Best MMO comeback of all time?

[Slayerik]

Im sure the fodder program has increased subs.

It got me and about 5 friends to come back. Thats +5 from where they were! :) Seriously though, its a great idea. If i was stuck at BR6 I would find a way to get 13 a month to get more certs. There is nothing wrong with fodder to kill anyways, makes us old vets smile.

[Falconeer]

I am not sure about why I hated Planetside so much back in 2003 (maybe I had too many expectations?) and I am loving it so much now.
Can't recall what was different back then.
I just think it's an awesome, surprising game.
What's its guilt?
Bad advertising or bad karma?

--
the Falconeer

[stray]

Are Lightning tanks still worth a damn? That was my favorite vehicle back in the day.

[shiznitz]

Are Lightning tanks still worth a damn? That was my favorite vehicle back in the day.

Yes, but it helps a lot if you can repair it yourself. There is an AV buff on the test server that will make all tanks more vulnerable to Infantry AV, though.

The one change I really like is that there is a weak version of the sniper rifle available without the sniping cert. It has a 10 round clip and fires rapidly. One clip is enough to kill an agile armored enemy or take out a spitfire.

If you are on NC/Markov and looking for an outfit, I joined Total Pwnage (lame name I know) but there is plenty of squaddage available with 160 members. My character is MrJoshua.

[eldaec]

Are Lightning tanks still worth a damn? That was my favorite vehicle back in the day.

The problem with Lightning Tanks is that THEY ARE NOT MOSQUITOES.

Any time you spend in one is a waste of potential Mosquito ownage time.

[shiznitz]

Are Lightning tanks still worth a damn? That was my favorite vehicle back in the day.

The problem with Lightning Tanks is that THEY ARE NOT MOSQUITOES.

Any time you spend in one is a waste of potential Mosquito ownage time.

That is a personall skillset issue. I have spent 5x as much time in a Mosquito as a Lightning. I cannot kill shit in a Mosquito to this day, while getting kills in a Lightning is as easy as stepping on an anthill.  For some reason, I am a very poor judge of vectors (both mine and the target's) while flying

[Shannow]

One could argue that ww2ol's launch was so stupendously bad that the fact it survived longer than a year is easily the best mmolg comeback.

[Trippy]

One could argue that ww2ol's launch was so stupendously bad that the fact it survived longer than a year is easily the best mmolg comeback.

Except if you look at the chart which shall not be named you see growth for about 6 months after launch and then pretty much flat (i.e. zero growth) since then. So it doesn't have the up down up cycle that says "comeback" to me.

[Comstar]

I agree, AO or Eve has that comeback (Eve in particlaur seems to have gone quite well).

[Venkman]

How much of Eve is really a comeback though? To me they seem to follow the fairly traditional MMO model of growth: just keep going up. They, like all early games, benefitted from the huge influx of new players to the newer titles, some of whom will trickle out to the ends of the genre. People eventually leave a title, and a good chunk of them seem to leave for other MMOGs. This isn't even just about SWG:NGE, though they did clearly benefit from that.

So is Eve a candidate for "comeback", or did they just keep growing enough to finally get noticed?

[Toast]

Eve feels like a comeback because word of mouth is driving interest to new level. The game suddenly has greater credibility.

Some is due to CCP making the game steadily deeper and better over the last few years. (though, new players wouldn't know any different).

Much is probably due to environmental factors. I agree that WoW grew the industry, and some players are burning out toward new games. I understand that many Eve players fled SWG recently as well.

Eve has benefitted from external forces, but they had to have a viable game ready to grow. Most comebacks are some combination of opportunity and preparation, after all.

[Nija]

Eve is snowballing these days. I'd say it's a big comeback or a big turnaround because I played the first two weeks of release and quit in utter disgust. Threw away the cd, cursed the game up and down in the normal way, and vowed never to play it.

Here I am, 3 years later, and I've never been into another mmorpg this much.

The Eve snowball effect is "dangerous" in a good way. It's one of those games that require lots of people for lots of fun. It's OKAY fun a few people, but when the universe is jam packed it's just amazing.

Eve was at around 2,000 to 3,000 users on average for what? The first year or so? It's about to turn 3 years old and I'll see 22,000 - 25,000 concurrent users online every day.

Another way that it's "weird" is that the US primetime hours aren't the busy hours. It's more popular in Europe.

So, basically, WE (those of us in the states) get to do the 4am ninja raids at 9pm EST.

[Venkman]

Hmm, so a comeback from a sort of steady stagnation to a robust growth. That'd certainly qualify in this genre, so I agree. I did vote for Eve (and EQ2) in my first reply, so now I agree with it for more reasons :)

[Pococurante]

/shrug

I converted my Eve trial from trial to sub a few days ago.  Isn't it what we've all said here for years?  Give me a game and I'll stay.  No game no sub.

Working as designed.

[Azazel]

Interestingly, while I hated EQ2 myself (trialled at launch) the general consensus here and elsewhere is that the game has polished up and improved a lot since then.

I found it pretty amusing to see this on the VG:SOH board just now, since I'm reading through and enjoying some Schadenfreude. I guess there's already rose-coloured blinders for EQ2?

Twiz
Member
Join Date: 2005 Oct Re: Vanguard published By SoE?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But now that SoE has there hands in, how long before things start turning WoW like? Look what they've done to EQ2 over the past year or so...all in an effort to draw in a bigger player base from WoW.

I guess SoE has finally figured out they went the wrong direction with EQ2 and want a "do over" with Vanguard...

Hasn't EQ2 at least stabilised since they started changing it? Has it increased in subs over the last year or so?
Does anyone have a link to semi-current sub numbers for EQ1 and 2?

[Trippy]

Hasn't EQ2 at least stabilised since they started changing it? Has it increased in subs over the last year or so?
Does anyone have a link to semi-current sub numbers for EQ1 and 2?

Well given that they merged servers the answer is probably no. And SOE stopped publishing their global subscriber figure almost a year ago except for a vague mention of "hundreds of thousands" after seeing a sustained period of zero growth.

[Azazel]

I wasn't aware that EQ2 had server merged. From what I understand, EQ1 is now pretty stable now that they merged the servers into about half their old number, so at an extremely rough guesstimate I'd think 200-250k. They're still pumping out expansions and revamps, and I've heard interweb rumour that EQ1 is still doing better than EQ2, but you know, interweb rumours are good...