Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 29, 2024, 08:02:00 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
we're back, baby
*
Home Help Search Login Register
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Lord of the Rings Online  |  Topic: 7 day Free Trial 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Pages: [1] 2 Go Down Print
Author Topic: 7 day Free Trial  (Read 16080 times)
Nyght
Terracotta Army
Posts: 538


on: August 29, 2007, 06:43:06 PM

Press Release


"4 million characters calling Middle-earth their home". Heh, parse that one.

"Do you know who is in charge here?" -- "Yep."
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612


Reply #1 on: August 29, 2007, 07:24:19 PM

I like how their claim of being the second largest MMORPG is actually clarified in a footnote that they don't even include a reference to in the oirignal sentence.. I also like how they claim an "estimated" 4 million characters, as if their systems are so poor they can't actually get an accurate count (they meant to say "approximately").
BigBlack
Terracotta Army
Posts: 179


Reply #2 on: August 29, 2007, 09:55:25 PM

I like how the footnote makes it meaningless. Beyond the silly "Made in North America" distinction, "based on reported data" means they're competing with... City of Heroes?  Who else really reports?
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612


Reply #3 on: August 29, 2007, 11:25:30 PM

Blizzard.
Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536


Reply #4 on: August 30, 2007, 11:40:05 AM

I like how their claim of being the second largest MMORPG is actually clarified in a footnote that they don't even include a reference to in the oirignal sentence.. I also like how they claim an "estimated" 4 million characters, as if their systems are so poor they can't actually get an accurate count (they meant to say "approximately").

So I read 4 million characters and that really could be any number of actual subscribers. But sounds like you are referring to "Comparison data includes subscription-based MMORPG titles developed in North America based on reported data." Does that mean (in your opinion or in fact) that they are comparing their accountbase to just the NA portion of WoW's accountbase (and probably everything else from MMOGchart  cheesy )
Nyght
Terracotta Army
Posts: 538


Reply #5 on: August 30, 2007, 11:53:58 AM

The way I read it is: Blizzard has been throwing around the numbers. Clearly they are #1.

Nobody else is saying anything officially so therefore we can say almost anything and claim #2. At least until someone else publishes an official number.

Kind of sub number throw down. I be delighted to see other companies take up the challenge.


"Do you know who is in charge here?" -- "Yep."
Nevermore
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4740


Reply #6 on: August 30, 2007, 12:35:06 PM

I'm sure if Cryptic were to engage in the same type of legerdemain they could easily claim well over 4 million characters in CoX as well, and it hovers at around 150k subs.

Over and out.
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612


Reply #7 on: August 30, 2007, 05:00:12 PM

I like how their claim of being the second largest MMORPG is actually clarified in a footnote that they don't even include a reference to in the oirignal sentence.. I also like how they claim an "estimated" 4 million characters, as if their systems are so poor they can't actually get an accurate count (they meant to say "approximately").

So I read 4 million characters and that really could be any number of actual subscribers. But sounds like you are referring to "Comparison data includes subscription-based MMORPG titles developed in North America based on reported data." Does that mean (in your opinion or in fact) that they are comparing their accountbase to just the NA portion of WoW's accountbase (and probably everything else from MMOGchart  cheesy )
No they are comparing their worldwide numbers, not just NA. I.e. they claim that of those subscription-based MMORPGs that are:

1) developed in the US
2) actually report subscription numbers (not including themselves so of course there's no way to verify their claim)

they are the second largest worldwide.

Because they and SOE don't actually publish their numbers we have no way of verifying if in fact they are larger than EQ II so for all we know they could be at like 175K subs which would make them larger than CoH/CoV but potentially smaller than EQ II if it was at 200K and their claim would still be true. In fact SOE could make the exact same claim as Turbine with regards to EQ II and assuming EQ II was larger than CoH/CoV both games would be the "second largest", even if EQ II was smaller than LOTRO which shows how stupid Turbine's claim really is.

Lightstalker
Terracotta Army
Posts: 306


Reply #8 on: August 31, 2007, 02:34:34 AM

I like how their claim of being the second largest MMORPG is actually clarified in a footnote that they don't even include a reference to in the oirignal sentence.. I also like how they claim an "estimated" 4 million characters, as if their systems are so poor they can't actually get an accurate count (they meant to say "approximately").


Approximately may be a better adjective, but we don't know how they got that number.  In fact, "estimated" may be more reasonable if instead of counting the ever changing population of characters by dumping the character tables for all 11 servers (or for every account depending on how they've stored the data) they sampled a few accounts, worked out an average # of characters per account and then multiplied that average by their number of subs.  Would be a way to obfuscate the subs number while not actually having to count every character - and make the adjective estimate the most accurate for how they determined the number.  :P

Anyway, LotRO accounts support from 1 to 55 characters meaning this estimated 4M character count corresponds to a range from 73k subs to 4M subs with both boundaries being somewhat unreasonable.  I had 6 characters on my account and I may not be that uncommon, though filling a single server may be a more likely scenario (I've only ever logged into 2 servers in LotRO, for reference in WoW I have 12 characters on 6 of like 200 realms - and some of those are just to hold a name-lock on the server; WoW could put up a 100M character number by providing both more servers and more characters per server-account, but I digress). 

4/account -> 1M
5/account -> 800k (1 full server per account)
6/account -> 666k
7/account -> 571k
15/account -> 266k  (3 full servers per account)
20/account -> 200k (4 full servers per account)
25/account -> 160k (5 full servers per account)

I haven't crawled their data, but I don't see filling 3 servers with characters as being an average behavior, much less five or more servers worth of characters.

From this back of the envelope doodling, their 4M character claim would appear to situate them comfortably in #2 for total subs so long as we're looking at things like WoW and Eq2. 
YMMV.
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612


Reply #9 on: August 31, 2007, 03:41:29 AM

Approximately may be a better adjective, but we don't know how they got that number.  In fact, "estimated" may be more reasonable if instead of counting the ever changing population of characters by dumping the character tables for all 11 servers (or for every account depending on how they've stored the data) they sampled a few accounts, worked out an average # of characters per account and then multiplied that average by their number of subs.  Would be a way to obfuscate the subs number while not actually having to count every character - and make the adjective estimate the most accurate for how they determined the number.  :P
It's trivial to count up the number of characters in the database. As in:

SELECT count(*)
FROM characters


It's slightly less trivial to count up the characters for active accounts:

SELECT count(*)
FROM accounts, characters
WHERE accounts.account_id = characters.account_id AND
accounts.status = 'active'

(you can throw in some additional date stuff for cancelled but still active accounts if you really want to).

Anyway, LotRO accounts support from 1 to 55 characters meaning this estimated 4M character count corresponds to a range from 73k subs to 4M subs with both boundaries being somewhat unreasonable.  I had 6 characters on my account and I may not be that uncommon, though filling a single server may be a more likely scenario (I've only ever logged into 2 servers in LotRO, for reference in WoW I have 12 characters on 6 of like 200 realms - and some of those are just to hold a name-lock on the server; WoW could put up a 100M character number by providing both more servers and more characters per server-account, but I digress). 

4/account -> 1M
5/account -> 800k (1 full server per account)
6/account -> 666k
7/account -> 571k
15/account -> 266k  (3 full servers per account)
20/account -> 200k (4 full servers per account)
25/account -> 160k (5 full servers per account)

I haven't crawled their data, but I don't see filling 3 servers with characters as being an average behavior, much less five or more servers worth of characters.

From this back of the envelope doodling, their 4M character claim would appear to situate them comfortably in #2 for total subs so long as we're looking at things like WoW and Eq2. 
YMMV.

First, you are assuming that the characters they are counting are from active accounts. Given how weaselly their other claims are that's a highly suspect assumption. Second, 500K subscribers is a notable milestone, even in this day and age, and it would be strange not to make an announcement about it. Third, Codemasters in July announced on BBC that they had over 100K subscribers, and NPD estimated US box sales through June at 172K (note that NPD undercounts total sales cause they don't count pure mail order retailers and the like). Assuming the game is continuing to grow and assuming everybody that bought a copy in the US is still playing that would put them at around 350K or so.

That still does put them above current estimates of EQ II but that doesn't eliminate the fact that they are making a claim about their subscription numbers without saying what they actually are. Like I said above SOE could make the exact same claim about EQ II, assuming it had greater than 150K "active accounts", and they would correct as well. So you would have two MMORPGs that could rightfully claim to be the second largest NA-developed MMORPG using Turbine's weaselly counting methodology.
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612


Reply #10 on: August 31, 2007, 03:53:21 AM

Just to clarify where I'm coming from Turbine claimed when DDO was released that it was the "fastest growing MMOG in North America" which technically was correct because starting at 0 subscribers, even one subscriber would give them infinite growth. But any MMORPG released could make that same claim which shows how pathetic their PR is. I see their claim about being the second largest MMORPG while not reporting their sub numbers as being slightly less pathetic as their DDO claim but still pathetic nonetheless.
Nyght
Terracotta Army
Posts: 538


Reply #11 on: August 31, 2007, 08:02:40 AM

Ya know most that have been around a while kinda use the standard calcs Raph has enlightened us with over the years. It might go something like this.

2000 uniques peak per server * 5 (rule of thumb peak to active) = 10k per server

22 servers * 10k = 220k

Seems more likely eh? Round a 'bouts 200k.

Interesting enough here is a May Interview with Turbine CEO  Jeff Anderson in which he states "we have maybe over 10,000 people per world".

So, Trippy's point still stands. They can claim #2 because nobody else publishes their numbers.

Maybe they is, maybe they ain't, really number 2. I Heart marketing folks.

"Do you know who is in charge here?" -- "Yep."
Joey
Terracotta Army
Posts: 56


WWW
Reply #12 on: August 31, 2007, 01:53:39 PM

I'm about 4 hours into the game at this point, and my interest is going down FAST.  I suspect that I'll be uninstalling it very soon.

I guess if I hadn't gotten so terribly sick of WoW I'd be enjoying LotRO more, but as it is, it just feels like more of the same ol' thing.

cmlancas
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2511


Reply #13 on: September 01, 2007, 04:06:42 AM

Well, it is. You knew that when you installed. Deeds are fun though.

f13 Street Cred of the week:
I can't promise anything other than trauma and tragedy. -- schild
Hound
Terracotta Army
Posts: 162


Reply #14 on: September 02, 2007, 09:06:40 AM

I'm about 4 hours into the game at this point, and my interest is going down FAST.  I suspect that I'll be uninstalling it very soon.

I guess if I hadn't gotten so terribly sick of WoW I'd be enjoying LotRO more, but as it is, it just feels like more of the same ol' thing.

NewsflASH- All these games are the same old shit in different wrappers. I figured out a long time ago that the only reason to play a  MMORPG is for the social interaction. Other than that they are simply time sinks, and played in solo style they are about as much of a challenge mentally as watching the home shopping network. I enjoy LoTRO, it is polished and keeps me busy while chatting with my online friends. That's about all I expect from this genre.


Given the number of failures we've seen in MMORPGs, designers need to learn it's hard enough just to make a fun game without getting distracted by unnecessary drivel.
Phred
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2025


Reply #15 on: September 02, 2007, 11:35:22 AM

It's kind of odd to see them introduce a reputation system as grindy as anything in WoW release when WoW itself has made such great improvements in their rep systems.

Hound
Terracotta Army
Posts: 162


Reply #16 on: September 02, 2007, 02:37:15 PM

It's kind of odd to see them introduce a reputation system as grindy as anything in WoW release when WoW itself has made such great improvements in their rep systems.



from the dev discussions the rep system is for one purpose only, to allow people who prefer to solo access to equal level gear that can be obtained by raiders. Pick your time sink, raiding or grinding mobs solo.

Given the number of failures we've seen in MMORPGs, designers need to learn it's hard enough just to make a fun game without getting distracted by unnecessary drivel.
Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536


Reply #17 on: September 02, 2007, 05:13:51 PM

Which, too, was the same reason for WoW's for the most part :)
Numtini
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7675


Reply #18 on: September 03, 2007, 07:27:19 AM

On the number of characters, did they even get rid of the beta characters? I was camping "Kathy" on Landroval and it was the same low level I think it was a 4th burglar two months after release when I quit that it was when I first joined in early open beta. All appearances were that the character was someone who tried open beta for a day and left.

As always, anyone in the game can do a prime time character count and get some good population estimates.

If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
Tannhauser
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4436


Reply #19 on: September 03, 2007, 07:53:03 AM

Well they have one less sub now.  Solo quests should not require you fighting three mobs AND an elite.  Solo quests should ease off on the respawn timer so you don't have to fight your next mob and the one that just respawned behind you.

And don't say group up, my server is like a ghost town when I play.

Make solo quests soloable!

Oh, and I guess about 100k active subs.
Nyght
Terracotta Army
Posts: 538


Reply #20 on: September 03, 2007, 08:18:06 AM

Oh, and I guess about 100k active subs.

Wow, 100k? Its been two months since I've played and I thought I was being generous with the 2k peak.

As Numtini suggests, be nice if some one did some zone counts.

"Do you know who is in charge here?" -- "Yep."
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612


Reply #21 on: September 03, 2007, 08:22:42 AM

No, 100K is too low. They have to be at least above CoH/CoV.

Phred
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2025


Reply #22 on: September 03, 2007, 08:51:08 AM

They might have been at 200k at release. Now, who knows.

Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612


Reply #23 on: September 03, 2007, 09:00:49 AM

The PR is dated August 29, 2007.
Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536


Reply #24 on: September 03, 2007, 10:15:56 AM

IF you mean the "second largest" with their "4 million characters", I thought we were still debating that :)

As to doing zone counts, it's not that easy. Many players put themselves on anonymous because of the incessant gold spamming. Putting oneself on anonymous normally means not showing people your level, class and race. In LoTRO, it also means you are discounted from the /who count. It makes guesstimations here that much more difficult.
Nyght
Terracotta Army
Posts: 538


Reply #25 on: September 03, 2007, 12:22:21 PM

IF you mean the "second largest" with their "4 million characters", I thought we were still debating that :)

As to doing zone counts, it's not that easy. Many players put themselves on anonymous because of the incessant gold spamming. Putting oneself on anonymous normally means not showing people your level, class and race. In LoTRO, it also means you are discounted from the /who count. It makes guesstimations here that much more difficult.

So if I am reading you correctly, you are saying they are claiming on the basis of characters created?

Heh, that is even more funny then on published counts if true.

Why not claim #1 then? Has Wow ever stated character numbers?

"Do you know who is in charge here?" -- "Yep."
Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536


Reply #26 on: September 03, 2007, 01:28:56 PM

Yes, I think they meant "characters". This sort of press release needs to be carefully worded. If they could have bragged about active paying/lifetime accounts, they would have. Instead, they chose "4 million characters calling Middle-earth their home". You said it perfectly earlier, "Nobody else is saying anything officially". And I've never personally seen a game brag about the number of individual character avatars they have in a game (though I think SWG made an oblique reference to it once)*. It's sort of a wierd basis of comparison.

And I don't think they could have claimed #1 even then because the 9 million+ paying accounts for WoW sorta imply at least 90% of them have at least one character :)

* Legal disclaimer: This is not to say no game has ever done it, I just have never read it
SnakeCharmer
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3807


Reply #27 on: September 03, 2007, 04:23:11 PM

So, I'm going to take advantage of the free trial and give it a go, despite my hatred for elves and gnomes and the fact that there is no true PvP.

Anyhoot.  I've got a fairly high end computer (AMD 5200+ dual core, EVGA 7950GT KO, 2 gb of DDR2 RAM, yadda yadda yadda) and a nice digital widescreen hi def monitor.  That being the case, I'm downloading the hi res version. 

Questions...
Is there a seperation of players who have the standard vs hi res or are they all on the same servers? 
Anyone else doing the trial?
Anyone still playing, and if so, what server?
Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536


Reply #28 on: September 03, 2007, 05:09:01 PM

Is there a seperation of players who have the standard vs hi res or are they all on the same servers? 

Not that I've seen. The difference in my opinion isn't so pronounced that players would segregate themselves in some way nor that Turbine would see the need to. I played LoTRO in beta on a five year old computer and after Live on a brand new dual core blah blah rig. I didn't see much to make me go wow different.
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23612


Reply #29 on: September 03, 2007, 05:15:01 PM

IF you mean the "second largest" with their "4 million characters", I thought we were still debating that :)

As to doing zone counts, it's not that easy. Many players put themselves on anonymous because of the incessant gold spamming. Putting oneself on anonymous normally means not showing people your level, class and race. In LoTRO, it also means you are discounted from the /who count. It makes guesstimations here that much more difficult.

So if I am reading you correctly, you are saying they are claiming on the basis of characters created?

Heh, that is even more funny then on published counts if true.

Why not claim #1 then? Has Wow ever stated character numbers?
No we're not debating this. Blizzard does not publish character creation numbers and neither does NCsoft for CoH/CoV (which could easily have exceeded 4 million characters created by now since the game is basically City of Alts) so by Turbine's twisted methodology they would be #1.
Phred
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2025


Reply #30 on: September 04, 2007, 01:24:45 AM



No we're not debating this. Blizzard does not publish character creation numbers and neither does NCsoft for CoH/CoV (which could easily have exceeded 4 million characters created by now since the game is basically City of Alts) so by Turbine's twisted methodology they would be #1.


The whole thing smells to me like them being desperate to put out some good press at this point. Growth must have fallen off earlier than they expected.
Slayerik
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4868

Victim: Sirius Maximus


Reply #31 on: September 05, 2007, 07:25:39 AM

Like I had been claiming for a while, the game just died on me after a month. Its a strange phenomenon.

I believe they are counting characters cause even all the inactive accounts (like the 10 at least that I know of that started and quit after a month) would still count as characters in middle Earth. Thats how bad retention is for them right now.
« Last Edit: September 05, 2007, 02:31:11 PM by Slayerik »

"I have more qualifications than Jesus and earn more than this whole board put together.  My ego is huge and my modesty non-existant." -Ironwood
pxib
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4701


Reply #32 on: September 05, 2007, 12:06:41 PM

Turbine made a charming, evocative game in a beautiful, well-rendered setting that people love.

They just forgot to make it fun to actually play.

if at last you do succeed, never try again
Phred
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2025


Reply #33 on: September 05, 2007, 02:32:27 PM

Turbine made a charming, evocative game in a beautiful, well-rendered setting that people love.

They just forgot to make it fun to actually play.

Even worse they seem to actively be chasing down what little fun slipped through and patching it out.

Cheddar
I like pink
Posts: 4987

Noob Sauce


Reply #34 on: September 05, 2007, 05:17:26 PM

This game is perfect for me, I am buying the box tomorrow.

In my defense, I played it a looooot during beta.  This is pretty much the only mmo I have played this year.  Unfortunetely, IRL is all taken up, so I do not have as much time to catass and burn out like I used to.

One thing I do not like- I wish there was a depository of info so I can understand some of the goddamn game mechanics.  WTF is battle ready state with a captain?

No Nerf, but I put a link to this very thread and I said that you all can guarantee for my purity. I even mentioned your case, and see if they can take a look at your lawn from a Michigan perspective.
Pages: [1] 2 Go Up Print 
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Lord of the Rings Online  |  Topic: 7 day Free Trial  
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.10 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC