LOTRO TAXI to victory lasted two weeks

[HRose]

Top-Selling Software, Week of May 13th - May 19th, 2007:

    1) World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack - Vivendi
    2) World Of Warcraft - Vivendi
    3) Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars - Electronic Arts
    4) Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows Of Angmar - Midway

When the first reports about unit sales started to arrive I hold off from commenting exactly because I was expecting this. Two years and half on top of the charts, LOTRO comes out, steals the first place for two weeks, and everyone thinks it's the next big thing. Now the situation is back to normality and I expect LOTRO sales to continue to fall after the opening burst.

In June WoW will still sit there, and LOTRO out of the chart.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

[hal]

The grouping mechanic is perceived as broken. In that quest experience gives much more the mob killing experience. Now I do not believe that this is true. But the community perceives that it is true and will not group unless that is there quest of the moment. This is the death blow to this game. A very well crafted pretty game but it will suffer retention loses as grouping is essentantaly broken for PUG's

[Numtini]

And I've been watching the populations with the social window, they're heading downward.

[HRose]

And I've been watching the populations with the social window, they're heading downward.

Are they showing the number of players on a server through that? Or it's just a zone-restricted thing?

[Nebu]

And I've been watching the populations with the social window, they're heading downward.

Does this even surprise anyone?  I mean really? 

It's a mediocre game in a well-crafted world.  The novelty of the whole lore thing will only last so long without a solid game backing it.  I bet the WoW defectors are already asking themselves why they left to play a similar game. 

[Numtini]

Are they showing the number of players on a server through that? Or it's just a zone-restricted thing?

You can filter for almost anything. Getting a full count is a painful process of separating out chunks of less than 100 players. So you set for all zones, and one class from 1-20 that's 80, then 21-30 that's 50, and so on.

I guess it doesn't show anon or monster play people, but honestly, that's not a lot.

Nebu's about right. I had fun for a little over a month, but honestly, it's a 2002 game (specifically AC2) with some 2004 patches (skeletal AH, quest driven, better LFG tool) in a 2007 world. I go from there to EQ2 and it's like one generation to the next--except in reverse order of release. The world just drew me in, but after a while the little bits I've come to expect wore me down.

[Righ]

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Thats because you are lazy good-for-nothings. The Amish could have built it in a day. While talking to their pals using their cell phones.

[Strazos]

Seriously, Maybe if your country didn't shut down for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, you'd get some shit done.

[Signe]

Those Amish people make me SO mad.

[FatuousTwat]

One of these days I'm gonna take one of those foppish hats that wear and stomp on it! Damn Luddites.

[Nebu]

This sure went south in a hurry.

[Falconeer]

Victory?
Can't remember anyone talking about victory.

Lord of the Rings Online

Dicember 2007

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: -

Dicember 2008


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: -

I said (recently, after posting my predictions) it will slowly grow and I still think that.
But neither I or anyone else IIRC ever said "victory".
In all honesty and looking at the above charts, I think my figures were too conservative and if I could change it now, I'd go with something like Simond's predictions (500k - 400k), maybe slightly more. Besides that, I am starting to think that LotRO will have significatly different retention rates in NA and Europe, I am pretty curious about that.

If you think LotRO just lost the taxi to victory, it means you are the only one deluded enough to think the taxi could drive it succesfully to Avenue de Burning Crusade while passing through WoW Street and Blizzard Craze Square.

[Der Helm]

Ok, one more analogy and I will start killing people.

[Phred]

The grouping mechanic is perceived as broken. In that quest experience gives much more the mob killing experience. Now I do not believe that this is true.

Do you play it? It's trivially easy to verify as the exp you receive per mob kill is spelled for you right in your chat window.

But the community perceives that it is true and will not group unless that is there quest of the moment. This is the death blow to this game. A very well crafted pretty game but it will suffer retention loses as grouping is essentially broken for PUG's

This is true, but not for the reasons you originally point out. Take a group of friends or guild mates of a similar level who get together to do some quests. Guaranteed the first half of your evening is going to be catching up people in the group to where the rest of the group is so you end up spending half your time not getting quest experience at all. The quest window doesn't display who has the same quests as you the way wow does and you can't shift click to put quest names in the chat window so it's annoying as hell trying to sort out who has what quests. They have taken quest chains to the ridiculous extreme that merely completing several of the initial quests you get in a quest hub is required to open up the offering of the other quests from other people.

[Arthur_Parker]

and everyone thinks it's the next big thing.

Fairly sure that was just me.  Not seen any reason to change my mind so far.

[HRose]

Victory?
Can't remember anyone talking about victory.

In fact those numbers you got are rather reasonable.

I wasn't referring to anyone here, but I remember that when I wrote Geldon-like on my site that LOTRO was going to be a "short-lived bubble" and enter retention mode two months after launch everyone jumped at my throat, including Dave Rickey and a quite large number of known bloggers.

The same I read on a number of other forums. Here we are pretty much all jaded.

[Phred]

The grouping mechanic is perceived as broken. In that quest experience gives much more the mob killing experience. Now I do not believe that this is true.

Do you play it? It's trivially easy to verify as the exp you receive per mob kill  and quest hand in is spelled for you right in your chat window. Besides, this mechanic actually makes grouping more attractive, as you can complete quests much easier at a higher level than you can soloing and everyone gets the same huge quest bonus. As well, quests give much less exp when lower level than WoW,
So soloing green quests is a huge lose.
But..

But the community perceives that it is true and will not group unless that is there quest of the moment. This is the death blow to this game. A very well crafted pretty game but it will suffer retention loses as grouping is essentially broken for PUG's

This is true, but not for the reasons you originally point out. Take a group of friends or guild mates of a similar level who get together to do some quests. Guaranteed the first half of your evening is going to be catching up people in the group to where the rest of the group is so you end up spending half your time not getting quest experience at all. The quest window doesn't display who has the same quests as you the way wow does and you can't shift click to put quest names in the chat window so it's annoying as hell trying to sort out who has what quests. They have taken quest chains to the ridiculous extreme that merely completing several of the initial quests you get in a quest hub is required to open up the offering of the other quests from other people.

[DataGod]

Id like to give them the benifit of the doubt and up my numbers to 60k and 45k respectively.

And yes, Im still right

[Hound]

So has there ever been a MMO that knocked WoW from #1 and stayed there for say... two weeks or a month?

[HRose]

So has there ever been a MMO that knocked WoW from #1 and stayed there for say... two weeks or a month?

Vanguard? DDO? Auto Assault? Archlord? Dark & Light?

We got just shit in the last couple of years.

[Mesozoic]

Do people really fret about the numbers like this?  Life is too short.

Besides, I don't remember there being a "this is the next big thing" response so much as a "hey, this game is actually pretty fun."  It's still fun. 

[CharlieMopps]

LOTRO is better than WoW. I've played both. I think the only big complaint you can have about the game is the end-game... and that will change with upcoming patches. I think anything negative about the game is basically mirrored in WOW. If you want a hardcore game, I'd recomend EQ2... if you want something less involved I'd recomend LOTRO.

My wife absolutely loves LOTRO

[damijin]

Id like to give them the benifit of the doubt and up my numbers to 60k and 45k respectively.

And yes, Im still right

I'm still happy with mine. Feels a lot safer to be down in the red than up there with the rest of the guesses!

[CmdrSlack]

Do people really fret about the numbers like this?  Life is too short.

Besides, I don't remember there being a "this is the next big thing" response so much as a "hey, this game is actually pretty fun."  It's still fun. 

Ditto.  Lotro is fun.  I could really care less about numbers.  My guess is that they sold enough lifetime subs to subsidize the game for quite a while.  As long as they have hit or are close to hitting ROI via box sales and lifetime subs, then the game can chug along regardless of numbers.

People's fascination with the potential of games to unseat WoW is astounding. 

[damijin]

People's fascination with the potential of games to unseat WoW is astounding. 

For games that people don't personally intend to play, it's the only metric that's entertaining in and of itself. Tired of diku? Sure. But it's still interesting when one diku out dikus the other diku at dikuity.

Still though, I don't think many people truly believe LoTRO was going to be the king of the particular castle.

(thats a metaphor, not an analogy... so it's ok, right Der Helm?)

[Nyght]

Victory?
Can't remember anyone talking about victory.

In fact those numbers you got are rather reasonable.

I wasn't referring to anyone here, but I remember that when I wrote Geldon-like on my site that LOTRO was going to be a "short-lived bubble" and enter retention mode two months after launch everyone jumped at my throat, including Dave Rickey and a quite large number of known bloggers.

The same I read on a number of other forums. Here we are pretty much all jaded.

So basically.. this is just another one of your 'I right!' posts? Yippie!

[Venkman]

"Which is more fun" is not the purpose of this thread :)

/fakemoderator off

Take a group of friends or guild mates of a similar level who get together to do some quests. Guaranteed the first half of your evening is going to be catching up people in the group to where the rest of the group is so you end up spending half your time not getting quest experience at all.

This is the core problem with multi-step quests. WoW has the same problem, but has less multi-step quests. EQ2 has more of a problem, closer to LoTRO. Basically, multi-steps are designed for a more dedicated group of friends who stick to playing together (D&D style), for momentary pickup groups, or for soloers. It's not for the casual group of friends who occasionally like to group for common goals.

I don't think it's the issue affecting LoTRO though. Rather, I think LoTRO is well-executed and fun, there's two core issues:

• The general UI is more muddy than WoW. There's a disconnect between triggering an action and that action actually happening. It's like the game is run by an overt pendulum. Most MMORPGs are in fact, but others, particularly CoX and WoW do a much better job of hiding this.
• A good percentage of LoTRO players came from WoW, and there's a good chance that was their first MMO. So not only is LoTRO their rebound game or just a raw curiousity, they're still probably feeling the pull of the friends and virtual goods they left behind. Add that to the superior polish of WoW in general (though different aesthetic), and it's not so hard to see the trend
  
  

I also don't think anyone is surprised. We didn't see LoTRO as replacing WoW. We didn't see it sustaining the #1 slot. We didn't see it hitting millions of accounts. But them, I doubt Turbine spent $80mil on it, and therefore can achieve "success" even without being #1.

#1 is a stupid rating for this genre. eGenesis makes profit. CCP makes profit. SOE makes profit. NC makes profit. None of their offered games are number one and yet nobody's crying in their pillow.

[CmdrSlack]

"Which is more fun" is not the purpose of this thread :)

/fakemoderator off

Take a group of friends or guild mates of a similar level who get together to do some quests. Guaranteed the first half of your evening is going to be catching up people in the group to where the rest of the group is so you end up spending half your time not getting quest experience at all.

This is the core problem with multi-step quests. WoW has the same problem, but has less multi-step quests. EQ2 has more of a problem, closer to LoTRO. Basically, multi-steps are designed for a more dedicated group of friends who stick to playing together (D&D style), for momentary pickup groups, or for soloers. It's not for the casual group of friends who occasionally like to group for common goals.

I don't think it's the issue affecting LoTRO though. Rather, I think LoTRO is well-executed and fun, there's two core issues:

• The general UI is more muddy than WoW. There's a disconnect between triggering an action and that action actually happening. It's like the game is run by an overt pendulum. Most MMORPGs are in fact, but others, particularly CoX and WoW do a much better job of hiding this.
• A good percentage of LoTRO players came from WoW, and there's a good chance that was their first MMO. So not only is LoTRO their rebound game or just a raw curiousity, they're still probably feeling the pull of the friends and virtual goods they left behind. Add that to the superior polish of WoW in general (though different aesthetic), and it's not so hard to see the trend
  
  

I also don't think anyone is surprised. We didn't see LoTRO as replacing WoW. We didn't see it sustaining the #1 slot. We didn't see it hitting millions of accounts. But them, I doubt Turbine spent $80mil on it, and therefore can achieve "success" even without being #1.

#1 is a stupid rating for this genre. eGenesis makes profit. CCP makes profit. SOE makes profit. NC makes profit. None of their offered games are number one and yet nobody's crying in their pillow.

Just because I haven't done it in a while:

SUB NUMBARS DON'T LIE@!112!@@!@!eleven!@!!!!!

 :-D

[Riggswolfe]

The grouping mechanic is perceived as broken. In that quest experience gives much more the mob killing experience. Now I do not believe that this is true. But the community perceives that it is true and will not group unless that is there quest of the moment. This is the death blow to this game. A very well crafted pretty game but it will suffer retention loses as grouping is essentantaly broken for PUG's

Uh...this is the exact same playstyle WOW has. You group for quests that are hard, then break up and solo afterwards. It hasn't hurt WOW's numbers at all.

As for declining population numbers, I don't know, I have had queues every week so far. The game isn't revolutionary, don't get me wrong. In alot of ways it is WOW in Middle Earth. I will say that so far the playerbase seems nicer and more mature than WOW's did.

The game's biggest strength and weakness are IMO the same thing: Deeds and titles. They are great fun, but also a grind and I suspect most people won't enjoy alts as much because of them.

Other than that, the game is fun. It won't be a WoW-killer but I don't care.

ETA: And I wonder if Blizzard sending out 10 day trials of Burning Crusade have affected anything? I got an email , and then I got an actual DVD in the mail from them.

ETA2: And knocking it for its faults that are mostly the result of polish isn't quite fair. For example, WOW didn't launch with the ability to see who all had the same quest you did if I recall correctly. That was patched in later. The game is more or less polished and hopefully they'll fix the few issues, like crafting, fairly quickly.

[Falconeer]

A few details about LotRO.

1) The dreaded (?) quest chains aren't all the burden some of you are trying to make them look. They are smarter than it seems, cause even in 5 or 6 stepped quests, there are usually (not always, but usually, like in most of the times) 75% of the steps that are solo. This meaning you have to do the first step solo, then the second as a group, then again the 3rd and 4th solo and the 5th or final as a group. It's a great system as the catchup part is usually doable by soloers, and it's supposed to be done that way. If you know yor friends are at step 5 and attempting step 6 later that night, you can login a couple of hours earlier and to the solo-catchup steps alone. I think it's a great way to mix up solo and group content/quests without cutting out anyone. You can always nitpick, but I think they made a great job with the quest chains.

2) (free) Huge updates are good, and apparently they are well aware of the end-game issue. The first patch sounds like a perfectly executed tackle at the problem. They are tweaking the UI in a good way too. This is the kind of early patch that I like.

3) As I said, I am really curious to see NA and EU numbers six months from now. I am under the impression that the Yuros are way more into it. I don't plan to argue non-existing numbers with anyone right now, but I can say that my server is packed to the point of explosion, and I still have to hear of anyone leaving after the first month. I am sure there are plenty, I still have to meet one though.

Finally, before anyone start babbling about fanboism everytime someone here doesn't despise a mmo: I am just killing time while waiting for Conan and Warhammer. I need some PvP. Now Conan, that game I could be a fanboi of. Could.

[Morat20]

Victory?
Can't remember anyone talking about victory.

In fact those numbers you got are rather reasonable.

I wasn't referring to anyone here, but I remember that when I wrote Geldon-like on my site that LOTRO was going to be a "short-lived bubble" and enter retention mode two months after launch everyone jumped at my throat, including Dave Rickey and a quite large number of known bloggers.

The same I read on a number of other forums. Here we are pretty much all jaded.

So, in essence, you came here to brag about how you were right elsewhere, in an argument with people who also aren't here.

So why are aren't you bragging there, to them?

[Nija]

The same I read on a number of other forums. Here we are pretty much all jaded.

Bloggers are fags.

[Merusk]

A few details about LotRO.

1) The dreaded (?) quest chains aren't all the burden some of you are trying to make them look. They are smarter than it seems, cause even in 5 or 6 stepped quests, there are usually (not always, but usually, like in most of the times) 75% of the steps that are solo. This meaning you have to do the first step solo, then the second as a group, then again the 3rd and 4th solo and the 5th or final as a group. It's a great system as the catchup part is usually doable by soloers, and it's supposed to be done that way. If you know yor friends are at step 5 and attempting step 6 later that night, you can login a couple of hours earlier and to the solo-catchup steps alone. I think it's a great way to mix up solo and group content/quests without cutting out anyone. You can always nitpick, but I think they made a great job with the quest chains.

Solo -> group -> solo -> solo ->group is bad design, imo.  It's what people are talking about when they say they have to 'catch up' their friends.  You might be completing the last portion of the quest, but your buddy got cock-blocked because he had to log the last play session and couldn't catch-up until you were online again.

  Having solo (x3) -> group (x2) provides you the same # of quests, but in a fashion that's more solo-friendly at the beginning AND gives the group more to do once it's formed.  It's a detail thing, but it's the details like that which matter.

[Valant]

This is known as the 'Vanguard Factor'. So much hype they believe in their own mediocrity. I refused to buy this trash from the beginning, as did most of my guild. A smart move, it seems.

[HRose]

#1 is a stupid rating for this genre. eGenesis makes profit. CCP makes profit. SOE makes profit. NC makes profit. None of their offered games are number one and yet nobody's crying in their pillow.

In fact what matters is the perspective of Turbine and Codemaster. Because their expectations were set that high.

And because the REST OF THE INDUSTRY is watching this in the hope to see the genre still flourish so that they can get more funds.

The discussion is: is this market growing, or it is just WoW growing? What are the expectations for a big-budget MMO right now?

This game is extremely important because it will point again the direction. WoW had a huge impact on the industry. Haven't you seen that the MMO genre is basically stuck at 3 years ago?