Let's do a little number crunching with some reasonable speculation. There are currently 13 servers running with total numbers of characters on one server (rounded up to the nearest thousand) ranging between 6,000 and 19,000. A total count rounded up brings us to about 178,000 CHARACTERS total. Now, we need to speculate that on average, players have at least one alt created (I have two alts). This total also includes the Sigil staff's characters and alts since we can see level 50s scattered about. This means that its far more likely that the actual number of VANGUARD players and paid subscribers falls somewhere between 60,000 and 89,000 at the present. I predict the player base will slowly rise some, but I have doubts about the game's ability to attract and maintain significantly larger numbers of people outside of its present fan base. If Sigil and SOE can manage it, bully for them. With the game world as large as it is, some of the servers definitely need more active players or else consolidations are going to have to take place to make grouping and community building viable.
Are they using the same servers they did in Beta ? I remember a time before they starting hiding the player numbers of each server when 3000 players was a heavy load which ment each server held a max of about 5000 which would give a total of 13x5000 thats if every server is full ..
Whether it is 85K or 185K, bottom line is it decidedly not the 400K that some are saying that Sigil predicted. Also those server figures are not taking into account the buddy keys as I pointed out in a previous post.
Let's do a little number crunching with some reasonable speculation. There are currently 13 servers running with total numbers of characters on one server (rounded up to the nearest thousand) ranging between 6,000 and 19,000. A total count rounded up brings us to about 178,000 CHARACTERS total. Now, we need to speculate that on average, players have at least one alt created (I have two alts). This total also includes the Sigil staff's characters and alts since we can see level 50s scattered about. This means that its far more likely that the actual number of VANGUARD players and paid subscribers falls somewhere between 60,000 and 89,000 at the present. I predict the player base will slowly rise some, but I have doubts about the game's ability to attract and maintain significantly larger numbers of people outside of its present fan base. If Sigil and SOE can manage it, bully for them. With the game world as large as it is, some of the servers definitely need more active players or else consolidations are going to have to take place to make grouping and community building viable.
I agree with this, although if the Vanguard Players numbers are right, there are about 205,000 characters at the moment. So the number might be a little higher, like 70,000-100,000. But this is just speculation.
Let's do a little number crunching with some reasonable speculation. There are currently 13 servers running with total numbers of characters on one server (rounded up to the nearest thousand) ranging between 6,000 and 19,000. A total count rounded up brings us to about 178,000 CHARACTERS total. Now, we need to speculate that on average, players have at least one alt created (I have two alts). This total also includes the Sigil staff's characters and alts since we can see level 50s scattered about. This means that its far more likely that the actual number of VANGUARD players and paid subscribers falls somewhere between 60,000 and 89,000 at the present. I predict the player base will slowly rise some, but I have doubts about the game's ability to attract and maintain significantly larger numbers of people outside of its present fan base. If Sigil and SOE can manage it, bully for them. With the game world as large as it is, some of the servers definitely need more active players or else consolidations are going to have to take place to make grouping and community building viable.
Are they using the same servers they did in Beta ? I remember a time before they starting hiding the player numbers of each server when 3000 players was a heavy load which ment each server held a max of about 5000 which would give a total of 13x5000 thats if every server is full ..
I'm basing my numbers on the character database they have up on their main web site. It does not reflect actual player numbers anywhere. From what I've seen servers rarely go above medium load and three servers I have characters on appear lightly populated in the High Elf, Wood Elf and Kojan starting zones I have frequented. Aside from the first couple days of pre-release, it's made grouping difficult since I'm still trying out different classes and have yet to get past level 11 on any one character. This doesn't bother me though. I prefer to solo at the start so I can learn a new game at my own pace and not feel like I'm being dragged along by others who are trying to race through the game's content.
Originally posted by JaerinCosmos "Technically" Any MMO company could do exactly as you say not just SOE in relation to their Station Pass. Lets not just pass the buck to SOE alone here. I'll see if I can't find a quote for you as to the "logging in during the month."
Actually, any MMO company could NOT do that; because their revenues (and thus, their fiscal reports to investors, publishers, etc) are directly tied to a single MMO with a single subscription architecture. So, when they report their subscription numbers, those numbers are representative of active subscriptions for that single MMO; not multiple MMOs under one subscription plan.
I'm not passing the buck to SOE or indicting them in any way; I'm just making a statement of fact in reference to the initial post that I was supporting. SOE could claim any number of subscribers within their Station Pass architecture for any of their MMOs.
It would probably be best to start with SOE for that statement you are looking for, although I would think it is unlikely that you will actually get one. Not that I doubt your tenacity, but rather I doubt that SOE even tracks the number of players actually logging into the individual games. It is more likely that they just spread the relative operating costs of their supported MMOs among their Station / individual subscribers.
When the time comes that it is fiscally unsound to continue supporting one of the MMOs in the Station Pass (for example, when overall revenues are reduced and their is a direct impact on quarterly earnings) they will reduce servers or simply remove one of the games. This seems unlikely, however, since even MXO is still operating and it is doubtful that it has has broken 45,000 subscribers in the last two years.
Overall, they have no need to track what the players who subscribe to Station Access are actually playing.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq Adnihilo Beorn Judge's Edge Somnulus Perfect Black ---------------------- Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2 Everquest / Everquest 2 Anarchy Online Shadowbane Dark Age of Camelot Star Wars Galaxies Matrix Online World of Warcraft Guild Wars City of Heroes
I just went over to the Vanguard Players site and did a search for players adv level 1-50 all servers, any class, any crafting/diplomacy rating and it came back with 177,230 players. Now how many are alts, and how many are on buddy key accounts. I usualy have 1 or 2 alts just to reserve names myself, and I think every box had one buddy key and some had ten. How many boxes were sold, I dunno but it was a heck of a lot less than 177,230.
I just went over to the Vanguard Players site and did a search for players adv level 1-50 all servers, any class, any crafting/diplomacy rating and it came back with 177,230 players. Now how many are alts, and how many are on buddy key accounts. I usualy have 1 or 2 alts just to reserve names myself, and I think every box had one buddy key and some had ten. How many boxes were sold, I dunno but it was a heck of a lot less than 177,230. 60,232 were lvl 1's 43934 were between lvl 2 and 5 46,946 were between 6 and 10 25, 220 were between 11 and 20 the rest between 21 and 50
With these numbers, you take levels 6+ as been only 1 per account for now, as players usually won't have alternate at level 6, yet almost everyone would have reached level 6 with their main.
So it is about 70k "accounts". Remove the GMs, the staff, the buddy key...and you have about 30-50k sold boxes.
As Shae said, Ottawa sold about 100 copies in EBgames, I feel it would be similar for Quebec city, maybe a little more due to a highest gaming population. Future Shop, Zellers, Toys'R'us and any other place I went to wasn't selling Vanguard nor planning on it from a quick glance, however, in vanguard's advantage, EBgames was apparently BO at the only shop I went; and they told me they have 30 pre-orders...it is the MAIN EBgames shop in Quebec city (Main = my opinion, not verified) , no box went on the shelves yet as far as I can tell. Both EBgames and Future Shop have a HUGE tray of BC boxes for sells, Future Shop also lined up a stand in front of the computer area, shadowing everything, including Vista! That stand was by the entrance not long ago, they move it to the computer section now...Vista never gets that entrance spot (they have some advertising by entrance, which is nothing compare to a stand + advertising), and never get that front of computer section either. The HUGE warning about requiring the original game and a monthly fees attract even more attention to the product. Marketing-wise, Blizzard either pay Future Shop or are in their debt for such a visibility that completely outshine anything a TV pub could have done. Nearly every computer freak goes to Future Shop once in a while, maybe for musics, for cd, for tvs, for electronics or whatever, but they still go there.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
I just went over to the Vanguard Players site and did a search for players adv level 1-50 all servers, any class, any crafting/diplomacy rating and it came back with 177,230 players. Now how many are alts, and how many are on buddy key accounts. I usualy have 1 or 2 alts just to reserve names myself, and I think every box had one buddy key and some had ten. How many boxes were sold, I dunno but it was a heck of a lot less than 177,230. 60,232 were lvl 1's 43934 were between lvl 2 and 5 46,946 were between 6 and 10 25, 220 were between 11 and 20 the rest between 21 and 50
Well, that's not too bad, when you think about it. We're talking about a game that was always considered something of a "niche" product, and not really appealing to the average buyer (casual gamers). Additionally, this is the first week, and many gamers like to wait for reviews before making a purchase. Finally, a lot of MMO players are holding thier breath and waiting to see if all the bugs and balance issues are worked out.
So, assuming that a portion of those characters are alts and buddy keys, we can astimate the number of sold copies to be around 70,000 to 100,000 (Sorry, OP, but you are an idiot. Try to make your lies believeable). With all I said above, that's pretty respectable. Not as good as it needs to be, but a good start. Ideally, Vanguard needs 250,000 sustainable subscriptions to flourish. Some of the current players may not continue playing after the 30 days free, and that'll hurt them. But at least they'll have some money to keep the servers on and pay off some of their debts. Then it's all about completing this obviously unfinished game, and attracting more people.
I give them 6 months to either pull it off, or pull the plug. 4 months to get the game in full working order (few bugs, little lag, balanced characters and zones), and 2 more months to get a respectable playerbase hooked on SoH.
Seriously. It's Are'el. This forum doesn't allow apostrophes in usernames.
Name reserving chars, and chars under a certain minimum play time of a few minutes, dont make it into the database.
Also, a lot of people are waiting for their slow-shipping pre-orders and orders atm. Already one additional server has been opened during the pre-release launch.
Perhaps it fares better in europe than in the US, but I think my server Gelenia is actually extremely crowded and overpopulated up to level 20ish already.
Drop off or not, its obvious Vanguard is not the total flop lots of people, me included, suspected it to be at one time or the other. Thats mostly due to the stellar rise in quality during the last month of beta, which dispelled a lot of fears that people had (the ones that actually are intelligent enough to see a betas a beta)
Name reserving chars, and chars under a certain minimum play time of a few minutes, dont make it into the database.
How do you know this? I have created characters in EQ2 just for name sakes and they showed up in the database within 24 hours (because the sites only updated every 24 hours). I would assume it would be the same for Vanguard.
I just want to know how long it is before SOE officially announces that they've completely taken over development of VG and hands Brad "I want to play God" McQuaid his walking papers.
I pre ordered online and i still haven't gotten my copy(its shipping tho). I know at least 4 people who are also waiting on their copy
And about buddy keys, yes people get them in their boxes, but you have to consider that not every single person has given a buddy key to someone who plays, so assuming that half of the people playing are on buddy keys would be a overestimation. Also alot of people who do buy and play mmorpgs do not know anyone else who also does, i have about 10 nerds who i game with who live locally(we don't play together that much anymore tho) And guess how many are active mmorpg players? 1, and guess what he plays? Ragnarok online, and thats all he plays, the others are all CS freaks or RTS maniacs.
I've tried to give away my coh buddy keys but they actually refused because they didn't want to pay monthly(which wasn't really shocking, considering they are hardcore video game pirates), i don't think they've bought a game(or a movie for that matter) since they picked up CS
Alot of people(such as myself) will just open the game, install, make account and just ignore what else is in the box, possibly even throwing away their buddy keys.
Sure there's probably a good 10k people on buddy keys(at most) but beyond that would just not be sensible.
I think the main reason no one is playing on buddy keys is because most people are just too lazy to give them theirs.
and what makes you think no one is playing on buddy keys? The low numbers? I think they would have sold more copies if they had not had a open beta. Looks like th game is getting Horizons numbers to me.
Hey Jack the game was on sale at Frys online for 39.99 before it went live. So kind of blows your idea in the weeds Im a thinking. God what an idiot game going downhill coz some places have it on sale. ROFL. By the way Frys has it on sale right now. www.outpost.com for anyone interested and Jackl we all know you arent.
Comments
Are they using the same servers they did in Beta ? I remember a time before they starting hiding the player numbers of each server when 3000 players was a heavy load which ment each server held a max of about 5000 which would give a total of 13x5000 thats if every server is full ..
I miss DAoC
Are they using the same servers they did in Beta ? I remember a time before they starting hiding the player numbers of each server when 3000 players was a heavy load which ment each server held a max of about 5000 which would give a total of 13x5000 thats if every server is full ..
I'm basing my numbers on the character database they have up on their main web site. It does not reflect actual player numbers anywhere. From what I've seen servers rarely go above medium load and three servers I have characters on appear lightly populated in the High Elf, Wood Elf and Kojan starting zones I have frequented. Aside from the first couple days of pre-release, it's made grouping difficult since I'm still trying out different classes and have yet to get past level 11 on any one character. This doesn't bother me though. I prefer to solo at the start so I can learn a new game at my own pace and not feel like I'm being dragged along by others who are trying to race through the game's content.
Actually, any MMO company could NOT do that; because their revenues (and thus, their fiscal reports to investors, publishers, etc) are directly tied to a single MMO with a single subscription architecture. So, when they report their subscription numbers, those numbers are representative of active subscriptions for that single MMO; not multiple MMOs under one subscription plan.
I'm not passing the buck to SOE or indicting them in any way; I'm just making a statement of fact in reference to the initial post that I was supporting. SOE could claim any number of subscribers within their Station Pass architecture for any of their MMOs.
It would probably be best to start with SOE for that statement you are looking for, although I would think it is unlikely that you will actually get one. Not that I doubt your tenacity, but rather I doubt that SOE even tracks the number of players actually logging into the individual games. It is more likely that they just spread the relative operating costs of their supported MMOs among their Station / individual subscribers.
When the time comes that it is fiscally unsound to continue supporting one of the MMOs in the Station Pass (for example, when overall revenues are reduced and their is a direct impact on quarterly earnings) they will reduce servers or simply remove one of the games. This seems unlikely, however, since even MXO is still operating and it is doubtful that it has has broken 45,000 subscribers in the last two years.
Overall, they have no need to track what the players who subscribe to Station Access are actually playing.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
I just went over to the Vanguard Players site and did a search for players adv level 1-50 all servers, any class, any crafting/diplomacy rating and it came back with 177,230 players. Now how many are alts, and how many are on buddy key accounts. I usualy have 1 or 2 alts just to reserve names myself, and I think every box had one buddy key and some had ten. How many boxes were sold, I dunno but it was a heck of a lot less than 177,230.
60,232 were lvl 1's
43934 were between lvl 2 and 5
46,946 were between 6 and 10
25, 220 were between 11 and 20
the rest between 21 and 50
I miss DAoC
While their numbers are small, keep in mind there are a handful of GM characters included as well.
Naked lvl 50 characters with the names "testXXXX"
With these numbers, you take levels 6+ as been only 1 per account for now, as players usually won't have alternate at level 6, yet almost everyone would have reached level 6 with their main.
So it is about 70k "accounts". Remove the GMs, the staff, the buddy key...and you have about 30-50k sold boxes.
As Shae said, Ottawa sold about 100 copies in EBgames, I feel it would be similar for Quebec city, maybe a little more due to a highest gaming population. Future Shop, Zellers, Toys'R'us and any other place I went to wasn't selling Vanguard nor planning on it from a quick glance, however, in vanguard's advantage, EBgames was apparently BO at the only shop I went; and they told me they have 30 pre-orders...it is the MAIN EBgames shop in Quebec city (Main = my opinion, not verified) , no box went on the shelves yet as far as I can tell. Both EBgames and Future Shop have a HUGE tray of BC boxes for sells, Future Shop also lined up a stand in front of the computer area, shadowing everything, including Vista! That stand was by the entrance not long ago, they move it to the computer section now...Vista never gets that entrance spot (they have some advertising by entrance, which is nothing compare to a stand + advertising), and never get that front of computer section either. The HUGE warning about requiring the original game and a monthly fees attract even more attention to the product. Marketing-wise, Blizzard either pay Future Shop or are in their debt for such a visibility that completely outshine anything a TV pub could have done. Nearly every computer freak goes to Future Shop once in a while, maybe for musics, for cd, for tvs, for electronics or whatever, but they still go there.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Well, that's not too bad, when you think about it. We're talking about a game that was always considered something of a "niche" product, and not really appealing to the average buyer (casual gamers). Additionally, this is the first week, and many gamers like to wait for reviews before making a purchase. Finally, a lot of MMO players are holding thier breath and waiting to see if all the bugs and balance issues are worked out.
So, assuming that a portion of those characters are alts and buddy keys, we can astimate the number of sold copies to be around 70,000 to 100,000 (Sorry, OP, but you are an idiot. Try to make your lies believeable). With all I said above, that's pretty respectable. Not as good as it needs to be, but a good start. Ideally, Vanguard needs 250,000 sustainable subscriptions to flourish. Some of the current players may not continue playing after the 30 days free, and that'll hurt them. But at least they'll have some money to keep the servers on and pay off some of their debts. Then it's all about completing this obviously unfinished game, and attracting more people.
I give them 6 months to either pull it off, or pull the plug. 4 months to get the game in full working order (few bugs, little lag, balanced characters and zones), and 2 more months to get a respectable playerbase hooked on SoH.
Seriously.
It's Are'el. This forum doesn't allow apostrophes in usernames.
Also, a lot of people are waiting for their slow-shipping pre-orders and orders atm. Already one additional server has been opened during the pre-release launch.
Perhaps it fares better in europe than in the US, but I think my server Gelenia is actually extremely crowded and overpopulated up to level 20ish already.
Drop off or not, its obvious Vanguard is not the total flop lots of people, me included, suspected it to be at one time or the other. Thats mostly due to the stellar rise in quality during the last month of beta, which dispelled a lot of fears that people had (the ones that actually are intelligent enough to see a betas a beta)
How do you know this? I have created characters in EQ2 just for name sakes and they showed up in the database within 24 hours (because the sites only updated every 24 hours). I would assume it would be the same for Vanguard.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
And about buddy keys, yes people get them in their boxes, but you have to consider that not every single person has given a buddy key to someone who plays, so assuming that half of the people playing are on buddy keys would be a overestimation. Also alot of people who do buy and play mmorpgs do not know anyone else who also does, i have about 10 nerds who i game with who live locally(we don't play together that much anymore tho) And guess how many are active mmorpg players? 1, and guess what he plays? Ragnarok online, and thats all he plays, the others are all CS freaks or RTS maniacs.
I've tried to give away my coh buddy keys but they actually refused because they didn't want to pay monthly(which wasn't really shocking, considering they are hardcore video game pirates), i don't think they've bought a game(or a movie for that matter) since they picked up CS
Alot of people(such as myself) will just open the game, install, make account and just ignore what else is in the box, possibly even throwing away their buddy keys.
Sure there's probably a good 10k people on buddy keys(at most) but beyond that would just not be sensible.
I miss DAoC
I miss DAoC
According to what I saw it's still 49.99 & 89.00
Collector's:
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Online-Entertainment-41152-Collectors/dp/B000JLMZRQ/ref=pd_sim_vg_3/002-0157696-4504850
Normal:
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Online-Entertainment-Vanguard-Heroes/dp/B000JLMZS0/ref=pd_sim_vg_3/002-0157696-4504850
There is a used copy for about $36 but that's all.
According to what I saw it's still 49.99 & 89.00
Collector's:
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Online-Entertainment-41152-Collectors/dp/B000JLMZRQ/ref=pd_sim_vg_3/002-0157696-4504850
Normal:
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Online-Entertainment-Vanguard-Heroes/dp/B000JLMZS0/ref=pd_sim_vg_3/002-0157696-4504850
There is a used copy for about $36 but that's all.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000JLMZS0/105-4371632-3908448
this merchant is listed under the new section
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Online-Entertainment-Vanguard-Heroes/dp/B000JLMZS0/sr=1-14/qid=1170522818/ref=sr_1_14/105-4371632-3908448?ie=UTF8&m=A19MO7RU63SWGR&s=generic
no theories just pointing out that prices are already starting to drop over at Amazon
I miss DAoC
sad sad... 200-300 players left on each server in June 2010..
ah forgot halgar , it has 50-100 players
Marketing and Development completly failed..... i dont even have to prove it.
ah forgot halgar , it has 50-100 players
Marketing and Development completly failed..... i dont even have to prove it.
You do realize that you just posted in a 3 year old thread right?
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look through the vanguard recent threads he dug up about 10 3 year old threads just to copy/paste/troll