Mythic Employees Forced onto Waaaaaaaghbulance

[Venkman]

That's the market that really exists. The vocal forum warriors is the one we deserve 

In all seriousness, even the most popular official board is a probably little more than a single-digit percentage of the playerbase. And they're vocal. And usually vocal about something that makes them angry. Because people don't yell from the tops of mountains about how good things are doing. So with this vehicle of self-expression comes the expectation that someone is listening.

Smart companies know how to listen to the right things from that base. But then, smart companies usually employ the type of creatives that often don't need to listen to them 

[waffel]

One could blame EA for not seeing past the bullshit that Mark has undoubtedly been feeding them over the past few months. How many expensive dinners did Mark have with the EA brass where Mark has said "Shit bro, we'll turn this around. This kind of player drop totally expected, its how MMOs work, we're professionals"? How many months of cutting-block pardon did the "Two new classes and a new dungeon in a few months!" and the "We just released in Russia!" announcements give him?

I'm sure it doesn't matter. Only way Mark and Paul are going to be shown the door is if everyone else in the office is shown it before them. Trimming the fat off the offices was expected. To say EA and Mythic are banking on the Russia launch and the 1/29 announcement fluff to cauterize the wound is an understatement however. I think we all know how that is going to turn out.

[Delmania]

300k is enough to keep WAR afloat.  Despite the drastic downward spiral, I think it's enough to ensure MJ keeps his job steering Mythic into icebergs for a good long while. 

[waffel]

But is isn't at 300k. It was 300k sometime before the end of December and War sure as shit didn't gain any new players since then. As others have pointing out, Q1 is going to be very telling.

It seems some people are expecting the bleeding to stop, but I really don't see any reason for it to.

[Arthur_Parker]

Korea, Russia.

[ghost]

There have to be at least 30,000 idiots on WHA and VN boards alone.  That would be, like, 10%

[Delmania]

But is isn't at 300k. It was 300k sometime before the end of December and War sure as shit didn't gain any new players since then. As others have pointing out, Q1 is going to be very telling.

It seems some people are expecting the bleeding to stop, but I really don't see any reason for it to.

UO, DAoC?

[Yegolev]

Now? VanguardAutoAssaultTabulaRasaConanWarhammerHolyFuckingShit! Has ANYTHING been a success since WoW came out?

LotRO is making money, apparently.  Maybe some other shit I don't play, too.

[Fordel]

DaoC has pretty much bled to death at this point.


UO still has its absolutely crazy fuckers that wont leave till the power shuts off and roaches rule the world.

[LK]

Now? VanguardAutoAssaultTabulaRasaConanWarhammerHolyFuckingShit! Has ANYTHING been a success since WoW came out?

LotRO is making money, apparently.  Maybe some other shit I don't play, too.

Likely. Just not gobs and gobs and gobs of money that people associate with WoW. But enough to support the business and fund extra development and let people keep their jobs.

[Delmania]

Now? VanguardAutoAssaultTabulaRasaConanWarhammerHolyFuckingShit! Has ANYTHING been a success since WoW came out?

LotRO is making money, apparently.  Maybe some other shit I don't play, too.

Likely. Just not gobs and gobs and gobs of money that people associate with WoW. But enough to support the business and fund extra development and let people keep their jobs.

LoTRO is one of those games where the argument that a non WoW sized playerbase is a sign of success.  Meaning, the people who built it released a fairly clean product aimed at a niche market, and manage to get them.  They experienced the normal loss, but they retained enough to release an expansion that was very well done and has resulted in an increase in their playerbase size.....

Basically, LoTRO did what WAR should have done.

That being said:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21567

[ghost]

LOTRO appears to be growing, as well.  Seems the MOM expansion has done well. 

[Hawkbit]

LOTRO appears to be growing, as well.  Seems the MOM expansion has done well. 

Yeah, it has.  Three of the 11 servers have population issues from having too many people.  Only two are considered 'low' population.  It's a fun diku game.  As long as you know going into it that it's a B-rated WoW all is good.  Heck, I'm having fun with it which is more than I can say than any mmo released in 2008. 

[Mrbloodworth]

Now? VanguardAutoAssaultTabulaRasaConanWarhammerHolyFuckingShit! Has ANYTHING been a success since WoW came out?

LotRO is making money, apparently.  Maybe some other shit I don't play, too.

Likely. Just not gobs and gobs and gobs of money that people associate with WoW. But enough to support the business and fund extra development and let people keep their jobs.

And develop another game, and produce 4 new zones a year for free, and about as many new features.

Seriously, Turbine always gets over looked, and they do not care to correct anyone. They are about the only dev house other than blizzard that seems to know what the hell they are doing.

B-rated WoW

I strongly disagree, but that's another topic.

[ghost]

LOTRO appears to be growing, as well.  Seems the MOM expansion has done well. 

Yeah, it has.  Three of the 11 servers have population issues from having too many people.  Only two are considered 'low' population.  It's a fun diku game.  As long as you know going into it that it's a B-rated WoW all is good.  Heck, I'm having fun with it which is more than I can say than any mmo released in 2008. 

This game is so highly polished and well put together that to call it a B-rated WOW doesn't nearly do it justice.  The abilities are all well designed and every class is basically fun.  I personally think it is infinitely better than WOW already and it is getting better with time.  It probably won't ever get WOW numbers, but it will surely sustain over the long haul at this point.

[Arthur_Parker]

Link

jamesjlee asks: You announced 300,000 subs for War recently. It's a big drop from the 750,000 you originally announced, but was it expected?

Jeff Hickman: We are super proud of our subscription numbers. We expected a hit from our competitors launch and the economy is tough right now. But our subs are growing, especially as we see people return from "That Other Game" (tm).

jamesjlee asks: Do you think releasing a Russian version of the game will boost subscribership and, if so, how significant do you think it will be? And what about a Chinese/Asian version?

Jeff Hickman: We are really excited about all of our international opportunities. We think that Russian players will love WAR and have been really enthusiastic about the game. We launched last night and the servers are filling up fast!
Asia and other areas are very attractive to us and we have big plans for them. We will be in Korea and Taiwan shortly and are exploring all options for China.
....

Benno asks: There are widrespread reports of many servers appearing "empty" making leveling quite isolated and PQs impossible. Are there any plans to merge servers to consolidate the user base?

Destin Bales: We evaluate server population data on a daily basis and are committed to making any and every adjustment to make gameplay in WAR fun and compelling. Examples include previous access to free character moves, and the recent addition of Easy PQs. We'll continue to monitor and adjust as needed.
We recognize that WAR is a blast when you are surrounded by friends (and enemies!) so this is a focus for us each day.

[Lantyssa]

How much did LotRO cost to make compared with WAR's estimated "south of 100 million" budget, assuming the 300k WAR subscribers stays stable enough to say the two are comparable in size?

We might count LotRO a success, but they also had a lot less ground to make up before breaking even.

[Ard]

How much did LotRO cost to make compared with WAR's estimated "south of 100 million" budget, assuming the 300k WAR subscribers stays stable enough to say the two are comparable in size?

We might count LotRO a success, but they also had a lot less ground to make up before breaking even.

Well, also keep in mind, that Lotro also had a game engine that's already been through two major iterations (AC2/DDO) to reuse, as well as staff that's familiar in how to use it.  That likely let them jump almost straight to zone and class prototyping.  Turbine is proving they're fairly good at long tail development and code reuse, where Mythic pretty cleary isn't.  And by code reuse, I don't mean just simply reusing the engine and piling more shit that makes it run worse on top of it, but doing it in such a fashion that it's upgradable and fairly clean to work with.  But this is all speculation, the turbine engine codebase could be a house of cards for all I really know, but it doesn't feel like it.

[Tarami]

I don't think it has anything to do with engines or the individual employees' skills. Someone (possibly Darniaq, can't recall nor find a quote) once said that Blizzard has the process of making a game down. I think that's something that Turbine has picked up over the years aswell. The amount of misses in patches and expansions keeps being very small.

Let's say I don't extend this courtesy of faith to encompass Mythic.

[ghost]

Maybe I'm dense (highly likely  ) but how can your subscriptions be "growing" while dropping from 800K to 300K.  Maybe it's the new math.

[Ard]

I don't think it has anything to do with engines or the individual employees' skills. Someone (possibly Darniaq, can't recall nor find a quote) once said that Blizzard has the process of making a game down. I think that's something that Turbine has picked up over the years aswell. The amount of misses in patches and expansions keeps being very small.

Not disagreeing with you there.  This is really all part of that long development and maintenance pipeline.  Until you have an actually reusable set of code and tools, you can't ever get there, because your base for building everything off of isn't stable and well documented.  The other company that I know for sure had this pipeline down was ArenaNet, but they diverged from that plan into Guild Wars 2 land, and who knows how that's going to turn out.

[Hawkbit]

Yeah, I retract my B-rated WoW statement above.  It's a lot better than calling it that, but it's missing a little something that WoW has.  Maybe it's that the animations aren't quite as fluid, or the minor hitching/rubberbanding I get with it.  Dunno. 

But my statement was a tad harsh. 

[Tarami]

A good process compensates for a volatile development environment. It's about delivering in spite of the natural entropy and decay of year-long projects. That's why Blizzard can develop a game for five years without seemingly losing focus and just fudging the whole deal up. In Opposite Land, we got Duke Nukem Forever. It didn't reach the goal line in three or four years and now it'll never get there.

Also, it's not like WAR's engine is some kind some scratch-built monstrosity, it's based on the quite established Gamembryo engine.

That might have come off a little aggressive, which wasn't my intention. I just don't think Mythic has any techical excuses. It's just bad management.

Yeah, I retract my B-rated WoW statement above.  It's a lot better than calling it that, but it's missing a little something that WoW has.

As much as I like LotRO, it's a little more pretentious than WoW is. Well, quite a bit. That doesn't flow with everyone. Middle-earth is srs bssns.

[Venkman]

LoTRO is no more b-rate than current EQ2. They just can't one-up the elephant in the room enough to get a bigger percentage of WoW players. Most of this is in fact due to game design (LoTRO combat which continues to get better) and aesthetics (EQ2 is largely still uninspired), and that's the message that is passed by word of mouth at a time when a significant amount of MMOers are new to the genre and playing their first game. And complicating even THAT is WoW quality. We all couldn't wait to jump ship from EQ1 to ANYTHING that did that type of game better. But there IS no better than WoW. There is merely slightly different with fewer players.

300k is enough to keep WAR afloat.  

But that number is just the latest in a series of them that show double digit declines. They'd maybe be fine if they plateued here but I don't think anyone this is their plateau.

[Ard]

Also, it's not like WAR's engine is some kind some scratch-built monstrosity, it's based on the quite established

When I say engine, I'm refering to the client, the server, and the tools, all as one.  It's a bad misnomer on my part.  From what I remember reading from Lum, the Daoc source pretty much was a house of cards, but my memory might not be the best, and I'm too lazy to confirm it.

[Ingmar]

LoTRO is no more b-rate than current EQ2. They just can't one-up the elephant in the room enough to get a bigger percentage of WoW players. Most of this is in fact due to game design (LoTRO combat which continues to get better) and aesthetics (EQ2 is largely still uninspired), and that's the message that is passed by word of mouth at a time when a significant amount of MMOers are new to the genre and playing their first game. And complicating even THAT is WoW quality. We all couldn't wait to jump ship from EQ1 to ANYTHING that did that type of game better. But there IS no better than WoW. There is merely slightly different with fewer players.

300k is enough to keep WAR afloat.  

But that number is just the latest in a series of them that show double digit declines. They'd maybe be fine if they plateued here but I don't think anyone this is their plateau.

Isn't this the first subscriber number we've seen? I thought everything before was pre-orders and box sales and first-month-free stuff.

[Nija]

I don't think it has anything to do with engines or the individual employees' skills. Someone (possibly Darniaq, can't recall nor find a quote) once said that Blizzard has the process of making a game down. I think that's something that Turbine has picked up over the years aswell.

Can you explain what happened with AC2?

[Lum]

From what I remember reading from Lum, the Daoc source pretty much was a house of cards

Not sure where you got that from, since the server was a stable code base derived from a decade-old MUD and the client was largely middleware (Emergent/Gambryo/NetImmerse).

[Tarami]

Can you explain what happened with AC2?

Can I call sequel on that one?

[Hawkbit]

I don't think it has anything to do with engines or the individual employees' skills. Someone (possibly Darniaq, can't recall nor find a quote) once said that Blizzard has the process of making a game down. I think that's something that Turbine has picked up over the years aswell.

Can you explain what happened with AC2?

Is that history written somewhere?  I remember trying it right before they shut it down and I enjoyed it a bit.  The monthly content/story is missing from current mmos.  I want to change the world.

[Ingmar]

Can you explain what happened with AC2?

Can I call sequel on that one?

It could certainly be argued that learning from the failures of AC2 (and to a lesser extent DDO, though I still maintain that DDO is a good game, it just isn't what most people wanted) is what has helped Turbine's process.

[Venkman]

Can you explain what happened with AC2?

That's when they started to learn  

Isn't this the first subscriber number we've seen? I thought everything before was pre-orders and box sales and first-month-free stuff.

Second as far as I know. The first was the 500k account registrants they announced after the confirmed 1.5mil units shipped to retail. I believe there was a claim of 1.2mil of those being sold through, but I can't find anything official to support it.

[Ingmar]

500k registrants doesn't mean 500k people paid for a subscription, does it? I could swear we got some free time with the box. I think with most games a certain amount of fall-off is expected from people who buy the box and make accounts to people who actually then pay for an ongoing subscription.

This isn't to say that I don't think they'll be down to 150k by next quarter anyway, but we should be careful about taking trends from things that aren't the same thing. It may be that 300k really is their stable point.

[Tarami]

It could certainly be argued that learning from the failures of AC2 (and to a lesser extent DDO, though I still maintain that DDO is a good game, it just isn't what most people wanted) is what has helped Turbine's process.

Yes, I never meant to say that Turbine had the concept of building MMOs in the mother's milk, but they've learned. Which history has shown us is still a quite unique talent in this industry. Only Satan knows what they did to stay afloat and develop both DDO and LotRO in parallell, though.

[Evil Elvis]

Is that history written somewhere?  I remember trying it right before they shut it down and I enjoyed it a bit.  The monthly content/story is missing from current mmos.  I want to change the world.

Short version:
- The game was at Anarchy Online/Shadowbane levels of instability at launch.
- The classes were incredibly bland, and some were broken/useless for months after release.
- Buildings didn't have interiors, no NPC's, poor crafting system, uninteresting loot, Asheron's Call in name alone, etc.
- Edit: oh, and the cherry on top was that the chat servers were completely fucked for at least 5+ months, as memory serves.