 (I think those are real sales).  I'm just saying that considering how fickle mmorpg players are, maybe you don't want to have the word get out that you have 800k subs ,when that figure is not based on real people actually signing up past the 1st month.

Before this if they had said they have 500k subs at Christmas, that would be better than I would have expected.  Now all that's going to be focused on is that 500k is a lot less than 800k.

You have never bought a game and then not opened it?

yup.  And nothing beats the whisper campaign that the place is empty and grindy, whether true or fair.  

the 1.2 million  includes copies still on store shelves also so 400 k still on the shelf not sold to gamers

No.

Press Release September 19, 2008 (http://www.warhammeronline.com/pressreleases/20080915.php)

Yes, but I sincerely doubt that 1/3 of the people who bought the game never opened it.

A lot of people preordered for the headstart codes, and then canceled the preorders... so suppliers got excess.

Anyways, I am going to say this is a "registered" accounts number, not subscribers.

Back when they quoted the 750k it was "registered" accounts, and I really really doubt that <subscribers> went any higher because everyone I know has since then been canceling left and right. Registered accounts also includes all the head start codes that maybe didn't activate, people who didn't activate after 30d free, and all the banned gold spammers (13k).  Oh and all the trial keys that were given out at IGames gaming centers.

..and if it is still registered accounts they're quoting, that is a pretty poor increase for 1 month(?)... heh

Well at the top of the article it now says:

Warhammer subscribers hit 800,000.

So, if that is indeed subscribers, it obviously is doing alright, but I question how all the servers can be so empty.

Oh well, maybe they will hold enough so that when they fix stuff I'll feel like playing.

:ye_gods: I'm not saying 400,000 people bought the box and didn't open it, though some will have.  The key date is Sept 30th.  There's a delay between buying the box and activating your account.  The press release on 19th of Sept says they sold 1.5m to retailers.  So you think they had 300k returned while WAR was number 1 or 4 in the top ten or what?  What's your explanation?

Somebody at Turbine admitted in an interview that a major factor in closing AC2 was when the billing changed from MS to Turbine.  They lost all the people that signed up for a recurring sub and never logged in, plus the ones who couldn't be bothered reactivating their accounts.

only time i ever bought a box and didn't open it was if i took it back

all numbers aside let's just hope they make some improvements to the game to make it worth relooking into

That's the first time I've seen that 1.5 million number, so I have no idea.  Even with the lag time between buying and activating an account, I can't imagine that that many people would wait that long to create their account.

Only thing I can figure is a few people from the lag + overabundance of games due to pre-order policy + collectors/scalpers buying up the SE equals that number.  Even with all that it seems a bit much.

It doesn't quite add up either way.  Maybe we'll get some clarification.

BTW a publisher getting rid of people has nothing to do with how successful the company that makes the game is.

Midway is tanking right now in a big way, but EPIC games (UT3) is doing great and hiring people.

Publishers are just a lot like music companies now, they don't have much place in the industry and are too bloated.

Your quote agrees with his assertion.

So, WAR:

1.5 million boxes shipped

1.2 million boxes sold

800k activated boxes first month

AoC: (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=14104.0)

1.2 million boxes sold to stores

800k boxes sold to players

EDIT - 700k activated boxes first month

415k subscribers a quarter out from launch or so

Aoc had over 700k accounts activated the first month.

I'm trying to remember where I saw it,  I think in a Waterthread post ages ago,  but I remember a dev from Mythic talking about the "bought and never played" phenomenon in regards to DAoC.  I seem to remember them stating outright that there is a surprising percentage of boxes sold that never get turned into accounts.

But that's just my hazy recollection....

Thanks - I looked quickly but couldn't find that bit of data.

Well you have to remember when DaoC came out, it was still normal to just buy a box off a shelf without any prior knowledge of what you were buying.

Can you make some improvements to your punctuation while we wait? Also see: shift key.

No it doesn't.  He's saying 1.2m sold to retailers by 30th Sept but the press release says 1.5m was sold to retailers by Sept 19th.


The above is what I believe to be correct.

I still got a collectors edition of City of Villains I have never installed and set up an account for.  The thing that has stopped me installing it just to see it is the idea that I don't want to waste my first month so I waited till I felt I had a month free of other games to play...which didn't happen early and now it all feels too much like a hassle the few times I remember I still have it.

Just for future reference, because this isn't really clear at all.

EA second quarter results (http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ERTS/452566768x0x245319/f0a58760-2c38-408f-8779-2782cf681255/Q209%20ER_10.30_10am.pdf)
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, an MMO from EA’s Mythic Entertainment
studio, sold 1.2 million copies in the quarter, with over 800 thousand current players

September 15, 2008 (http://www.warhammeronline.com/pressreleases/20080915.php)

September 26, 2008 (http://www.warhammeronline.com/pressreleases/20080926.php)

October 10, 2008 (http://)

So
Sept 15th 1.5m sold to retailers
Sept 26th, 500,000 accounts created.
Sept 30th, 1.2m boxes sold (not 100% agreement on who sold to)
Oct 10th, 750,000 accounts created

Uncertain time : 800,000 current players. I'm thinking this is a recent figure after Oct 10th, if so, then spinning figures to look good will only hurt them in the end (even if it was unintentional).

What sort of bizzaro world do Mythic live in where they can count people playing their free launch month as subscribers, anyway?

A world where you have shareholders who need to see positive metrics.

Maybe the analyst that predicted a stable 250k subscriber base was right all along. Hell, even if it stabilized at 250k and grew from there I would consider the game a success. The whole reason they are bleeding customers right now is due to piss poor handling of population imbalances, a bad PVE experience, unrewarding RVR, and forcing people to grind for gear via PVE. If they fix it right instead of the stupid baby steps like 500 exp for battlefield objectives or 3k exp for keep lords, then they can regain some player confidence.

i think a lot of you are underestimating the power of the WARHAMMER IP.

Think of how long SWG was popular because of star wars?

Here we go again.   :ye_gods:

A lot of people are also underestimating the power of people who just stay subscribed to shit they don't play.

I expect WAR numbers will keep rising into early next year.

Comparisons with AoC are flawed. We aren't talking about women doing less damage than men and similar outright buggy stupid shit - the problems here are more subtle.  Long term I think just under 500k subs feels where this is headed.

This is going to be interesting.  I still think the market for a title like this is in the 150-250k bracket, but time will tell.  Hell, I'm the idiot that said WoW couldn't sustain more than 500k subs in North America.  Shows you what I know.

At least they aren't trying to brag about how many characters have been created.

Based on Nebu's post, I think the winner of that poll might just be ... HRose.   :awesome_for_real:

Sweet sweet irony.   :grin:

A world where a player has to subscribe to get the "free" month.   that they  haven't actually been billed doesn't change the fact that they have an active subscription.

250-300k by christmas?

That might actually be better spin, as many have tried most, if not all, of the professions to figure out if that was the problem. 

Most people will not jump ship as fast as you guys. Or they will keep subscribing and come back.

I think that everything that is wrong with WAR is fixable. The premise of the game is great and still has great promise. Open rvr imo is great and no other game has it really.

The question is: Will they fix it? Will they live up to their promise of "War is everywhere?"

Because right now on my server, WAR is virtually NO WHERE because destruction doesn't even have to participate in zone control to actively (passively?) defend it. What kind of pvp game allows you to AFK to be effective? In any case, until they allow us to assault their fortresses and cities, there will be virtually no rvr on Azazel because there is no point for destruction until zone flipping is more easily possible again.

Is it too far fetched to assume those missing 300k are units that have been returned to EA by the retailers? That would be the only scenario that would match all their press releases.

I'm still liking my 236k guess.


Tank, tank tank! :grin:

It's also possible that the 1.5M number is worldwide (as of the date of that press release) while the 1.2M number is NA boxes to date (EA is not the publisher in the EU). I don't have any personal info other than what is already out there about the numbers sold or the subs levels - and if I did I certainly wouldn't be able to share it - so that's just a guess on my part.

It's also possible that I'm a sentient banana.  Ok, maybe, the 300k were returned from the retailers, however that would mean they were returning them while the game was number one or about number four in the top ten sales charts.

But there's no way I'm swallowing the line that the Sept 15th 1.5m was worldwide and the Sept 30th 1.2m is NA boxes, that's totally illogical because you have 800,000k "current users".  If Europe is almost 50%, (40% or whatever) of worldwide sales and NA sales are 1.2m, then what you are really saying is that there was about 2m boxes WAR sold to end users worldwide by Sept 30th.  If that was true, then Mark Jacobs would have rang each of us up personally, just to make to sure we knew about it.  Also, again, 800,000 current users.

edit:typo

Wow, did I under-estimate Mythics ineptitude or what?

I've got 3 unopened copies. Waiting for the game to not become shit or to get sick of wotlk.

Are there retailers who might buy a box from EA only to resell it to another distributor? That might account for the large number of boxes that have been bought but not activated.

Alternatively: Blizzard bought up a ton of WAR boxes for giggles.

You know, Mythic was dinking around with PvP, RvR and population imbalance years after DAOC launched. They still hadn't fixed pop imbalance by the time I cancelled my subscription. I don't expect them to get around to the same issues in WAR in any kind of timely manner. maybe they never will.

I think this pretty much sums it up IMO.  The game is in good shape but they need to make the steps to really make RvR fun, constant and rewarding.  They understand what the players want/need but as to whether or not they can fix it and do it timely is another thing altogether.  They have my dollar until end of 2008 to get things fixed and in the meantime Im having fun rolling alts and trying different classes, but Id prefer to be T4 RvRing more. 

350k-450k is a good estimate, I'd like to see my server post WotLK before I made any bets, my guess = ghost town. WotLK will definitely put a hurtin' on the WAR player base. WAR will always be a niche game and it's market will always be good enough to maintain attention from Mythic, just like DAOC.

Hell, most people I know just went back to DAOC because they hate WoW with a passion. Why? I have no idea, but whatever floats their boat. It's funny, on that note, most WoW players just put up their hands and say "meh, WAR is ok, but not my cup of tea" whereas the WAR players will say "omfg WoW sucks so bad, go back to your kiddie game and noob pvp arena/bg/rawr-i'm-mad-for-no-reason". It's comical in a way, but sad in another that someone would have so much hate just for a game <shrug>.

I blame rap music.

I returned my unopened copy. So 1,499,999,999 ?

A quick note about "subscribers" during the first free month for those of you counting. It's not unusual for people to hand over full subscription and CC information during the "Free" time. It's not unusual at all for some folks to do that, and you end up authorized to charge them. They are, in effect, subscribers.

You had to provide CC info for the free month of WAR. It's the only reason I paid for a second month, I didn't cancel in time. I suspect quite a few people did the same.

I do not think i have ever subscribed to an MMO where i did not have to enter this info to "Claim" my free month, you can't play with out giving it up. (Excluding F2P games and whatnot, talking about mainstream AAA, monthly ones).

So before the game launches they announce 1.5 million copies sent to retailers.

The 10Q said they had sold 1.2 million in the quarter which ended Sep. 30th.

So either:

1) Someone is lying - quite possible

2) Retailers sent back 300,000 copies in the twelve days after release - highly unlikely

3) The 10Q is reporting actual sales numbers reported by retailers - doubtful they sold that many copies in twelve days but I suppose it's /possible/. Does anyone know how the direct downloads are handled? Do the companies buy a block of keys or is it done one at a time as purchases come in?

The 800,000 players number is pretty vague but it clearly includes data possibly as recent as Oct. 30. If the 1.2 million figure is indeed actual sales numbers that is a REALLY high attrition rate.

People like to bitch. Like the fat middle aged soccer mom who snaps her cap over some coffee monkey getting her latte order wrong.

People also get sick of hearing how awesome WoW is.

Yeah, that's a mistake I made with WAR. I've already corrected that mistake.

Stop hanging out with WoW nerds.   :dead_horse:

You know maybe they did actually sell 1.2m boxes, considering they said "hey guys, we sold 1.2m boxes".

Meanwhile back on the official forums vn boards.

Linky (http://vnboards.ign.com/Message.aspx?topic=109280505&brd=22997&start=109283886)


I don't remember DAoC merging servers, but time will tell on sub figures.

When VN is the home of your "official" forums, you deserve what you get.  Far too high S/N and far too many blind fanboi eyes.  Mythic needs the cold, hard truth about the state of things.  It's a time to put ego aside. 

DaoC didn't officially merge severs no, they just linked them all together and merged the RVR specific portions. Totally different!  :awesome_for_real:

Except they didn't say to whom they were sold.

If you're suggesting they sold 1.2 million boxes at the consumer level in twelve days you're a liar.

Odd. My sub for WAR automatically shut down after the first month without me doing a thing. Even if I did have to give them a card (which I don't remember) there had to be some "Yes charge me!" step, because I didn't take it, or do the "No, really, thanks... it's not you it's me" to make it stop.

It's pointless to look for inconsistencies in the numbers they release.  They can only fudge the numbers once.  The real test is if they ever release numbers again.

Math is hard.

More official forum vn board goodness.

Linky (http://vnboards.ign.com/Message.aspx?topic=109280505&brd=22997&start=109286177)


Edit to add.

Interview up with Frank Gibeau here (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/star-wars-mmo-explained), it appears to be more quotes from the Eurogamer October 22nd piece (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=264601).

My bullshit detector is going crazy here.

 :tinfoil:

"Our numbers are going great" and "here, please have a free server transfer from all the low pop servers" don't really add up.

I don't doubt that WAR has sold well in its first month and a bit. It is the retention bit I question... perhaps people aren't cancelling their sub at the end of month one because they are waiting for the next set of patches to come out.

We'll see what the CEO has to say about it when they release their numbers.

They add up if they opened up too many servers as Mark said they did.

Ah,

first off I have no idea if what Mythic claims is BS or not, but being part of a public company I would remind everyone that falsely claiming good numbers is a crime no matter when or how you mention it.

Second, the above statement shows how dangerous it is to merge or offer transfers.  It immediately appears to be signs of a failure, when it could be just a startup mistake. 

I tend to agree with the 'not doing very well' crowd though.

I do agree with the "not doing well" as I can plainly look at guild mates that haven't logged in over the past couple weeks. They flew through the levels, then blamo, disappeared. <shrug>

I'd rather have login queues then empty servers... that's just me. PR wise you can spin "look our servers are so full that we have queues to even get logged in!!" rather then "well, we overshot our server numbers and we are offering transfers, yeah we understand it's not even 2 months live, but what can you do".

The most important piece of all of this is exactly what Mr. Jacobs said... in a year everything will be clear.  Numbers are cloudy right now, the economy is cloudy, the gaming market is cloudy.  None of that will be the case a year from now.

The only questions that really matter are:

1. Is my server fun and does it have a good chance of staying fun into the future. (I say server rather than the "game" because from my reading here and other places your server has a HUGE weight on the fun factor).

2. Is Mythic making enough money to keep my server running.

Number 2 is really the only important factor in Mythic's earnings.  How many subs they have, how much money they are making... none of that is important if they are making enough to keep my server open... it only becomes relevant the day they have to close my server down.  Seeing as how DAoC is still running, I just don't see the server close down thing happening any time soon.  And, just to be clear, I am not saying they won't close down the low pop servers after transferring people off of them... but that is different than closing down ALL servers.

Jacbos keeps changing the rules on how to judge them,

At first it was look at us six weeks and six months out , if we're not opening new servers it's not good ,

Now it's look at us in a year

In a year I probably won't remember WAR much the same I don't remember Tabula Rasa... booming start and then crapola.

We've seen 6 weeks out, now we'll have to wait for 6 months.  I do think there's a chance we see higher numbers in 6 months.  WAR seems too close to almost good for it to fail.  The only thing that will guarantee a failure is if Mythic does not fix the broken stuff and word of mouth is poor.  The tome of knowledge is the WoW bait in this game, and might draw in people looking for grinds (my biased opinion) too do.  The RvR, if fixed, is the DAoC or PvP bait.

There's also a range of unknowns (easiest PQ's, how to get into dungeons, various tome unlocks) that once known might improve word of mouth for that kind of player.

I see long term potential frustrated by short term design flaws.

Well I been reading these boards time to time over a pretty long time.. decided to post first time.

First it is almost comical how much desire many people here have for the game to fail. It reminds me reading forums like freerepublic or democratic underground.

On to the issue, as MJ said, lying on those number is a good way to get charged especially considering that EA is doing badly financially if they end up in a real deep trouble all of this stuff can come up and bite him in a really bad way.

WAR problem are very server specific, some Skullthrone for example are a non-stop (atleast est and pst primetime) action, massive zergs, ganks grps just random people running around dying. Zones are filled with death spam. Some servers are dead.. very very dead. Some are somewhere in the middle. Even on slow progression server like the one I play on T3 open rvr is thriving.. over weekend I defended atleast a dozen keeps on my alt, dumped uncountable amount of oil had a great time.

Sky is not falling down, WOTLK is not going to kill this game. You know why people bitch about WoW on WAR boards? Simple there is a very large number of people who have no desire at all to do more PVE raiding EVER in their life, they have NO desire to ever afk in AV to get gear.. and WOTLK is just more of the same.

Is WAR a niche game, yes compared to wow. Same way I can go have my lunch at McDonalds or a "niche" sushi restaurnat. Both have their place, WAR took less then half of WoW time to develop, it will make a ton of $$ for all involved. If Mythic can avoid making massive blunders like TOA they will be fine.

"First it is almost comical how much desire many people here have for the game to fail."

Wrong, if people didnt care, they wouldnt post at all. You dont want that, you want folks talking about the game. How to fix it, how to make it better, what did they do wrong, what did they do right. No talk means no one cares.

Once again bringing up the "XXX will kill XXX" is a stupid line. No game will ever kill another game, period. There will always be that niche audience that keeps a game kicking long after the majority of players have moved on.

PvE raiding is in WAR, plain and simple. Did you even look at the armor sets you need to farm for the "wards" so you dont get insta ganked in King fights? Probably not. Well, there are multiple sets that tier up, just like WoW, imagine that. They had to do something middle of the road for players from both PvP and PvE genres to grab hold and embrace. Currently, both sides are lacking.

If Mythic did something like ToA I will consider them a hopeless case and probably never purchase another Mythic product.

Considering you only even registered today, I'm going to check my bullshit meter again....oh look the lights are blinking.

If you'd have even taken ten minutes to read this very forum, you'd know you were wrong.  Everyone posting here has bought the game and people don't spend $50 when they want something to fail. I know I'm personally too poor to want that.


I don't think mythic is 'lying' but they are using how shall we say...creative math, to come up with a number like 800k.

Isn't this line the anti-thesis of what WAR is supposed to be?

You either aren't playing warhammer or you aren't paying attention to your own game. WAR has a huge PVE grind cockblock and the endgame for warhammer is pve raiding, NOT pvp. Pvp is just one of the walls you have to breakthrough to get to the end content which is solely pve and about as fun as afk'ing in AV(which actually isn't in wow anymore anyways)

If wow is mcdonalds then WAR is your local burger joint, it sure as fuck isn't sushi. It's fat, greasy and looks much worse with toppings spilling over the sides.  Oh sure some people will find it tastier but for most it's just far too inconvenient to try and eat and ends up giving you heartburn.

*You have lost 5 points in trolling*

Especially in a game that heavily features PvP (RvR) There's nothing sadder than looking for a fight and not finding it.

I think the issue is that people are posting things here, in a thread about reported numbers, that should be posted in the "what went wrong" thread.  We all know the issues.  The funny thing to me is that people feel the need to discuss how EA is misreporting their numbers and then tagging on the in-game commentary as to how the numbers MUST be wrong... because of my personal experience in game.  Perhaps they ARE lying, and people are losing their jobs and eating beans and rice right now... but if so we will ALL know it in a few months and no, it does not make you smarter to say you knew it now.

As I said earlier, all of this has very little to do with the game we are playing and our enjoyment of it... but I suppose this whole forum banter is another game unto itself, and provides its own fun.  So, in that sense, continue playing!

On a side note, the recent server transfers brought quite a bit of life to my medium pop server.  We have actually had T4 PVP these last two nights and it looks like more to come.

Same.

Well you see I usually try and not register for forums.. this way I can avoid starting to post and do some actual work. I post enough as it is. I never read f13 regularly, more of regular place to check if I wanted opinion on some games. I just noticed that game got dumped to graveyard and I don't know it just seems unfair, does it really deserve to be with AOC and PoTBS? :(

Anyway I was too confrontational, sorry. Before release it seemed people were actually interested in WAR doing well, now every statement that comes out is taken and twisted be a lie or whatever, thus comparison to partisan political forums. It is almost that people set their expectations of the game too high and got burned.

The whole deal with sets is very overblown, the first set is trivial to get, you gona get it before you need it most likely and if you are not a tank, you probably do not need it period. Second? I have no idea.. but it is nothing that can't be fixed. Reason for them is clear they want fake progression without inflating stats, it is stupid but it does not bother me much since this stuff is very fixable. When taking fortress there will be people with sets to take care of tanking lord, same applies to later encounters, I do not care one bit about getting phat epics from King. I care about stomping opposition and taking their cookies. Taking city (even if I can never kill king myself) is about 123193281 times more satisfying then doing Illidan, Arthas etc for me that is. Even defending they city and losing is more fun, brave last stand and all that in fact it is often more memorable. The niche part is the fact that players like me I guess are a minority.

Ok forget sushi a bit of different price range.. there is a Korean place near me that I can eat for $6, not exactly mass appeal but it is full all the time with people who actually wanna eat there, they got a great pork bone soup.. yummy.

The ideas of fair and unfair is for the birds.

This is about right and wrong. And at the rate their going, this is "right."

Sure it is absolutely THE RIGHT THING TO DO! heh just explaining my reason for actually creating account after a long time of lurking.

I hereby declare a 35% retention rate after the first month to be "ideal." I say this because nobody has made up their minds about it yet, and I like pulling numbers out of my ass. You heard it here first! 35% is IDEAL!

Holy crap, WAR has doubled the ideal retention rate!!!

I also notice that lately, everybody always makes more servers than they need at launch. Everybody...except for, strangely enough, A Tale in the Desert. I remember at Tale 3 launch where the lead developer literally broadcasted a system message saying "AFK everybody, I need to run to the store and get a new server." Back in the day, UO got it right the first time, and EQ underestimated the servers they needed. Both grew very well shortly after launch, and are still alive and attracting new users today.

But lately, everybody's overestimating their own popularity, and everybody has to consolidate servers after the first month. I wonder if this is something they have to do. Like maybe if they say they're expecting less than a million subscriptions, they lose their funding or something.

Time counts for less than money after launch. Jacobs has said that WAR cost "south of $100 million" to develop but won't talk exact figures, so I wouldn't be surprised if it cost more to develop than WoW even accounting for inflation.

The armour sets are very raid-y and ToA-y and have caused a lot of people to roll their eyes - WAR was meant to be about RvR and PvP, period, not have an end-game focused around PvE grinding to unlock it.


I'm not saying I don't understand what happened - more servers were opened to deal with server queues, then Mythic upgraded their servers, thus making the first step a very poor decision since the queues disappeared but more players experienced the terra nullius problem of WAR - I'm just saying that that the two issues are in conflict to some extent.

I'm looking forward to seeing the official numbers and what is actually reported. After all, 1.5 million boxes were shipped, 300k disappeared somewhere as 1.2m went to retailers who then sold enough of them that 800k accounts were activated in the first month and a bit. Perhaps WAR will announce over one million accounts have been established in WAR by including both active and inactive accounts from the point that the open beta started. We'll see.

And then we'll see again in six months.

The next quarter is the make or break quarter for WAR. Most of us that have played or actively play have seen the players leave, it's pretty hard to deny that. We have seen the transfers completely bork up other servers (I pity Order on Monolith, shudder). I have been in several arguments with an old acquaintance of mine about subscription rates and how companies love to exaggerate/flat out lie for marketing reasons. Just so happened this guy hated WoW with a passion of 1000 suns. He wouldn't even let his kids play it, well one did and he took their computer away (no lie, they were all doing DAOC and this guy took his oldest's computer away because the kid didn't want to do mind numbing ML10 raids over and over). Anyhow, this guy used to bag on WoW subscription numbers till the cows came home, every single day he would dig up press to find somewhere that Blizzard misrepresented a number or skewed a subscription rate (adding each pre-paid card as a seperate user, yadda yadda). Now look at WoW, back up to 11m and in their press releases (some of them) they actually define what they consider a subscriber... WAR should be as open and upfront, and I hope they are when the cards are flipped for everyone to see.

I really wanted to like and enjoy this game, but really in the end my issues might be more computer related then game related. I mean DAOC had huge imbalances at the get go, anyone remember Stungard? Healers could spam AE stun with no diminished returns... heh, glad I was Midgard at the time. But seriously, WAR will be around for awhile. Not in the same ballpark as WoW numbers wise or content wise but it will be there, it's a niche based game. Hell you could log into DAOC right now and probably find a keep take ongoing somewhere... (which btw is way more fun in DAOC then WAR). Problems or not people will play, but if I see more then 3-400k after December I'll be surprised. Which means for an IP as strong as the Warhammer/Games Workshop title to barely crack over what DAOC had at it's peak is a huge failure for Mythic and EA will not be pleased.

But, instead of bagging on them, I'd like to say "well, what went wrong" and fix it before the 40k MMO comes out. (and I hope those 40k folks are watching WAR and thinking eww... what a mess, let's not do that mmmmmk)

I never had a question whether or not WAR was going to go belly up.  It's not.  Whether or not WAR was going to break out of niche is really the issue. It's not.  It's too late.  There is too much bad word of mouth.  The time it is taking to correct all of WAR issues is too long.  People aren't going to sit around and wait for the game developer to twittle around with stuff.  Those days died with WoW.

this , THIS , is what I don't get -

After Vanguard to PotBS to all the other failures out there  , what does it take for a company to realize they HAVE to be both content ready and well tested at launch , day one , no second chances anymore

They could have tested just normal gameplay for a month 1-40 and week two would have shown the horrific scenario problem , more classes could have been in at launch , the engine more optimized to handle things after seeing how it works live

6 more months of REAL testing , not the focus'd in a vacuum only testing , could have made them a million subs that hang around for  a while ,

It's not quite that simple. I don't think testing alone could have saved them, either - also note that time to level was increased before launch.

I think WAR just has a skewed design - Mythic need to focus on what the want WAR to be, and get it there. Quickly.

I probably had in upwards of 50+ hours of "viewed" time on the beta boards for this. I got in with the BOOM! Studios comic book offer deal, kinda groovy. I was so excited to get into the beta, I logged in and I was like "this is it?" Much like some other reviews I was splitting my time with WoW that very weekend. Sure, I beta tested the hell outta that game and provided tons of feedback but did anything really change? Nope. Hell we complained non stop about Warrior Priest prayers being superbly underpar to DoKs Covenants, meh whatever... I watched Destruction roll like the black tide in nearly every iteration, T1, T2, T3, city siege, you name it.

That's partially why I picked Order I wanted a good fight, and I love the underdog (for the Horde anyone? Midgard ftw?). Anyhow, myself and hundreds of other beta testers used their forums and we used them daily, hourly. We tested and re-tested everything they threw out us. Through the CTDs like whoa, through the mem leaks, etc... we WANTED this game to work. Sadly it's just not.

I had a killing spree in Beta, it allowed me to level at a decent pace. When I started live and saw no killing spree, I thought ahhh shit here we go with the grind from hell. T3 hits you like a brick shithouse in the chest. Which leads me to a very troubling issue; Why on earth do I have to go to another f'ng realm to complete those quests in order to level? Shouldnt you be able to level from 1-40 in your own damn racial zone? That totally killed the replay factor for me. Did one alt and I was bored as hell.

This quarter will show the masses that left WAR, then the folks that want to stay can merge onto a dozen or so servers and duke it out. Those that want to move on can at least feel justified they gave it their college try.

Good post new guy.

From the DAOC days, I got the impression that Mythic never has a really well thought out Step 2. They're willing to tinker with gameplay and rules and shit, but never (or rarely) seem to take a look at what the players are doing and have any real insight as to what's fundamentally going on.

TOA, perfect example.

Having Vision is cool and all, but a dev must be able to put aside their preconceptions and ask the Why? questions, and be able to kill their darlings if the Why? answers aren't matching up to what they want their game to be about.

I noticed that - early on, the game would spam 'your killing spree has ended' or similar messages. Did that have something to do with killing multiple mobs at once?

It didnt even have to be at once , could have been just chaining one after the other

It faded fairly fast also but could build up the more you killed

They took it out because of course people were leveling WAY too fast

In Mythic's eyes of course.........

The reason they took it out is still somewhat vague, but from what I understood there was an exploit with killing spree when you killed stuff via aoe in rapid succession that would give far more bonus xp than intended.

The rest of us just got screwed by people who were doing that.

Pringles, that would make sense.

I know I could get 20% but then it would reset... i was happy with that and it was actually a mini game to try and kill as fast as possible solo to get higher but I never could.

Here's to hoping they bring it back! Not that it would help much at this point, but still.

If it was really a matter of bug, it's another effect of actual politics of Mythic: if it's not ok it gets removed. Like they did with classes and cities.

I'd like to get it back, because, at the moment, i think levelling time is too long.
I am playing not for pve but for pvp and rvr,  and i guess most of players do the same.

I think more accurately they need only post accurate metrics to their shareholders, auditors and SEC etc.  McDonald's claims "millions and millions served" MJ and co. are more or less doing the same.  It's marketing.

Well, once McDonald's hit a billion, I guess they didn't figure it was that important to keep score anymore. I remember when the signs changed.

Linky (http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=347537)

Those two things don't mean the same thing.

EA Results (http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ERTS/452566768x0x245319/f0a58760-2c38-408f-8779-2782cf681255/Q209%20ER_10.30_10am.pdf)


I guess they don't want to use "current players" in an official press release any more, most likely because their "current players" total took a walk off a cliff in the last few weeks.

This is what I find humorous, someone pointed out (on VN) that normally on various game related boards you hear talk about class balance, pvp differences, dungeons, etc... whereas nearly all the boards you check on WAR the posts are about how the game is taking a shit, there is no one to play with, transfers what are the true subscription rates, where the fuck is everyone, etc... They are totally not focused on the typical types of issues, they are still trying to figure out what the hell happened to their player base.

I wonder what it's like today.  Oddly, I can't be bothered to log in and find out.

Linky (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21087)

More on the Korea thing.

They'll have two glaring things going against them right off the bat

Aion , close to launching in Asia and the current beta is receiving tons of praise

Also Aion to Lineage2 and others run off a version of the UT engine that is fast , responsive, and can handle tons of players in one spot with effects going off , once they get a sample of a 100 main castle siege going to a crawl it'll be dropped immediately

I agree that fast, responsive, and can handle tons of players in one spot with effects going off is not something I would even come close to saying about WAR and will be a major turn off for most Asian gamers. It's gonna tank massively in Asia. Is Games Workshop even that recognized over there??

Looking at Aion, it will crush WAR over there.

Even with the server mergers, all the servers I saw at prime time last night just had medium populations.

Linky (http://investor.games-workshop.com/downloads/GW_year_end_08.pdf)

Not that well known, 4 GW stores in Japan, nothing in Korea after having a quick look.



I'm not really surprised, merges were only going to have a short term positive effect, there's too much wrong.  The zones are too big, the playerbase is too split up and having fun in game just relies on other players too much.  WoW has killed EU server populations too, we haven't even had the 1st merge yet.

I wonder if a slightly higher percentage of Order players are leaving the game compared to Destruction, just based on the lower Order populations.  If so, even if it's only a tiny fraction more, the side imbalance is just going to keep snowballing as they merge.

Ah excellent, thanks for that end of year statement pdf.

Arther, I can say from personal experience that Destruction just "clicked" for me in groups. I don't want to jump on the bandwagon with "omg Destruction looks so bad ass" but the group dynamic of Destruction based players is very solid. I played a WP to 38 and I saw no one, I was around no one, in groups I didnt feel like I really added anything except some weak ass heals then ran out of RF and got killed or lost group mates who then yelled at you for not healing them. Destruction was the complete opposite. My Shaman could heal like whoa, do damage, and still come out through things my WP would have died in a heartbeat to, but most classes felt like that. The WE is so superior to the WH it's almost a joke. Sure folks dig on the BWs, but how many high level Sorcs you see out there wtfowning most Scenarios? I saw dozens.

Monolith is a great example of what happens to free transfers from multiple servers with multiple options. One side gangs up and says, let's own the whole fucking server. Fuck them guys. Well... what happens in the end is the opposition gives the server the finger and Destruction is left playing with their dicks trying to find someone to fight. So you take Altdorf, big whoop. If you dont crash in the process you will have next to no opposition and it all resets after a short time regardless.

WAR had lots of potential. I am just amazed that it fell so flat on it's face like it did so fast, and really that's the honest to gods truth, I really am amazed that it shit the bed so damn fast. As they used to say in the military, you can't polish a turd.

Since you started with WP, its no wonder you didn't click with groups.

Yeah I know. I kinda wished I had done something else at creation but once I hit the wall of grind I couldnt do it again with another character so stuck with it. I did change all my gear out near the end, got a 1H hammer and book and healed pretty good. Not RP good, but good none the less.

WP should never be able to heal as well as a shaman or RP. Shaman/RP can never melee as well as a WP. To expect anything different shows an ignorance to class descriptions.

If you spec for it, the damage from a shaman or a RP is pretty decent.  I don't see any problem with this.  Giving healers the ability to spec either for damage or heals is a good thing.  Options are a good thing... especially in a game where leveling another toon would cause an exit. 

The problem is less with class descriptions and more with usefulness.  A WP or DoK has worse armor than a tank, worse DPS than a DPS, and worse healing than another healer.  What are they supposed to do?  On the front lines, they aren't very useful, as they do mediocre damage, lack a lot of CC, and tend to draw a lot of fire.  On the back lines, they're worse than any other healer at everything except weak AoE and HoTs.  They're awesome in solo situations (in PvE, my DoK can take on two mobs plus a champion without falling below 50% health), but in terms of group dynamics, I don't know what their role is supposed to be.

For what its worth, queues are very fast in tiers 1-3 on Gorfang, as of last night.    ORvR in tier2 (where I spend most of my time) has nightly primetime action at the keeps too.

We were a "destination" server for server transfers.

I don't know why either, but I found it much easier on Destruction side, too.  Maybe it was because I was more into my character, but it felt easier to get into groups which worked and went from place to place doing things.  Other than guild groups, I can only think of once or twice where I did that on Order, and it was all in Tier 1.

Provide group heals?
All I know, from playing several tanks (2 IB, 1 BO, 1 SM) and a melee (Mara) up to t2, is that wp/doks are an absolute pain to bring down, and that Absolute Devotion makes a SM with Phantom's Blade able to survive ludicrous shit. Divine Strike makes it all even worse.

Of course, to survive well, you need a tank with enough presence of mind to throw a Guard on you, and most won't do that because they're either retarded or had very bad experiences with WP/DoK's.

Since you've managed to have the patience to get past t2, something that I don't see myself doing any time soon, i'm guessing that the batshit insane dps ends up making you worthless?
--
Also, be glad that you decided to get a shaman. Zealots are horribly boring.

That's not the way balance works.

That's why "true" hybrids never work well.

Mythic has had a classic history of not balancing hybrids well.  They tend to go through cycles or just seem built for the 1v1 game. 

lol turning chosen into a backline thorn-aura build worked pretty well too for my toon, was hiting like 100k+ dmg in scenarios and I didn't even had to plan anything with open zerg. Let loose with Dire Shielding and watch the numbers pop like crazy above mouth-breathing BWs heads. When 1.5 turn Baneshield into STR based skill, I'm definitely gonna make ass-plodes'

GigaMedia Ltd. Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript (http://seekingalpha.com/article/106665-gigamedia-ltd-q3-2008-earnings-call-transcript?page=-1&find=warhammer)

If the hybrid can do any of its tasks as ably as classes dedicated to those tasks, the folks playing the specialists tend to get upset. Still, so long as hybrids bring something unique to the table (like the unusual buffs and Robe-Wearing-Staff-Carrying of DAoC's Friar, or the blessings/totems of WoW's paladins/shamans) then they can still get groups even if its standard abilities are more ably covered by other classes. When they are truly a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-NONE, they'll find no advantages outside solo play and as choice of last resort.

Depends entirely on the focus of your game. Large-scale cog in the machine play, yes, you want everyone to be as powerful as possible in a single role. Smaller scale? That flexibility is a godsend. One player falls, another can quickly step up to fill the gap.

Make everyone a Hybrid and then everyone shuts the hell up about their classes right to being the best at <whatever>.

Yup, that's another way of handling it. People need to think outside the concept of a holy trinity of archetypes.