The stats are being pulled from guilded characters only, and players who are not flagged as hidden.
Last Update:Wednesday, September 25, 10 AM Order: 69811 Destruction: 102576
Novemerber 2nd, 10 am
Order: 203,916
Destruction: 260,958
now even if it is 90% of the population is guilded and 10% is solo and flagged as hidden that will still have a total of more than 500,000 subs, and that is for US servers only.
You seems to have forgotten that you can have 10 chars per server on each account so even if there were only 10 servers then 5000 accounts could have half a million characters.
With that in mind half a million chars says little about the number of active accounts except that its very low at this stage compared to the sold boxes.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
Ask yourselves this. If there was a much better mmo that released this year would any of you consider playing WAR ? To me WAR has some success only because there was nothing good out this year.
If this game was really good, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion so far after release. I expect some hate in the first month, but after that...there is no smoke without fire. Same deal with AOC.
I keep hearing from fans of a certain other game cough WOW cough that WAR is a total flop and financial disaster. This post is not to start a fanboi flamefest, but only to point out that WAR actually did very well in total box sales - .1.2 million and had 800,000 subscribers in the month after launch. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6200329.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1 Now, I recognize that WAR may not have 800K today, I think part of that is they launched at the same time as Blizzard's latest big release. I have nothing against Blizzard, but let's face it - they are the top name in PC Gaming. If you compare WAR sales to other AAA PC titles, it's actually been a major success. And the estimated 600K current subscribers makes it one of the biggest MMOGs behind WOW in North America/Europe. That means WAR is far from an "epic fail" or a "dying game." Personally, I think if Mythic can keep improving the game as quickly as they are doing, subs will surpass 1 million as people get burned out on WOTLK.
The answer is simple, everything is relative.
WAR is an AAA, it was supposed to be a blockbuster, but unfortunately is not.
It has been targeted for the casual crowd therefore you would expect 1 million + subscribers (I am not talking about WoW figures)
Unfortunately for Mythic, WAR has now a subscription number that is closer to a niche game than an AAA game.
So in term of market share is a disaster, although that doesn't mean that it is a financial disaster.
I believe that WAR has enough subscribers to be profitable, but that doesn't mean it is a success.
It is like the next Batman movie making 50 million dollar rather than the usual 250.............of course it is profitable but it is considered a flop in the industry (that's just an example, not real figures).
Poster above me is spot on, it's all relative and depends on what you want to compare it with.
If we go by MJs expectations, ie 1M within a year, then yes, it's a huge flop. If we go by the normal MMO subs number, between 150-250k subs, then no, it's a success. It has enough subs to keep it going for a while and it's players are having fun, which is what matters for them.
war is a failed as their system requirements for the same cartoony graphics is more demanding than wow (wow's success is due to the fact that yesteday's average pc can play it.) the other factors that makes war a failiure. 1) is the poorly and confusing quests, wtf why should we be running aimless around. 2) technical issues with vista making the game crash to desktop quite often. 3) poor customer service and response. 4) long queue times for scenarios average 15-30mins and level in-balance (well they could hv done this the counterstrike way which makes it more skill dependent rather than higher levels having quite an advantage in 1vs1 situations). 5) crappy graphics wow has been graphics. 6) no ffa pvp between factions only in designated zones wtf.... just my 2 cents
Wow doesn't have better graphic, it does have better art, not the same thing. But that in itself is kinda sad since Warhammer FRPG got brilliant art, instead they aimed for it to look like the boardgame.
If MJ and Barnett hadn't said what they said before launch I wouldn't consider the game as a flop but they talked about 1 million subs and with those expections the game did flop, it doesn't even have half that.
It is kinda sad, because if they had used more from Warhammer FRPG the game would have been great instead of OK. The level system just doesn't work in the setting, it goes against everything that Warhammer are. I played the RPG since 91 so I would call myself a fan of the world.
Poster above me is spot on, it's all relative and depends on what you want to compare it with.
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
I keep hearing from fans of a certain other game cough WOW cough that WAR is a total flop and financial disaster. This post is not to start a fanboi flamefest, but only to point out that WAR actually did very well in total box sales - .1.2 million and had 800,000 subscribers in the month after launch. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6200329.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1 Now, I recognize that WAR may not have 800K today, I think part of that is they launched at the same time as Blizzard's latest big release. I have nothing against Blizzard, but let's face it - they are the top name in PC Gaming. If you compare WAR sales to other AAA PC titles, it's actually been a major success. And the estimated 600K current subscribers makes it one of the biggest MMOGs behind WOW in North America/Europe. That means WAR is far from an "epic fail" or a "dying game." Personally, I think if Mythic can keep improving the game as quickly as they are doing, subs will surpass 1 million as people get burned out on WOTLK.
Yes, considering what the Devs and publishers expected for this game, WAR flopped.
Poster above me is spot on, it's all relative and depends on what you want to compare it with.
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
In the same breath I bet you almost every fan of whatever game you are playing are former WoW players in the same ratio as those who didn't find war all that it was hyped up to be.
People are gamers no matter what game they currently play.
MJ/Mythic were aiming for 1 million+ in the first year. Those are their own words, not those of WoW fans. Who is comparing it to 11.5 million?
Simple reason is that there is not a large enough % of MMORPG gamers out there to split between new games[60% in WOW].You will get the bored gamer flipping around from WOW and other games,but unless a game REALLY knocks there socks off,they will be returning to WOW and there other games.I doubt that most of the game hoppers are even really interested in a new game,they are just bored with a little extra cash to spend.PVP players see a new game,so they jump in and speed level ,hoping they will be the king of the castle,because the game is new.That mentality wears thin VERY quick.The majority will be pigeon fodder for the ones that have 24/7 time to get ahead of the pack,so the game dies slowly from that point on.WOW keeps there PVP players by offering new raid gear,so the losing PVP'rs cling to some false hope that there is gear out there that will make them the best,this is why i call PVP SUPERFICIAL gaming.It belongs in FPS's where it is skill against skill,not who has the best gear or most time to play.
IMO WAR was VERY limited in it's design and approach,so it really had little chance of making it big.It seems ANY game right now that mentions any kind of PVP or FFA PVP,garners a mass gathering,but it will fade out quick ,once the players realize only a FEW will benefit from this type of game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Poster above me is spot on, it's all relative and depends on what you want to compare it with.
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
What exactly are you basing this last statement on? Because that sounds like a WoW comparison to me. MMO's hardly ever grow with time, only the few succesfulls compared to the countless failures manage to grow and even then usually only by a little after the initial launch surge. WoW is about the only MMO you could draw that conclusion from.
This is VERY true ste2k, because while I agree with your below quote:
It has been targeted for the casual crowd therefore you would expect 1 million + subscribers (I am not talking about WoW figures)
Do you realize how many diehard Warhammer fans would disagree with this statement concerning Warhammer's target of "casual" players?
Most Warhammer fans who really enjoy the game have posted over/over/over how the game is quite complex, not a simple thing for the you-know-who crowd who likes simpler PvP. They say this is one reason so many have quit Warhammer; it's too.. err...demanding. They claim this game was for a different type of player, not the casual as you and I may agree upon. The "casual" just doesn't get the game and how it's supposed to be played, so it wasn't made for them. They say Mythic didn't have these people in mind as the target audience.
I think you, I and plenty others have read the same voluminous interview quotes and seen the same vid feeds from Mythic heads where they state directly and indirectly they were trying to peel off subscriptions from the you-know-who crowd and compete with them. But you'd be better off spitting in the wind than to have a diehard Warhammer fan read/see the same info and get the same conclusions. People see what they want to see, everything is relative.
I still don't think its a flop; I know plenty of games (Tabula Rasa, Spellborn, AoC, LOTRO, PoTBS, etc) that would love to sell that many boxes at launch, still end up with 300k subs and call it a huge success. Mythic set it's own internal standard of what "success" is, but they have leaked enough info by omission and slippage for folks to draw good ideas exactly what that standard is.
I really don't think Mythic is happy overall, because they would be WAY more transparent with their numbers if they were.
Let's flip it around: If Mythic had hit 1 million or more paid and active subscriptions, does anyone believe they would still let people have 'Guesstamation Amateur Hour' on every forum? Or do you think they would open up the PR floodgates and ask CNN, G4TV, and every major gaming magazine/site to do big stories about them hitting the 1 million mark of paid subscriptions? I think everyone knows the answer to this one.
They'd have unleashed the Human Highlight film and PR hellstorm that is Paul Barnett. Instead, few folks have seen him since after September.. it's like he entered the Witness Relocation and Protection program. Mythic has coddled their numbers and kept them very close to the vest, awaiting a "hit" of a magic number that may or may not come. They may never, EVER release true subscription numbers for Warhammer. Was it done with DAoC? I have no idea.
So you are definitely correct... everything is relative.
I keep hearing from fans of a certain other game cough WOW cough that WAR is a total flop and financial disaster. This post is not to start a fanboi flamefest, but only to point out that WAR actually did very well in total box sales - .1.2 million and had 800,000 subscribers in the month after launch. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6200329.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1 Now, I recognize that WAR may not have 800K today, I think part of that is they launched at the same time as Blizzard's latest big release. I have nothing against Blizzard, but let's face it - they are the top name in PC Gaming. If you compare WAR sales to other AAA PC titles, it's actually been a major success. And the estimated 600K current subscribers makes it one of the biggest MMOGs behind WOW in North America/Europe. That means WAR is far from an "epic fail" or a "dying game." Personally, I think if Mythic can keep improving the game as quickly as they are doing, subs will surpass 1 million as people get burned out on WOTLK.
I don't think box sales really determines a flop or not (for mmorpgs). Developers only get about 20% of the proceeds of box sales. So Warhammer cost about 40M to make, and they got back about 8M from box sales. Maintaining subscribers is what makes money.
I'm not sure where Warhammer will come out. It's clear that they lost over half of that 800k so far. They have merged well over half their servers and a large portion of the 'destination' servers are still very inactive. Warhammer has also fallen off the sales charts, so don't expect an influx of new players any time soon.
I think it fits in well with the Eve, Lotro, EQ2 area of the chart. But I do think Warhammer is in a much more precarious situation from those games because it is almost purely based on endgame pvp that requires a large amount of players to make it fun. The 'fun-factor' of Warhammer drops off quickly as populations drop.
and where did you get your facts from?
Which facts are you questioning?
It's a pretty much 'industry' norm that retail boxes pass on between 15-20% to the developer. You can look at Funcoms, Blizzards are a variaty of other gaming companies to see this number come up over and over. It's usually 15% in EU and 20% in the US... the overall average depends on where the sales come from.
Xfire is down 75%. 60% of servers have been 'abandoned'. Stating a 50% loss in max populations is a reasonable guess. Read the Vault forums, just today there was a nice thread of people talking about thier 'destination' servers being very low pop now.
instead of you guessing and pulling pencentages out of your anus and only using a small pool of players to make these inaccurate guesses post some actual facts like this......
The stats are being pulled from guilded characters only, and players who are not flagged as hidden.
Last Update:Wednesday, September 25, 10 AM
Order: 69811
Destruction: 102576
Novemerber 2nd, 10 am
Order: 203,916
Destruction: 260,958
now even if it is 90% of the population is guilded and 10% is solo and flagged as hidden that will still have a total of more than 500,000 subs, and that is for US servers only.
The stats you are showing is CHARACTERS. Because you know, nobody makes alts or anything like that. In fact, Warhammer is ripe for alts because fort raids and city seiges are so broken. You get to endgame and you crash every time you raid a fort.. of course you are going to reroll.
you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
Sorry but you have to look at the trends rather than the numbers here. WoW was slow starting yes, it took them 4-6 months before they broke the first million. But the difference is that they never declined from disapointed players and it wasnt just because of the times back then.
WaR is declining and its declining because it failed to create a game liked by any of the big subsets of MMO fans and this happened because Mythic was soo greedy after the big hit that they overdesigned the game to emcompas everyone in such a way that it ended up being boring for most players.
WaR is fundamentaly flawed, its from the most basic design stage doomed. It failed to be a RvR game since Mythic forgot the most fundamental element in a RvR game which is that everyone in a side is in the fight together as a community and is rewarded and punished as a community as the war goes well or bad. They failed to cater to those who like adventure and exploration since they created the game zones as so small overdesigned areas that are so blatant in their railroading that no one gets the feeling they are actually entering a game WORLD. They failed the raiders, they failed the crafters, they failed the hardcore pvpers and they failed the roleplayers.
It all became a hogdepodge there is as interesting as when you blend all colors together. Mythic is unwilling to face that their must basic game idea "war is everywhere" is just a road to boredom and I cant blame them because it cannot be fixed since that would mean redesigning 80 to 90% of the gameworld and game content.
So WoW kept gaining players because it had a solid gameplay and a clear idea about what the game was about that actually was enjoyable where WaR has a flawed game idea that drives people away as they quickly get bored with it.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
war is a failed as their system requirements for the same cartoony graphics is more demanding than wow (wow's success is due to the fact that yesteday's average pc can play it.) the other factors that makes war a failiure. 1) is the poorly and confusing quests, wtf why should we be running aimless around. 2) technical issues with vista making the game crash to desktop quite often. 3) poor customer service and response. 4) long queue times for scenarios average 15-30mins and level in-balance (well they could hv done this the counterstrike way which makes it more skill dependent rather than higher levels having quite an advantage in 1vs1 situations). 5) crappy graphics wow has been graphics. 6) no ffa pvp between factions only in designated zones wtf.... just my 2 cents
1. and you dont do this in WoW? lol
2. I ran it on Vista... Crashes?
3. I had one problem with a game time card, resolved in a few min over the phone
4. Man i remember waiting for an hour to get into warsong gultch, oh and games been on for a month if your such a wow fanboi then you should know how inbalanced it was at it's launch
5. "crappy graphics wow has been graphics" - doesnt make sense but if your trying to says WAR has bad graphics and WoW's is better, i think you have problems, with your eyesight
Poster above me is spot on, it's all relative and depends on what you want to compare it with.
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
What exactly are you basing this last statement on? Because that sounds like a WoW comparison to me. MMO's hardly ever grow with time, only the few succesfulls compared to the countless failures manage to grow and even then usually only by a little after the initial launch surge. WoW is about the only MMO you could draw that conclusion from.
Phease, there are plent y of MMOGs that have grown since launch. LOTRO is probably the best example - it started off slow but from what I've heard is over 1 million subscribers now. The latest expansion did very well. EVE started off a complete niche game and now has respectable numbers for any MMOG besides WOW. GW picked up momentum to sell nearly 5 million boxes total. I personally have faith in Mythic after seeing Patch 1.1 that in the next few months they will become a true contender. If WAR continues to improve, they'll be able to fill that sweet spot this summer when many of WOW's players are bored with WOTLK and willing to give WAR a try or re-subscribe. And since the only MMOGs I've heard of on the horizon are either a year out or seem to be hardcore niche games like Darkfall, Mythic can put themselves in a good position to grow in the next 6 months. Of course, I could also see Mythic falling flat on their faces. As much as I like Mythic so far, I don't have as much faith in them as I would Blizzard.
Poster above me is spot on, it's all relative and depends on what you want to compare it with.
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
What exactly are you basing this last statement on? Because that sounds like a WoW comparison to me. MMO's hardly ever grow with time, only the few succesfulls compared to the countless failures manage to grow and even then usually only by a little after the initial launch surge. WoW is about the only MMO you could draw that conclusion from.
Phease, there are plent y of MMOGs that have grown since launch. LOTRO is probably the best example - it started off slow but from what I've heard is over 1 million subscribers now. The latest expansion did very well. EVE started off a complete niche game and now has respectable numbers for any MMOG besides WOW. GW picked up momentum to sell nearly 5 million boxes total. I personally have faith in Mythic after seeing Patch 1.1 that in the next few months they will become a true contender. If WAR continues to improve, they'll be able to fill that sweet spot this summer when many of WOW's players are bored with WOTLK and willing to give WAR a try or re-subscribe. And since the only MMOGs I've heard of on the horizon are either a year out or seem to be hardcore niche games like Darkfall, Mythic can put themselves in a good position to grow in the next 6 months. Of course, I could also see Mythic falling flat on their faces. As much as I like Mythic so far, I don't have as much faith in them as I would Blizzard.
2 examples, (which I already covered by the "few" successfulls I mentioned) out of *countless* MMO's that have released in the last decennium, half of which most of you wouldn't even be able to name because they never got the luck to be succesfull. (I don't consider GW a MMO but beyond that it's not subscription base so the comparison is just not relevant).
If what you're saying about LOTRO is true(can't seem to find any numbers on it) that's one of the few real other examples and it still hinges on good management by the company of their game after release. It may be different now but in my past experience Mythic was a company that couldn't find a direction after it's game released rather than the other way around. They haven't really had any big changes yet so far to say anything about WAR.
Even taking for granted the few successes and assuming the same sort of thing for WAR you're still only talking about a 1 to 1,5 million person game tops (which is a major success when compared to any MMO besides WOW, no doubt). So far though, there's no indication of the game changing in a way that'll make that likely though, again in my opinion. I'm not saying they aren't doing good things, just not things that would completely change the direction in such a positive way as to do anything as pull in twice the amount of subs they have gotten so far at least.
And since the only MMOGs I've heard of on the horizon are either a year out or seem to be hardcore niche games like Darkfall, Mythic can put themselves in a good position to grow in the next 6 months.
Don't forget AION. Less than 6 months until NA release, ginormous existing player base right now, and plenty of support from NCsoft. Plus, its PvE and RvR, so it should have the better of WoW and War as a mix. It's recent numbers are quite impressive as well. This is probably going to be the game that sneaks up on most Western players as a surprise sleeper.
The only thing that I've seen detracting from Aion would be if someone doesn't like the artstyle. But true gamers will probably ignore that if the game is as solid as it has tested.
Originally posted by Pheace If what you're saying about LOTRO is true(can't seem to find any numbers on it) that's one of the few real other examples and it still hinges on good management by the company of their game after release.
Well I recently returned to Lotro after a 8 month break and I was suprised to find it now only alive and kicking, but downright crowded. Its a niche game for roleplayers and the super casuals but it does that really well and Turbine support this niche crowd and give them exactly what they want.
Mythic should do the same, find out what their target audience is and then concentrating on shaping the game around that target audience instead of like now where they do half hearted everyone so no one really love it.
Darkfall seems to do this. They cater to a very limited audience and the game contain a lot of stuff most wil hate. But for those that like the kind of game darkfall is going to be will love it with a passion.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
Ow I'm definitely not saying LOTRO isn't doing well, just that I can't find any numbers. From what I hear so far it seems to be doing very well and the last expansion seems to have given it a nice boost.
you wow fanboys gota realize blizz counts inactive accounts ...people that quadbox and so on ....i dont believe wow has the subs they say they have thats all a advertisment scam to get you to play ....also here are some warhammer numbers ..dosent seem to me warhammer is dieing like all your DOOM and GLOOMer cry babys are talking
you wow fanboys gota realize blizz counts inactive accounts ...people that quadbox and so on ....i dont believe wow has the subs they say they have thats all a advertisment scam to get you to play ....also here are some warhammer numbers ..dosent seem to me warhammer is dieing like all your DOOM and GLOOMer cry babys are talking http://www.waralytics.com/warservers/index they have over a mil right now so in your face goom and gloom QQers
No they don't which they define quite clearly each time they post their numbers.
I realize you're just being defensive here but please, at least complain with/about things you know, not stuff you'd like to believe.
Also, what kind of conclusions exactly are supposed to be drawn from waralytics according to you? 1 million+ guilded ingame chars for the US? That doesn't say anything really so what are you reading into it it and could you at least try and explain that?
Poster above me is spot on, it's all relative and depends on what you want to compare it with.
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
What exactly are you basing this last statement on? Because that sounds like a WoW comparison to me. MMO's hardly ever grow with time, only the few succesfulls compared to the countless failures manage to grow and even then usually only by a little after the initial launch surge. WoW is about the only MMO you could draw that conclusion from.
Phease, there are plent y of MMOGs that have grown since launch. LOTRO is probably the best example - it started off slow but from what I've heard is over 1 million subscribers now. The latest expansion did very well. EVE started off a complete niche game and now has respectable numbers for any MMOG besides WOW. GW picked up momentum to sell nearly 5 million boxes total. I personally have faith in Mythic after seeing Patch 1.1 that in the next few months they will become a true contender. If WAR continues to improve, they'll be able to fill that sweet spot this summer when many of WOW's players are bored with WOTLK and willing to give WAR a try or re-subscribe. And since the only MMOGs I've heard of on the horizon are either a year out or seem to be hardcore niche games like Darkfall, Mythic can put themselves in a good position to grow in the next 6 months. Of course, I could also see Mythic falling flat on their faces. As much as I like Mythic so far, I don't have as much faith in them as I would Blizzard.
Simply not true. There are exactly 2 western MMORPGs that are higher now then when they launched. EVE and WOW. EVE is a good game and has grown to about 250,000 players over time, but there was no huge release. It basically started with 10,000 players and has grown consistently over time. WOW started with about half a million and has grown ever since.
LotRO is nowhere near where it launched at. It had a nice rebound in server populations with the expansion, but a big thing to remember is that is sold a ton of lifetime memberships at launch. There aren't a lot of people who 'resubscribe'.. there are just a lot of people logged into their lifetime accounts to see what was new. Based on servers numbers.. there were probably 125,000 people playing before the expansion, probably 150,000 now. But that is far short of the 250,000 they had the first month.
The norm has become AOC, War, TR, EQ2 etc that peak the first month, and then drop by 50% 6 weeks later.
EVE and WOW are the only two games not to have done this.
Comments
You seems to have forgotten that you can have 10 chars per server on each account so even if there were only 10 servers then 5000 accounts could have half a million characters.
With that in mind half a million chars says little about the number of active accounts except that its very low at this stage compared to the sold boxes.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
Ask yourselves this. If there was a much better mmo that released this year would any of you consider playing WAR ? To me WAR has some success only because there was nothing good out this year.
If this game was really good, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion so far after release. I expect some hate in the first month, but after that...there is no smoke without fire. Same deal with AOC.
Regards
Melmoth
The answer is simple, everything is relative.
WAR is an AAA, it was supposed to be a blockbuster, but unfortunately is not.
It has been targeted for the casual crowd therefore you would expect 1 million + subscribers (I am not talking about WoW figures)
Unfortunately for Mythic, WAR has now a subscription number that is closer to a niche game than an AAA game.
So in term of market share is a disaster, although that doesn't mean that it is a financial disaster.
I believe that WAR has enough subscribers to be profitable, but that doesn't mean it is a success.
It is like the next Batman movie making 50 million dollar rather than the usual 250.............of course it is profitable but it is considered a flop in the industry (that's just an example, not real figures).
Same is WAR.
Poster above me is spot on, it's all relative and depends on what you want to compare it with.
If we go by MJs expectations, ie 1M within a year, then yes, it's a huge flop. If we go by the normal MMO subs number, between 150-250k subs, then no, it's a success. It has enough subs to keep it going for a while and it's players are having fun, which is what matters for them.
Wow doesn't have better graphic, it does have better art, not the same thing. But that in itself is kinda sad since Warhammer FRPG got brilliant art, instead they aimed for it to look like the boardgame.
If MJ and Barnett hadn't said what they said before launch I wouldn't consider the game as a flop but they talked about 1 million subs and with those expections the game did flop, it doesn't even have half that.
It is kinda sad, because if they had used more from Warhammer FRPG the game would have been great instead of OK. The level system just doesn't work in the setting, it goes against everything that Warhammer are. I played the RPG since 91 so I would call myself a fan of the world.
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
Yes, considering what the Devs and publishers expected for this game, WAR flopped.
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
In the same breath I bet you almost every fan of whatever game you are playing are former WoW players in the same ratio as those who didn't find war all that it was hyped up to be.
People are gamers no matter what game they currently play.
MJ/Mythic were aiming for 1 million+ in the first year. Those are their own words, not those of WoW fans. Who is comparing it to 11.5 million?
IMO no game right now can be considere a flop.
Simple reason is that there is not a large enough % of MMORPG gamers out there to split between new games[60% in WOW].You will get the bored gamer flipping around from WOW and other games,but unless a game REALLY knocks there socks off,they will be returning to WOW and there other games.I doubt that most of the game hoppers are even really interested in a new game,they are just bored with a little extra cash to spend.PVP players see a new game,so they jump in and speed level ,hoping they will be the king of the castle,because the game is new.That mentality wears thin VERY quick.The majority will be pigeon fodder for the ones that have 24/7 time to get ahead of the pack,so the game dies slowly from that point on.WOW keeps there PVP players by offering new raid gear,so the losing PVP'rs cling to some false hope that there is gear out there that will make them the best,this is why i call PVP SUPERFICIAL gaming.It belongs in FPS's where it is skill against skill,not who has the best gear or most time to play.
IMO WAR was VERY limited in it's design and approach,so it really had little chance of making it big.It seems ANY game right now that mentions any kind of PVP or FFA PVP,garners a mass gathering,but it will fade out quick ,once the players realize only a FEW will benefit from this type of game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
What exactly are you basing this last statement on? Because that sounds like a WoW comparison to me. MMO's hardly ever grow with time, only the few succesfulls compared to the countless failures manage to grow and even then usually only by a little after the initial launch surge. WoW is about the only MMO you could draw that conclusion from.
This is VERY true ste2k, because while I agree with your below quote:
Do you realize how many diehard Warhammer fans would disagree with this statement concerning Warhammer's target of "casual" players?
Most Warhammer fans who really enjoy the game have posted over/over/over how the game is quite complex, not a simple thing for the you-know-who crowd who likes simpler PvP. They say this is one reason so many have quit Warhammer; it's too.. err...demanding. They claim this game was for a different type of player, not the casual as you and I may agree upon. The "casual" just doesn't get the game and how it's supposed to be played, so it wasn't made for them. They say Mythic didn't have these people in mind as the target audience.
I think you, I and plenty others have read the same voluminous interview quotes and seen the same vid feeds from Mythic heads where they state directly and indirectly they were trying to peel off subscriptions from the you-know-who crowd and compete with them. But you'd be better off spitting in the wind than to have a diehard Warhammer fan read/see the same info and get the same conclusions. People see what they want to see, everything is relative.
I still don't think its a flop; I know plenty of games (Tabula Rasa, Spellborn, AoC, LOTRO, PoTBS, etc) that would love to sell that many boxes at launch, still end up with 300k subs and call it a huge success. Mythic set it's own internal standard of what "success" is, but they have leaked enough info by omission and slippage for folks to draw good ideas exactly what that standard is.
I really don't think Mythic is happy overall, because they would be WAY more transparent with their numbers if they were.
Let's flip it around: If Mythic had hit 1 million or more paid and active subscriptions, does anyone believe they would still let people have 'Guesstamation Amateur Hour' on every forum? Or do you think they would open up the PR floodgates and ask CNN, G4TV, and every major gaming magazine/site to do big stories about them hitting the 1 million mark of paid subscriptions? I think everyone knows the answer to this one.
They'd have unleashed the Human Highlight film and PR hellstorm that is Paul Barnett. Instead, few folks have seen him since after September.. it's like he entered the Witness Relocation and Protection program. Mythic has coddled their numbers and kept them very close to the vest, awaiting a "hit" of a magic number that may or may not come. They may never, EVER release true subscription numbers for Warhammer. Was it done with DAoC? I have no idea.
So you are definitely correct... everything is relative.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I don't think box sales really determines a flop or not (for mmorpgs). Developers only get about 20% of the proceeds of box sales. So Warhammer cost about 40M to make, and they got back about 8M from box sales. Maintaining subscribers is what makes money.
I'm not sure where Warhammer will come out. It's clear that they lost over half of that 800k so far. They have merged well over half their servers and a large portion of the 'destination' servers are still very inactive. Warhammer has also fallen off the sales charts, so don't expect an influx of new players any time soon.
I think it fits in well with the Eve, Lotro, EQ2 area of the chart. But I do think Warhammer is in a much more precarious situation from those games because it is almost purely based on endgame pvp that requires a large amount of players to make it fun. The 'fun-factor' of Warhammer drops off quickly as populations drop.
and where did you get your facts from?
Which facts are you questioning?
It's a pretty much 'industry' norm that retail boxes pass on between 15-20% to the developer. You can look at Funcoms, Blizzards are a variaty of other gaming companies to see this number come up over and over. It's usually 15% in EU and 20% in the US... the overall average depends on where the sales come from.
Xfire is down 75%. 60% of servers have been 'abandoned'. Stating a 50% loss in max populations is a reasonable guess. Read the Vault forums, just today there was a nice thread of people talking about thier 'destination' servers being very low pop now.
instead of you guessing and pulling pencentages out of your anus and only using a small pool of players to make these inaccurate guesses post some actual facts like this......
The stats are being pulled from guilded characters only, and players who are not flagged as hidden.
Last Update: Wednesday, September 25, 10 AM
Order: 69811
Destruction: 102576
Novemerber 2nd, 10 am
Order: 203,916
Destruction: 260,958
now even if it is 90% of the population is guilded and 10% is solo and flagged as hidden that will still have a total of more than 500,000 subs, and that is for US servers only.
The stats you are showing is CHARACTERS. Because you know, nobody makes alts or anything like that. In fact, Warhammer is ripe for alts because fort raids and city seiges are so broken. You get to endgame and you crash every time you raid a fort.. of course you are going to reroll.
That's certainly a "Pie in his face" moment ^^
Sorry but you have to look at the trends rather than the numbers here. WoW was slow starting yes, it took them 4-6 months before they broke the first million. But the difference is that they never declined from disapointed players and it wasnt just because of the times back then.
WaR is declining and its declining because it failed to create a game liked by any of the big subsets of MMO fans and this happened because Mythic was soo greedy after the big hit that they overdesigned the game to emcompas everyone in such a way that it ended up being boring for most players.
WaR is fundamentaly flawed, its from the most basic design stage doomed. It failed to be a RvR game since Mythic forgot the most fundamental element in a RvR game which is that everyone in a side is in the fight together as a community and is rewarded and punished as a community as the war goes well or bad. They failed to cater to those who like adventure and exploration since they created the game zones as so small overdesigned areas that are so blatant in their railroading that no one gets the feeling they are actually entering a game WORLD. They failed the raiders, they failed the crafters, they failed the hardcore pvpers and they failed the roleplayers.
It all became a hogdepodge there is as interesting as when you blend all colors together. Mythic is unwilling to face that their must basic game idea "war is everywhere" is just a road to boredom and I cant blame them because it cannot be fixed since that would mean redesigning 80 to 90% of the gameworld and game content.
So WoW kept gaining players because it had a solid gameplay and a clear idea about what the game was about that actually was enjoyable where WaR has a flawed game idea that drives people away as they quickly get bored with it.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
1. and you dont do this in WoW? lol
2. I ran it on Vista... Crashes?
3. I had one problem with a game time card, resolved in a few min over the phone
4. Man i remember waiting for an hour to get into warsong gultch, oh and games been on for a month if your such a wow fanboi then you should know how inbalanced it was at it's launch
5. "crappy graphics wow has been graphics" - doesnt make sense but if your trying to says WAR has bad graphics and WoW's is better, i think you have problems, with your eyesight
6. same with wow
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
What exactly are you basing this last statement on? Because that sounds like a WoW comparison to me. MMO's hardly ever grow with time, only the few succesfulls compared to the countless failures manage to grow and even then usually only by a little after the initial launch surge. WoW is about the only MMO you could draw that conclusion from.
Phease, there are plent y of MMOGs that have grown since launch. LOTRO is probably the best example - it started off slow but from what I've heard is over 1 million subscribers now. The latest expansion did very well. EVE started off a complete niche game and now has respectable numbers for any MMOG besides WOW. GW picked up momentum to sell nearly 5 million boxes total. I personally have faith in Mythic after seeing Patch 1.1 that in the next few months they will become a true contender. If WAR continues to improve, they'll be able to fill that sweet spot this summer when many of WOW's players are bored with WOTLK and willing to give WAR a try or re-subscribe. And since the only MMOGs I've heard of on the horizon are either a year out or seem to be hardcore niche games like Darkfall, Mythic can put themselves in a good position to grow in the next 6 months. Of course, I could also see Mythic falling flat on their faces. As much as I like Mythic so far, I don't have as much faith in them as I would Blizzard.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
What exactly are you basing this last statement on? Because that sounds like a WoW comparison to me. MMO's hardly ever grow with time, only the few succesfulls compared to the countless failures manage to grow and even then usually only by a little after the initial launch surge. WoW is about the only MMO you could draw that conclusion from.
Phease, there are plent y of MMOGs that have grown since launch. LOTRO is probably the best example - it started off slow but from what I've heard is over 1 million subscribers now. The latest expansion did very well. EVE started off a complete niche game and now has respectable numbers for any MMOG besides WOW. GW picked up momentum to sell nearly 5 million boxes total. I personally have faith in Mythic after seeing Patch 1.1 that in the next few months they will become a true contender. If WAR continues to improve, they'll be able to fill that sweet spot this summer when many of WOW's players are bored with WOTLK and willing to give WAR a try or re-subscribe. And since the only MMOGs I've heard of on the horizon are either a year out or seem to be hardcore niche games like Darkfall, Mythic can put themselves in a good position to grow in the next 6 months. Of course, I could also see Mythic falling flat on their faces. As much as I like Mythic so far, I don't have as much faith in them as I would Blizzard.
2 examples, (which I already covered by the "few" successfulls I mentioned) out of *countless* MMO's that have released in the last decennium, half of which most of you wouldn't even be able to name because they never got the luck to be succesfull. (I don't consider GW a MMO but beyond that it's not subscription base so the comparison is just not relevant).
If what you're saying about LOTRO is true(can't seem to find any numbers on it) that's one of the few real other examples and it still hinges on good management by the company of their game after release. It may be different now but in my past experience Mythic was a company that couldn't find a direction after it's game released rather than the other way around. They haven't really had any big changes yet so far to say anything about WAR.
Even taking for granted the few successes and assuming the same sort of thing for WAR you're still only talking about a 1 to 1,5 million person game tops (which is a major success when compared to any MMO besides WOW, no doubt). So far though, there's no indication of the game changing in a way that'll make that likely though, again in my opinion. I'm not saying they aren't doing good things, just not things that would completely change the direction in such a positive way as to do anything as pull in twice the amount of subs they have gotten so far at least.
Don't forget AION. Less than 6 months until NA release, ginormous existing player base right now, and plenty of support from NCsoft. Plus, its PvE and RvR, so it should have the better of WoW and War as a mix. It's recent numbers are quite impressive as well. This is probably going to be the game that sneaks up on most Western players as a surprise sleeper.
The only thing that I've seen detracting from Aion would be if someone doesn't like the artstyle. But true gamers will probably ignore that if the game is as solid as it has tested.
Aion.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Well I recently returned to Lotro after a 8 month break and I was suprised to find it now only alive and kicking, but downright crowded. Its a niche game for roleplayers and the super casuals but it does that really well and Turbine support this niche crowd and give them exactly what they want.
Mythic should do the same, find out what their target audience is and then concentrating on shaping the game around that target audience instead of like now where they do half hearted everyone so no one really love it.
Darkfall seems to do this. They cater to a very limited audience and the game contain a lot of stuff most wil hate. But for those that like the kind of game darkfall is going to be will love it with a passion.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
Ow I'm definitely not saying LOTRO isn't doing well, just that I can't find any numbers. From what I hear so far it seems to be doing very well and the last expansion seems to have given it a nice boost.
you wow fanboys gota realize blizz counts inactive accounts ...people that quadbox and so on ....i dont believe wow has the subs they say they have thats all a advertisment scam to get you to play ....also here are some warhammer numbers ..dosent seem to me warhammer is dieing like all your DOOM and GLOOMer cry babys are talking
http://www.waralytics.com/warservers/index
they have over a mil right now so in your face goom and gloom QQers
why must you QQ so much ...
No they don't which they define quite clearly each time they post their numbers.
I realize you're just being defensive here but please, at least complain with/about things you know, not stuff you'd like to believe.
Also, what kind of conclusions exactly are supposed to be drawn from waralytics according to you? 1 million+ guilded ingame chars for the US? That doesn't say anything really so what are you reading into it it and could you at least try and explain that?
Ahhhhh there in lies the problem.....Everytime a new mmo is on the horizon out run the WOW Fanbois glee club in masses and in a hurry to compare everything about that game and WOW...They break out the pie charts, bar charts, sales numbers and Xfire(which is worthless because not everyone uses it). And yes it is mainly the WOW Fanbois that are stirring the pot in almost every game forum so thats why I direct my comments mainly at them...
anyways you can't compare anything to WOW or EQ2 until you give it a chance to live as long as they have....WOW didn't have 11.5 mill subs their first year. So to compare a game with 4+ years to a game that has been out a week a month or even 6 months is laughable at best. Give it time and the subscriber base will increase with time.....
What exactly are you basing this last statement on? Because that sounds like a WoW comparison to me. MMO's hardly ever grow with time, only the few succesfulls compared to the countless failures manage to grow and even then usually only by a little after the initial launch surge. WoW is about the only MMO you could draw that conclusion from.
Phease, there are plent y of MMOGs that have grown since launch. LOTRO is probably the best example - it started off slow but from what I've heard is over 1 million subscribers now. The latest expansion did very well. EVE started off a complete niche game and now has respectable numbers for any MMOG besides WOW. GW picked up momentum to sell nearly 5 million boxes total. I personally have faith in Mythic after seeing Patch 1.1 that in the next few months they will become a true contender. If WAR continues to improve, they'll be able to fill that sweet spot this summer when many of WOW's players are bored with WOTLK and willing to give WAR a try or re-subscribe. And since the only MMOGs I've heard of on the horizon are either a year out or seem to be hardcore niche games like Darkfall, Mythic can put themselves in a good position to grow in the next 6 months. Of course, I could also see Mythic falling flat on their faces. As much as I like Mythic so far, I don't have as much faith in them as I would Blizzard.
Simply not true. There are exactly 2 western MMORPGs that are higher now then when they launched. EVE and WOW. EVE is a good game and has grown to about 250,000 players over time, but there was no huge release. It basically started with 10,000 players and has grown consistently over time. WOW started with about half a million and has grown ever since.
LotRO is nowhere near where it launched at. It had a nice rebound in server populations with the expansion, but a big thing to remember is that is sold a ton of lifetime memberships at launch. There aren't a lot of people who 'resubscribe'.. there are just a lot of people logged into their lifetime accounts to see what was new. Based on servers numbers.. there were probably 125,000 people playing before the expansion, probably 150,000 now. But that is far short of the 250,000 they had the first month.
The norm has become AOC, War, TR, EQ2 etc that peak the first month, and then drop by 50% 6 weeks later.
EVE and WOW are the only two games not to have done this.
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html