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Deployment 15 hits PTS
Torak
Member Posts: 4,905
Like the Cavalry arriving in the nick of time to save the settlers, deployment 15 arrives....errrr...ok, so they they arrived 2 weeks too late and all the settlers are dead and the structures are all burned.
www.massively.com/2008/12/01/tabula-rasas-deployment-15-hits-the-public-test-server/
So what are your thoughts on NCSoft now that they have shut down their second "AAA" title in our market. Anyone have cold feet about getting into another one of their games?
How long and at what point will they shut down what they currently have? Just how safe is CoX in the western market? How safe in Lineage 2? Both games pops have been on the decline for a while now. NC apparently has no issue pulling the plug once a game no longer meets their expectations. Will GW go the way of AA and TR once GW2 launches and some of the pops migrate over? GW2 is in direct competition with GW as it is an upgrade from what that game did.
How trusting of NCSoft are you TR guys? They gave you a nice package of free game time but will you use it?
Is it worth YOUR time and money to give NC yet another chance?
Or will you go with the motto: "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me a third time, well how much is that bridge anyway?" as not even 2 months ago NC put out that TR wasn't going anywhere.
www.massively.com/2008/12/01/anti-aliased-youve-been-auto-assaulted/
Comments
When GW2 comes out I plan to play that. I do not trust NCSoft less, because I never trusted them when they were saying all was fine with TR. All it took was a look at the quarterly reports to know it was losing money, the only question was how long would they wait.
I would think COX and L2 are fine until they become money losers like TR. TR never met expectations from day 1. Those other games have been are I would think still are making them money, but I do think GW will fade away at some point after GW2 is released. GW people have said they plan to run servers as long as there are people, but you have to expect a lot less service by then.
Thing with CoX, and Lineage.... they were success-full games. Tabula Rasa was far from being success-full, and NcSoft wasn't going to break even for a LONG time. So CoX, and Lineage are fine.... NcSoft didn't need a expensive burden on their back with TR. Which was going to cost them to much money to keep, especially with what they were getting in return.
Suck's to see TR go in a few month's, wish it could've been made into a ALOT better game... but crap like this can happen.
I have two more 6-month membership codes for Dungeon Runners and that will probably be it for me with NCSOFT. I got back into AoC and LOTRO and really have no motivation/desire to use their free game time for TR subscribers.
Out of their current line up I prefer DR. I looked up info on Aion and it does not appeal to me. When the beta rolls around I'm sure I'll give it a looksy.
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Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
I'm not gonna hold a grudge against NCSoft. They compensated me handsomly for their closing of TR. Taking into account the portions of the compensation gift that I will actually use, I calculated that TR cost me roughly $30 for two accounts covering about 6 months worth of gameplay.
I'll certainly take advantage of their compensation and will probably try their products in the future. I actually blame Richard Garriot for TR's closure much more than NCSoft. I met the dude once and he seemed like an OK guy, but I think he got greedy and grabbed up what he could and took off to space with it. His heart hasn't been in gaming for well over a decade. I think he took advantage of NCSoft's generosity and that may have caused some sour grapes that eventually led to TR's closure.
I'll miss TR, but its no big deal. I hop between MMOG's pretty frequently and with so many cool MMOG's coming out next year I doubt I'd find much time for TR. But with HGL and TR's closure it will be difficult to find a good MMOG for my action RPG fix. TCoS may fill that niche, but I'd prefer a sci-fi or post holocaust setting.
The only part of its closure that really bugs me is all the wasted progress and potential of the game that will never be realized.
Always sad to see an MMO close down and know that the code is just left on the shelf somewhere. I played TR for 6 months and left when AoC came out. However it had some brilliant moments in it and some of my greatest MMO moments were in TR. My first control point defence as an example. Not enough MMO's out there have NPC's attacking player bases or area. The combat was smooth and fast, I am yet to see another MMO have that fluid response.
Even saying all that I personally feel they ignored the RP and crafting element of the game. PvP should have been a must in this and crafting should have been more complicated to support it. Flashy games will only hold a mature MMO audience for a few months and then a few like me may stay on. In a way this may be good for the overall community because I feel WAR is going down the same route and maybe it will take a few companies to lose millions to realise the community needs RPing and other elements to an MMO besides grinding.
This gane is still around? lol I kid. Let's not let clowns at that Planet Tabula Rasa web site know I said that, oh wait I don't care about that web site or that guild that runs that site, the bunch of no life people that they are, Chandler, Machka, etcetera.
Now would I trust NC Soft? Why not, they haven't ripped me off, I don't play TR anymore, it's dead, well soon will be. If I had a product that was not making money I would cut it loose too. Guild Wars is a good game and it works for them. TR was a good idea, but the man that decided to make it got his money and ran. NC Soft is a company that has a right to pull the plug on something that is a drain on it's profits. I've bought other games and didn't like them after laying out 49.99, TR only cost me 34.98, which was the cost of the game and the two months I played. No big deal.
I'm not going to comment on L2 because I don't play asian grinders and I honestly wouldn't care one way or the other what NCSoft does with it. But considering its still pretty popular in Korea I think its safe.
As for CoX, it is a TOTALLY different situation from TR and Auto Assault. CoX is a well established game which has been popular and profitable for many years. This was true for neither TR or AA. AA was just never popular and was just not that great of an idea. Original sure. But the actual game once it was in action was not as great as the idea itself sounded. TR was just a massive embarrassment and I think that was as important in their decision to close it as the money was. Not only did the game cost them over 100 million dollars just to make and not only was it never going to earn enough to repay that amount, they also had to content with the fact that Richard Garriot was making a fool out of NCsoft by pretty much selling them an unfinished game to pay for his trip into outer space. Here they had this big famous game developer and they paid him a crap ton of money to develop what they were told was going to be the next WoW... and instead they got Tabula Rasa while their famous game developer was laughing at them all the way to his russian space rocket. Closing TR was their way of trying to sweep this whole disaster under the rug as quickly as possible and I honestly don't blame them for wanting to put the whole incident behind them ASAP.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
I'm not going to comment on L2 because I don't play asian grinders and I honestly wouldn't care one way or the other what NCSoft does with it. But considering its still pretty popular in Korea I think its safe.
As for CoX, it is a TOTALLY different situation from TR and Auto Assault. CoX is a well established game which has been popular and profitable for many years. This was true for neither TR or AA. AA was just never popular and was just not that great of an idea. Original sure. But the actual game once it was in action was not as great as the idea itself sounded. TR was just a massive embarrassment and I think that was as important in their decision to close it as the money was. Not only did the game cost them over 100 million dollars just to make and not only was it never going to earn enough to repay that amount, they also had to content with the fact that Richard Garriot was making a fool out of NCsoft by pretty much selling them an unfinished game to pay for his trip into outer space. Here they had this big famous game developer and they paid him a crap ton of money to develop what they were told was going to be the next WoW... and instead they got Tabula Rasa while their famous game developer was laughing at them all the way to his russian space rocket. Closing TR was their way of trying to sweep this whole disaster under the rug as quickly as possible and I honestly don't blame them for wanting to put the whole incident behind them ASAP.
With L2 I was referring to the US/EU side which has always done poorly in our market. I don't think L2 has anything to worry about in Asia although its subs have dropped to a fraction of what it once had.
Do you know why NCSofts profts dropped 50% over the last year? Look at how many L1/L2 subs dropped off in Korea...more then half. You may not play "Asian grinders" and chose to ignore them but L1 and L2 are the games that fuel this company and in terms of raw money helped put this genre on the map.
CoX, I was saying more or less, it may be "ok" now but subs have been slowly dropping over the years and at what point does NCKorea say "ok funs over, shut it down".
Just speculation is all....
Looks like they struck gold in Korea with Aion so maybe they will feel more charitable to us poor westerners who can't make a working game to save our lives.
One thing people need to remember is in Q3 of 07 GW released an Expansion which was huge, Ton's of profit came in from that release. However Q3 of this year WoW released Wotlk and NCSoft didn't release an Expansion for anything. So unless profit from all their games was huge NCSoft was going to see a substantial drop in profit in Q3.
launching TR & operation costs couldn't possibly in any form of legal accounting cost the company 50% profit. Am I saying TR was making money? No. What I am saying is it couldn't have been the main reason for their profit losses in any way. It could have contributed but not been the primary factor.
I would guess they lost alot of sub's from people returning to WoW to try out the new expansion, as well as stagnation.
Want to know why they are seeing losses in all quarters of this year? It's simple ask yourself what has NCSoft released in 2009?
How about 2008?
It's pretty simple sell nothing, make nothing. That's why their profit went down. NOT because of a just launched game, to think otherwise is absurd.
I do not think TR is to blame but I think because the overall profits are down TR got the axe. TR was not making money and with other games losing subs and nothing to make up the lost income a struggling game like TR was too much to absorb for them.
How much profit was made from Eye of the North?
I do not think TR is to blame but I think because the overall profits are down TR got the axe. TR was not making money and with other games losing subs and nothing to make up the lost income a struggling game like TR was too much to absorb for them.
How much profit was made from Eye of the North?
I'm not entirely certain that NCSoft really wanted to launch TR much at all i am leaning more towards they where contractually obligated to RG to release the game, otherwise they would have made a fiscally wise decision long ago about the game, probrably before it was ever launched about the time that investment in the game was going to rise because of a complete overhaul. It's no coincadence that RG left then TR got the axe suddenly, before the patch everyone was heralding as potentially TR's sub savior.
As far as Eye Of The North, NCSoft reports having sold 4.5million*(not sure on my math here but i think i am close) boxes in North America + europe in Q3 alone. So do the math...
However they lost sub's by the 10 tens of thousands in all games except L2, where they netted a total of roughly 27k in asia and lost 5k in america.
City of X lost roughly 14k.
They lost an amazing 47k from L1 in asia. Hince their massive support of Aion.
(if your curious where these ROUGH numbers come from its their quarterly reports.)
I do not think TR is to blame but I think because the overall profits are down TR got the axe. TR was not making money and with other games losing subs and nothing to make up the lost income a struggling game like TR was too much to absorb for them.
How much profit was made from Eye of the North?
I'm not entirely certain that NCSoft really wanted to launch TR much at all i am leaning more towards they where contractually obligated to RG to release the game, otherwise they would have made a fiscally wise decision long ago about the game, probrably before it was ever launched about the time that investment in the game was going to rise because of a complete overhaul. It's no coincadence that RG left then TR got the axe suddenly, before the patch everyone was heralding as potentially TR's sub savior.
As far as Eye Of The North, NCSoft reports having sold 4.5million boxes in North America + europe in Q3 alone. So do the math...
However they lost sub's by the 10 tens of thousands in all games except L2, where they netted a total of roughly 27k in asia and lost 5k in america.
City of X lost roughly 14k.
They lost an amazing 47k from L1 in asia. Hince their massive support of Aion.
(if your curious where these ROUGH numbers come from its their quarterly reports.)
I know the Earth patch was supposed to be a huge savior but the subscription numbers for TR tell you how bad it was getting. Q2 they averaged like 38k subs and for Q3 it was down to 29k average. So you can see even with that highly anticipated patch people were still leaving in droves. Losing 10k from a couple hundred K is one thing, losing over 1/4 of your subs is another.
I figured you were using the Quarterlies to get your numbers, thats why I asked for the EOTN profit. Did not want to DL it at work. Thanks for the numbers. I knew EOTN was huge but they damn near sold the expansion to everyone who bought the original games. Thats a pretty good % there. I am waiting on GW2 but seems we have not heard much lately.
I do not think TR is to blame but I think because the overall profits are down TR got the axe. TR was not making money and with other games losing subs and nothing to make up the lost income a struggling game like TR was too much to absorb for them.
How much profit was made from Eye of the North?
I'm not entirely certain that NCSoft really wanted to launch TR much at all i am leaning more towards they where contractually obligated to RG to release the game, otherwise they would have made a fiscally wise decision long ago about the game, probrably before it was ever launched about the time that investment in the game was going to rise because of a complete overhaul. It's no coincadence that RG left then TR got the axe suddenly, before the patch everyone was heralding as potentially TR's sub savior.
As far as Eye Of The North, NCSoft reports having sold 4.5million boxes in North America + europe in Q3 alone. So do the math...
However they lost sub's by the 10 tens of thousands in all games except L2, where they netted a total of roughly 27k in asia and lost 5k in america.
City of X lost roughly 14k.
They lost an amazing 47k from L1 in asia. Hince their massive support of Aion.
(if your curious where these ROUGH numbers come from its their quarterly reports.)
I know the Earth patch was supposed to be a huge savior but the subscription numbers for TR tell you how bad it was getting. Q2 they averaged like 38k subs and for Q3 it was down to 29k average. So you can see even with that highly anticipated patch people were still leaving in droves. Losing 10k from a couple hundred K is one thing, losing over 1/4 of your subs is another.
I figured you were using the Quarterlies to get your numbers, thats why I asked for the EOTN profit. Did not want to DL it at work. Thanks for the numbers. I knew EOTN was huge but they damn near sold the expansion to everyone who bought the original games. Thats a pretty good % there. I am waiting on GW2 but seems we have not heard much lately.
Yeah TR has(really its had) some issues to address, was a good game but not much of an mmo. However with minimal marketing and a ton of badmouthing without fixing the really only two issues it needed addressed, its sub numbers stayed pretty similar throughout the year but they where never good to begin with.
The first half of this year should have been in development and earth coming 6 months after release, however a better endgame and some sort of PVP/PVE faction system could have saved this game. Along with a good marketing campaign, where they show and talk about hte game not some guy being lobbed into space.
Yeah EOTN had something like 81% sales saturation in europe and like 57% in north america, clearly the biggest factor in the 50% loss from Q3 2007 to Q3 2008. But the part that should be worrying them more than TR is the fact they they lost large sub numbers from every game consistantly all year, I really believe that Aion is hugely important to the finaical future. If it flops they will be in trouble, until GW2 comes along.
I am alo waiting for GW2 If they stick to their promise and keep it using the same sales model as GW1 they will make a killing on that game.
I do not think TR is to blame but I think because the overall profits are down TR got the axe. TR was not making money and with other games losing subs and nothing to make up the lost income a struggling game like TR was too much to absorb for them.
How much profit was made from Eye of the North?
I'm not entirely certain that NCSoft really wanted to launch TR much at all i am leaning more towards they where contractually obligated to RG to release the game, otherwise they would have made a fiscally wise decision long ago about the game, probrably before it was ever launched about the time that investment in the game was going to rise because of a complete overhaul. It's no coincadence that RG left then TR got the axe suddenly, before the patch everyone was heralding as potentially TR's sub savior.
As far as Eye Of The North, NCSoft reports having sold 4.5million boxes in North America + europe in Q3 alone. So do the math...
However they lost sub's by the 10 tens of thousands in all games except L2, where they netted a total of roughly 27k in asia and lost 5k in america.
City of X lost roughly 14k.
They lost an amazing 47k from L1 in asia. Hince their massive support of Aion.
(if your curious where these ROUGH numbers come from its their quarterly reports.)
I know the Earth patch was supposed to be a huge savior but the subscription numbers for TR tell you how bad it was getting. Q2 they averaged like 38k subs and for Q3 it was down to 29k average. So you can see even with that highly anticipated patch people were still leaving in droves. Losing 10k from a couple hundred K is one thing, losing over 1/4 of your subs is another.
I figured you were using the Quarterlies to get your numbers, thats why I asked for the EOTN profit. Did not want to DL it at work. Thanks for the numbers. I knew EOTN was huge but they damn near sold the expansion to everyone who bought the original games. Thats a pretty good % there. I am waiting on GW2 but seems we have not heard much lately.
Yeah TR has(really its had) some issues to address, was a good game but not much of an mmo. However with minimal marketing and a ton of badmouthing without fixing the really only two issues it needed addressed, its sub numbers stayed pretty similar throughout the year but they where never good to begin with.
The first half of this year should have been in development and earth coming 6 months after release, however a better endgame and some sort of PVP/PVE faction system could have saved this game. Along with a good marketing campaign, where they show and talk about hte game not some guy being lobbed into space.
Yeah EOTN had something like 81% sales saturation in europe and like 57% in north america, clearly the biggest factor in the 50% loss from Q3 2007 to Q3 2008. But the part that should be worrying them more than TR is the fact they they lost large sub numbers from every game consistantly all year, I really believe that Aion is hugely important to the finaical future. If it flops they will be in trouble, until GW2 comes along.
I am alo waiting for GW2 If they stick to their promise and keep it using the same sales model as GW1 they will make a killing on that game.
TR definately released half to a fll year too early. If TR was coming out now with the work they did I think it would have been a good solid game for years to come. They had a decent number of subs during the first Quarter. It went downhill from there. That is what happens when you have such a shallow game though and maybe it will serve as a lesson, maybe not.
GW2 needs to keep the sales model of GW or it will not only not do as well it will put the lie to a lot of promises. If GW2 ends up as pay per month I know I will not buy it. But I think the guys in charge will make sure that does not happen, I just wish we had some details the last few months. I am guessing the idea of early 2009 for release are no longer realistic.
I doubt anyone will learn anything from TR. Everyone is too busy screaming about how horrible it is and how RG is greedy. However what most of them don't realize it RG was involved in L1, L2, CoX and TR. The main failure of TR to me was when they redesigned the whole game and NCSoft hung it with a almost completely different games development costs. If they would have put the cancelled tag on the first rendition of TR and started fresh with a new budget it would have made a world of difference.
However Publishers are still going to force games out prematurely so the dev teams can be blamed for the games failure. This to me has been the fault of so many games its sickening. The only company that doesn't seem to have a problem with this is Blizzard then again they publish their own games.
Well i don't know when you started GW but when it was ready to launch instead of a full on beta they did beta weekends like 4 of them and then launched the game. So it could be in 2009 very easily. I do wish they'd talk about it more i also hope they go with an offical forums too.
I started GW a couple days after the release but was not watching it much during beta. GW2 just from what I have seen in the past is going to have so much more involved I would think they need a few months to get all the beta done, or atleast hope they do so they get it right. I had heard early 2009 but with no word in a while I think late 2009, maybe this time next year, would be more realistic. Or maybe they are further along and just keeping quiet.
Well if they use the same basic networking software then they won't need to do much load testing, with the first GW they did their beta testing in a closed beta and then the Open beta was only open for preorder and the like. The game was well done and ready to launch when the beta rolled around.