Will DDO survive the April attrition as free months expire?

[Telemediocrity]

So, you don't think the ability of a game to make money and keep players has any correlation to the opinions of the game by the actual players?

Idiot.

With regard to keeping players: By no means a correlation to the players we care about - that is, players who think like we do (With 'we' being each of us, individually).  If a niche game is marketed at a mass audience, of course it's going to bleed players who don't get what the fun is all about - but why the fuck should I care what they think?  That's like me asking AM radio listeners for their opinions of NPR.

The very fat that we're here on this forum suggests that while we may disagree on multiple things, few of us have the same tastes as 'typical' MMO players.

I mean, would the converse hold true?  "Hey guys, Myst is making money hand over fist!  Let's go give that a try!"  And why do we not read the reviews in PC Gamer, but instead look to our friends?  Because we trust them to have tastes that are more reflective of what we will and won't like.

"My friend who played DDO said it sucked" is in many ways more relevant than "DDO lost 80% of its playerbase when they started charging".

[Zane0]

It's important to talk about how many players a model attracts because the most popular one is where much of the money goes, I imagine.

So, the popular model will be on the cutting edge of technology; it will have resources to provide a huge breadth of content; it will be at the forefront of visual immersion.  These aren't the most important elements of an MMO, but they add to the experience for a lot of people.  If this wasn't the case, the dissatisfied would all play some crazy esoteric MUD or something.

[Telemediocrity]

So, the popular model will be on the cutting edge of technology;

WoW isn't.

it will have resources to provide a huge breadth of content;

WoW doesn't.

it will be at the forefront of visual immersion.

Debateable.

But again, these are all qualities we can judge independently; why do we need to look at subscriber numbers to judge these factors when we can just look at the game itself?

[Zane0]

I'm speaking in general terms- WoW, EQII, Vanguard, etcetera.  Although WoW doesn't demand much from your computer, it is heavily optimized and was artistically fashioned by a dedicated and skilled team for years.  This isn't a luxury that studios -with less funding, fewer resources, and a consequently limited timetable- have.  I also don't see how you're qualified to talk about WoW's content when you've barely played the game.  It is in fact enormous.

Will DDO be able to keep its purported vision intact when it seems to be on the edge of substainability by some reports?  How entertaining a game is it for the player when some servers are allegedly so sparse that it's difficult to find groups?  Take a trip to the general forums, and the community is openly questioning the game's viability.  Meanwhile, negative word circulates across the internet and disuades new people from subscribing to replace the churn.  This isn't a healthy environment for even the diehard fans.

Anarchy Online had population problems too; they sold advertisement and gave free accounts away as a solution.  This created an influx of new people for a time, but also angered a lot of the veterans who were used to the mature community and the virtual world that they had spent years enjoying.

So yeah, I'd say subscription numbers are fairly important for the game experience.

[schild]

But again, these are all qualities we can judge independently; why do we need to look at subscriber numbers to judge these factors when we can just look at the game itself?

As much as I say "I'm shocked that 7 million people could be so wrong," they can't be. People vote with their dollars and VC folks and the like see where those dollars go. Don't you stalk the politicosphere (Yea, bitches, I just made that word up). Shouldn't you understand the basic concepts on how people spend money. Your opinion of DDO doesn't mean jack or shit when people aren't spending money there. In FACT, one could easily argue that your opinion is wrong and that you're just a fanboy.

[Telemediocrity]

But again, these are all qualities we can judge independently; why do we need to look at subscriber numbers to judge these factors when we can just look at the game itself?

As much as I say "I'm shocked that 7 million people could be so wrong," they can't be. People vote with their dollars and VC folks and the like see where those dollars go. Don't you stalk the politicosphere (Yea, bitches, I just made that word up). Shouldn't you understand the basic concepts on how people spend money. Your opinion of DDO doesn't mean jack or shit when people aren't spending money there. In FACT, one could easily argue that your opinion is wrong and that you're just a fanboy.

What you're saying makes sense, from the perspective of an investor.  Assuming that's all there is to it, then yeah - WoW, and Myst, and Deer Hunter are the gold standard of everything.  People vote with their dollars, and that's definitely where the VCs should put their money - I'm not arguing that anyone should act against their economic self-interest.  Though, for what it's worth, as the market grows there'll also be plenty of money for niche games according to long tail theory.

However, that being said, I'm a firm believer in, for lack of a better word, elitism.  The idea that a small number of people can, and often do, have better taste and a better appreciation of a subjective artistic work's true 'merits' than the masses.  The idea that Britney Spears isn't automatically better than NPR because she draws ten times the audience.

Are seven million people 'wrong'?  No, of course not.  They're simply Philistines.


(Caveat: To be fair, sometimes the popular art is truly the best stuff of all.)

[Tannhauser]

WTF does elitism have to do with anything?  Blizzard, Turbine, Sony are not in the business to make games for a handful of snooty arses.  They make games to make money.  Money.  One more time.  Money.

 $100 from two Deer Huntin' mouthbreathers is twice as good as $50 from a elitist Eve Online wanker.
 

[Arthur_Parker]

However, that being said, I'm a firm believer in, for lack of a better word, elitism.  The idea that a small number of people can, and often do, have better taste and a better appreciation of a subjective artistic work's true 'merits' than the masses.  The idea that Britney Spears isn't automatically better than NPR because she draws ten times the audience.

Are seven million people 'wrong'?  No, of course not.  They're simply Philistines.

You playing DDO yet?

[Telemediocrity]

WTF does elitism have to do with anything?  Blizzard, Turbine, Sony are not in the business to make games for a handful of snooty arses.  They make games to make money.  Money.  One more time.  Money.

 $100 from two Deer Huntin' mouthbreathers is twice as good as $50 from a elitist Eve Online wanker.
 

This is my whole fucking point!  What you're writing is from the perspective of the money suit.  As a game player, why should I give a shit about, or waste my time speculating on, how the game looks from their perspective?  I'm not in MMOs so that MMO makers make money.  So long as the servers stay open (a la AC1), my interest in the game's financial health is nil, and I don't see why it's worth bringing up as a reason to play or not play the game, as so many do.

[Arthur_Parker]

The success of DDO affects DDO (duh) & LOTRO.  Turbine made promises for DDO's future content and bug fixes as they did with AC2, if DDO doesn't do very well then it's very possible (as with AC2) that those promises will not be kept.  It's also likely LOTRO will be negatively affected.

[schild]

Mediocre simply doesn't get it. I don't know what he's doing anyway. If he doesn't want to look at it from beyond the gamer's point of view he should be posting at the Vault.

Now,

As a game player, why should I give a shit about, or waste my time speculating on, how the game looks from their perspective?

But you aren't a game player, you're a self-indulgent prick who likes to pontificate and masturbate endlessly about the business of video games. Get the fuck over yourself. I don't mean that in a bad way, I'm just saying the first step to becoming better is admitting you have a problem.

[Telemediocrity]

Mediocre simply doesn't get it. I don't know what he's doing anyway. If he doesn't want to look at it from beyond the gamer's point of view he should be posting at the Vault.

What's the primary difference between the Lum diaspora sites and the Vault?  It's a more sophisticated level of analysis and better taste, first and foremost.  It's the difference between checkers and chess, not apples and oranges.

But you aren't a game player, you're a self-indulgent prick who likes to pontificate and masturbate endlessly about the business of video games. Get the fuck over yourself. I don't mean that in a bad way, I'm just saying the first step to becoming better is admitting you have a problem.

I don't think I've ever speculated as to the business side.  Except incidentally, I don't write about what will or won't make money.  I only care about what's fun.  As with any other art, there's often a big difference between what's popular and what's good.

[schild]

You missed the point. If you ONLY cared about what was fun, you'd be somewhere else. It is completely apples and oranges.

As for your comment at the end, video games very often overlap compared to books, movies, tv, and music. Once you completely ignore stereotypical gamers (people who play just for the sports titles, people under 18 who are influenced by morons in high school, etc) you're often left with a lot of popular games that happen to be very good. For example, God of War, Resident Evil 4, Wind Waker, etc.

[Telemediocrity]

You missed the point. If you ONLY cared about what was fun, you'd be somewhere else.

I really don't understand the reasoning here.  Assuming I were perpetually interested in which upcoming MMO will offer 'the new fun', and preferred to read about such things from a group of people who can reasonably articulate why they find something fun or unfun... I wouldn't come here, why exactly?  With the exception of one or two people, the crowd here doesn't exactly seem to have pretensions of developer-hood or otherwise being involved on the money side of things.

[HaemishM]

It's unlikely he's talking about Beta -- most likely he's talking about active accounts. I agree it's not likely he's counting subscribers since so many people are still on their free month.

I bet he's talking about Beta, I just can't prove it.

It's probably because of this line:

"We had tremendous success with the aspects of the [ad] campaign designed to drive sign-ups for our Beta and preorder programs," he continued. "We had over 300,000 people signup for the beta program and over 50,000 pre-ordered the product. We felt that this was key to our successful launch."

[HaemishM]

WTF does elitism have to do with anything?  Blizzard, Turbine, Sony are not in the business to make games for a handful of snooty arses.  They make games to make money.  Money.  One more time.  Money.

 $100 from two Deer Huntin' mouthbreathers is twice as good as $50 from a elitist Eve Online wanker.
 

This is my whole fucking point!  What you're writing is from the perspective of the money suit.  As a game player, why should I give a shit about, or waste my time speculating on, how the game looks from their perspective? 

Because if there isn't enough money made on the game, there won't be any game to speak of. This ain't Zelda. If people don't buy it, the copy you buy becomes worthless, because there aren't players on the servers, the servers cost money and if there are no players, the money is a business loss and the servers get shut down.

If no one else but you play Zelda, you still have a copy of Zelda you can play. The same cannot be said of AC1, or AC2 or DDO.

[Arthur_Parker]

It's unlikely he's talking about Beta -- most likely he's talking about active accounts. I agree it's not likely he's counting subscribers since so many people are still on their free month.

I bet he's talking about Beta, I just can't prove it.

It's probably because of this line:

"We had tremendous success with the aspects of the [ad] campaign designed to drive sign-ups for our Beta and preorder programs," he continued. "We had over 300,000 people signup for the beta program and over 50,000 pre-ordered the product. We felt that this was key to our successful launch."

The comment in question was this.

Nichols couldn't disclose the number of people that have bought the game and are currently subscribing, but he did confirm that the game was the largest in Turbine's history.

[Samwise]

Because if there isn't enough money made on the game, there won't be any game to speak of.

Tele's making the assumption that the game is doing at least well enough to stay afloat.  What he's saying is that profitability should not the the main criterion for evaluating a game's quality, insofar as its profitability does not directly affect the player's experience.

In other words: embrace the niche, bitches.

[HaemishM]

Devs should embrace the niches.

But profitability does affect a player's experience. See AC2, hell see AC1 or WWII Online for that matter. If AC1 had been more profitable, there probably would have been a few more expansions.

[Toast]

Devs should embrace the niches.

But profitability does affect a player's experience. See AC2, hell see AC1 or WWII Online for that matter. If AC1 had been more profitable, there probably would have been a few more expansions.

Luckily, there is a built in failsafe. The remaining players affected just happen to be the least discerning and demanding!

[jpark]

But again, these are all qualities we can judge independently; why do we need to look at subscriber numbers to judge these factors when we can just look at the game itself?

As much as I say "I'm shocked that 7 million people could be so wrong," they can't be. People vote with their dollars and VC folks and the like see where those dollars go. Don't you stalk the politicosphere (Yea, bitches, I just made that word up). Shouldn't you understand the basic concepts on how people spend money. Your opinion of DDO doesn't mean jack or shit when people aren't spending money there. In FACT, one could easily argue that your opinion is wrong and that you're just a fanboy.

However, that being said, I'm a firm believer in, for lack of a better word, elitism.  The idea that a small number of people can, and often do, have better taste and a better appreciation of a subjective artistic work's true 'merits' than the masses.  The idea that Britney Spears isn't automatically better than NPR because she draws ten times the audience.

Are seven million people 'wrong'?  No, of course not.  They're simply Philistines.

(Caveat: To be fair, sometimes the popular art is truly the best stuff of all.)

It's good to see St. Gabe back on these boards.

[Telemediocrity]

What Samwise said.

Devs should embrace the niches.

But profitability does affect a player's experience. See AC2, hell see AC1 or WWII Online for that matter. If AC1 had been more profitable, there probably would have been a few more expansions.

Let's toss the AC2 example out the window, since we're not going to see DDO shutting down anytime soon unless there's some incredible dropoff that just doesn't appear to be in the cards.

There would have been more expansions to AC1, sure, but I'm still getting new content every month - the difference in content creation rates is not what one would call a 'make or break' factor in deciding whether to buy the product.  The rates aren't really that different; AC1 patches from when the game had 150,000 subscribers had about as much in them as the ones that now have 50,000.  And WoW, with 7 million subscribers, is really for shit when it comes to creating masses of new content; if you take out the cockblocks involved in beating the content (as games such as AC1 do), there really isn't a whole lot of 'there' there.  AC1 adds between five and ten new dungeons every month - WoW does not.  Sure, that's not a fair comparison for all sorts of reasons, but when you're comparing games with 50,000 subscribers to games with seven million, wouldn't you expect WoW to have an overwhelming rate of content generation?

Hell, what about WoW compared to EQ2?  WoW is significantly more successful, but AFAIK (I'm not really a player of either game) EQ2's two expansion packs and a couple of adventure packs beat out WoW's several raid dungeon additions.

If the correlation you speak of was seriously pronounced and it correlated to the data we've got, I'd honestly concede the point to you.  But I'm just not seeing the numbers that back up your assertion.

[Margalis]

I'm not a big fan of the "but it's not popular" argument either. What most people like is generally totally separate from what is actually good.

If Turbine is taking in more money than they spent and are happy with a moderate success that's fine. My problem with DDO is that a lot of things were done poorly that didn't need to be.

It's one thing to aim for one audience and leave another audience out in the cold. But I don't think ANY audience really likes repetitive graphics, the fact that you can't tell solo quests from group ones, etc.

If DDO wants to be a game that is best played in small static groups that's fine. But it should be good at that, and I don't see it. It's not so much what they chose to do or not do - it's that a lot of what they did choose to do is not well-executed.

[Zane0]

I'm sure there are other factors involved with the creation of content, such as relationship with the publisher, the experience and structure of the dev team, etc.  I can't see how you can argue that the revenue generated by additional subscribers doesn't at least give the potential for more content, though.

It's not even so significant in WoW's case.  80% of the character population from WoW Census data aren't level 60 (one can ironically calculate the statistic here), and irregardless of how slow content creation is in the immediate future, the game as it stands is evidently engaging enough to have captured 6.5 million subscribers.  If anything, WoW tells us that it is devilishly important above all else to have good and ample content when the game is released; this is frankly something that I'd like to see from all future releases, DDO notwithstanding, I guess.

[Telemediocrity]

I'm sure there are other factors involved with the creation of content, such as relationship with the publisher, the experience and structure of the dev team, etc.  I can't see how you can argue that the revenue generated by additional subscribers doesn't at least give the potential for more content, though.

It's not even so significant in WoW's case.  80% of the character population from WoW Census data aren't level 60 (one can ironically calculate the statistic here), and irregardless of how slow content creation is in the immediate future, the game as it stands is evidently engaging enough to have captured 6.5 million subscribers.  If anything, WoW tells us that it is devilishly important above all else to have good and ample content when the game is released; this is frankly something that I'd like to see from all future releases, DDO notwithstanding, I guess.

Question:  We know that 80% of characters in the census aren't level 60 thanks to the data we've been given.  But if you didn't know much about WoW and just read the forums, is that where you'd put it?

I can't help but imagine there's a similar issue with DDO - while I'll admit that it's easier to hit 10 in DDO than 60 in WoW (I think?), are we really sure that a big chunk of the playerbase is running up against that wall?

"DDO doesn't have enough content" really seems to be one of those forum-amplified gripes that people repeat because they hear everyone else saying it, and before long it's conventional wisdom.

[Kageru]

I can't help but imagine there's a similar issue with DDO - while I'll admit that it's easier to hit 10 in DDO than 60 in WoW (I think?), are we really sure that a big chunk of the playerbase is running up against that wall?

It doesn't really matter if they are now, when it is certain that they will be. The creators have brought forth a game which is content light (in variety if not amount) and whose only end-game is the wait for more content, which a niche game just doesn't have the funding to generate in sufficient amounts / depth. The only really interesting question is what plan they had that led them to this position.

I don't crawl forums as much as I used to, but the complete lack of mindshare for this game is also impressive.

[Zane0]

I think you certainly have a point about how forums can paint a picture that is highly disproportional with reality.  However, I do believe that forums show the issues, or issues that players are passionate about at the very least.

I don't believe there were complaints about the amount of content in WoW for several months at least.  DDO on the other hand is in the same situation a straight month in, and their content is far more specialized.

[Mesozoic]

I wonder what effect situations like this will have on the game vs world approach to design.  I can't help but think that if a game like DDO had used a more "sandbox" approach, then the post-release content demand would be lower, as the players could use the game world to amuse themselves and each other while developers squashed bugs and tweaked systems. As it is, the players have nothing to do but run through the game over and over while waiting for more game, a situation that places a huge strain on developers throughout the life of the product. 

[Mesozoic]

oops.

[Azazel]

it will have resources to provide a huge breadth of content;

WoW doesn't.

This comes with time, patches and expansions.

1) Compare WoW's available content on release compared to now. (well, if you knew anything about the game and what's in it).

2) Compare Everquest 1's available content between release and Christmas '04 when WoW was released, during which time it was Top Dog of the western MMOGs (again, if you know anything about the game.)

[Numtini]

I wonder what effect situations like this will have on the game vs world approach to design.  I can't help but think that if a game like DDO had used a more "sandbox" approach, then the post-release content demand would be lower

Hard to do a sandbox when your entire game is instanced. And that would swell costs far more than developing content I'd think.

A AO/LDON/COX "mission" type system with random dungeons would work about as well as anything. But then you're losing that handcrafted quality. Probably looking at what is there, they should have done that for "mundane" gameplay and concentrated on handcrafted for some longer missions, similar to the soloquest/instance division in WOW.

Honestly, I can't help but think that everything about this game comes down to it not being a subscription based model. They should have used the GW business model and sold modules. What could have been more D&D?

[Miasma]

In the middle of several big nerd fights about an important spell being stealth nerfed there were several people who posted that they are seeing server populations of about 40 in the middle of the day.  They are now recommending people make new characters on four low-population servers, at first there only two.  There are still a surprising number of "I quit" threads.

Choice thread titles from the first page of general discussion:

Another sign of the end?
Nice to put WEB nerf in patch notes...
Just a question to people criticising the devs.
please stop crying
If I were a Turbine developer I would be embarassed about:
Cant believe im cancelling my subscription...
DDO, too many servers
Since patch..i can no longer connect to any servers..anyone else?
servers crash?..can't get on mabar
Successful Spell casting Failure
Everyone cancel subsriptions for a month
Is it just my luck, or have things changed?
Not playing, bored, not enough content :/

And that's from people who liked the game enough to get billed for the next month.

[Hoax]

At least SWG was funny because there were people defending it, why are we talking about this fucking waste of cardboard and plastic game again?

It sucks.
LTRO will suck too.
The sooner these two piles of shit get released and die horrible money loosing deaths the better off the medium will be.

That is all.

[Telemediocrity]

I guess the fundamental distinction between my view on other people's is that to me, what's there is fun.  As quests go, I view DDO's (And AC1's, which is very similar) as being the most enjoyable on the market, bar none.  I've never played another MMO where dungeon-crawling was as varied and as interesting. Things like being able to hang from ledges, disable traps, stealth that varies based on the light conditions you're in, extensive Z axis movement - those are all huge to me.

I agree that I'm surprised by the low mindshare that DDO is getting.  But beneath the questions of variety of content, amount of content, etcetera... what is it about DDO's dungeon-crawling that you guys don't find fun?

Oh, and a serious flaw in their model was that in order to build 'community' they aimed to have many servers with relatively low populations.  This was a stupid idea for a game that wasn't a guaranteed success (i.e. Put out by Blizzard or SOE), because it makes the servers that much more vulnerable to shocks and fluctuations in the number of players, variations in level range, etcetera.

This is the problem with not only Turbine, but MMO companies in general; it seems like whatever they get right or wrong, they get right or wrong by accident.  Nobody seems to think through the consequences of each of their decisions when subjected to human factors and potential variant outcomes.

They need some Ph.D game theorists and human factors engineers on staff, in other words.

[Samwise]

Oh, and a serious flaw in their model was that in order to build 'community' they aimed to have many servers with relatively low populations.  This was a stupid idea for a game that wasn't a guaranteed success (i.e. Put out by Blizzard or SOE), because it makes the servers that much more vulnerable to shocks and fluctuations in the number of players, variations in level range, etcetera.

Not to mention that the game depends heavily on grouping, and the fewer players on a given server, the smaller the LFG pool gets.