f13.net

Just 2 months ago, in this topic (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8501.0) a prediction/betting game came up. It got average to low popularity, and confusion ruled so some predicted about December 2007 while some other about December 2008.

I'd recap the whole thing here for your loins pleasure. I'd say both categories should apply at this point, meaning December 2007 AND December 2008. No need to say spot on predictions on Dec 2008 are worth way more kudos than those for 2007.

So, you are supposed to cast your prediction on how many subscriptions will these 6 games have as of December 2007 and December 2008 (this means two sets of predictions). Tha games being: Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Vanguard and World of Warcraft. Those are 5 soon to be released games plus the paradigm, the milestone, the subscription king of them all.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RECAP of *actual* (?) active subscriptions as December 2007 (estimates, so in progress):

Warhammer Online: Not Yet Released.
Age of Conan: Not Yet Released.
Vanguard: 30k
Lord of the Rings: 250k
Pirates of the Burning Sea: Not Yet Released.
World of Warcraft: 9,3 M.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Bets (off as January 31th 2007):

Threat Level:
Lime Green = 1+ millions subs
Green = 400k to 999k subs
Yellow = 200k to 399k subs
Orange = 100k to 199kk subs
Red = less than 100k subs







Bets for December 2007:




Delayed: Warhammer Online (ACTUAL: Not Yet Released. See you next Year.)

*****-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------*****
The winners are:

*Simond: Not Out Yet*
*Trouble: Not Out Yet*
*Eldaec: Not Out Yet*


Runners up:

No Runners Up!

*****---------------------------------------------------------------------------------*****

The bets:

Shapechanger: 2,5 millions
Angry.bob: 2 millions
Darniaq: 1 million
Modern Angel: 1 million
Datagod: 780k
Riggswolfe: 600k
Falconeer: 500k
Sairon: 500k
Evangolis: 500k
Damijin: 450k
Stray: 400k
Soln: 350k
WindUpAtheist: 250k
Xuri: 250k
Lantyssa: 200k
Endie: 180k
Andar: 150k   
Waylander: 150k
HaemishM: 150k
Unsub: 150k
Comstar: 120k
Strazos: 115k
HRose: 100k
Geldonyetich: 50k
Eldaec: -
Merusk: -
Simond: -
Trouble: -


Delayed: Age of Conan (ACTUAL: Not Yet Released. See you next Year.)

Modern Angel: 750k
Darniaq: 600k
Riggswolfe: 500k
Shapechanger: 450k
Sairon: 400k
Trouble: 400k
Simond: 350k
Falconeer: 250k
Merusk: 250k
Evangolis: 210k
Stray: 200k
WindUpAtheist: 200k
Lanyssa: 200k
Xuri: 200k
Soln: 200k
HaemishM: 150k
Damijin: 125k
Endie: 120k
Datagod: 120k
HRose: 100k
Eldaec: 100k
Unsub: 100k
Andar: 80k
Waylander: 80k
Strazos: 78k
Comstar: 70k
Geldonyetich: 25k
Angry.bob: -


Vanguard (ACTUAL: 30k )

Falconeer: 400k
Darniaq: 300k
Merusk: 200k
WindUpAtheist: 200k
Xuri: 200k
Soln: 200k
Shapechanger: 160k
Modern Angel: 120k
Evangolis: 115k
Eldaec: 100k
Damijin: 100k
Simond: 100k
Lantyssa: 100k
Riggswolfe: 100k
Endie: 90k
Waylander: 90k
HRose: 80k
Sairon: 80k
Trouble: 75k
Stray: 70k
Datagod: 68k
Angry.bob: 60k
Unsub: 60k
Strazos: 55k
Andar: 50k
Comstar: 50k
HaemishM: 25k
Geldonyetich: 15k


Lord of the Rings Online (ACTUAL: 250k )

Shapechanger: 800k
Simond: 500k
Darniaq: 400k
Endie: 300k
Modern Angel: 300k
Lantyssa: 300k
Xuri: 300k
Trouble: 300k
Evangolis: 220k
HRose: 200k
Merusk: 200k
Falconeer: 200k
Stray: 200k
Angry.bob: 200k
Eldaec: 150k
Strazos: 132k
Waylander: 125k
Sairon: 100k
HaemishM: 100k
Geldonyetich: 100k
Unsub: 100k
Soln: 100k
Damijin: 80k
Datagod: 54k
Comstar: 50k
Andar: 20k
WindUpAtheist: -
Riggswolfe: -

Delayed: Pirates of the Burning Sea (ACTUAL: Not Yet Released. See you next Year.)

Shapechanger: 450k
Datagod: 146k
Lantyssa: 125k
Darniaq: 100k
Evangolis: 85k
Strazos: 76k
HaemishM: 75k
Xuri: 75k
Waylander: 70k
Sairon: 70k
Angry.bob: 70k
Simond: 50k
Soln: 50k
Falconeer: 30k
Damijin: 30k
Trouble: 30k
Comstar: 20k
Modern Angel: 20k
Unsub: 20k
Geldonyetich: 10k
Stray: -
Andar: -
Endie: -
HRose: -
Eldaec: -
Merusk: -
WindUpAtheist: -
Riggswolfe: -





Final! World of Warcraft (ACTUAL: 9,3 M )

*****-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------*****
The winners are:

*Comstar: 9 millions*
*Riggswolfe: 9 millions*


Runners up:

WindUpAtheist: 10 millions
Simond: 10 millions
Trouble: 10 millions
Soln: 10 millions
*****-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------*****


The bets:

HRose: 12 millions
Modern Angel: 12 millions
Xuri: 12 millions
Angry.bob: 11 millions
Lantyssa: 11 millions
Datagod: 10,3 millions
WindUpAtheist: 10 millions
Simond: 10 millions
Trouble: 10 millions
Soln: 10 millions
***Comstar: 9 millions***  Gratz!
***Riggswolfe: 9 millions*** Gratz!
Damijin: 8.5 millions
Eldaec: 8.5 millions
Andar: 8 millions
Darniaq: 8 millions
HaemishM: 8 millions
Unsub: 8 millions
Evangolis: 8 millions
Waylander: 7.5k
Sairon: 7 millions
Shapechanger: 6 millions
Falconeer: 5 millions
Endie: 4.1 millions
Geldonyetich: 3 millions
Stray: -
Merusk: -
Strazos: -







-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bets for December 2008:

Warhammer Online

Angry.bob: 5 millions
Shapechanger: 3,5 millions
Datagod: 1,8 millions
Modern Angel: 1,5 millions
Darniaq: 1.5 millions
Trouble: 1,5 millions
Arthur Parker: 1 million
Falconeer: 1 million
Riggswolfe: 1 million
Evangolis: 930k
Simond: 750k
Sairon: 700k
Damijin: 650k
Soln: 500k
Comstar: 450k
Eldaec: 350k
Waylander: 350k
HaemishM: 350k
WindUpAtheist: 325k
HRose: 300k
Strazos: 236k
Unsub: 190k
Lantyssa: 175k
Stray: 150k
Xuri: 150k
Cheddar: 45k


Age of Conan

Sairon: 600k
Trouble: 600k
Modern Angel: 500k
Riggswolfe: 400k
Shapechanger: 350k
Soln: 350k
Darniaq: 300k
WindUpAtheist: 300k
Xuri: 300k
HRose: 250k
Evangolis: 240k
Falconeer: 200k
Simond: 200k
HaemishM: 200k
Lantyssa: 175k
Stray: 150k
Damijin: 150k
Unsub: 150k
Strazos: 111k
Arthur Parker: 90k
Datagod: 70k
Eldaec: 40k
Waylander: 40k
Cheddar: 35k
Comstar: -
Angry.bob: -


Vanguard

Falconeer: 300k
Xuri: 250k
Darniaq: 200k
Soln: 200k
Evangolis: 110k
Damijin: 80k
WindUpAtheist: 75k
Lantyssa: 75k
Datagod: 72k
Modern Angel: 70k
Shapechanger: 65k
Arthur Parker: 60k
Cheddar: 60k
Stray: 60k
Waylander: 60k
Angry.bob: 60k
Simond: 60k
Comstar: 55k
HRose: 50k
Trouble: 50k
Eldaec: 40k
Sairon: 40k
Unsub: 40k
Strazos: 37k
HaemishM: 30k
Riggswolfe: 25k


Lord of the Rings Online

Shapechanger: 550k
Angry.bob: 500k
Modern Angel: 400k
Simond: 350k
Trouble: 300k
Evangolis: 250k
Darniaq: 200k
Lantyssa: 200k
Xuri: 200k
Falconeer: 150k
Cheddar: 140k
Strazos: 103k
HRose: 100k
Unsub: 100k
Soln: 100k
WindUpAtheist: 90k
Sairon: 80k
Waylander: 75k
Eldaec: 50k
Damijin: 50k
HaemishM: 50k
Stray: 40k
Datagod: 35k
Comstar: 30k
Arthur Parker: -
Riggswolfe: -

Pirates of the Burning Sea

Datagod: 800k
Shapechanger: 350k
Evangolis: 130k
Comstar: 120k
Strazos: 107k
Darniaq: 100k
Sairon: 100k
Lantyssa: 100k
Angry.bob: 80k
Waylander: 75k
Simond: 75k
HaemishM: 75k
Damijin: 70k
Trouble: 70k
Unsub: 65k
WindUpAtheist: 40k
Soln: 50k
Xuri: 40k
Modern Angel: 20k
Falconeer: 20k
Arthur Parker: -
Cheddar: -
Stray: -
HRose: -
Eldaec: -
Riggswolfe: -

World of Warcraft

Xuri: 15 millions
Lantyssa: 13 millions
Modern Angel: 12 millions
Simond: 11 millions
Trouble: 11 millions
HRose: 10 millions
Comstar: 10 millions
Soln: 10 millions
Cheddar: 9 millions
Stray: 9 millions
Eldaec: 9 millions
WindUpAtheist: 9 millions
Waylander: 9 millions
Evangolis: 9 millions
Riggswolfe: 8,5 millions
Datagod: 8,3 millions
Darniaq: 7 millions
Damijin: 7 millions
Sairon: 7 millions
HaemishM: 7 millions
Strazos: 6,2 millions
Unsub: 6 millions
Angry.bob: 5 millions
Shapechanger: 4,5 millions
Falconeer: 4 millions
Arthur Parker: -




Betting ended on January 30th 2007.

I put this in the other thread as soon as you started this one, but I might as well get the ball rolling.

December 2007:
- Vanguard: 100k
- Lord of the Rings Online: 80k
- PoTBS: 30k
- Warhammer: 450k
- World of Warcraft: Oodles. (8.5m)

December 2008:
- Vanguard: 80k
- Lord of the Rings Online: 50k
- PoTBS: 70k
- Warhammer: 650k
- World of Warcraft: A little less than oodles, on account of being old as fuck. (7m)

This thread needs a list of every MMOG and it's "fake" release date. As in the one that's quoted everwhere. What if Huxley comes out this year? Should WoW even be included? Etc. etc. If you're gonna do it, do it right.

I agree, I was too lazy to look for all that shit so I just copy-pasted darniaq's list and changed the numbers.

I think it would read better if you grouped it by game not by person.

The original idea was to bet just on 5 titles and for December 2008, cause 2007 was too early for things like Warhammer. The original 5 were Warhammer, LoTRO, Vanguard, World of Warcraft and Age of Conan. I gathered the sparse info from the older messy topic where everyone went his/her way.

Of course we could redo it from scratch or just trash not relevant/consistent info. Is it worth it? Should we add Huxley for example, or Aion, or Tabula Rasa or Lum's game? It's ok for me... just let me know.

(By the way, on a different forum 4 years ago I played a similar game, that was about predicting launch dates for EQ2, WoW, City of Heroes and Horizons. The fake release dates are a game in itself)

Sweet. Give me 2 minutes..

Uh, I still stick by my first predictions. That second group of numbers I listed were in the context of some hypothetical situation or something. Forgot the actual thread.

'07

WoW : 8.5M
Lotr : 150k
EVE : 150k
Age of Conan : 100k
Vanguard : 100k
EQ1 : 100k
EQ2 : 100k
CoX : 80k
UO : 50k
SWG : hanging on by it's fingernails
WAR : Not yet released (I almost feel bad writing that knowing how many Mythic types are in the forum this week)


'08

WoW : 9.0M
WAR : 350k
At least one game not listed, I hope : 250k
EVE : 150k
EQ2 : 70k
Lotr : 50k
CoX : 50k
EQ1 : 50k
Age of Conan : 40k
Vanguard : 40k
UO : WUA
SWG : Dead

A/S/L?

If we're gonna do this, we need SirBruce back, with charts.

We really don't.

I literally LOL'd.

Making decent predictions under those conditions is impossible:

1- You can make a reasonable guess for games three months after launch. An average number of subs the game will likely get. But a fixed month is HARD, as release dates determine the curve the game will have.

2- Console market is LARGELY unpredictable. Pitch black.

But I like the game, so:

This thread needs more charts.  Someone unban Bruce.

No.

I fixed the whole thing according to Arthur Parker suggestion. I trashed Tazelbain and Waylander predictions as they were on a single game. They are of course more than welcomed to submit a more compliant set of predictions. I chose 6 games as of now, but I ask for your help agian here: should we Gods n' Heroes, Huxley, Tabula Rasa or anything else? Personally, I think we are more than fine with this, adding more would get too complicated and basicallyless fun, but that's just me.
Finally, it'd be nice if those who already cast their predictions but forgot one or more of the chosen game could fix his/her bet by filling in the missing numbers.

Oh, fake release dates incoming...

I'd propose this alternatively:

[name of game] [subs four months after launch] [ longer term average] [trend in 2008 (up/down arrow)]

I think that would give a better ideas about people's opinion and also deliver more reliable predictions.

I have used a chart like this in the past.

(http://www.womenshealthlondon.org.uk/leaflets/leafletimages/cyclechart02.gif)

Hope it helps.

PS  Vanguard is in my dead pool for 2008, along with Justin Timberlake and the Spike channel.

Ugh... that gets out of the modest scope of my capabilities.
Plus we'd lose the thrill of the Christmas deadline and yearly commendation event <grin>.
 

Signe wins the chart wars. Now can I get a guarantee to never see the words cervical and mucus in the same thread EVAR AGAIN?

Nice work Falconeer. Here's some more numbers:

Age of Conan
2007- 600k
2008- 300k

Conan: 200-250k
Vanguard: 150-200k
TR:  Not this year, kiddies
LoTR: 150-200k


This is the intraweb. We can make no guarantees.  Besides, what'd you THINK you were playing around in, water?

Merusk,

Are you casting your predictions for dec 2007 or 2008? Guess 2007 given your comment on TR but I want to be sure.

If she doesn't make it out the door this year, I don't think she's going to make it at all.

Oh, and since I didn't put in Age of Conan for my original list, could you add:

2007:
AoC - 125,000
2008:
AoC - 150,000

Thanks!

Agreed. I've long given TR only a 50% chance of launching at all. It's got some cool ideas, but those cool ideas are better suited when launched from a position of strength.

I'll bite.

2007

Warhammer - 1mil
Conan - 750k
Vanguard - 120k
LotRO - 300k
Burning Sea - 20k
WoW - 12mil

2008

Warhammer - 1.5mil
Conan - 500k
Vanguard - 70k
LotRO - 400k
Burning Sea - 20k
WoW - 12mil

Few things at work. WAR and Conan are both jumping into the console market so I think they'd get solid numbers from that alone. As well, there are alot of the two year WoW players who are starting to grind themselves out on the game; I expect alot of the older players to meander through BC and then shift to WAR and Conan. LOTRO will get better numbers as time wears on because  :nda:. In the meantime, WoW will continue to eat everything alive; I'm still amazed whenever I go through Tanaris or wherever at the number of first timers asking questions. It's a behemoth and not going anywhere.

Yeah 2007.

2007

Warhammer - 500k
Conan - 400k
Vanguard - 80k
LotRO - 100k
Burning Sea - 70k
WoW - 7 mil

2008

Warhammer - 700k
Conan - 600k
Vanguard - 40k
LotRO - 80k
Burning Sea - 100k
WoW - 7 mil

Warhammer comes strong out of the gates and will take some customers from the WoW crowd and various other MMOs, same goes for Conan. I believe that they will continue to see a flow of new customers, mainly from WoW. I predict people will find that TBC is offering nothing really new to them and start to burn out. However, I think that they will continue to draw in new people to the genre. Vanguard will crash because it has a competition that is to tough for such a mediocre game, and it doesn't separate it self enough from the crowd. The same goes for LotRO, but the ip will help them some. Burning Sea is niche enough and I think there's room for growth because of that.

I think some of my 2007 predictions are low now, but I'll let them stand.

December 2008:
- Vanguard: 55K
- Lord of the Rings Online: 30K
- PoTBS: 120K
- Warhammer: 450K
- World of Warcraft: 10 milliona

'07

WoW : 7.5M
Lotr : 125k
EVE : 130k
Age of Conan : 80k
Vanguard : 90k
EQ1 : 200k
EQ2 : 100k
CoX : 80k
UO : 90k
SWG : 60k
WAR : 150k
POTBS: 70k


'08

WoW : 9.0M
WAR : 250-350k
EVE : 150k
EQ1: 150k
POTBS: 90k
EQ2 : 80k
Lotr : 75k
CoX : 50k
EQ1 : 50k
Age of Conan : 40k
Vanguard : 60k
UO : 75k
SWG : Cancelled

And people here think Vanguard has a grind. (Could that thing take any longer to beep in the morning?)

WOW will continue to grow, but more slowly.

On the new releases? War and Conan have the potential to do well. Good flexible licenses (Star Wars would be an example of a bad inflexible license) and simply being on a console is guaranteed to improve adoption. But they are also the two games closest to one another and have the potential to cannibalize that market. The next question on that angle is how console gamers will react to the level of bugs

Maybe 500k between the two? And the entire rest of the batch, nothing over 50k? Really I see a lot of flops.

Uhmm...?!

?SYNTAX ERROR
READY.
|

Ill have to say I also see war and Conan in there. Surviving and Maybe thriving (or not) and the others not so much with the aside there is a lot of buzz about vanguard so i am thinking it may sell a lot of boxes. But keep subscribers? I really don't see that. Of course I have been wrong before.

Should average out the numbers at the end of the month to get F13's mean opinion of each game.

That's a pun  :x

I'm waiting for geldon to put in his numbers. He's the bellwether for accuracy. :)

2007

WoW:  10,000,000
Warhammer:  250,000
Conan:  200,000
Vanguard:  200,000
EQ1:  125,000
EQ2:  150,000
UO:  155,000
SWG:  50,000

Blizzard will continue to own all.  The new releases will still be ramping up at this point.  Old EQ will continue to take it in the ass from younger sexier versions of itself.  SWG will be put on minimal upkeep and kept as a walking corpse to fill out the Station Pass roster, ala Matrix Online.  Predicting a 20k bump for UO with the new shiny may be overly optimistic, but everyone already knows I'm partisan so blow me.  Also, improbable as it may seem, I just really want to see it get a little bit over EQ2.  Just to imagine Smedley's face.

2008

WoW:  9,000,000
Warhammer:  325,000
Conan:  300,000
Vanguard:  75,000
EQ1:  100,000
EQ2:  115,000
UO:  120,000
SWG:  35,000

Haters will rejoice as WoW begins to show it's age a little, falling to merely a few dozen times the size of the closest competitor on this list.  (Starcraft Online is already development at this point, and Blizzard is sizing itself up for bigger moneyhats.)  Warhammer and Conan will have ramped up to their peaks, while people will have decided Vanguard sucks and left it the way they did EQ2.  Speaking of which, EQ 1 & 2 will continue to decline, but at a slower rate as only the hardcore remain.  UO will resume blundering along losing subs at a relatively slow rate due to it's uniqueness, while SWG will shuffle on as a zombie.

I see decent moderately successful futures for Conan and Warhammer, provided they're decent games, thanks to WoW-attrition and the console market.  But the 300k range is as optimistic as I can get.  Even Final Fantasy XI only got like 650k peak, and it's Final motherfucking Fantasy.  SOE will continue to be fucked.  UO will draw some people back with a graphical and UI upgrade, then basically just bumble around like it always does.  And that's about it.

Edit: perhaps i should read the FIRST page (god damn, how did I miss that?)

December 2007:
- Vanguard: 60k - The days of this shit are years in the past. I'f you're looking forward to this game you're subhuman and should kill yourself
- Lord of the Rings Online: 200k
- PoTBS: 70k
- Warhammer: 2 million - Way more people play GW stuff than people realize. Assuming it's out by Christmas shopping, they'll sell 2 million easy. Personally I think this is lowballing it.
- World of Warcraft: 11 million

December 2008:
- Vanguard: 60k - people who bought this crave the feeling that having your mouth used as a toilet gives. They'll play till they flip the switch on the servers
- Lord of the Rings Online: 500k
- PoTBS: 80k
- Warhammer: 5 million
- World of Warcraft: 8 million - BC turns out to be still not casual enough and yet not grindy enough for OCD subhuman turds to grind their lives to nothing. Also, the people playing to PvP will have much better choices available

Didn't you learn from SWG that it doesn't matter what popular IP you base your MMO on if the game sucks?  Not to mention that as far as the FFXI console market goes, the PS2 version required the purchase of the HDD (and the broadband adapter if you hadn't already bought one for a previous game).  It's not really a good indication of how well MMO's might do on consoles.

I don't see WAR ever getting near those numbers.  Yeah, I KNOW how many people actually like Warhammer, but I think they're not really the type to get into a CG of it.

I'm only respectfully disagreeing, tho.  I don't care.

I'm currently running just below the level of interest needed to buy into WAR.

But I hope to god it doesn't get 2 million subs.

There is not a snowball's chance in hell that GOA can handle Europe's share of 2 million subs.

Actually GOA is a decent sized part of why WAR couldn't challenge WoW in Europe. WoW levels of public exposure on GOA's inadequate customer management and piss poor peak-period network stability would kick in and self limit success in what should be the IP's strongest region.

'More successful that daoc' has to be the realistic ambition. Unless EA really decide to take the marketing and customer service aspects seriously and on a worldwide basis.

Actually SWG taught us exactly the opposite. It's been incredibly successful given its flaws.

How long, exactly, do you think EQ would have lasted with SWG's original combat model?

This looks fun.

Xmas '07

Warhammer Online: Not out yet. (Look at the dates on the E3 cinematic) ;)
Age of Conan: 350K - and about half & half PC/360.
Lord of the Rings Online: 500K. I think, from what I've heard :nda: this one could actually be the first half-decent Turbine game since AC, and the license fits better than SWG's ever did.
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 50K tops. Niche, and EVE has the most of this market already. PotC will get the rest.
Vanguard: 100K. And that's being generous. Over half the playerbase will be cursing Sigil and remembering all the things Verant did wrong, but still playing.
World of Warcraft: 10 Million, and the next expansion (Maelstrom + misc) will be 1/2-way complete.

Xmas '08

Warhammer Online: 750K, and launched later than people think. Expect a full-on EA PR blitz on this one, folks.
Age of Conan: 200K and slowly declining.
Lord of the Rings Online: ~350K. Past the peak, but stable.
Pirates of the Burning Sea: Depends on how much has been added - if they follow the CCP method, maybe 75K. If not, dead.
Vanguard: 60K, and SOE will have bought out Sigil by this point.
World of Warcraft: 11 Million, and the third expansion (Northrend) will just have been announced.

Just to quibble: GW is free. And based on Mark's comments here (where he said "a year since we started testing and a year from launch", I am thinking Holiday 07 is not in the cards. But then I don't really think Holiday sales and MMOGs need to go together. They can help games that are easy sells, but then, if the game is an easy sell, it can sell any time.

What I actually feel has impacted sales more is the redux of E3. Maybe by 08 they'll have hit their stride again though making that a mini-Christmas it was gearing up to be last time. THEN would be when to sell WAR, particularly since I'm sure we won't see another WoW expac until 09.

I think you mean Guild Wars where bob meant Games Workshop?

Because Games Workshop stuff is the very antithesis of free.

Ah, yea, that makes all the difference actually. Microtransactions ftw!

But then I'd have to ask: if someone is playing Warhammer 40k game mechanic, are they going to want to play a lore-based single-character RPG? We could look to Warcraft and say "yes". But that's really the only example.

Well, that's why warhammer online should be based on crossing Warhammer Fantasy Battle with Total War and a persistent universe.

We can dream...

(as an aside, the Warhammer Fantasy RPG does good business, and that is probably a better parallel to the what MMORPG producers put on the packaging.)

I said 4.1 million for WoW?  Really?!?  Man, I need to check myself in somewhere for help.

I asked the same question.  A couple of posts up.  I personally point to 'no'.

Really, that has been my "dream mmorpg" for many, many, many years (just based on Stormbringer/Elric instead of Warhammer).

About playing Warhammer miniatures. I got yesterday Dark Crusade and it's exceptional. But I doubt it sold oodles because of its brand.

Can I have LoTRO updated? It wil gather 140k by 2008, easy.

GW people might not play WAR, but happily there is a big contingent of people who would quite like to play GW games, but then see what it costs and think 'bugger this for a game of soldiers'.

Those people might be interested in Warhammer computer games that aren't rubbish (an entirely untapped niche up to this point); though I'm not sure they'd be interested if WAR turns out to be as vanilla as WoW.

I agree with Ironwood on this one.  WoW adjusted their game ever so slightly with the addition of Hero classes.  That subtle tweak meant the playerbase was more comfortable with the idea of the solo hero (as did the solo campaign where you play as Rexxar.)   I don't think it'd have been as well-recieved if we went from a Starcraft-era RTS to WoW play.

  Hell, there's still people bitching about the difference in mechanics between WoW and WC3.  The part that got them hooked was the game was FUN.

Moving from a squad-based 'nobody special' game to a single-player "army of one" I think you're going to find it needs to be as polished and fun out the door as WoW was.  The question is, will WAR be able to do it. I'm gonna say no, just because of the incredibly short dev cycle.  There's going to be too many unanswered questions, and too many compromises of the one-man-squad-style gameplay GW fans are looking for, and too much group-reliance for the modern MMO'er and WAY too much group reliance for most PvP'ers.

I already demonstrated how bad I am at this when (during the beta) I claimed that WoW would never top 400k subscribers.  

I'll leave the projections to those of you that enjoy WoW and forcast its success.  You seem more in touch with the tastes of today's gamers.

No one, not even Blizzard, predicted 1 million + subs.

I don't think that person got pregnant.

I can update that for you, if you want.

Fixed.

Ah what the hell, this could be fun.

Xmas '07

Warhammer Online: 150k and rising if it's out
Age of Conan: 150k
Lord of the Rings Online: 100k and falling
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 75k
Vanguard: 25K. Barely hanging on
World of Warcraft: 8 million

Xmas '08

Warhammer Online: 350K
Age of Conan: 200K and slowly declining.
Lord of the Rings Online: 50K.
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 75K
Vanguard: 30K thanks to SOE buying it out and ushering McQuaid back out the same door.
World of Warcraft: 7 Million

I realize that is what they said, but I honestly never bought it. I have no idea what their true projections were, and maybe their 2005 numbers did far exceed that. Or maybe they just used that to excuse the server performance. In any case, consider the money they spent over the time they spent it coupled with the territories they knew they'd be launching into with the partners they had lined up so far before launch. I'd be surprised if they didn't assume 2mil worldwide.

Now, I can see them seriously lowballing North America by itself, given what passed for record-busting prior to that. But this game was programmed for a staggered worldwide launch long before Nov 2004, much more so than I think any MMOG was to that point (and actually, after). VUG exercised a competitive advantage bordering on the unique in this space.

I would like to revise my 2007 estimates:


Warhammer Online: 780k
Age of Conan: 120k
Lord of the Rings Online: 54k
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 146k
Vanguard: 68k
World of Warcraft: 10.3m

Reasoning:

Warhammer online PR/Marketing with backing from Mythic should be in full throttle by Sept 07.  They'll bleed at least 500k subs off of WOW because of expectations of WHO's MMOG potential and boredom with WOW

Age of Conan, starts off with 30-40k initially and slowly grows over time as the gore/pvp crowd gets into it, this number slowly grows through 07.

LOTR Online. Initial spike of LOTR fans and RP'ers and MMO players puts upnumbers of close to 100k, MMO players realize there is no content and the game has no non-mythos related activity also no real PVP, and is inhabited by the kids who just graduated from runescape/toontown and want to RP bilbo.

PotBS, is the dark horse, initial subs are hardcore naval fans and rabid pirate PVP fans, releases at 45-65k and grows throughout the year as MMO players realize how cool the game actually is.

Vanguard initial burst of 97k or 110k subs, eventually drops down to a solid 68k and holds in that range as former EQ players are willing to give Brad and crew another shot.

WOW, 6m US players still, 4.3 are in asia, WOW begins to fudge numbers as players are leeched away. They come out with a monthly "look how great we're doing" PR as well as add some freebies to maintain accounts....after all if there are no us players to buy gold who will the 2.2m gold farmers sell GP to.


2008 estimates:

Warhammer Online: 1.8m
Age of Conan: 70k
Lord of the Rings Online: 35k
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 800k
Vanguard: 72k
World of Warcraft: 8.3m


WHO: Population is mostly US/EU and Asian PVP'ers, gold farmers realizing that GF is unhealthy in this game mostly avoid it, large well organized guilds with long standing fueds dominate this game

Age of Conan, hype dies, but still has a hardcore conan wannabe following

LotR Online even the kids moving from maplestory to LOTR will want something different eventually...

POTBS, continues to gain in popularity, mostly through innovation.

Vanguard, retains its following.....however EQ is now at a population of....like 10 people

WOW, decline is inevitable so is innovation, and so is the movable feast of games, 4.4m hardcore US/EU/Aussie Raiders finally getting thier tier 5 are now starting to wonder why thier guild forums are so dead and the threads about PotBS and WHO are so active....3.8m asian players, 3.0m gold farming bots, China begins a crackdown due to currency destabilization associated with WOW.

December 2007:

Warhammer Online - 200k
Age of Conan - 200k
Vanguard - 100k
Lord of the Rings Online - 300k
Pirates of the Burning Sea - 125k
World of Warcraft - 11m

December 2008:

Warhammer Online - 175k
Age of Conan - 175k
Vanguard - 75k
Lord of the Rings Online - 200k
Pirates of the Burning Sea - 100k
World of Warcraft - 13m

December 2007:

Warhammer Online - 50k
Age of Conan - 25k
Vanguard - 15k
LOTRO - 100k
Pirates of the Burning Sea - 10k
World of Warcraft - 3m

December 2008:

MMORPGs considered obsolete by general game development community, the remaining ones out or being made all considered to cater to small 'niche' markets only.

...

Doom Doom Doom!

I'll pretend to take you seriously, Geldon, but I hate you for predicting less WoW subs than me.

No worries, Geldon resentment is in style any year.

December 2007
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 75k
Age of Conan: 200k
Vanguard: 200k
Warhammer Online: 250k
Lord of the Rings Online: 300k
World of Warcraft: 12m

December 2008
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 40k
Warhammer Online: 150k
Lord of the Rings Online: 200k
Vanguard: 250k
Age of Conan: 300k
World of Warcraft: 15m

Let's see how wrong I can be...

Also, I'm assuming all these unlaunched games actually come out during these time periods and aren't shuffled back into late 2007 / 2008. Another assumption - that these games don't really really suck at launch.

December 2007
Warhammer Online: 150 k
Age of Conan: 100 k
LOTRO: 100 k
PotBS: 20 k
Vanguard: 60 k
WoW: 8 million
CoH/V: 170 k

The Burning Crusade keeps players involved in WoW. Extremely unfavourable early reviews of Vanguard keep casual players out while hardcore players test the waters and maybe find EQ wasn't as fun as they remember it. LOTRO attracts a good number of players out of WoW on the name alone. PotBS stands out as being too different to really grab players leaving WoW and only grabs the naval fans at launch. Warhammer beats out Conan on the strength of its name. CoH/V show some declines, but the core player base remains steady pending several free updates.

Not mentioned: the whole heap of niche MMOGs coming out that will likely strip available MMOG players from going to one of the big name launches. Also: 2007 shows some great single player games coming out that may attract players out of the MMOG genre.

December 2008
Warhammer Online: 190 k
Age of Conan: 150 k
LOTRO: 100 k
PotBS: 65 k
Vanguard: 40 k
WoW: 6 million
CoH/V: 160 k

WoW remains king, but loses players to other, newer games, especially out of North America. Warhammer and Conan grow and announce expansions for mid- to late 2008, with Conan unable to catch up to Warhammer's early lead at this point. LOTRO doesn't hold players who have played WoW, who feel they are doing the same things again but in a different universe. PotBS builds up strong word of mouth and starts getting new players interested in seeing something different. Vangard attracts the truly hardcore and that's it, creating a community that would make "Lord of the Flies" look like Disneyland to new players. CoH/V shows some declines but continues to surprise with the strength of player commitment it shows.

Now, I have to admit I'm lowballing my numbers for both dates because I feel that there is so much competition out there in 2007 (for both MMOGs and single-player games) that lots of players are goign to be attracted into spending their dollars elsewhere, or won't hang in a MMOG "to get to the fun part" because there are so many alternatives out there.

December 2007

Warhammer Online: 115k
Age of Conan: 78k
Lord of the Rings Online: 132k
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 76k
Vanguard: 55k
World of Warcraft: Too Fucking Many

Warhammer, assuming it has a stable launch, will garner a decent number of subs, assuming it makes it out the door in time for 2007. I am lowballing it because it's slated to release so late in the year. Age of Conan I put a bit low because it's not exactly a "hot" IP, nor will it have the huge media blitz machine some other games will have backing them. Lord of the Rings Online spikes to almost 200k on release, but quickly starts to see heavy losses as far too many gamers not only don't care about the IP, but also suffer from a strong "Been There, Done That" syndrome with nothing new to keep them interested. Pirates of the Burning Sea is really coming out of left field with its different historical setting. Also, it's going to get overshadowed and overlooked (big time) by other, bigger releases. However, word will start to circulate that there's something of worth there if the game doesn't get rushed out the door before it's done. Vanguard gets tossed not out the door, but out of a 4th story window FAR before it is done. With no parachute and only Sony to catch them down below. Initially the game sells very well, perhaps above 250k boxes, but then the numbers dive faster than a Peregrine Falcon when most people realize they've already played this game before 6 years ago, and it has not held up well at all. These players probably mostly return to WoW, who still has so many subs that I don't even care to think of a number.

December 2008

Warhammer Online: 236k
Age of Conan: 111k
Lord of the Rings Online: 103k
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 107k
Vanguard: 37k
World of Warcraft: 6.2m

Warhammer has a good release, and steadily picks up steam throughout 2008. Either that, or it's DOA and I'm way over the mark. Age of Conan slowly but surely picks up subs, assuming Funcom has learned something from AO. The IP doesn't draw too many people, but the gritty gameplay does. Lord of the Rings Online finally starts to stabilize just over 100k, and it populated by a fair amount of newcomers who were not drawn in by Warcraft's IP, gameplay, or general look. Also, they manage to hold on to quite a number of WoW refugees who stay simply because, all things being equal, they perfer the Rings IP to Warcraft. Unfortunately, the game has quite a number of hardcore, neck-bearded lore-freaks who singlehandedly keep away a portion of potential subs who simply don't feel like dealing with that brand of bullshit. Assuming a decent launch and dev support for the game, word is really starting to get around that Pirates has something different going for it. Lots of people stay because pirates are cool, they love to bomb other ships, and they couldn't stand to leave and no longer be able to constantly go "ARRR!" in chat. Vanguard is now on life support, courtesy of Sony. The few who stay are the ones who managed to play through the crap from day one and can't stand to leave their phat loot and leet characters behind. They also hold out hope for The Vision. Also, servers have been condensed down to about 7. People really hate all the slow travel, even with the lauded encounter system (which turns out to be really fucking stupid BTW). Warcraft, believe it or not, is really starting to hemorrhage. Not necessarily to other MMOs, but people are leaving in droves for one reason or another. The expansion sold a metric fuckton of copies, but people are starting to bore of the same old crap. A couple more class overhauls do nothing else but piss people off. Still, the game manages to spawn quite a number of silly memes that make their way around the internet. On the horizon for WoW is a South America launch, which should really bring in some cash. Australia still gets the shaft, damn kiwis.

Too bad we cannot bet post count.  Now THAT would be fun! 

Unless Stray plays.  He has a billion posts!  AND IT NEVER STOPS!

I actually like the "107k" and "136k" predictions. That's some pretty tight estimating. I'd be happy to be near a rounded-up or down 100k :)

They're so easy to come by.  :-)

No, no.  Clearly I believed that when I wrote it - the 4 and 7 keys are pretty far apart, after all - so I'll just form an orderly queue for ridicule next to poor Geldon.  All I can say is that it's a valueable lesson not to drink and post.

I drink better after a few posts.   :thumbs_up:

Now, I think that with all the competition, of which there is currently hardly any, Warcrafts numbers will go down as people bail and those who are keeping accounts open let them slip.   

I think there will be more players in the market, and more dabbling away from Warcraft.

I think that Warhammer is going to be a smash hit.  Proven developer, and ~$50 million development and marketing with an EA worldwide release.

I mark Age of Conan down because Funcom is on it and I do not have faith about the release.  Pirates is small and independent, but I think they will do well in a niche.

Lord of the Rings is hard to tell.  What will the fanbase mean?  My wife **HATES** MMO games.  Hates them.  But she's expressed ongoing interest in MEO for 3 years going now.  Is making me build her a PC.   Now that piques my interest, because she is an MMO hater who only wants to play LotRO for the story.

December 2007:
Warcraft 6 million
Pirates 450k
Lord of the Rings 800k
Warhammer 2.5 million
Age of Conan 450k
Vanguard 160k

December 2008
Warcraft 4.5 million
Pirates 350k
Lord of the Rings 550k
Warhammer 3.5 million
Age of Conan 350k
Vanguard 65k

I am gonna have to use myself as an example. This past year I have subscribed to WOW (probably 3 times) EQ2 (Probably twice) EVE (Twice) once with 2 accounts. COX ( 2 or 3 times). I am currently subscribed to EVE (I have no idea why) and COX ( I seem to be having fun here). Cheddar is my pal. I am a butterfly, I go from sweet flower to sweet flower. What am I gonna do this year? From what I know Warhammer (i Am not a PVP kinda guy, still  I will have to take a look) Age of Conan sounds gritty (I have no real DAOC experience and it sounds like a reskin. But I will have to look). Will I buy vanguard (I buy lots of stuff I don't play including an xbox360 I never turn on) Maybe and Maybe not. POTBS? Probally if I get bored. What are my thoughts? To me its the community more than the game. I think age of Conan has the best shot but I am looking from a distance. Does everyone think like me? No, if I thought like everyone I would be playing WOW now. OK Hal, Your playing COX. You never find children playing COX? Why yes thanks for asking but that does in fact happen, but I find a larger percentage of really good groups there than anything I might find in WOW. A good group in WOW is an amazing experience, that game deserves all the fame it has gathered. It is the fact that at low levels ( I am an alt a holic) good groups are rare.

December 2007:
Warcraft 10 million
Pirates 30k
Lord of the Rings 300k
Warhammer not out yet
Age of Conan 400k
Vanguard 75k

December 2008
Warcraft 11 million
Pirates 70k
Lord of the Rings 300k
Warhammer 1.5 million
Age of Conan 600k
Vanguard 50k

Ok, I'll play, but no colors from the colorblind guy.

2007

WHOL: 500K (If it is out)
AOC: 210K  (This seems too low, but I'm a huge Robert Howard fan, so who knows)
VG: 115K
LOTROL: 220K (International marketing might blow this up huge, though)
PotBS: 85K
WOW: 8M
Runescape: 1.1M ($5 a month is a nice price for high school kids with 6 year old PCs)
Eve: 150K
COH/V: 150K
EQ1: 180K
EQ2: 120K
SWG: 100K
UO: 120K

2008

WHOL: 930K
AOC: 240K
VG: 110K
LOTROL: 250K
PotBS: 130K
WOW: 9M
Runescape: 1.2M
Eve: 175K
COH/V: 140K
EQ1: 150K
EQ2: 110K
SWG: 90K
UO: 100K

All numbers pulled directly from my ass, except where I really had no idea, then I just averaged you guys and added 10%, because I've been listening to the predictions of industry wide doom since Kunark.  Although Vangaurd really does have the potential to go down in flames, but a lot of people are going to at least buy the box, and that is the first break a game needs, after which not sucking becomes key.

Warhammer would be by the DAoC guys.

Age of Conan is by the Anarchy Online guys.

Predicting millions for Warhammer is pure madness.  Nobody but hardcore nerds cares about the IP, and while fanboys will screech, the fact is that to the marketplace at large it's just a WoW ripoff.

You say that like its a bad thing.

It's a "hundreds of thousands" good thing, not a "millions" good thing.

If I was marketing WoW's expansion pack, I would try to ride on the Second Life media hype. Hi, you liked the sound of that Second Life thing? Did you know there's a more exciting virtual world with eight times the players already and a currency that is worth more against the US$? Where it's like those Lord of the Rings movies? Which is universally hailed by critics, and has an even-more-hailed expansion pack? It's bigger than the movies. And here's an attractive couple who met in the game.

Twenty millions.

I don't think it's madness at all.  It seems to me that $50 millions and EA marketing can shove just about anything they please in your face till you are sick of seeing it.

Secondly, I'll agree that to the US market, Warhammer looks like a WoW ripoff to the typical gaming ignoramus - and only uber nerds are into the table top in the US.  But of Blizzards subscriptions how many are in the US, less than 1/4?  So it's not a big hit in the US, so what?  Europe is their primary target to begin with.

Warhammer is a big F'in deal in Europe. And Asians don't give 2 pebbly shits if it is copied or not.  And it is a very PvP centric game.  Less bunnies to worry about petting, and more people to kill.  Less overall numbers, sure.  Doesn't mean it won't be a smash hit with EA pushing it in your face everywhere you turn, worldwide.

Fact is, Warcraft ripoff perception does probably more good for Warhammer than bad, and time will slowly bring about more awareness on the ripoff issue, as well.  'Cause we all know who ripped off Warhammer, Dragonlance, etc in a wholesale fashion.

I initiated data points for this in our system....lets see what the actual population choice is related what games are being most anticipated

I've stratified the choices the give me a fequency across all the given choices. Once we finish closed beta (4 weeks) I'll pull the report and dump the results here cause Im nice, wait a second whats the prize if we win? Maybe I'll keep the data to myself.....lol

?
Are you for real?

Just looked at the overall standings...

Wow, I'm really lowballing the industry as a whole.  :evil:

I suspect I recognise you from Terra Nova, yes?

All the guys from Warhammer, Blizzard, and Dungeons & Dragons should be put in a big high-walled mud wrestling pit and made to fight it out over who's stealing from who.  Then as the debacle reaches it's climax, one of the descendants of J.R.R Tolkien can stand up on the edge of the wall and machine-gun the lot of them.

Maybe :)

I actually tried to change my account name here to my first name but it looks like Im stuck with this rediculous one for the time being.

I also added data points related to not only what games people are going to play, but what games they are LEAVING to go play them. Although, its a beta population so its a beta sized sample (small)

On predicting future WOW numbers, its probably a good idea to keep in mind they are planning on releasing more expansions, and claim to be planning on releasing them quicker than they did BC (given how Blizzard has always operated though, we`ll see).  So by Dececember 2008, there should be at least one new expansion out, with another either just released or heavily in the works.  Given how drastic of a update BC is to the overall game, in terms of overall gameplay change and massive content, if they do these expansions correctly (and that is a big if), it should be an excellent way of retaining players and even adding new ones.  Predictions of WOW sub numbers dropping a few million due to showing "its age" ignores this I think.  Of course, they could just totally fuck over the game and piss everybody off and lose them that way, but who knows.

I cant even begin to try and predict hard numbers for anything though.  I basically think WAR will do ok and hold its own, Conan will do a little worst but survive, and everything else will pretty much fail on the grand scheme of things.  PotBS might actually do decently though, since it seems pretty fun.

Well that came a lot faster than expected. (http://www.blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml) I think a lot of us just lost the game, unless they start to decline and don't talk about it, leaving their official number around 8m until December~

But you damn well know it's only going up.

I'm in a bit better shape having predicted that WoW will eventually decline to 9 million, but shit, I could still have been too conservative.

I thought WoW was already 8m, so I am not impressed.

I'll throw my hat into the ring.

December 2007:

WoW, 9 million. I don't see it growing significantly in a year when more MMOs are coming out.
Vanguard, 100k
AOC, 500k
WAR, 600k

I am wondering if AOC and WAR being on XBOX360 in addition to PC will have much effect on their numbers.

December 2008:

WoW, 8.5 million.
Vanguard, 25k
AOC, 400k
WAR, 1 million

Those last two predictions are based on assumptions, like WAR is moderately well done and fun. AOC manages to avoid a "Funcom launch". Etc. If AOC has launch problems like AO did its numbers will be much lower. If WAR doesn't live up to the hype it'll have much lower numbers as well, though the IP alone may carry it for awhile in Europe, much like what happened with SWG in the U.S. I'm also curious how well the PvP formula in WAR will go over with the average gamer.

here are my picks.  They are all pretty conservative and sceptical.  Basically, I am counting on:

1.  new games with lots of hype not being stable or complete for most of their first years
2.  WoW capping by 2008
3.  some games like LOTRO getting their act together well after launch and then taking off.

Bets for December 2007:
Warhammer Online: 350k
Age of Conan: 200k
Vanguard: 200k
Lord of the Rings Online: 100k
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 50k:
World of Warcraft: 10 millions

Bets for December 2008:
Warhammer Online: 500k
Age of Conan: 350k
Vanguard: 200k
Lord of the Rings Online: 500k
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 100k
World of Warcraft: 10 millions

Just because I know how much we all love charts here:

(http://f13.net/media/images/wow_chart4.jpg)

The big jump in the middle of 2005 is from China and since that point it's basically been uninterrupted linear growth and it even accelerated a bit over the 4th quarter 2006.

WoW to grow to 14 million... ...and still eclipse every other MMO on the market... ...until some other outfit "gets it"... ...not meaning replicating their game, but mimicing the polish, cross-platform development, focus on gameplay, game v. "sandbox world", etc....

LotRO & (belated) Vanguard Prediction two-fer:
(http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/08/03/crash_watch_wideweb__430x308.jpg)



December 2007:
World of Warcraft: 8 million
Warhammer Online: 300k
Age of Conan: 80k
Vanguard: 60k
Lord of the Rings Online: 60k
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 40k:

December 2008:
World of Warcraft: 8 million
Warhammer Online: 500k
Age of Conan: 70k
Vanguard: 40k
Lord of the Rings Online: 40k
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 40k

Bets were closed as of January 31, sorry guys 'n gals (too easy now to predict Vanguard lean numbers). But your predictions will still be there, although late.

There was some kind of competition involved?

My Vanguard prediction was and remains this:

(http://www.mussmyhair.com/entries/Travel/trainwreck.jpg)

They're unfortunately doing nothing to change my mind. And I don't actually hope they fail..

WoW is now up to 8.5 million (http://www.blizzard.com/press/070307.shtml) and BC has sold 3.5 million copies with 1.9 in NA/AUS and 1.6 million in Europe. Given that they had 2 million NA/AUS customers and 1.5 million in Europe in Jan they've sold BC to >~90% of their NA/AUS and European subscribers. They've been adding a net of .5 million subscribers every two months since September 2006. At that rate they'll break 10.5 million in December unless BC gets released in China by the end of the year in case there'll probably be a bump from that.

C'mon 11 million.  Mama needs new bragging rights!

I'm beginning to think I may have underestimated LOTRO and overestimated VG.  8-)

I'm still liking my numbers (except maybe AoC). Is there a prize for this?  8-)

Bragging rights.
What else could you need on a message board?

Lotro is getting a lot of marketing here in Europe.

I'm thinking the guys with the top end estimates are looking comfortable.

LotR is a migration game at best for people waiting on something else, die hard Middleearth fans cant stand people who dont have Lore based names....

The unfortunate thing about universal statements is that they're easily disproved with a single, anectodal example.

I am not migrating from anything: I haven't played WoW since last summer and I'm still playing Eve.  I am a pretty big Tolkien fan who gets (mildly) annoyed by people called Kitsune running around on the RP server.  And yet I upgraded to the lifetime sub, because it's fun.

I don't disagree with the migration thing, but do think that's only one part of the people going. Remember, WoW has been out a long time now, and the recent cockblocks in BC are turning off enough people to easily support another less-expensive MMO.

Yes, yes, yes. I wish I could revise my numbers on WoW. BC does alot of good stuff but there are tons of people who are fighting mad over the endgame. No entry level raids, no upgrades in, well, anything, keying cockblocks... I see less and less familiar names logging on every week.

Hubris. WoW's not going anywhere but BC might be the turning point where games like LOTRO can make a dent and a respectable little niche. I didn't expect BC to be where WoW potentially jumped the shark.

My guild, who put up with EQ for years, and then transfered en mass to WoW, has been leaving WoW. We only have about 5 people left in WoW; the rest are either back in EQ1 or in Vanguard. Nobody is touching LoTR, in large part due to a lack of name recognition. I bring it up in guild chat and most haven't heard of it. Not the books, the game.

Funny you mention that, a few of my friends who are big WoW players didn't even know what I was talking about when I suggested that we picked up a copy of LORTO to try and arn't willing to give it a try simple on the same grounds that they don't know anything about it.

Oh sweet irony.
Should I start linking to my posts forecasting (NOT doomcasting, just fore-...) WoW lowering its numbers by second half 2007 now, or should I wait the end of the year to fully enjoy the effect?

I remember pointing and laughing at my posts. I think I'll wait. It'll be even more fun then.

DId you absorb Geldon's "people care about me" complex or do you really and truly think that people care?

MMOs are like 401ks. You don't day trade them. LoTRO has been out a mere few days. Give it a month at least, three months ideally. Let's see if the mid game holds up once players get there en masse.

I was joking. This thread is all about bragging rights, as mentioned before. If you take a look at my Vanguard prediction, you'll notice something that is really worth pointing and laughing.

That said, should it prove that I was right about WoW churn, I am sure you wouldn't care about it but I'd be mildly self-satisfied in a completely non-important kind of way. Especially cause everyone said I was mad (or worse) and the beast was only destined to grow (while to me it was obviosuly the opposite). Still, we will see.

I went in to the EB Games near my house Friday.  There were close to 200 boxes of LoTRO on the shelves.  I've never seen that much stock for a game before so I had to stop and count how many boxes there were.

I think I will do a mini-experiment this evening and go back and count again and see where it's at.

Wow on second read, that didn't come off nearly as snarky as I had hoped.  I never did understand the text color formats though.  And yes, your vanguard talk was friggin hilarious.

Everyone knows that the only true metric is forum registration...or something along those lines.

My Vanguard talk is nothing compared to the fact that I predicted 400k subscription in December 2007 for it. (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8995.msg256183#msg256183)

I think most of you are way too high on PotBS.  Just don't ask me why I think that. 

 :nda:  Because its a buggy pile of shit that will not deliver many of the things people expect  :nda:

Whoops my fingers slipped.

I am not even sure why we included PoTBS here in the first place. I can only try to remember (and guess) it was because someone thought it could be some kind of EVE thing. But I thing it could have been better to include either Tabula Rasa or Gods 'n Heroes, or both.

PotBS because it is an Eve-like experience that had that indie polish back in the day, does have ground avatars already, and is not fantasy nor western sci-fi. It's been around for a bit of time. Whether it's going to suck or not we'll be finding out as more people pull a Hoax :)

You'll get no such NDA-breaking antics from me on TR except to say it's not the sort of game intended to be on this sort of list anyway. ;)

I'm just wondering if anyone is still going to be around by the time 12/08 rolls around.

I'm not planning on getting bumped off before then, so sure.

My wife and I are planning on getting the game the end of May/Early June -- we're a bit burnt out on WoW and looking for something new, and this seems a good choice.

I still wish CoH's held my attention more. I still haven't found a game where combat is as purely fun and 'heroic' feeling, but for some reason I just really can't get into the game for more than a few days at a time.

I'm not sure LoTR is a good choice if you're burned out on WoW.  I'd go for something a little different from either.

It's not that sort of burned out. We're just wanting a change of scenery. It's more like "I'm sick of cruising the Carribean, let's try an Alaskan cruise instead". The overall experience is pretty much the same, but it looks different enough that we get a refreshed sense of enjoyment.

The look and feel of LOTRO is different enough from WoW to be appealing, but the gameplay is close enough that there's not a significant learning curve (which is more an issue for her than me). Hell, we're both natural explorers anyways. It's worth it just to go wander the Shire and visit Weathertop.

I was going to recommend CoH, but you beat me to the punch.  CoH has been my "Honeymoon MMOG" of choice lately.  It's nice to log on and kill stuff for an hour here or there, but I agree that the shine wears off fast.  Have you considered GW?  It can be a nice, mindless diversion.  The lack of a sub fee also makes it a nice game to hop in and out of when the scenery elsewhere gets old.

I've thought about it, but I mostly move between WoW, occiasonally CoH (I do want CoVs, but haven't gotten around to it), and EVE depending on mood. The concepts behind GWs has just never really caught my attention.

I have to admit, the best moment I ever had in a game was in CoH. We had a crappy pull, we were flooded with mobs, and the defender was desperately just trying to keep the tank alive. So me and the other blaster just said "To hell with it!" and unleashed everything we had. We snapped aggro off of the defender (although the tank managed to hold onto several targets) and started getting hammered. When defiance kicked in (it was brand new to the game), we just started slaughtering.

Ended up with both of us at about 10% health, a shit-ton of dead mobs, and a feeling of "How fucking shit. Let's do that again".

I think another great moment was with my rad/rad Defender -- I just stacked debuffs on a pair of mobs, and floated serenly above the fray. Gave me this kind of Professor X sort of vibe -- utter neutralization without violence. (Well, I let our Wolverine clones -- I mean 'scrappers' -- do the violence). It just had this sort of egotistical wave-the-hands "You are dead and don't even know it" feel to it.

I don't think I've ever had that sort of innate attachment to the toon and it's actions in any other sort of MMORPG.

Are you planning on killing us all?  Out with it!

Well we (may) have our first winners. If you guessed Zero for WHO/WAR winter 07 you are correct sir! Edit I'm dumb.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6169847.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;11 (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6169847.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;11)

That's WAR (or WHO, heh), not WH40K.

I won this thread.

Hardly :)

I'll ask to have that put on your headstone.

This thread has legs.

It's merely resting before making its NGE thread-esque attempt at immortality.

I guess it'll get really hot by November, as the first deadline approaches and we all start making up numbers and our own "trustworthy sources".

What, a whole band of HRoses?

Gawd I need to take a vacation from f13 when that starts then.

 :-D

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/temp/activity.htm

I hadn't heard about yet another press release about WoW numbers lately, and turns out they are dropping. Have been since a few weeks after BC.

Not falling a lot I grant you. But the trend has definitely changed.

They didn't add a seperate land mass with no pvp or something did they?

My guild is about to dump WoW enmass, and several other guilds I know about have totally pulled out. We stayed in WoW like three years, and just can't take more levels and more grind.  At some point the raid content burns a guild's leadership out, and then the guild itself leaves for some new game.

The problem with the MMO market right now is that its dam near all clones so your choices are a piece of crap or a terd, but they both stink like shit.

Moreover, you end up coming BACK to WoW because it does (for most) the whole level ding grats thing better than the others. What the fuck do you leave it for, LotRO?

EVE.  It's like a palete-cleanser.

Minesweeper.

CoH/CoV is a better palate cleanser for me.  The combat is fast, the z axis use is wonderful, and you can actually look different from everyone else.  NCSoft hasn't done the whole ding-gratz thing better, but they certainly did create a nice short-term alternative. 

See, I couldn't do the CoH thing because it's just grrrrrrriiiinnnnnndddddd. I've never gotten a toon past level 20. I still resub every now and again in some vain hope that it will magically be less grindy than before. I am always disappointed.

Yea, that's the rub. Where do you go from WoW after you've spent so much time playing it? 3 years is pretty consistent, so you obviously enjoy the formula enough. It's just that, as I think WUA said recently, with WoW there really isn't much reason to play any other DIKU unless you're looking for a narrower experience (DAoC), one that expands a different way (EQ2), or a buggier predecessor (anything else).

Damn... I didn't just ask for more DIKUs... did I?!

Exactly. Here it is. With the exception of a scant, SCANT handful of other games (EVE, ohgodnotShadowbane, Planetside, SWG, maybe something else) diku IS the MMO market; this is with the caveat that I'm not counting Maplestory and all that stuff in the discussion. So you have diku and what's going to be better? It's done, it can't be done with more polish or more social options or more anything really.

People are going to keep trying, mind you, which just means that we all end up throwing our hands in the air and giving up on the medium like schild has. Because there is some crap out there.

I'm still subbed to CoX but I haven't played in a while.  I'll play a month or so and then take a couple of months or four off.  It's easy to get back in the game.  I don't cancel in between because I'm addicted to veteran rewards!   :-)

My EQ friends all dumped WoW for LotRO, with one going back to EQ1.  The LotR folks play it and CoH at the same time, and are huge Tolkien geeks, so that's the appeal there.  They Play CoH because they don't WANT an endgame..  They're happy to just level up with their college/ eq friends when they've got time away from their kids.  (This group has been gaming together since they attended Oberlin in '92)
The EQ1 guy wanted advancement after the level cap that didn't revolve around raiding, and "good gear" you could get without raiding/ rep grinds.  i.e. AAs and the EQ points-for-gear instances.  I'm the only one still there because I enjoy raiding and I'm in a guild that does raiding content.. (which has its own, separate set of headaches.)  After nearly 4 years I'm a bit sick of it though, and beginning to look for other experiences to get away from it for a bit.

Hades' group is leaving for Fury, and Warhammer.  I expect most PvPers to drop WoW like a bad habit as soon as something that appeals to them comes out, because WoW's sport pvp appeals to the casual, not the hardcore. 

As to what other folks leave it for.. well, consoles, single player games, or simply taking time away from MMOs/ PC games altogether (not unheard of, we're the freaks who always have to have a game  :-D )

The last press release for WoW was in July or August and was for reaching 9 million subs (up from eight million). This was before TBC launched in mainland China.
So either Blizzard is outright lying (which is all sorts of stupid - from a legal viewpoint, if nothing else) or something is up with the Warcraft Realms figures

WarcraftRealms only does EU and US. I don't know what The9's policy is on user mods that assess player activity the same way. Heck, I don't know how much modding goes on over there if they're still predominantly playing in Internet Cafes of some sort. But regardless, WoW could be looking like it's declining in the West because it is declining in the West. But this isn't the death of WoW if they're increasing in China. It just means the amount of money Blizzard collects is different, because iirc they collect a licensing royalty from The9 on a monthly basis based on activity rather than collecting the full $14.99/mo(+VAT)

Personally when I left WoW after TBC I didn't go to any other MMOG. I'd already played EVE and the rest are just sub-standard diku's as mentioned. Right now is probably the first time in 9 or 10 years I don't have a sub to a MMORPG. There's too many other good games out there to spend my admittedly limited time on. With my existing 360 titles needing finishing and the PC titles out/coming  (BioShock, TF2, Hellgate) why would I play a game that makes me endlessly grind for really limited reward?

This is the first time in memory where the next things I'm looking forward to are not MMOs (Crysis and Team Fortress 2). Heck, we're largely in a dry spell until March or thereabouts.

Ironically, Maplestory is just as much a DIKU as any DIKU. It's just a side scroller is all.

The other stuff though, yea, those are different. But most are really not all that appealing to folks who are looking for an alternative to WoW like gameplay.

Prove it.

Prove what? Did you misread that? It's not a statement of fact but rather a statement of perception. If you look at the numbers and see a decline, it could be a decline. But there's no way to prove it without Blizzard saying something.

Edit: clarify

I'm still trying to understand why the decline of WoW would be a bad thing. If it begins to lose favor then people may choose to actually develop something more than diku+shiny. 

You're funny when you hope.

People said the same thing about EQ1.

Hope is all I have at this point.  Don't rain on my parade.

My understanding is that Blizzard has been accused in the past of massaging those player numbers a bit in order to keep up the appearance of growth. But yeah, it's an unfounded rumour unless Blizzard actually starts releasing montly player figures.

Which is not to say that WoW isn't the most successful western-developed diku ever - it is. But I think the gloss wore off a long time ago.

In one way that's why I like NCsoft - player numbers have to be reported as part of the shareholder obligations. I'm sure they massage the figures a bit too, but they have to be consistent about it.

If WOW begins to significantly decline it will only encourage people to create another Diku + Shiny to capture the runoff.

The best thing as far as innovation would be for WOW to continue growing in popularity to the point where nobody will even consider making a directly competing product.

DIKU is really the only modern MMOG model that has proven to keep people subscribing for 3 years+. This is why it keeps getting development $. Someone who plays WoW for 3 years likes DIKU. If they say otherwise they are lying to themselves. The only encouraging non-DIKU trend is EVE slowly but steadily growing subscribers. SWG could have been the first really successful non-DIKU but they fucked it up with bugs galore.  Non-DIKU games succeed as short-term distractions, but in general they don't get the customer longevity. In a subscription business, customer longevity is 90%+ of the economics.

A MMOG needs to be designed with 2-5 month player stints in mind and a pricing model that works for that design. GW took a a shot and seems to be successful by selling 1 million boxes every 6 months (or whatever the numbers are.)

I think the industry reliance on the diku model is likely to to doom it to a harsh fall. Anecdotally I believe that the first diku MMO you love sees you subscribe for a long time; any diku MMO after that point feels like you've already done it, so you don't play for as long.

However, there is some movement away from that model, as was noted above, as well as newer niche MMOs / FPS MMOs etc.

My first DIKU was a Circle MUD some 12 years ago.  Shortly before that I messed with Gemstone III, Dragon Realms and a (very) brief stint in NWN.  I still like 'em and find new ways to fall for good variants on the system.   You'll find I'm not alone in that feeling, either.  So long as it's different enough from your most recent (or current) game of choice, there's no "I've already done this" feeling.

Where the fuck did my bets go?  I coulda swore I bet.  I was reeeeeally drunk around the month that bets were made so who knows.  Was there another thread and I forgot to repost/crosspost?

Wow... a lot of these comments remind me of forum comments when people started burning out on EQ1. Striking similarities. It's funny how much we change and yet, we don't.

I don't think DIKUs are doomed to fail per se, but we'll definitely see some model changes. At heart, there's little wrong with XP, levels and unlocked abilities unto themselves. Some aspect of each works in way many more games than just DIKU MMOs. Where I see a huge growth potential is in UI and how character abilities are compartmentalized. For example, I liked the theory of TR's and AoC's UIs. What they turn out to be, well... And I really love GW's feature of bringing limited abilities to a battle but being able to change on the fly before entering the instance. None of these are really "mass market" games though. But then, the genre itself is still growing into that (makes most of its cash from plying deep rather than broad).

Truly experimental virtual lifestyle/metaverse/virtual reality games still have a lot of growth opportunity. But they're also the most risky. And generally the people with the most cash do not take the most risks with it. So as the genre continues to be driven by the "success" stories, we will get more derivation into minor-innovation land, leaving games like Eve in niche land proprortional to the total number of people playing.

People keep talking about DIKU like its still around in the original form. All I'm hearing nowadays is people using DIKU as a pejorative for an MMO they don't like. I'm failing to see these ebil elements from DIKU MUD games still alive. A scrolling chat with damage reported per hit doesn't make it DIKU anymore. That's simply a log output of damage dealt. Progressive linear character development isn't DIKU, its D&D.  'Zones' in the way 'rooms' were made in DIKU have been fading since AO's introduction of relatively seamless zone change.

Can someone define DIKU, or those aspects of the original DIKU that have carried over? Those elements specifically that cause certain somebodies *cough* schild *cough* to wave a dismissive hand at whatever MMO that comes to market that isn't a going to be a console game?

Elements that make a game DIKU:

1) an exponential experience level system
2) class system
3) mobs of higher level give more absolute exp but less relative exp, i.e. the PC exp curve ramps at a greater rate than the per kill exp earned
4) an equipment upgrade cycle that closely tracks the levelling curve, i.e. players need levels AND better loot to progress.
5) raiding is the endgame

These are somewhat in order of significance to being DIKU or not. You cannot be DIKU without 1, 2, and 3.

DIKU to me is still pretty much Combat Consumption == Progress, no matter how you it dress up or whatever carrots you want for an end game.  It's all about personal time FTW.  The only "skill" required per se is spoiler identification outside the game. 

DIKU wasn't even the first mud to use all of those things.  Abermud (from which DIKU was derived) used them.  (I can attest to that, because I played Abermud - amazingly there are Abermuds up today, list here (http://www.abermud.info/mudlist/showme.php)). 

The people who wrote Abermud played MUD1 (which I never played) and some of those things were in MUD1.  MUD1 was certainly influenced by the Colossal Cave and D&D, some elements of which will be found in WoW.

To what Shinznitz said, I'd add the term _linear_ progression as being part of it.

Not really fair to call that a part of a DIKU, since
1) There was no raiding in DIKU muds.
2) You can have raiding w/o the diku mechanics

DIKU has always been - to me - auto attack w/ specials, and combat-based advancement through XP.  Classes, or lack therof, are more D&D and I played plenty of DIKUs that gave you all the skills w/o a class.  The combat and advancement mechanics, however, were all the same.   Ditto on the gear/ equipment and Monster vs Player power ratios.  I played a few that flattened or 0'd out the gear portion of the game and the mob/ player HP/ damage with it but the combat was still the same.   

It's not us that haven't changed, it's the games themselves. There isn't a whole fuckton of difference between EQ1 and WoW in terms of gameplay. It's EQ1 refined, and EQ1 was just DikuMUD with a 3d interface.

I agree in a pure sense and that was why I put it last, but raiding has become a core part of modern DIKU-derived MMOGs so I included it. The good part a list is that it spurs debate about what should and should not be included which is what we want to happen. I only ever played on MUD, Carrion Fields, and I didn't get very far into it because EQ1 came out.

Good point. It's funny how much the games change and yet, they don't. ;)

But seriously, my name is Ian, and I was an MMOG-aholic.

Everything is doomed to fail in the end, 'tis the circle of crap (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRL4WkMDysk) dikumuds.

But things that fail after taking $100+ off of 10 million people and only having costs of maybe half that, won't be giving their publisher any sleepless nights.

People often write as if MMOGs are grand projects intended to remain with us through the ages. They aren't.

As one of those people who think MMOGs will stay with us through the ages, I'd like to justify that :)

I think we're living the evolutionary process between monitor/keyboard/controller RPGs and eventual mass-marketable VR. Someday there'll be some sort of VR-net, probably not in a form the Metaverse Roadmap people think, but not too different either. And one of the strong links will be between whatever emerges as the most popular form of immersive entertainment combined with various other techs.

If we were to jump to VR right now, it'd probably be in some DIKU form. But the tech for the masses just isn't there yet, so can't be wrapped in some marketable "replace your TV" even-fringe-friendly message. I don't know where it'll go, but do think a strong line will be connected back to this stage of the genre. Sorta like how MMOGs can be traced back through Doom, Ultima III and D&D.

That's one reason I give this genre a lot of slack room to mess up.

The other is the people.

You're probably right that (on consoles at the very least) the boundaries between the OS, game lobbies, and game itself will continue to blur.

And I can see the experience moving towward to be a single player-identity that uses a consistent lobby structure to enter an ever changing range of games.

The games themselves will probably start to interact (unlock X in game Y by doing A in game B), and it could be argued that at that point they all become one collective 'game'. But the individual game experiences will still come and go, just as any other form of mass media 'art' does.

I think it's time to put on your bragging suit and your speculation glasses. Half of the titles we were predicting about failed the promised released dates (breaking news!) so we need "official" figures for just 3 games. As you can read on the updated opening post I put on what I think should be correct numbers for Lotro (250k), Vanguard (30k) and WoW (8,5m) but without actual numbers or "trustworthy fake ones" as Bruce's, I am open to your speculations to come up with better figures. Bragging will start just after that.

My numbers were pretty spot on- except I put 2008.  DOH.

I wouldn't know where to start predicting numbers, but I reckon Football Manager Live (http://www.footballmanagerlive.com) will be up there with most of the games on this list (just read that as Soccer Manager Live if it bothers you:) )

It may not get the WoW burnouts, but it'll get large numbers of players who haven't played MMOs before. I realise the experience of The Sims Online shows that massively popular single player games don't always become massively popular MMOs, but all SI Games need to do is to replicate the SP game with players as the rival managers instead of AI, and they have a hit.

Palmer,

the thing was not about the best or more popular ones. It was just about predictions on 6 arbitrarily chosen titles. We didn't forget Tabula Rasa for example, just decided, over a year ago, to not bet on it.

2008 -

Warhammer Online: 0 subs, canceled because EA are douches.
Age of Conan: 200K subs.
Vanguard: 30K subs - I figure they're down to their core supporters right now.
Lord of the Rings Online: 250K subs - WoW refugees will probably match people who quit.
Pirates of the Burning Sea: 10K subs - Pirate games scare the sheeple.
World of Warcraft: 3M Subs - My same bet as last year, I'd probably already be this and lower if there were just an alternative for the burned out players to go to.

Sorry Geldon. You lost your chance to predict for Xmas 2008 when you went with the quoted post and didn't fix it before the deadline. And now your chance to win nothing is gone forever.

GREATEST quote ever.  Hope you do not mind if I borrow it!

1) I didn't have an edit button.
2) Those are my "MMORPGs considered obsolete by the game development community" numbers. ;)

Jeez. I bet six digits for Vanguard!?

Yea. I'm out, on that alone  :-P

I think at one point I was expecting 100k on Vanguard, but haggled myself down when I saw the charts on some of the newer MMORPG releases.  These days, you usually need a major known brand name to get above 150k, and even then it's hard to keep them.

I edited that to reflect what actually happened.  You don't need to thank me.

I absolutely despise your avatar.


Edit: Awsome... Adblock plus plugin for Firefox allowed me the ability to never see it again. Thank you Adblock plus =)

No, my edit button was gone long before it came time to make Vanguard predictions.  Really, whenever I edited my messages, it was either because:

A) I reread my message and decided that it wasn't conveying my thoughts clearly.  (Sometimes I'd do this dozens of times on the same message.)

B) I was being a snippy bastard, cooled down, and edited out the bas-tarded-ness.

I'm not sure where the impression came that I edit messages because I'm trying to underhandedly take back something I said.  I stand firmly by all the stupid things I say because I think that only arguing devil's advocate do you get to the core of a thing.  That's why certain people tend to resent me.

 :oh_i_see:

Looks like no one is going to refute my figures for WoW, Vanguard and LotRO (oh is that so simple? Now I can see where Bruce took his numbers. I should probably put up a website and get a jpb in the industry).

Because of that I'm going to declare the winnarz:





----------------------------------------------------------
Vanguard: (Actual: 30k)

The winner is:
 
*HaemishM: 25k*


Runners up:

Andar: 50k
Comstar: 50k


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lord of the Rings Online: (Actual 250k)

The winner is:

*Evangolis: 220k*


Runners up:

Endie: 300k
Modern Angel: 300k
Lantyssa: 300k
Xuri: 300k
Trouble: 300k
HRose: 200k
Merusk: 200k
Falconeer: 200k
Stray: 200k
Angry.bob: 200k


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
World of Warcraft: (Actual: 9,3 M)

The winners are:

*Comstar: 9 millions*
*Riggswolfe: 9 millions*


Runners up:

WindUpAtheist: 10 millions
Simond: 10 millions
Trouble: 10 millions
Soln: 10 millions

That is all, for December 2007. See you next year.

Unless, of course, someone can come up with more realistic *actual* figures. I love to take awards back.

If these numbers are confirmed, I would like to point out that no matter how anyone (beside me  :uhrr: ) knew Vanguard would have been a trainwreck, it has been 10 times deadlier than expected. Wow.

Yeah, I can't believe that I overestimated Vanguard's subs.  :uhrr:

Can I get on the awesome message board action for '08?

WOW - 9m
Vanguard - 45k
WAR - 220k  (If it releases in Q1/Early Q2)
AOC - 450k 
LOTRO - 245k

Time for Falconeer to start a new thread.

In the Activision / Vivendi merger thread, it was noted that WoW had 9.3 million players.

LOTRO analysts claimed it had 1m players based on the fact five million characters had been created and you can only have 5 (?) characters on an account. Ho ho ho.  :oh_i_see: 250k seems a better estimate.

A new thread? Hello no! Predicting now for next december would be unfair to those who cast their predictions 12 months ago.

But we could play something different for December 2009... mm I am having ideas

That would change our winnarz. Can you provide an easy to read link to that?

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071202005054

Updated accordingly. Comstar and Riggswolfe are our 2 new winners. Too bad for Damijin and Eldaec who were winners for like 4 hours.
And hey, WUA almost won too  :awesome_for_real:

Bumping after moderation split off like half a day of activity.

Those involved know what not to do.  :hello_thar:

Vanguard has 30k subs. Wow. Even *I* thought it would do a little better than that.

I didn't do badly, considering how little I knew before making my predictions.

Feeling the need to point out that some of us actually predicted the non-arrival of the likes of WAR. And so cutting them from the decision of who wins nothing is weak sauce.

/whine_off.

You are right Eldaec and for that I'll check the thread back and commend you of your hard-earned no-prices.

I thought my numbers were pretty good considering I thought I was submitting end-year numbers and not beginning-year ones. :P

I am not sure I am getting what you say Geldon, maybe it's just me. Predictions were cast for December 2007 AND December 2008. Two different sets of predictions.

From the opening post:


I know my English can get kinda broken, but that should be ok. Where does your mistake come from?

Nevermind, I'm just confused.  :uhrr:  I was thinking that the bets were off because the 2008 numbers were in now or something.

Here are some additional winners :heart:

Warhammer just got its Master Predictors!

*Trouble* - Warhammer - Not Out Yet
*Simond* - Warhammer - Not Out Yet
*Eldaec* - Warhammer - Not Out Yet


Gratz guys. You earned it.

(http://www.electricearl.com/dws/commendation-mayor.jpg)

 .:woot:.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_zheSHvsOg)

me am winrar :awesome_for_real:

oh shit the doo wop society

i could've made that vanguard guess

now i'm depressed

If you have any numbers at all from 2008 many people would be impressed!

My predictions are full of win. We need overall winners based on percentages or something.

While I remind you that you can't enter the contest anymore, I think with all the Conan fuss going on this is a good time to awake this hibernated (not dead) thread and see what some of us predicted about Conan (not to mention Warhammer, but more on that later) more than 15 months ago.

Nice. Can you update the WoW and PotBS actuals?

My winning percentage: 0.00%

The only way is up.

Uhm, Darniaq. Numbers are updated on December(s). 2007 for the first part of the contest, 2008 for the final one. By December 2008 I will need help finding those numbers by the way. As you may notice, I couldn't really announce w1nn4rz for games like Vanguard or LotRO because there weren't *official* figures.

But I guess this whole thing is much more about how we (not just we at f13) perceive the hype and how products live up by it, than about actual precise numbers. That's what I had in mind when I came up with this and that is why I thought it was a good idea to pull it up yesterday. To check what we thought about Conan 15 months ago and what it is going to deliver.

Game over man.



So...

What are we at?

Warhammer Online: 300-500k?
Age of Conan:       100k? (peaked at 400k)
Vanguard:              20-40k?
Lord of the Rings:   ? ? ?
Pirates of the Burning Sea: ? ? ?
World of Warcraft: 11M

What I find espeicially interesting is the number of older mmogs we didn't include, because they would so clearly have faded out by now. EVE, EQ2, CoH, even UO.


Simond and Trouble hit WoW on the nose.  :drill:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bets for December 2008:

Warhammer Online Angry.bob: 5 millions Shapechanger: 3,5 millions Datagod: 1,8 millions Modern Angel: 1,5 millions Darniaq: 1.5 millions Trouble: 1,5 millions Arthur Parker: 1 million Falconeer: 1 million Riggswolfe: 1 million Evangolis: 930k Simond: 750k Sairon: 700k Damijin: 650k Soln: 500k Comstar: 450k Eldaec: 350k Waylander: 350k HaemishM: 350k WindUpAtheist: 325k HRose: 300k Strazos: 236k Unsub: 190k Lantyssa: 175k Stray: 150k Xuri: 150k Cheddar: 45k

Age of Conan Sairon: 600k Trouble: 600k Modern Angel: 500k Riggswolfe: 400k Shapechanger: 350k Soln: 350k Darniaq: 300k WindUpAtheist: 300k Xuri: 300k HRose: 250k Evangolis: 240k Falconeer: 200k Simond: 200k HaemishM: 200k Lantyssa: 175k Stray: 150k Damijin: 150k Unsub: 150k Strazos: 111k Arthur Parker: 90k Datagod: 70k Eldaec: 40k Waylander: 40k Cheddar: 35k Comstar: - Angry.bob: -

Vanguard Falconeer: 300k Xuri: 250k Darniaq: 200k Soln: 200k Evangolis: 110k Damijin: 80k WindUpAtheist: 75k Lantyssa: 75k Datagod: 72k Modern Angel: 70k Shapechanger: 65k Arthur Parker: 60k Cheddar: 60k Stray: 60k Waylander: 60k Angry.bob: 60k Simond: 60k Comstar: 55k HRose: 50k Trouble: 50k Eldaec: 40k Sairon: 40k Unsub: 40k Strazos: 37k HaemishM: 30k Riggswolfe: 25k

LotRO Shapechanger: 550k Angry.bob: 500k Modern Angel: 400k Simond: 350k Trouble: 300k Evangolis: 250k Darniaq: 200k Lantyssa: 200k Xuri: 200k Falconeer: 150k Cheddar: 140k Strazos: 103k HRose: 100k Unsub: 100k Soln: 100k WindUpAtheist: 90k Sairon: 80k Waylander: 75k Eldaec: 50k Damijin: 50k HaemishM: 50k Stray: 40k Datagod: 35k Comstar: 30k Arthur Parker: - Riggswolfe: -

Pirates otBS Datagod: 800k Shapechanger: 350k Evangolis: 130k Comstar: 120k Strazos: 107k Darniaq: 100k Sairon: 100k Lantyssa: 100k Angry.bob: 80k Waylander: 75k Simond: 75k HaemishM: 75k Damijin: 70k Trouble: 70k Unsub: 65k WindUpAtheist: 40k Soln: 50k Xuri: 40k Modern Angel: 20k Falconeer: 20k Arthur Parker: - Cheddar: - Stray: - HRose: - Eldaec: - Riggswolfe: -

World of Warcraft Xuri: 15 millions Lantyssa: 13 millions Modern Angel: 12 millions Simond: 11 millions Trouble: 11 millions HRose: 10 millions Comstar: 10 millions Soln: 10 millions Cheddar: 9 millions Stray: 9 millions Eldaec: 9 millions WindUpAtheist: 9 millions Waylander: 9 millions Evangolis: 9 millions Riggswolfe: 8,5 millions Datagod: 8,3 millions Darniaq: 7 millions Damijin: 7 millions Sairon: 7 millions HaemishM: 7 millions Strazos: 6,2 millions Unsub: 6 millions Angry.bob: 5 millions Shapechanger: 4,5 millions Falconeer: 4 millions[/color] Arthur Parker: -

Betting ended on January 30th 2007 (Roughly 23 months ago).

I tried to sum it up. I don't have hard data and I don't really care about getting them. Feel free to quote respectable sources for more accurate figures.
Some of our predictions were so naive they are almost cute now. No big surprises out there though. Averages rule and things are exactly where they were in 2006 for the subscription based market. All in all, looks like predicting was pretty easy. Sometimes you wonder why we could accurately predict subscriptions for unreleased games, without even trying them, and the people making them couldn't despite the tools in their hands.
No winners though. No one ever wins when it comes to MMOs.

Oh, yeah. Looks like we were expecting a bit more by Warhammer Online. Heh, life!

If anything, this project tells me how slow the industry is moving, as for some reason I don't feel like it could be replicated now. I mean, let's pick 5 new titles for the next 2 years. What would you pick?
In 2006, when I started this, the 6 chosen ones were so obvious.

I'd be shocked if WAR was maintaining 500k...

Heh, good question. My picks would be:

• WoW, of course.
• EQ2, if we could get numbers.
• The Agency
• SW:TOR (assuming it launches in 2009 or 2010 of course)
• DF, because we included the fail of VG in the last one
• WAR, because.

Replace Darkfall with DC Online. Not because DC Online will fail, quite the latter, I think it can and may be a great success. But mostly because Darkfall, as I've said a thousand times, doesn't deserve the attention.

WAR isn't worth discussing. I'd rather gamble on Aion or Guild Wars 2. Particularly the latter, which should be in beta by the end of 09, if not the summer.

EQ2 is an interesting choice.

The only prediction necessary for WoW is wax or wane. Numbers don't even matter anymore. It's a matter of whether it'll hit critical mass in 08 or 09 - which depends on a number of things, like do Starcraft 2 and D3 come out in 09, if so, they've always got at least 1 game or expansion announced, as such, what's next.

Etc. ETc.

EVE should be included, not least since we might actually be playing the damn game.

WoW
EVE
WAR
ChampO
DC Online

Bonus predictions:

Darkfail : Release date
Name of one unreleased mmog other than one of the above that will be at 500k+ at the end of the year.

I also think you're overstating WAR subs.


Problem with SW:TOR is that it is too easy to predict, zero subs, not launched. DF has the same problem.

Good point on DC Online. That one slipped my mind but I agree it could be big. WAR I figured for the second year effect (turn-around/demise). I agree that as a topic we've discussed all there is to discuss about it. EQ2 because of the slow-and-steady factor. Similar to LoTRO, it's a fun game and a competent execution managed by a good team. They just don't really generate any headlines (aside from SOE's penchant for new business models) and doesn't have much to discuss/rant about. However, in a world without WoW, either one could be the current "King", in a much smaller genre.

My revised list:

    * WoW, of course.
    * EQ2, if we could get numbers.
    * The Agency
    * SW:TOR (assuming it launches in 2009 or 2010 of course)
    * WAR, because.
    * DC Online

ChampO will be interesting to watch particularly if it comes out any time around DC. I know why ChampO started, but I could see this one getting cancelled before launch unless the global economy swings back into bubble land.

I think your WAR numbers are too high.  I'll claim a 2/5 with that taken into consideration.  :drillf:

If we're doing 2009 and 2010, I still think it's a fallacy to not include Guild Wars 2 and Aion. Maybe even Battleforge is worth adding.

The thing was 100% about subscription based MMOs as they were the Present and Future in 2006.

Now things are looking different and different everyday, but would it be fair to have predictions based on a mix of subscription based ones and different business models? I take Guild Wars 2 will be as free as the first one, and not sure about The Agency but I wouldn't be surprised to find out they will abolish monthly fee. Free Realms and the recent EQ2 news point in that direction.
Still, the original idea was about unreleased products. And that's what we kinda lack: believable and upcoming unreleased MMOs. Changing the rules is cool too anyway.

Finally, WAR: what are their current numbers? I honestly don't know but combining NA and EU and the number of sold boxes I didn't feel comfortable going too low yet.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to limit it to subscription base-only MMOGs.

As the industry changes - for the better, imo - we need to also.

Edit:

No one knows and it will be a sub-zero day in hell before they ever release any real (and official) numbers.

My predictions for '09:

Star Trek Online and Stargate Worlds linger in development hell.

Whateverthefuck Superhero genre game has a better chance than STO or SGW, but dev hell threatens it also.

Guild Wars 2 comes out, and does at least as sucessful as the first Guild Wars.

World of Warcraft continues to dominate. We may see it finally start to peak around 12 million subscribers.

Star Wars: TOTOR has about a 50% chance of not being MMOGish at all. It might turn out more like Guild Wars than a shared persistant world. If released, it will do about as well as WAR. About 500-750k subs.

And.. within the next two years I see one of the original big three (Ascheron's Call, Ultima Online, Everquest) closing down.

Too hard to predict anything for DC, SW, Agency at this point since we know fuckall about either at this point. It's just darts-at-the-wall guessing.

WAR will announce numbers when they hit 1m subscribers. Which will never happen.

You need four different lists to do this right:

1. AAA Retail-/Steam-purchased with monthly fee (WoW, etc). I'd still include EQ2 here unless they drop the recurring fee.
2. AAA based on microtransactions (MapleStory, etc) or some other method of recurring fee collection (Guild Wars being theoretically based on expansion packs)
3. Browser-based MMOs (zOMG, Dofus, Club Penguin, etc) based on microtrans
4. Browser-based MMOs based on monthly fees.

This way we don't get into silly comparisons between zOMG and WoW. Just completely different games, audiences, and business models.

I don't think Aion is going to be a huge US hit. But should we break out the above list by region? In two years, we really may not give a shit because by then all of the big activity from Western developers could have headed East.

The list should certainly contain some NCsoft games because they (TR aside) do release player population numbers.

I find it really interesting reading that list as two years ago I had no interest in WAR at all, so I didn't think it would get that many players. If you'd asked me the month of the launch when I was somewhat interested, I would have sworn it would have easily broken 1 million players.

My only embarrassing call on that list was WoW, which I said would have half the player numbers it currently does. I must have only been thinking about non-Asian region players, yeah, that's it  :grin:

Okay - if you are going to include Aion, a decision has to be made about the location of those players. It's no good saying "Aion won't do well in the US" but including all the non-US players who play WoW in your numbers. Either you compare titles on a worldwide or on a regional basis, but not worldwide numbers for one and ignore a title based on one region. Apples with apples. And on that note: how about the MMOs coming out on consoles? Would you be taking in all player numbers, or splitting them PC and console? Because I think some of the planned multi-platform MMOs are going to sell better on consoles than they will on PCs.

ChampO is still allegedly due out in Q2 2009 and is impossible to rate without knowing if PC and Xbox 360 versions will launch at the same time. Darkfall is out in less than three weeks and I'd give it a good chance of having 90k players by December 2009.

I think we should use Jumpgate, AION, ChampO, SW:TOR, DC-O,WOW,WAR,LOTRO,Guild Wars2? and a bonus quest of when darkfail closes down.

Haven't you seen the Darkfall thread?  It's going to be AWESOME!

I don't know why that was in green. Some people actually think that.

True.  I am not among them. 

I think including Aion and Jumpgate is as wrong as including Darkfall.  Well, maybe "wrong" is not a good word.  Silly?  Useless?  Dumb?  I don't know - someone else think up a word.

I thought they have to release some form of numbers for WAR as part of the next EA quarter results.

Why Aion?  It's already a successful game overseas and reportedly is more of a western style game in terms of quests, level times and playability.

That's funny, I looked at Aion the other day and never even realized it was from ncsoft. I thought it was just another generic korean grinder.

I hope so.  That day will be delicious.

I didn't do too bad! Can't believe I thought Vanguard would still have players after X time though. I guess we hadn't learned about how big of a failure Sigil really was when we wrote those predictions.

I think Aion should be included based on the early reports from Asia of very enthusiastic beta, but I think Jumpgate and Darkfall are a little silly :)

WTH is The Agency? It rings a very muffled bell, but my antiquated synapses just aren't recalling any details.

Aion has released already and I read somewhere that it has a few 100k users already and growing.  I can't seem to find the numbers though.

I guess you can include the Agency since it is a SOE game.  I think it's going to suck anyway, so I can give a good guess.

SOE's free-to-play Spy vs. Spy game.

FTP and SOE reek of crappiness. Pass.

Let see.... Guild Wars 2 for the North America/ Europe crowd with a strong korean following. Aion for everyone who enjoyed lineage 1 and 2 plus maybe a million extra subs in Asia only.

FPS with PvE and PvP based on map objectives. Could be good, but it's been delayed a long time. For PC and PS3.

Microsoft makes Halo 4.

Allegedly launching this year is:

ChampO
Huxley
Chronicles of Spellborn
Star Trek Online
DC Universe Online
The Agency
Aion
Darkfall
Stargate Worlds
All Points Bulletin
Earthrise
Fallen Earth
Jumpgate: Evolution
Runes of Magic

and I'm going to ignore a number of F2Ps and titles that will probably launch but fall outside our usual purview (i.e. Hello Kitty Online, Battlefield Heroes).

Aion is important because it is NCsoft's grab at a success it desperately needs. STO and DCUO are big nerd IP launches. ChampO has a higher profile than a number of the titles on that list, but quite a few studios are taking a shot at success on titles that don't have well known IPs. Stargate may or may not launch at all.

PC and PS3 players shrug their indifference since it won't be launching for those platforms for quite a while.

I only really care about The Agency, APB, and DCUO, though I have a tepid curiosity for Fallen Earth.

DCUO intrigues me greatly.  Battlefield Heroes is shaping up, to me, to be a return to the simple roots of the franchise and a heck of a game- I think it will suck me in just like BF1942 did at launch (I've hated all the BF games since).

APB I still doubt actually exists, and the Agency looks like it has swallowed the instancing fad lock, stock and barrel.  When did all "MMO" developers suddenly decide that TF2-sized co-op/pvp counts as a real MMO?

Better developers decide that 16 v 16 is enough, than decide that it is ok to pretend the game includes large scale pvp, then have it slow to an unplayable crawl whenever you hit 30 v 30.

You know who you are.

APB exists. My agency had me up for some roles at Realtime.

Roles you didn't want.  :grin:

Roles you didn't want.  :grin:
[/quote]

Roles that never got as far as studio visits and interviews. I wasn't over keen on moving to Dundee either to be honest.

ChampO - COX with cell-shading and less interesting mythos - mediocre failure
Huxley - Planetside-esque fail with maybe more epic sauce
Chronicles of Spellborn - UGRINDKEKEKE
Star Trek Online - COX with Star Trek skins - I don't expect it to release in '09
DC Universe Online - To be cancelled
The Agency - To be cancelled
Aion - UGRINDKEKEKE
Darkfall - ROOFLES PWNED
Stargate Worlds - Will never release as Cheyenne will go tits up soon
All Points Bulletin - Indie, likely vaporware
Earthrise - Indie vaporware
Fallen Earth - Indie, likely too much blue sky
Jumpgate: Evolution - NetDevil - amirite?
Runes of Magic - UGRINDKEKEKEKE

Seriously, this year looks like epic fail time for MMOG's. So same as it ever was.

lol

What Haemish said.  To the tee.

We will also see drama and jeopardy for SWTOR and WAR as EA is merged/sold-off.  With WAR and/or DAoC being shuttered or at least threatened.  Watch SOE similarly kill off a few of their catalog.

With the possible exception of The Agency and JG:E, I think I'd rather hit my best friend in the nuts with bat and tell him his kids are ugly than play any one of those.

Isn't Blizzard doing a WoW expansion in '09?  Furiousness of the Skeleton Emperor or something?  Or are they pushing that to aught-10 now?

So far it's been one every two years.  They've said on record that their goal is one per year.  I'd like to say they failed... but then I see the sub numbers and the fact that I have to wait 90minutes just to get on my server at 9pm at night. 

Everyone wants to fail like Blizzard. 

WoW is a phenomenon that continues to amaze and astound me. 

Agree.  I don't see that happening unless the whole company goes under.    After all, the D.C. Universe is a can't-miss IP guaranteed to draw millions.

DCUO has got all the comic book nerds very excited because it sounds great. Apart from some griping that certain character selections will stop you from using certain costume parts, I haven't seen much criticism. But the tricky part is "sounds". SOE has focused its entire pre-launch info on "We've got Jim Lee doing the art!" which no-one should care about past the the first screenshot or first time they see it animated in 3D (and when also in reality it is Jim Lee's studio, Wildstorm, that is doing the art for it, not Jim Lee himself). A lot more info is needed about DCUO and I think that as soon as it comes and starts to describe the game it is going to turn a lot of players off - I'm expecting very heavy instancing and a world that isn't as big as is being made out.

For ChampO no-one cares about the mythos. What will make or break that title is the ability to have fun in an action title where you get to build your character. If it doesn't have that, then it will flop.

A lot of the other titles I listed will probably either 1) drop to 2010 (Earthrise, STO, APB, DCUO are all possibilities) and / or 2) disappear into vapour (Stargate). It's also going to get a lot harder for independent studios to find investors at this point, which will see some of those indie studios going under.

EDIT: Because it's relevant to the conversation, the Vault has a list up of MMOs for 2009 (http://vault.ign.com/View.php?view=editorials.detail&id=169) as well. Gatheryn got me all excited... then I went to look at its official site. No way it launches in Q2 2009 if they only signed up the HeroEngine in December 2008. But that seems to be their intended plan. So long, steampunk MMO.

The only new MMO worth even remotely paying attention to, is Guild Wars 2.

Even Guild Wars 2 has a 50/50 shot of the devs missing why Guild Wars was fun to begin with and fucking it all up.



The only other would be Blizzards mystery MMO due to be released in 2056 or whatever.


/Nostradamus

It's possible, but I really like what they've done with Guild Wars.  I think they have a better shot than most teams for a second MMO.

I'll certainly take a look at GW2.

Does Square Enix have a new MMO planned? I'm confused if they've announced another one or not.

Probably. But not really. They have no real clue what they're doing and the japanese are far too traditional for something crazy to happen. I'm more interested in whether or not Level 5 is going to really expand on what they've done with the White Knight Chronicles online stuff.

I wouldnt doubt if a game like BattleForge nets more profit than most of the games on that list.  EA/Phenomic might not sell as many initial boxes or have as many subs... but when it comes to money they've got a good gameplan.
Otherwise, I'm throwing my hat in for Jumpgate and Aion.  Definitely for Aion, and I dont even like high fantasy or anime; let's face it, they killed TR basically to prop up Aion... so it better well frakkin succeed.
If JG can hold onto the EVE burnouts with enough content then it'll be a success as well IMO.   The rest of em?  pfft  The dork in me wishes well on Cryptic for ChampO and STO, but I just dont see them making BOTH those products with any kind of real depth/quality, and we all know STO aint comin out this year anyways.

wtf happened to Black Prophecy?

I filled out a closed beta app for Black Prophecy a while back, but that's all I know.

I'd be willing to bet that the AION grind is just as painful as the WAR grind but not L2 grind.

Only the WAR grind looks like freeze-dried ass compared to the graphical/stylistic goodness that is/will be Aion.  It's one thing to grind while your eyes are bleeding... it's another to grind while feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.
http://www.aiononline.com/us/media/video/video.html

And obviously, Aion has the benefit of grinding in 3-dimensions  :)   Philosophically: does that make it LESS or MORE of a grind?  hmmmm

Holy shit, did I just see someone using a Snake Sword as a weapon?

Aion LOOKS impressive but no idea how it'll play. It seems like there was so much over the top shit going on there that it made it hard to know whether it'll work.

Every year Ncsoft has been trying to beat WoW. Maybe this year was Aion they can do it...in Asia. Question is will it do well here, which I can say no, but korean gaming is only stigma when your talking about games other than lineage 2. Even than its only considered a bad thing if your game is made from korea if the game is p2p. Its a big flashy anime trailer turned game, ultimately I think its lineage 2 with 30% less grind.

NCSoft really isn't trying to beat WoW with Aion. It's not built for that.

Blade & Soul however? For sure. You don't hire Hyung Tae-Kim and not want every Korean to snap it up like it's a furby.

Aion is/was supposed to be more suited for Western gaming than most Korean exploits; NCSoft's grand experiment to try and destroy the Korean-gaming stigmas... so they SAY.  Less grind, more lore and quest linkage, etc.  It did win best game of 2008 in Korea right? Which I assume is no small feat.

Dont we have any Koreans in f13?  The game's been out for 2 months over there; you'd think we could get an impression from SOMEONE.  Start a thread or SOMETHING, dang...

I thought Xerapis was in Korea.  He doesn't speak the language fluently, however, and has a raging wow addiction.

I'd say we tap his boyfriend then, but he's even more into Warcraft.

Winning best game in Korea really isn't a huge feat. You'd be surprised how few games come out of there considering Japan is a stone's throw away (RELATIVELY SPEAKING). Console development is almost non-existant other than the few oddities like DJ Portable Max from Pentavision and PC development is largely trash.

There are, of course, good reasons for that. And its the whole point why Korea is practically immune to Japan's console-philia too.

WAR at 300k subs, end of quarter 2008 (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=16052.0).

(http://moogie.info/football/nfl/ref/085Hochuli98.jpg)





After reviewing the play, the call is reversed: HRose wins!

Fitting :awesome_for_real:

That made me laugh a lot.  :drill:

Free HRose!  :grin:

I still think my number is closer, and perhaps too high, since 3-6 month subs are still included.

Wait what? Do you really want me to wear my "Free Geldon!" pin again?