#1 It's not the economy... even though the economy is faltering, gaming in general is doing great just look at COD4 and FALLOUT3....hell even Star Wars force Unleashed did great...War's just a crappy game who HAS (regardless of Xfire number or not) lost Thousands of Subs. and not to mention WOW. EA was targeting 250K subs???? wow, talk about aiming low too bad they didn't aim any lower because believe me in around 6 months they'll be lucky to have 200k already people are complaing ALOT about 3 things #1 Endgame collapses #2 Boredom yes, in just 4 months people are extremely bored of this game, very bored #3 Imbalanced population aimed at Destro
and lets not forget the last one, if CSR's weren't bad enough, now this....oh boy
and to the Poster who asked the question do we, or he want WAR to fail, that's not for us to decide or answer...I think WAR should be questioned...DO THEY WANT WAR TO FAIL OR SUCCEED...after all it is their game, that some consumers are now currently paying to BETA test....really this is a debacle for EA...
You obviosuly haven't been folllowing the industry close enough then. In the past few months dozens of companies have laid off or closed up shop due to POOR sales / economic conditions this year. EA has laid off thousands of people and terminated several offices including one that was going to be built in Canada due to Poor Sales & Economic conditions. The game industry is not economy proof its simply more resiliant then most since its an entertainment business industry like hollywood. They still have to tighten their belts.
Pretty much right now if you even want a job in the industry you'll be fighting against thousands of veterans...its a rough rough market..much rougher and nastier than it has been in a few years now.
If ( i should stress IF here since it is labeled as a RUMOR from a Trash news sight) they've laid off people from Mythic its for the same reasons they laid off / terminated the contract with Pandamic in Australia & let go thousands of employees from all over the country. The economy is hurting them especially EA with all the risks and acquistions they made last year.
here proof that its economic belt tightening that they released people from EA Mythic, Tiburon and other various studios across the world. They are not firing people due to WAR's sales / sub numbers. I wont comment on perspective sub numbers but WAR seemingly to me being on several servers has more than enough population for testing etc. They released far to many servers at launch to handle the surge crush and as they've stabilized the servers they started Moving people off the Low Pop Servers and have been for months they're nto suddenly cutting more than half like Age of Conan.
You obviosuly haven't been folllowing the industry close enough then. In the past few months dozens of companies have laid off or closed up shop due to POOR sales / economic conditions this year. EA has laid off thousands of people and terminated several offices including one that was going to be built in Canada due to Poor Sales & Economic conditions. The game industry is not economy proof its simply more resiliant then most since its an entertainment business industry like hollywood. They still have to tighten their belts. Pretty much right now if you even want a job in the industry you'll be fighting against thousands of veterans...its a rough rough market..much rougher and nastier than it has been in a few years now. If ( i should stress IF here since it is labeled as a RUMOR from a Trash news sight) they've laid off people from Mythic its for the same reasons they laid off / terminated the contract with Pandamic in Australia & let go thousands of employees from all over the country. The economy is hurting them especially EA with all the risks and acquistions they made last year. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21931
here proof that its economic belt tightening that they released people from EA Mythic, Tiburon and other various studios across the world. They are not firing people due to WAR's sales / sub numbers. I wont comment on perspective sub numbers but WAR seemingly to me being on several servers has more than enough population for testing etc. They released far to many servers at launch to handle the surge crush and as they've stabilized the servers they started Moving people off the Low Pop Servers and have been for months they're nto suddenly cutting more than half like Age of Conan.
I guess you missed this one while following the industry as well...
"According to data from market researcher NPD Group, Americans bought $21.33 billion worth of video game systems, software and accessories last year (2008). This is a big jump from the previous year's roughly $18 billion, but slightly below the $22 billion that NPD had estimated as late as November. December marked the first time that the gaming industry's revenue topped $5 billion in a single month. In comparison, it took all of 1997 to hit industry sales of $5.1 billion. November and December are crucial months for video game companies, because they make the bulk of their money during the holidays. For the year, software sales hit nearly $11 billion, a 26 percent increase from 2007. Hardware sales jumped 11 percent to $7.81 billion."
May I remind you, that in November/December 2008, Warhammer was beaten out by Nancy Drew's game for sales. (October too, but who's counting?) Warhammer also failed to make the Top20 in PC software sales while Wow did it with 4 boxed versions.
Apparently, the "bad economy" only affects Warhammer but not Wow and Nancy Drew. It's just natural for EA to tell Mythic scrap some employees. They aren't keeping subsriptions.
The past 2 weekends ddidn't look very good on Xfire, which now shows a 26/1 ratio between Wow and War Xfire players. WE all know that that figure was 6/1 at the end of September.... Just divide 5Million by 26 and it is indeed under the 250K (200K even).
Only one problem with you logic. I and everyone I know who plays WAR do not use x-fire. Does that mean we do not count toward subscription numbers? So they, along with many other companies, are cutting jobs. Welcome to the current economy. Do you want a medal for your prediction? How about this, why not go play the game you enjoy, we will play ours, and everyone can be happy without going around and trying to inflate their e-peens?
Cheers!
Statistical logic would dictate that the proportion of people not using x-fire should be the same for both WAR and WoW unless there is a reason for a deviation between the two. I cant see a reason for deviation so the fact that some players are not on x-fire is moot because it holds true for both games.
I'm almost impressed. Dealing with X-fire statistical bias by using another game as a balancing factor.
The logical argument almosts hold right up to the point where you say "I can't see a reason for deviation" & then degenerates into just being your perfectly valid but non factual opinion.
Even if it were correct though it would still only hold true for the portion of both customer bases that use Xfire & which as far too many threads have discussed, is not representative of the majority of players. Making predictions for the whole population based on adjusting stats of biased samples is rarely valid.
I definitely agree that 'moot' is a good description for Xfire though.
And the reason x-fire population not being representative for the majority of players are....?
Its a sample of players just as any sample of players. So it being, or not being, representative would be the case for any random portion of the player base. Unless ofcourse you know the reason for it not being representative.
Ok , A month ago I predicted that if WAR would fall under 250 K subs it would come under the hammer of EA cuts. "ALL of the playtest group" : who will do the Beta testing for new content launch then ? The players as usual? Reference: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/01/19/rumor-mythic-layoffs-affect-qa-customer-support/ The past 2 weekends didn't look very good on Xfire, which now shows a 26/1 ratio between Wow and War Xfire players. WE all know that that figure was 6/1 at the end of September.... Just divide 5Million by 26 and it is indeed under the 250K (200K even).
Lol well sorry but War is not falling under 250k sups lol. Oh I bet some day it will but thats a GUESS non the less on your part. And please your trying to GUESS at this because of Xfire? HAHAHA I have 4 friends that still play War but dont use xfire.. gee now add that to your silly math.
And cutting people at this time in our country ..everyone is doing it AMD blah blah
WAR had some great ideas, which I hope other companies will copy. Some of the things that pretty much killed the game were:
1) The game was boring once you hit the Teens. Why? Level grind was way too slow. Not enough DINGing to keep people interested.
2) Everyone looked the same. I'm not one that needs graphics to be absolutely studpendous to enjoy a game, but COME ON people, with some of the customization available in other games, I'm surprised they had such few options to make your character unique. It's almost as bad as an Asian F2P MMO!
3) Crafting SUCKED! I mean, talismans and potions? That's it?!?! Laziness, pure and simple.
4) Options to keep players IN the world. I've said it before, I'll say it again, the more you involve players in a world, the less likely they are to leave it. Guild halls, Houses, Mounts, special events with unique titles and loot, and the list goes on. Heck, I STILL stop in on Vanguard every now and then simply because I don't want to lose my house LOL, but I digress.
5) Clunky(?) interface. I dunno what it is, but Blizzard has a way of making a game where it "feels" comfortable and familar to play their games. Things seem to click. Warhammer felt sluggish and uncomfortable from the get go. Not bad for a PvE game, but for PvP where controls need to be FAST, it just doesn't cut the mustard so to speak.
I could probably come up with more if I wanted to, but I found after the initial Oooo and Ahhhh for the first ten levels, it was pretty much rinse, repeat from there on in. To all the developers out there, the game needs to be FUN, the whole way through.
Oh well, lessons learned, take the good points, roll it into a new MMO and move along.
3) Crafting SUCKED! I mean, talismans and potions? That's it?!?! Laziness, pure and simple.
Come on... you gotta be fair here, Binney.
Crafting did suck monkey nuggets, but it's not like Mark Jacobs PERSONALLY headed, oversaw, and implemented the Crafting phase of Warhammer specifically. You really can't hold him accountable for that mess. I mean it's not like he gave a crap about crafting at al....
You obviosuly haven't been folllowing the industry close enough then. In the past few months dozens of companies have laid off or closed up shop due to POOR sales / economic conditions this year. EA has laid off thousands of people and terminated several offices including one that was going to be built in Canada due to Poor Sales & Economic conditions. The game industry is not economy proof its simply more resiliant then most since its an entertainment business industry like hollywood. They still have to tighten their belts.
Pretty much right now if you even want a job in the industry you'll be fighting against thousands of veterans...its a rough rough market..much rougher and nastier than it has been in a few years now.
If ( i should stress IF here since it is labeled as a RUMOR from a Trash news sight) they've laid off people from Mythic its for the same reasons they laid off / terminated the contract with Pandamic in Australia & let go thousands of employees from all over the country. The economy is hurting them especially EA with all the risks and acquistions they made last year.
here proof that its economic belt tightening that they released people from EA Mythic, Tiburon and other various studios across the world. They are not firing people due to WAR's sales / sub numbers. I wont comment on perspective sub numbers but WAR seemingly to me being on several servers has more than enough population for testing etc. They released far to many servers at launch to handle the surge crush and as they've stabilized the servers they started Moving people off the Low Pop Servers and have been for months they're nto suddenly cutting more than half like Age of Conan.
I guess you missed this one while following the industry as well...
"According to data from market researcher NPD Group, Americans bought $21.33 billion worth of video game systems, software and accessories last year (2008). This is a big jump from the previous year's roughly $18 billion, but slightly below the $22 billion that NPD had estimated as late as November. December marked the first time that the gaming industry's revenue topped $5 billion in a single month. In comparison, it took all of 1997 to hit industry sales of $5.1 billion. November and December are crucial months for video game companies, because they make the bulk of their money during the holidays. For the year, software sales hit nearly $11 billion, a 26 percent increase from 2007. Hardware sales jumped 11 percent to $7.81 billion."
May I remind you, that in November/December 2008, Warhammer was beaten out by Nancy Drew's game for sales. (October too, but who's counting?) Warhammer also failed to make the Top20 in PC software sales while Wow did it with 4 boxed versions.
Apparently, the "bad economy" only affects Warhammer but not Wow and Nancy Drew. It's just natural for EA to tell Mythic scrap some employees. They aren't keeping subsriptions.
Increase doesn't prove that the industry isnt' being hit by the economy. Explain that to the devs taht lost their jobs because their game simply didn't sell. People enmasse during economic turn downs will buy the most must have games but any smaller games, newer games etch will be left by the way side. You knwo it also helps that games like Rock band 2, Guitar Hero World Tour, Fallout3 and the new WoW expansion hit this year. If you took out all of those games we would not of seen the big boost.
EA is absolutely heavily affected by the economic turn down and especially hurt by its massive accquistions. The biggest hit is its FAILED attempt at getting Take Two. They threw alot of money at trying to get them and it hurt them harder than Warhammer's semi alright release or Spore's medicore release. ALot more is involved then just simply sales when it comes to economics with big companies like EA.
You btw missed the entire point of the thread which was trying to say only MYTHIC is being hit and that its due to poor sales when it actually has NOTHING to do with Mythic & poor sales but the Company's Economic Down turn as a whole. EA took a spanking this year as a whole and had been long before Warhammer was released.
The day Mythic signed for EA they signed their death.... as an independant MMO developper.
I've believed from the start that EA would be the downfall of Mythic and WAR.
It's fun to hate on EA. But the fact remains that it was fairly small design errors that doomed Warhammer
1. Scenarios being the fastest way to level - drew people out of RvR
2. Scenarios being way too convenient - why run 5 mins to an RvR lake to find it empty, when you could just sit in a warcamp and queue for scenarios
3. No faction restrictions... in an RvR game with only 2 sides, they needed to be proactive about balancing factions, instead they chose to wait til after the fact and try and fix things. It took too long and players left.
4. Zone locking mechanisms- they are terrible. PvE to lock zones... best defense is to abandon a zone?
5. City seiges being pve - the ultimate endgame in a RvR seige game is....... killing AI???
Those are very small decisions that MJ made that ruined the game at launch. Another year of development would not have fixed them.
If EA did force an early release, the only part you could blame on them was the fortress crashes.
Originally posted by Yamota Statistical logic would dictate that the proportion of people not using x-fire should be the same for both WAR and WoW unless there is a reason for a deviation between the two. I cant see a reason for deviation so the fact that some players are not on x-fire is moot because it holds true for both games.
While I generally agree, I think using the Xfire numbers as a pure ratio between MMOG's subscription numbers is going to yield some rather inaccurate numbers. Yes, I agree that it's ok for a ballpark estimate, but that's about it. There are just too many unknown factors.
However, unless there's some kind of "use Xfire" campaign" running for a game I think the trend for a game on Xfire is a good indication of the general time people puts into a game (provided one compare weekly averages and not single days against the same day one week earlier). A continually (month or more) upward or downward trend will indicate a player gain or loss. Short term it might just be (lack of) new content affecting it.
Basically, some people on these forums talk Xfire like it's gospel, others dismiss it as having no foundation in reality. I think both those opinions show unwillingness or inability to look realistically at the numbers. Others (as seen in this thread) simply don't care and just want to play and have fun and not hear speculations about it - good for you guys, but please accept that some of us actually do like to analyse these things. We're not all doomsayers, or fanbois of other games trying to troll you. ;-)
And yeah, that was my current signature in a few more words. :-p
You btw missed the entire point of the thread which was trying to say only MYTHIC is being hit and that its due to poor sales when it actually has NOTHING to do with Mythic & poor sales but the Company's Economic Down turn as a whole. EA took a spanking this year as a whole and had been long before Warhammer was released.
Mmmm.. not really. I was addressing your point and stat chart about statistical job loss, economy and whatever else as excuses.
We all know Warhammer hasn't cracked the Top20 in months, literally. That shows LACK of sales and popularity amongst customers. For a game only four months out, that worries EA, in addition to their other losses from other stuff. EA told Mythic "Fire the employees of your choice, but because you guys aren't pulling your own weight AFTER our investment, fire 21 anybodys... we don't care". That shows lack of confidence in this project. You don't tell your prized asset to do that if they are productive. That makes no sense at all in this economy. Companies bone up on assets that make money in tough times, and cut from parts that suck.
Activision had losses, but they didn't tell Blizzard "chop 21 jobs". Why? Because Blizzard (Wow) put 4 games in the Top20 in sales. They were MAKING Activision money, not losing it. Again, in tough times, no one tells a company making money, cut employees. At least, that didn't happen here over there.
Your whole thing about "dozens of companies laying off".. a tire company closing has nothing to do with how many subscriptions WAR fails to keep, while WoW is keeping theirs and expanding their base. Someone forget to tell Blizzard there's a bad economy. I guess all those laid off guys went out and bought Wow, but not WAR.
Again, I don't know how EA's attempt to get Take Two has to do with Warhammer subs. Not one iota. If Warhammer was pulling its weight, EA wouldn't be in such a pickle actually. They'd be making them cash and wouldn't have to worry about a swinging axe. So its really WAR's fault EA is doing bad if you think about it.
Not having their flagship MMO even in the Top20 tends to hurt EA's bottom line, especially when their main competition can put four boxes in that same exact space. It's not the other way around.
You btw missed the entire point of the thread which was trying to say only MYTHIC is being hit and that its due to poor sales when it actually has NOTHING to do with Mythic & poor sales but the Company's Economic Down turn as a whole. EA took a spanking this year as a whole and had been long before Warhammer was released.
Mmmm.. not really. I was addressing your point and stat chart about statistical job loss, economy and whatever else as excuses.
We all know Warhammer hasn't cracked the Top20 in months, literally. That shows LACK of sales and popularity amongst customers. For a game only four months out, that worries EA, in addition to their other losses from other stuff. EA told Mythic "Fire the employees of your choice, but because you guys aren't pulling your own weight AFTER our investment, fire 21 anybodys... we don't care". That shows lack of confidence in this project. You don't tell your prized asset to do that if they are productive. That makes no sense at all in this economy. Companies bone up on assets that make money in tough times, and cut from parts that suck.
Activision had losses, but they didn't tell Blizzard "chop 21 jobs". Why? Because Blizzard (Wow) put 4 games in the Top20 in sales. They were MAKING Activision money, not losing it. Again, in tough times, no one tells a company making money, cut employees. At least, that didn't happen here over there.
Your whole thing about "dozens of companies laying off".. a tire company closing has nothing to do with how many subscriptions WAR fails to keep, while WoW is keeping theirs and expanding their base. Someone forget to tell Blizzard there's a bad economy. I guess all those laid off guys went out and bought Wow, but not WAR.
Again, I don't know how EA's attempt to get Take Two has to do with Warhammer subs. Not one iota. If Warhammer was pulling its weight, EA wouldn't be in such a pickle actually. They'd be making them cash and wouldn't have to worry about a swinging axe. So its really WAR's fault EA is doing bad if you think about it.
Not having their flagship MMO even in the Top20 tends to hurt EA's bottom line, especially when their main competition can put four boxes in that same exact space. It's not the other way around.
Hmmm, one thing man, i wouldn't think WAR not doing well would suddenly mess EA up.After all you're talking about a company with fingers in a lot of pies, not all of them directly related to computer games as we know.
One game's fortunes or misfortunes will not kick EA that hard in the nuts.
But a general decrease in public spending on leisure activities such as gaming, due to a very bad global economic downturn on the other hand, will.
Also, to keep comparing every other mmos performance to WoW is completely pointless as i think we all know at this stage that blizzard's beast is somewhat of an anomaly.
Played: WoW, Lotro, AoC, Eve, CoX. Shortly be playing: WAR and champions if the release date holds.
Hmmm, one thing man, i wouldn't think WAR not doing well would suddenly mess EA up.After all you're talking about a company with fingers in a lot of pies, not all of them directly related to computer games as we know. One game's fortunes or misfortunes will not kick EA that hard in the nuts. But a general decrease in public spending on leisure activities such as gaming, due to a very bad global economic downturn on the other hand, will. Also, to keep comparing every other mmos performance to WoW is completely pointless as i think we all know at this stage that blizzard's beast is somewhat of an anomaly.
Not saying they'd suddenly mess EA up lol. I'm saying WAR isn't pulling its part of the EA wagonload. But it is fair to compare Wow/WAR... War fans do about gameplay all the time. It's actually more fair to compare them financially, after all, they are after the same dollar. You also are wrong that there was a "general decrease in public spending" on things like gaming. There was an overall increase of 26 percent on gaming. I'll try something else to show the point. Look at this:
December's Best-Selling PC Games, 2008.
1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King ** 2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe 3. Spore 4. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack 5. Call Of Duty: World At War 6. Left 4 Dead 7. Fallout 3 8. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest ** 9. World Of Warcraft ** 10. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff 11. Bejeweled Twist 12. Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack 13. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 14. Grand Theft Auto IV 15. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack ** 16. The Sims 2 Pets 17. The Sims 2 Seasons 18. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy 19. The Sims 2 FreeTime 20. The Sims 2 University
Now read this:
"According to data from market researcher NPD Group, Americans bought $21.33 billion worth of video game systems, software and accessories last year. This is a big jump from the previous year's roughly $18 billion, but slightly below the $22 billion that NPD had estimated as late as November. December marked the first time that the gaming industry's revenue topped $5 billion in a single month. In comparison, it took all of 1997 to hit industry sales of $5.1 billion. November and December are crucial months for video game companies, because they make the bulk of their money during the holidays. For the year, software sales hit nearly $11 billion, a 26 percent increase from 2007. Hardware sales jumped 11 percent to $7.81 billion."
Activision had stock losses, but do you read of them telling Blizzard to hack employees?
Originally posted by Mark Jacobs: Even Activision/Blizzard's stock is a lot lower than it was when the merger/stock split happened.
Know why? The list above. It puts cash in Activision's pockets. So Blizzard doesn't have to cut jobs. They are adding servers due to customer increase. WAR subtracted due to customer decrease. Warhammer does not put what was EXPECTED in the kitty, so they have to cut.
It's not the economy kicking Warhammer's butt and causing staff cuts, its their failure to inspire confidence at EA. No one was screaming that when 1.5 million boxes went to the retailers. Its those four boxes up above thats doing it. Blizzard is getting its share of that 11 billion and that's why they don't have to worry.
I always find it funny, that when someone throws up Xfire numbers, WAR fans hoot and holla saying they don't mean a thing. But throw up real live backable statistics, then all of a sudden they don't matter either. It's the factory down the street that caused it.
Maybe this rumor was suppose to be about Blizzard.
Currently they have major problems with almost all servers crashing every half hour due to a bug with Lake Wintergrasp because of todays patch. Servers are virtually unplayable. Talk is, the fix may be to disable LW, to make it unplayable.
This being patch day you would think that QA would have caught something this big.
I had hoped WAR would be more than just a DAoC clone, but unfortuantely the lack of community and decent game-playable content resulted in the firing of these folks.
I had hoped WAR would be more than just a DAoC clone, but unfortuantely the lack of community and decent game-playable content resulted in the firing of these folks.
WAR doesn't even come close to being a good DAOC clone. It might have been more successful if it had.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Firstly, Bodypass takes every opportunity to write something bad about WAR. Why take him seriously?
Secondly, EA announced in December that they would reduce their costs with 10% across the globe - in all units to trim profitability in 2009. Out of 400+ employed at Mythic they are cutting back ~5% and hence less than EA globally. In addition, WAR is launched in Russia in February.
This means nothing for WAR. What subscription number WAR has now and will have in December is another question and I hope EA will give some guidance early February when they announce their next financial result. Bodypass makes the stupid statistical error of comparing games on the X-fire list (ratio between WoW and WAR) when everyone who has passed first grade knows that X-fire absolutes mean nothing. You can trend one game over time though and WAR for sure lost subs after the release frenzy and with the WotLK release. Number today? Who knows.
The past 2 weekends ddidn't look very good on Xfire, which now shows a 26/1 ratio between Wow and War Xfire players. WE all know that that figure was 6/1 at the end of September.... Just divide 5Million by 26 and it is indeed under the 250K (200K even).
Only one problem with you logic. I and everyone I know who plays WAR do not use x-fire. Does that mean we do not count toward subscription numbers? So they, along with many other companies, are cutting jobs. Welcome to the current economy. Do you want a medal for your prediction? How about this, why not go play the game you enjoy, we will play ours, and everyone can be happy without going around and trying to inflate their e-peens?
Cheers!
Statistical logic would dictate that the proportion of people not using x-fire should be the same for both WAR and WoW unless there is a reason for a deviation between the two. I cant see a reason for deviation so the fact that some players are not on x-fire is moot because it holds true for both games.
I'm almost impressed. Dealing with X-fire statistical bias by using another game as a balancing factor.
The logical argument almosts hold right up to the point where you say "I can't see a reason for deviation" & then degenerates into just being your perfectly valid but non factual opinion.
Even if it were correct though it would still only hold true for the portion of both customer bases that use Xfire & which as far too many threads have discussed, is not representative of the majority of players. Making predictions for the whole population based on adjusting stats of biased samples is rarely valid.
I definitely agree that 'moot' is a good description for Xfire though.
And the reason x-fire population not being representative for the majority of players are....?
Its a sample of players just as any sample of players. So it being, or not being, representative would be the case for any random portion of the player base. Unless ofcourse you know the reason for it not being representative.
"Self-selection bias, which is possible whenever the group of people being studied has any form of control over whether to participate. Participants' decision to participate may be correlated with traits that affect the study, making the participants a non-representative sample. For example, people who have strong opinions or substantial knowledge may be more willing to spend time answering a survey than those who don't."
Since people can choose not to use X-Fire, it's a self selected group and I would be very very careful generalizing any conclusions from X-Fire data. Since it's not a true random sample of gamers, the only thing the X-Fire numbers can tell you is things about the XiFire community.
Self-selection bias is why you should always pretty much ignore forum polls too.
Maybe this rumor was suppose to be about Blizzard. Currently they have major problems with almost all servers crashing every half hour due to a bug with Lake Wintergrasp because of todays patch. Servers are virtually unplayable. Talk is, the fix may be to disable LW, to make it unplayable. This being patch day you would think that QA would have caught something this big.
/sarcasm
Yeah, it's pretty funny what is happening to WOW right now ( I love WOW). I play on a medium population server, and last night Horde had 4+ raids ( 160+ people) in Lake Wintergrasp. On my server, horde is outnumbered, so Alliance had probably 200 people. 360 people total, and it went fine and only crashed right after we took the fort. Servers were down for 10 mins, then came back up and our victory was not reverted, we still had control.
Originally posted by Alandora Originally posted by peaquop Maybe this rumor was suppose to be about Blizzard. Currently they have major problems with almost all servers crashing every half hour due to a bug with Lake Wintergrasp because of todays patch. Servers are virtually unplayable. Talk is, the fix may be to disable LW, to make it unplayable. This being patch day you would think that QA would have caught something this big.
/sarcasm
Yeah, it's pretty funny what is happening to WOW right now ( I love WOW). I play on a medium population server, and last night Horde had 4+ raids ( 160+ people) in Lake Wintergrasp. On my server, horde is outnumbered, so Alliance had probably 200 people. 360 people total, and it went fine and only crashed right after we took the fort. Servers were down for 10 mins, then came back up and our victory was not reverted, we still had control.
Love or hate them, you gotta admit Blizzard runs a tight ship and are usually able to plug up any holes pretty quickly. They even gave people credit for time lost which is near inexistant nowadays.. I think it was two days for losing a half day of server problems or something.
The past 2 weekends ddidn't look very good on Xfire, which now shows a 26/1 ratio between Wow and War Xfire players. WE all know that that figure was 6/1 at the end of September.... Just divide 5Million by 26 and it is indeed under the 250K (200K even).
Only one problem with you logic. I and everyone I know who plays WAR do not use x-fire. Does that mean we do not count toward subscription numbers? So they, along with many other companies, are cutting jobs. Welcome to the current economy. Do you want a medal for your prediction? How about this, why not go play the game you enjoy, we will play ours, and everyone can be happy without going around and trying to inflate their e-peens?
Cheers!
Statistical logic would dictate that the proportion of people not using x-fire should be the same for both WAR and WoW unless there is a reason for a deviation between the two. I cant see a reason for deviation so the fact that some players are not on x-fire is moot because it holds true for both games.
I'm almost impressed. Dealing with X-fire statistical bias by using another game as a balancing factor.
The logical argument almosts hold right up to the point where you say "I can't see a reason for deviation" & then degenerates into just being your perfectly valid but non factual opinion.
Even if it were correct though it would still only hold true for the portion of both customer bases that use Xfire & which as far too many threads have discussed, is not representative of the majority of players. Making predictions for the whole population based on adjusting stats of biased samples is rarely valid.
I definitely agree that 'moot' is a good description for Xfire though.
And the reason x-fire population not being representative for the majority of players are....?
Its a sample of players just as any sample of players. So it being, or not being, representative would be the case for any random portion of the player base. Unless ofcourse you know the reason for it not being representative.
Do we place too much emphasis on Xfire numbers? I understand that there is a lack of data out there regarding subscriptions and so we latch on to anything we can get. Still, whos to say that those numbers are close?
IN the end, EA cares $$. If WAR is bringing in $$ they dont mind at all. I wager WAR has plenty of $$ to spend.
I didn't check if someone already brought this up.
I believe that many MMO companies would hire a lot more customer service and QA employees at launch to meet launch demands. They don't want new customers call-waiting for too long, and they don't want their new content to be buggy. After launch period when players settle down, those companies will reorganize their employee count since most players would already have their questions answered and be burning through in-game content.
I think what EA did is much more natural because it's post-launch for WAR, not because WAR is chronically ill.
As someone else said in this thread. EA as a whole is not doing good lately as a whole. The gaming industry could see bigger gain's. But that doesn't mean all the companies in the biz are doing good. Yea it seen a increase... but factor in the risen cost of making games now... and those increases are not helping out as much as one would think.
EA's problem is they let all the power they had in the industry go to their head.... and they bit off more they could chew. And have been getting bit in the ass lately cause of it. Even if they could release a good game, it will still see not so great sales. Mirrors Edge is one.... game got good reviews... but in sales, didn't really rake it in. In a sense i believe it's a testament, on how many people don't like EA, and are sick of their shit.
Anyways., job cuts and downgrading the team is normal in mmo world. So this is not a end of a world scenario for Mythic and War... Granted this will affect War... but it will be like any other game... thats found it's niche with a nice solid chunk of mmo players playing it. People love spelling out doom to much.
Comments
You obviosuly haven't been folllowing the industry close enough then. In the past few months dozens of companies have laid off or closed up shop due to POOR sales / economic conditions this year. EA has laid off thousands of people and terminated several offices including one that was going to be built in Canada due to Poor Sales & Economic conditions. The game industry is not economy proof its simply more resiliant then most since its an entertainment business industry like hollywood. They still have to tighten their belts.
Pretty much right now if you even want a job in the industry you'll be fighting against thousands of veterans...its a rough rough market..much rougher and nastier than it has been in a few years now.
If ( i should stress IF here since it is labeled as a RUMOR from a Trash news sight) they've laid off people from Mythic its for the same reasons they laid off / terminated the contract with Pandamic in Australia & let go thousands of employees from all over the country. The economy is hurting them especially EA with all the risks and acquistions they made last year.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21931
here proof that its economic belt tightening that they released people from EA Mythic, Tiburon and other various studios across the world. They are not firing people due to WAR's sales / sub numbers. I wont comment on perspective sub numbers but WAR seemingly to me being on several servers has more than enough population for testing etc. They released far to many servers at launch to handle the surge crush and as they've stabilized the servers they started Moving people off the Low Pop Servers and have been for months they're nto suddenly cutting more than half like Age of Conan.
I guess you missed this one while following the industry as well...
"According to data from market researcher NPD Group, Americans bought $21.33 billion worth of video game systems, software and accessories last year (2008). This is a big jump from the previous year's roughly $18 billion, but slightly below the $22 billion that NPD had estimated as late as November. December marked the first time that the gaming industry's revenue topped $5 billion in a single month. In comparison, it took all of 1997 to hit industry sales of $5.1 billion. November and December are crucial months for video game companies, because they make the bulk of their money during the holidays. For the year, software sales hit nearly $11 billion, a 26 percent increase from 2007. Hardware sales jumped 11 percent to $7.81 billion."
May I remind you, that in November/December 2008, Warhammer was beaten out by Nancy Drew's game for sales. (October too, but who's counting?) Warhammer also failed to make the Top20 in PC software sales while Wow did it with 4 boxed versions.
Apparently, the "bad economy" only affects Warhammer but not Wow and Nancy Drew. It's just natural for EA to tell Mythic scrap some employees. They aren't keeping subsriptions.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Only one problem with you logic. I and everyone I know who plays WAR do not use x-fire. Does that mean we do not count toward subscription numbers? So they, along with many other companies, are cutting jobs. Welcome to the current economy. Do you want a medal for your prediction? How about this, why not go play the game you enjoy, we will play ours, and everyone can be happy without going around and trying to inflate their e-peens?
Cheers!
Statistical logic would dictate that the proportion of people not using x-fire should be the same for both WAR and WoW unless there is a reason for a deviation between the two. I cant see a reason for deviation so the fact that some players are not on x-fire is moot because it holds true for both games.
I'm almost impressed. Dealing with X-fire statistical bias by using another game as a balancing factor.
The logical argument almosts hold right up to the point where you say "I can't see a reason for deviation" & then degenerates into just being your perfectly valid but non factual opinion.
Even if it were correct though it would still only hold true for the portion of both customer bases that use Xfire & which as far too many threads have discussed, is not representative of the majority of players. Making predictions for the whole population based on adjusting stats of biased samples is rarely valid.
I definitely agree that 'moot' is a good description for Xfire though.
And the reason x-fire population not being representative for the majority of players are....?
Its a sample of players just as any sample of players. So it being, or not being, representative would be the case for any random portion of the player base. Unless ofcourse you know the reason for it not being representative.
My gaming blog
Lol well sorry but War is not falling under 250k sups lol. Oh I bet some day it will but thats a GUESS non the less on your part. And please your trying to GUESS at this because of Xfire? HAHAHA I have 4 friends that still play War but dont use xfire.. gee now add that to your silly math.
And cutting people at this time in our country ..everyone is doing it AMD blah blah
WAR had some great ideas, which I hope other companies will copy. Some of the things that pretty much killed the game were:
1) The game was boring once you hit the Teens. Why? Level grind was way too slow. Not enough DINGing to keep people interested.
2) Everyone looked the same. I'm not one that needs graphics to be absolutely studpendous to enjoy a game, but COME ON people, with some of the customization available in other games, I'm surprised they had such few options to make your character unique. It's almost as bad as an Asian F2P MMO!
3) Crafting SUCKED! I mean, talismans and potions? That's it?!?! Laziness, pure and simple.
4) Options to keep players IN the world. I've said it before, I'll say it again, the more you involve players in a world, the less likely they are to leave it. Guild halls, Houses, Mounts, special events with unique titles and loot, and the list goes on. Heck, I STILL stop in on Vanguard every now and then simply because I don't want to lose my house LOL, but I digress.
5) Clunky(?) interface. I dunno what it is, but Blizzard has a way of making a game where it "feels" comfortable and familar to play their games. Things seem to click. Warhammer felt sluggish and uncomfortable from the get go. Not bad for a PvE game, but for PvP where controls need to be FAST, it just doesn't cut the mustard so to speak.
I could probably come up with more if I wanted to, but I found after the initial Oooo and Ahhhh for the first ten levels, it was pretty much rinse, repeat from there on in. To all the developers out there, the game needs to be FUN, the whole way through.
Oh well, lessons learned, take the good points, roll it into a new MMO and move along.
Come on... you gotta be fair here, Binney.
Crafting did suck monkey nuggets, but it's not like Mark Jacobs PERSONALLY headed, oversaw, and implemented the Crafting phase of Warhammer specifically. You really can't hold him accountable for that mess. I mean it's not like he gave a crap about crafting at al....
What? He was? He did? It was??? Oh.
Never mind...
"TO MICHAEL!"
This is typical EA...the DESTROYER OF GAME COMPANIES THEY BUY AND THEIR GAMES...why anyone would become part of EA is amazing. /sigh
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
I've believed from the start that EA would be the downfall of Mythic and WAR.
I guess you missed this one while following the industry as well...
"According to data from market researcher NPD Group, Americans bought $21.33 billion worth of video game systems, software and accessories last year (2008). This is a big jump from the previous year's roughly $18 billion, but slightly below the $22 billion that NPD had estimated as late as November. December marked the first time that the gaming industry's revenue topped $5 billion in a single month. In comparison, it took all of 1997 to hit industry sales of $5.1 billion. November and December are crucial months for video game companies, because they make the bulk of their money during the holidays. For the year, software sales hit nearly $11 billion, a 26 percent increase from 2007. Hardware sales jumped 11 percent to $7.81 billion."
May I remind you, that in November/December 2008, Warhammer was beaten out by Nancy Drew's game for sales. (October too, but who's counting?) Warhammer also failed to make the Top20 in PC software sales while Wow did it with 4 boxed versions.
Apparently, the "bad economy" only affects Warhammer but not Wow and Nancy Drew. It's just natural for EA to tell Mythic scrap some employees. They aren't keeping subsriptions.
Increase doesn't prove that the industry isnt' being hit by the economy. Explain that to the devs taht lost their jobs because their game simply didn't sell. People enmasse during economic turn downs will buy the most must have games but any smaller games, newer games etch will be left by the way side. You knwo it also helps that games like Rock band 2, Guitar Hero World Tour, Fallout3 and the new WoW expansion hit this year. If you took out all of those games we would not of seen the big boost.
EA is absolutely heavily affected by the economic turn down and especially hurt by its massive accquistions. The biggest hit is its FAILED attempt at getting Take Two. They threw alot of money at trying to get them and it hurt them harder than Warhammer's semi alright release or Spore's medicore release. ALot more is involved then just simply sales when it comes to economics with big companies like EA.
You btw missed the entire point of the thread which was trying to say only MYTHIC is being hit and that its due to poor sales when it actually has NOTHING to do with Mythic & poor sales but the Company's Economic Down turn as a whole. EA took a spanking this year as a whole and had been long before Warhammer was released.
I've believed from the start that EA would be the downfall of Mythic and WAR.
It's fun to hate on EA. But the fact remains that it was fairly small design errors that doomed Warhammer
1. Scenarios being the fastest way to level - drew people out of RvR
2. Scenarios being way too convenient - why run 5 mins to an RvR lake to find it empty, when you could just sit in a warcamp and queue for scenarios
3. No faction restrictions... in an RvR game with only 2 sides, they needed to be proactive about balancing factions, instead they chose to wait til after the fact and try and fix things. It took too long and players left.
4. Zone locking mechanisms- they are terrible. PvE to lock zones... best defense is to abandon a zone?
5. City seiges being pve - the ultimate endgame in a RvR seige game is....... killing AI???
Those are very small decisions that MJ made that ruined the game at launch. Another year of development would not have fixed them.
If EA did force an early release, the only part you could blame on them was the fortress crashes.
While I generally agree, I think using the Xfire numbers as a pure ratio between MMOG's subscription numbers is going to yield some rather inaccurate numbers. Yes, I agree that it's ok for a ballpark estimate, but that's about it. There are just too many unknown factors.
However, unless there's some kind of "use Xfire" campaign" running for a game I think the trend for a game on Xfire is a good indication of the general time people puts into a game (provided one compare weekly averages and not single days against the same day one week earlier). A continually (month or more) upward or downward trend will indicate a player gain or loss. Short term it might just be (lack of) new content affecting it.
Basically, some people on these forums talk Xfire like it's gospel, others dismiss it as having no foundation in reality. I think both those opinions show unwillingness or inability to look realistically at the numbers. Others (as seen in this thread) simply don't care and just want to play and have fun and not hear speculations about it - good for you guys, but please accept that some of us actually do like to analyse these things. We're not all doomsayers, or fanbois of other games trying to troll you. ;-)
And yeah, that was my current signature in a few more words. :-p
Mmmm.. not really. I was addressing your point and stat chart about statistical job loss, economy and whatever else as excuses.
We all know Warhammer hasn't cracked the Top20 in months, literally. That shows LACK of sales and popularity amongst customers. For a game only four months out, that worries EA, in addition to their other losses from other stuff. EA told Mythic "Fire the employees of your choice, but because you guys aren't pulling your own weight AFTER our investment, fire 21 anybodys... we don't care". That shows lack of confidence in this project. You don't tell your prized asset to do that if they are productive. That makes no sense at all in this economy. Companies bone up on assets that make money in tough times, and cut from parts that suck.
Activision had losses, but they didn't tell Blizzard "chop 21 jobs". Why? Because Blizzard (Wow) put 4 games in the Top20 in sales. They were MAKING Activision money, not losing it. Again, in tough times, no one tells a company making money, cut employees. At least, that didn't happen here over there.
Your whole thing about "dozens of companies laying off".. a tire company closing has nothing to do with how many subscriptions WAR fails to keep, while WoW is keeping theirs and expanding their base. Someone forget to tell Blizzard there's a bad economy. I guess all those laid off guys went out and bought Wow, but not WAR.
Again, I don't know how EA's attempt to get Take Two has to do with Warhammer subs. Not one iota. If Warhammer was pulling its weight, EA wouldn't be in such a pickle actually. They'd be making them cash and wouldn't have to worry about a swinging axe. So its really WAR's fault EA is doing bad if you think about it.
Not having their flagship MMO even in the Top20 tends to hurt EA's bottom line, especially when their main competition can put four boxes in that same exact space. It's not the other way around.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Mmmm.. not really. I was addressing your point and stat chart about statistical job loss, economy and whatever else as excuses.
We all know Warhammer hasn't cracked the Top20 in months, literally. That shows LACK of sales and popularity amongst customers. For a game only four months out, that worries EA, in addition to their other losses from other stuff. EA told Mythic "Fire the employees of your choice, but because you guys aren't pulling your own weight AFTER our investment, fire 21 anybodys... we don't care". That shows lack of confidence in this project. You don't tell your prized asset to do that if they are productive. That makes no sense at all in this economy. Companies bone up on assets that make money in tough times, and cut from parts that suck.
Activision had losses, but they didn't tell Blizzard "chop 21 jobs". Why? Because Blizzard (Wow) put 4 games in the Top20 in sales. They were MAKING Activision money, not losing it. Again, in tough times, no one tells a company making money, cut employees. At least, that didn't happen here over there.
Your whole thing about "dozens of companies laying off".. a tire company closing has nothing to do with how many subscriptions WAR fails to keep, while WoW is keeping theirs and expanding their base. Someone forget to tell Blizzard there's a bad economy. I guess all those laid off guys went out and bought Wow, but not WAR.
Again, I don't know how EA's attempt to get Take Two has to do with Warhammer subs. Not one iota. If Warhammer was pulling its weight, EA wouldn't be in such a pickle actually. They'd be making them cash and wouldn't have to worry about a swinging axe. So its really WAR's fault EA is doing bad if you think about it.
Not having their flagship MMO even in the Top20 tends to hurt EA's bottom line, especially when their main competition can put four boxes in that same exact space. It's not the other way around.
Hmmm, one thing man, i wouldn't think WAR not doing well would suddenly mess EA up.After all you're talking about a company with fingers in a lot of pies, not all of them directly related to computer games as we know.
One game's fortunes or misfortunes will not kick EA that hard in the nuts.
But a general decrease in public spending on leisure activities such as gaming, due to a very bad global economic downturn on the other hand, will.
Also, to keep comparing every other mmos performance to WoW is completely pointless as i think we all know at this stage that blizzard's beast is somewhat of an anomaly.
Played: WoW, Lotro, AoC, Eve, CoX.
Shortly be playing: WAR and champions if the release date holds.
Not saying they'd suddenly mess EA up lol. I'm saying WAR isn't pulling its part of the EA wagonload. But it is fair to compare Wow/WAR... War fans do about gameplay all the time. It's actually more fair to compare them financially, after all, they are after the same dollar. You also are wrong that there was a "general decrease in public spending" on things like gaming. There was an overall increase of 26 percent on gaming. I'll try something else to show the point. Look at this:
December's Best-Selling PC Games, 2008.
1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King **
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
3. Spore
4. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack
5. Call Of Duty: World At War
6. Left 4 Dead
7. Fallout 3
8. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest **
9. World Of Warcraft **
10. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff
11. Bejeweled Twist
12. Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack
13. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
14. Grand Theft Auto IV
15. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack **
16. The Sims 2 Pets
17. The Sims 2 Seasons
18. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy
19. The Sims 2 FreeTime
20. The Sims 2 University
Now read this:
"According to data from market researcher NPD Group, Americans bought $21.33 billion worth of video game systems, software and accessories last year. This is a big jump from the previous year's roughly $18 billion, but slightly below the $22 billion that NPD had estimated as late as November. December marked the first time that the gaming industry's revenue topped $5 billion in a single month. In comparison, it took all of 1997 to hit industry sales of $5.1 billion. November and December are crucial months for video game companies, because they make the bulk of their money during the holidays. For the year, software sales hit nearly $11 billion, a 26 percent increase from 2007. Hardware sales jumped 11 percent to $7.81 billion."
Activision had stock losses, but do you read of them telling Blizzard to hack employees?
Know why? The list above. It puts cash in Activision's pockets. So Blizzard doesn't have to cut jobs. They are adding servers due to customer increase. WAR subtracted due to customer decrease. Warhammer does not put what was EXPECTED in the kitty, so they have to cut.
It's not the economy kicking Warhammer's butt and causing staff cuts, its their failure to inspire confidence at EA. No one was screaming that when 1.5 million boxes went to the retailers. Its those four boxes up above thats doing it. Blizzard is getting its share of that 11 billion and that's why they don't have to worry.
I always find it funny, that when someone throws up Xfire numbers, WAR fans hoot and holla saying they don't mean a thing. But throw up real live backable statistics, then all of a sudden they don't matter either. It's the factory down the street that caused it.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Maybe this rumor was suppose to be about Blizzard.
Currently they have major problems with almost all servers crashing every half hour due to a bug with Lake Wintergrasp because of todays patch. Servers are virtually unplayable. Talk is, the fix may be to disable LW, to make it unplayable.
This being patch day you would think that QA would have caught something this big.
/sarcasm
I had hoped WAR would be more than just a DAoC clone, but unfortuantely the lack of community and decent game-playable content resulted in the firing of these folks.
WAR doesn't even come close to being a good DAOC clone. It might have been more successful if it had.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Firstly, Bodypass takes every opportunity to write something bad about WAR. Why take him seriously?
Secondly, EA announced in December that they would reduce their costs with 10% across the globe - in all units to trim profitability in 2009. Out of 400+ employed at Mythic they are cutting back ~5% and hence less than EA globally. In addition, WAR is launched in Russia in February.
This means nothing for WAR. What subscription number WAR has now and will have in December is another question and I hope EA will give some guidance early February when they announce their next financial result. Bodypass makes the stupid statistical error of comparing games on the X-fire list (ratio between WoW and WAR) when everyone who has passed first grade knows that X-fire absolutes mean nothing. You can trend one game over time though and WAR for sure lost subs after the release frenzy and with the WotLK release. Number today? Who knows.
Only one problem with you logic. I and everyone I know who plays WAR do not use x-fire. Does that mean we do not count toward subscription numbers? So they, along with many other companies, are cutting jobs. Welcome to the current economy. Do you want a medal for your prediction? How about this, why not go play the game you enjoy, we will play ours, and everyone can be happy without going around and trying to inflate their e-peens?
Cheers!
Statistical logic would dictate that the proportion of people not using x-fire should be the same for both WAR and WoW unless there is a reason for a deviation between the two. I cant see a reason for deviation so the fact that some players are not on x-fire is moot because it holds true for both games.
I'm almost impressed. Dealing with X-fire statistical bias by using another game as a balancing factor.
The logical argument almosts hold right up to the point where you say "I can't see a reason for deviation" & then degenerates into just being your perfectly valid but non factual opinion.
Even if it were correct though it would still only hold true for the portion of both customer bases that use Xfire & which as far too many threads have discussed, is not representative of the majority of players. Making predictions for the whole population based on adjusting stats of biased samples is rarely valid.
I definitely agree that 'moot' is a good description for Xfire though.
And the reason x-fire population not being representative for the majority of players are....?
Its a sample of players just as any sample of players. So it being, or not being, representative would be the case for any random portion of the player base. Unless ofcourse you know the reason for it not being representative.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias
"Self-selection bias, which is possible whenever the group of people being studied has any form of control over whether to participate. Participants' decision to participate may be correlated with traits that affect the study, making the participants a non-representative sample. For example, people who have strong opinions or substantial knowledge may be more willing to spend time answering a survey than those who don't."
Since people can choose not to use X-Fire, it's a self selected group and I would be very very careful generalizing any conclusions from X-Fire data. Since it's not a true random sample of gamers, the only thing the X-Fire numbers can tell you is things about the XiFire community.
Self-selection bias is why you should always pretty much ignore forum polls too.
Yeah, it's pretty funny what is happening to WOW right now ( I love WOW). I play on a medium population server, and last night Horde had 4+ raids ( 160+ people) in Lake Wintergrasp. On my server, horde is outnumbered, so Alliance had probably 200 people. 360 people total, and it went fine and only crashed right after we took the fort. Servers were down for 10 mins, then came back up and our victory was not reverted, we still had control.
Yeah, it's pretty funny what is happening to WOW right now ( I love WOW). I play on a medium population server, and last night Horde had 4+ raids ( 160+ people) in Lake Wintergrasp. On my server, horde is outnumbered, so Alliance had probably 200 people. 360 people total, and it went fine and only crashed right after we took the fort. Servers were down for 10 mins, then came back up and our victory was not reverted, we still had control.
Love or hate them, you gotta admit Blizzard runs a tight ship and are usually able to plug up any holes pretty quickly. They even gave people credit for time lost which is near inexistant nowadays.. I think it was two days for losing a half day of server problems or something.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Only one problem with you logic. I and everyone I know who plays WAR do not use x-fire. Does that mean we do not count toward subscription numbers? So they, along with many other companies, are cutting jobs. Welcome to the current economy. Do you want a medal for your prediction? How about this, why not go play the game you enjoy, we will play ours, and everyone can be happy without going around and trying to inflate their e-peens?
Cheers!
Statistical logic would dictate that the proportion of people not using x-fire should be the same for both WAR and WoW unless there is a reason for a deviation between the two. I cant see a reason for deviation so the fact that some players are not on x-fire is moot because it holds true for both games.
I'm almost impressed. Dealing with X-fire statistical bias by using another game as a balancing factor.
The logical argument almosts hold right up to the point where you say "I can't see a reason for deviation" & then degenerates into just being your perfectly valid but non factual opinion.
Even if it were correct though it would still only hold true for the portion of both customer bases that use Xfire & which as far too many threads have discussed, is not representative of the majority of players. Making predictions for the whole population based on adjusting stats of biased samples is rarely valid.
I definitely agree that 'moot' is a good description for Xfire though.
And the reason x-fire population not being representative for the majority of players are....?
Its a sample of players just as any sample of players. So it being, or not being, representative would be the case for any random portion of the player base. Unless ofcourse you know the reason for it not being representative.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/212560
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2435515#2435515
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/209183
Thats just three threads on the subject, there are many more!
When I think of all the electrons that have been wasted on this nonsense it makes me want to cry.
If you can't "Have your cake & eat it too", then how can "The proof of the pudding be in the eating"?
Take the Hecatomb? TCG What Is Your Doom? quiz.
Do we place too much emphasis on Xfire numbers? I understand that there is a lack of data out there regarding subscriptions and so we latch on to anything we can get. Still, whos to say that those numbers are close?
IN the end, EA cares $$. If WAR is bringing in $$ they dont mind at all. I wager WAR has plenty of $$ to spend.
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
I didn't check if someone already brought this up.
I believe that many MMO companies would hire a lot more customer service and QA employees at launch to meet launch demands. They don't want new customers call-waiting for too long, and they don't want their new content to be buggy. After launch period when players settle down, those companies will reorganize their employee count since most players would already have their questions answered and be burning through in-game content.
I think what EA did is much more natural because it's post-launch for WAR, not because WAR is chronically ill.
As someone else said in this thread. EA as a whole is not doing good lately as a whole. The gaming industry could see bigger gain's. But that doesn't mean all the companies in the biz are doing good. Yea it seen a increase... but factor in the risen cost of making games now... and those increases are not helping out as much as one would think.
EA's problem is they let all the power they had in the industry go to their head.... and they bit off more they could chew. And have been getting bit in the ass lately cause of it. Even if they could release a good game, it will still see not so great sales. Mirrors Edge is one.... game got good reviews... but in sales, didn't really rake it in. In a sense i believe it's a testament, on how many people don't like EA, and are sick of their shit.
Anyways., job cuts and downgrading the team is normal in mmo world. So this is not a end of a world scenario for Mythic and War... Granted this will affect War... but it will be like any other game... thats found it's niche with a nice solid chunk of mmo players playing it. People love spelling out doom to much.