How populated a game feels is related to the density of the population. In a huge gameworld 3k people logged on might feel kind of small. In a really small gameworld 500 people can feel crowded. From what i was reading on the original post made here on mmorpg.com they are going for a really small world area to start with and will slowly expand it over time. This prelude is in fact a final beta test and being a small independant company they are trying to keep control of things as they put the final touches in the game and make some money while doing it.
Wether this is a good strategy or not remains to be seen. As a somewhat small independent company they probably dont need to make a lot of money to stay in business and if they follow say Eve's model they could continue to grow over several years into a large well funded company able to really flesh the game out the way they envision it. It is still a risk and gamble for the first wave of players to spend their money on pre-order without any real information but I dont thnk this company is going to get rich off the pre-orders so they will still need to make a good product if they are going to stay in business.
For those who arent sure about the product (like me) it is best to wait for prelude to get under way and sift though the information that comes out after that and then decide...is it worth my money. I personally wont spend more than a typical $5 preorder fee on any game I have not been able to play in some form or fashion before release. If there is a game I am interested in and I am unable to play it for myself pre release then I will simply wait about one or two months post release and see if its worth sinking into. Good games will have a subscriber base that continues to grow over the first 3 to 6 months...all others will have sub bases that shrink after the first free month is up.
Like I said Remember dark and light? I bet allot of you don't and probably some of you were not around then.
You can blindly preorder if you want. There is no real proof that the game really even exist yet. No Videos only a few screen shots and thats not proof of anything.
I know what a sandbox game is, and I don't play WoW so don't even go there.
Like I said Remember dark and light? I bet allot of you don't and probably some of you were not around then. You can blindly preorder if you want. There is no real proof that the game really even exist yet. No Videos only a few screen shots and thats not proof of anything. I know what a sandbox game is, and I don't play WoW so don't even go there.
Dark and Light STILL sounds like a badass game lol.
Yeah, preorders do nothing but fund bad games (or no games) almost every time... (concerning MMOs)
Like I said Remember dark and light? I bet allot of you don't and probably some of you were not around then. You can blindly preorder if you want. There is no real proof that the game really even exist yet. No Videos only a few screen shots and thats not proof of anything. I know what a sandbox game is, and I don't play WoW so don't even go there.
First of all, I don't think anyone has suggested it's a good idea to preorder. The discussion has just been about whether the release plan is sensible or not. If you don't like gambling, you should wait until you know enough about the game before making a purchase decision, that's just common sense. Currently there's just word from developers, and some screenshots, which is not enough, but since some have gambled and preordered already, and there's not going to be an NDA during the early access bit, there should be enough information available before the game launches.
It's interesting that you mention Dark and Light, though. Just like Xsyon, I waited for enough information to be available before preordering, and the first feedback from players said that it wasn't ready, so I ended up not playing it. However, one of the things the Dark and Light team did wrong was making a gameworld that was too large at release. I don't know if the official 15,000 square miles estimate was accurate (it probably isn't), but if Dark and Light had started off with less than 50 square miles like Xsyon the developers might actually have finished the game before releasing, players could have filled up the world, and the game might still be alive to expand it as the player base grows.
I compared Xsyon's world size to WoW, because I assumed most people could relate to it. Azeroth is 60% bigger than what Xsyon will release with, and feels full with only a couple of thousand players. Dark and Light had a game world that was (on paper) more than 3000% larger than Xsyon, and would need several hundred thousand players to feel full. That's why it made more sense to me to compare Xsyon's game world to WoW than Dark and Light, and the fact that Dark and Light is the perfect example of a game that could have thrived with a controlled release rather than a rushed "big bang" one amuses me.
Like I said Remember dark and light? I bet allot of you don't and probably some of you were not around then. You can blindly preorder if you want. There is no real proof that the game really even exist yet. No Videos only a few screen shots and thats not proof of anything. I know what a sandbox game is, and I don't play WoW so don't even go there.
I dont see how you make any good points.
1) Dark and Light had videos.
2) Dark and Light had beta way longer than a few weeks.
3) Dark and Light released.
Tell me, how are people to protect themselves from Dark and Light type of games? They have videos, a working beta and end up releasing?
Im not saying that people should buy the game or not buy the game. Im saying using DnL as a reason not to buy is pretty stupid. Its nothing like Xsyon.
Who knows if a controlled release is the right thing to do or not? That's right, not a single one of you.
My only concern is their summer's end projection of 5k players. It seems that they are already struggling financially, based on the fact that they offering the pre-orders so prematurely. How is the $200k in retail sales, and the $75k subscription sales(assuming $15 a month) each month going to support the development of this game. That's peanuts. I would like to know where they see the population by the new year. 10k?. 20k? I think they want us to help them purchase the servers. I don't think they have any.
This game has low budget written all over it. Low budget games can have good intentions, but rarely live up to any expectations. Sadly, I think this game is destined for the always growing heap of has-beens, have-nots, flops, flounders, and misfit mmo's.
You have zero proof of what you just spewed.. ZERO.
At the start I am sure 500-1000 players will make the game seem full because everyone will be in the same areas.. Spread that over a few months ( like the suggested ) and the game would be a ghost town.
Either way you look at it they are covering for something and it aint hype or making sure they arent flooded with players.
Well yes he can clearly not beat your proof right? However a limited lunch is not such a bad idea. Having a core group of player and build from there is a good way to create a good game. Anyhow there are 1231 forum accounts, so there will not even be 500 preorders. Might be a bit more though, but my guess is about 200-300 right now. This there 500 players at launch is actually rather accurate if they will launch at the 15th of april and if the game is decent enough it should be able to hit the 5k at the end of summer.
However they either hiding something or they are just more realistic then the average developer (Like EA). Who knows? No one has proof of this.
Wasn't Eve's record 45k people online at one point? That was about 25% of their actual subscribers at the time and no doubt includes their trial players.
500 people let initially into Xyson? Good luck seeing 25% of those online after the first few days to a week. Although, considering the game more than likely isn't much beyond a starter area, 125 people might make it see bustling! ;P
"Never place faith in sportsmanship when gamesmanship offers greater rewards. As a developer, you have a vested interest in the longevity of the game. Your playerbase does not."
LOL, truer words were never spoken!!
"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. ... Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not?" --Patrick Henry
I don't think my estimate of 1500 players at peak hours was too high.
A sustained average of 30% of your subscribers playing at once is insanely high. Is there any MMO that actually achieves that outside of the free month release period?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I don't think my estimate of 1500 players at peak hours was too high.
A sustained average of 30% of your subscribers playing at once is insanely high. Is there any MMO that actually achieves that outside of the free month release period?
Peak hours would not be a sustained average, and the 30% playing at once would be during the free two month period right after release. I wouldn't expect the sustained average to be higher than 500 with 5000 accounts. Maybe not even that, but since most players play during either US or EU peak hours, that's when an average player gets the impression of whether the game feels empty or not. Most MMOs feel empty if you log on at 6am in my experience, but it does of course depend on whether servers are localized or not.
I kinda doubt they'll sell 5000 subscriptions before the next chapter anyway, though. It all depends on word of mouth, and the chances of the game being "perfect" at launch and interest in the game exploding are rather slim.
Also im not to sure about the limiting players thing.. thats like what darkfall did on release. So they only want 500 at release and 5000 players by the end of summer? that seems very weird... Dunno will see how it goes, IF the game has all the features then I suppose they will have the ability to be elitist lol.
Yet, is it weird? Why want 100,000 people if your server cannot hold that many? This is a good way to keep stability in check, so they can slowly make their system better, and in the end, make their technology better to fit a higher population level in the game. So 500 may be their intended target just so it can be stable, then when they get some revenue (which obviously they did some math to pull those numbers out) they can put a higher population capacity in the game. This makes everyone happy so we will not have to deal with server issues or deal with those pesky crashes. So does it sound weird now?
I don't think my estimate of 1500 players at peak hours was too high.
A sustained average of 30% of your subscribers playing at once is insanely high. Is there any MMO that actually achieves that outside of the free month release period?
Peak hours would not be a sustained average, and the 30% playing at once would be during the free two month period right after release. I wouldn't expect the sustained average to be higher than 500 with 5000 accounts.
Which goes back one of SlyLoK's original points - they're looking at a very thin player population for a sandbox game spread across ~8 time zones.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I don't think my estimate of 1500 players at peak hours was too high.
A sustained average of 30% of your subscribers playing at once is insanely high. Is there any MMO that actually achieves that outside of the free month release period?
Peak hours would not be a sustained average, and the 30% playing at once would be during the free two month period right after release. I wouldn't expect the sustained average to be higher than 500 with 5000 accounts.
Which goes back one of SlyLoK's original points - they're looking at a very thin player population for a sandbox game spread across ~8 time zones.
We'll see. US time zones are clustered. So are EU time zones. Australian and Asian players playing on US servers are used to adapting to US time or playing on near empty servers during their prime time. Anyway, I think this is irrelevant. If it turns out the population is spread too thin, increasing the cap is easy. Lowering the cap/increasing the number of servers if it turns out to be too crowded is not. Those kinds of numbers are always gut feeling from developers since there is no way to predict how much players will actually play.
Wasn't Eve's record 45k people online at one point? That was about 25% of their actual subscribers at the time and no doubt includes their trial players.
500 people let initially into Xyson? Good luck seeing 25% of those online after the first few days to a week. Although, considering the game more than likely isn't much beyond a starter area, 125 people might make it see bustling! ;P
I dont know what the actual record is but the most I have seen is 52k on at one time. The way their game runs through is a cluster of computer servers and each solar system is like a zone. You have to use a jump gate to get to another solar system. So in any given "zone" you will see anywhere from 10 people to 400 or 500 people. Since each zone can be handled seperately resource wise their system should be scalable to infinity with enough computers hooked up.
Any game could accomplish this same feat if you have a reasonable method of breaking zones up that players like. The reason most MMO's choose shards of one player world is content duplication. If I can make 5000 people happy at the same time with a single zone that costs a heck of a lot less then creating 50 distinct zones with 100 people each. Eve can get away with it due to the fact that creating a solar system is pretty simple from their perspective. When they go to planets and such with their dust 514 or whatever its called you will probably see about 10 or 20 stock planets repeating over and over environment wise with some player installations being the only thing differentiating them.
Now to have say 50k people in a non instanced single world...that is a monumental task. It can be done with the right tools, but its going to create a different type of game than your normal MMO for a vareity of reasons. This I think is the goal that Xyson devs are aiming towards...I dunno about the actual number of players per se but just the idea....whether they can accomplish that remains to be seen. The reason I would assume behind a gradual release. Get the base core of the game working properly before you start cloning it and all the errors that exist within it over and over again.
Again though everything sounds good on paper for what they are saying. We just have to wait to see if they actually deliver it. Even if the prelude is buggy and not all their ... that to me still wouldnt prove anything one way or another. In fact I expect the prelude to fall short. The real question to me is can they get it together by the time their prelude ends.
I will wait and see on this one. I would be willing to pay $5 bucks perhaps to get a first hand look and feel of the game but no more than that.
Comments
How populated a game feels is related to the density of the population. In a huge gameworld 3k people logged on might feel kind of small. In a really small gameworld 500 people can feel crowded. From what i was reading on the original post made here on mmorpg.com they are going for a really small world area to start with and will slowly expand it over time. This prelude is in fact a final beta test and being a small independant company they are trying to keep control of things as they put the final touches in the game and make some money while doing it.
Wether this is a good strategy or not remains to be seen. As a somewhat small independent company they probably dont need to make a lot of money to stay in business and if they follow say Eve's model they could continue to grow over several years into a large well funded company able to really flesh the game out the way they envision it. It is still a risk and gamble for the first wave of players to spend their money on pre-order without any real information but I dont thnk this company is going to get rich off the pre-orders so they will still need to make a good product if they are going to stay in business.
For those who arent sure about the product (like me) it is best to wait for prelude to get under way and sift though the information that comes out after that and then decide...is it worth my money. I personally wont spend more than a typical $5 preorder fee on any game I have not been able to play in some form or fashion before release. If there is a game I am interested in and I am unable to play it for myself pre release then I will simply wait about one or two months post release and see if its worth sinking into. Good games will have a subscriber base that continues to grow over the first 3 to 6 months...all others will have sub bases that shrink after the first free month is up.
Like I said Remember dark and light? I bet allot of you don't and probably some of you were not around then.
You can blindly preorder if you want. There is no real proof that the game really even exist yet. No Videos only a few screen shots and thats not proof of anything.
I know what a sandbox game is, and I don't play WoW so don't even go there.
Dark and Light STILL sounds like a badass game lol.
Yeah, preorders do nothing but fund bad games (or no games) almost every time... (concerning MMOs)
First of all, I don't think anyone has suggested it's a good idea to preorder. The discussion has just been about whether the release plan is sensible or not. If you don't like gambling, you should wait until you know enough about the game before making a purchase decision, that's just common sense. Currently there's just word from developers, and some screenshots, which is not enough, but since some have gambled and preordered already, and there's not going to be an NDA during the early access bit, there should be enough information available before the game launches.
It's interesting that you mention Dark and Light, though. Just like Xsyon, I waited for enough information to be available before preordering, and the first feedback from players said that it wasn't ready, so I ended up not playing it. However, one of the things the Dark and Light team did wrong was making a gameworld that was too large at release. I don't know if the official 15,000 square miles estimate was accurate (it probably isn't), but if Dark and Light had started off with less than 50 square miles like Xsyon the developers might actually have finished the game before releasing, players could have filled up the world, and the game might still be alive to expand it as the player base grows.
I compared Xsyon's world size to WoW, because I assumed most people could relate to it. Azeroth is 60% bigger than what Xsyon will release with, and feels full with only a couple of thousand players. Dark and Light had a game world that was (on paper) more than 3000% larger than Xsyon, and would need several hundred thousand players to feel full. That's why it made more sense to me to compare Xsyon's game world to WoW than Dark and Light, and the fact that Dark and Light is the perfect example of a game that could have thrived with a controlled release rather than a rushed "big bang" one amuses me.
I dont see how you make any good points.
1) Dark and Light had videos.
2) Dark and Light had beta way longer than a few weeks.
3) Dark and Light released.
Tell me, how are people to protect themselves from Dark and Light type of games? They have videos, a working beta and end up releasing?
Im not saying that people should buy the game or not buy the game. Im saying using DnL as a reason not to buy is pretty stupid. Its nothing like Xsyon.
-MrDDT
Who knows if a controlled release is the right thing to do or not? That's right, not a single one of you.
My only concern is their summer's end projection of 5k players. It seems that they are already struggling financially, based on the fact that they offering the pre-orders so prematurely. How is the $200k in retail sales, and the $75k subscription sales(assuming $15 a month) each month going to support the development of this game. That's peanuts. I would like to know where they see the population by the new year. 10k?. 20k? I think they want us to help them purchase the servers. I don't think they have any.
This game has low budget written all over it. Low budget games can have good intentions, but rarely live up to any expectations. Sadly, I think this game is destined for the always growing heap of has-beens, have-nots, flops, flounders, and misfit mmo's.
xsyon.com/forums/7-public-support/8792-update
You have zero proof of what you just spewed.. ZERO.
At the start I am sure 500-1000 players will make the game seem full because everyone will be in the same areas.. Spread that over a few months ( like the suggested ) and the game would be a ghost town.
Either way you look at it they are covering for something and it aint hype or making sure they arent flooded with players.
Well yes he can clearly not beat your proof right? However a limited lunch is not such a bad idea. Having a core group of player and build from there is a good way to create a good game. Anyhow there are 1231 forum accounts, so there will not even be 500 preorders. Might be a bit more though, but my guess is about 200-300 right now. This there 500 players at launch is actually rather accurate if they will launch at the 15th of april and if the game is decent enough it should be able to hit the 5k at the end of summer.
However they either hiding something or they are just more realistic then the average developer (Like EA). Who knows? No one has proof of this.
Wasn't Eve's record 45k people online at one point? That was about 25% of their actual subscribers at the time and no doubt includes their trial players.
500 people let initially into Xyson? Good luck seeing 25% of those online after the first few days to a week. Although, considering the game more than likely isn't much beyond a starter area, 125 people might make it see bustling! ;P
LOL, truer words were never spoken!!
"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. ... Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not?" --Patrick Henry
A sustained average of 30% of your subscribers playing at once is insanely high. Is there any MMO that actually achieves that outside of the free month release period?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
A sustained average of 30% of your subscribers playing at once is insanely high. Is there any MMO that actually achieves that outside of the free month release period?
Peak hours would not be a sustained average, and the 30% playing at once would be during the free two month period right after release. I wouldn't expect the sustained average to be higher than 500 with 5000 accounts. Maybe not even that, but since most players play during either US or EU peak hours, that's when an average player gets the impression of whether the game feels empty or not. Most MMOs feel empty if you log on at 6am in my experience, but it does of course depend on whether servers are localized or not.
I kinda doubt they'll sell 5000 subscriptions before the next chapter anyway, though. It all depends on word of mouth, and the chances of the game being "perfect" at launch and interest in the game exploding are rather slim.
Yet, is it weird? Why want 100,000 people if your server cannot hold that many? This is a good way to keep stability in check, so they can slowly make their system better, and in the end, make their technology better to fit a higher population level in the game. So 500 may be their intended target just so it can be stable, then when they get some revenue (which obviously they did some math to pull those numbers out) they can put a higher population capacity in the game. This makes everyone happy so we will not have to deal with server issues or deal with those pesky crashes. So does it sound weird now?
Pepsi1028
PEPSI!!!!!
Get out of your box already...
A sustained average of 30% of your subscribers playing at once is insanely high. Is there any MMO that actually achieves that outside of the free month release period?
Peak hours would not be a sustained average, and the 30% playing at once would be during the free two month period right after release. I wouldn't expect the sustained average to be higher than 500 with 5000 accounts.
Which goes back one of SlyLoK's original points - they're looking at a very thin player population for a sandbox game spread across ~8 time zones.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
A sustained average of 30% of your subscribers playing at once is insanely high. Is there any MMO that actually achieves that outside of the free month release period?
Peak hours would not be a sustained average, and the 30% playing at once would be during the free two month period right after release. I wouldn't expect the sustained average to be higher than 500 with 5000 accounts.
Which goes back one of SlyLoK's original points - they're looking at a very thin player population for a sandbox game spread across ~8 time zones.
We'll see. US time zones are clustered. So are EU time zones. Australian and Asian players playing on US servers are used to adapting to US time or playing on near empty servers during their prime time. Anyway, I think this is irrelevant. If it turns out the population is spread too thin, increasing the cap is easy. Lowering the cap/increasing the number of servers if it turns out to be too crowded is not. Those kinds of numbers are always gut feeling from developers since there is no way to predict how much players will actually play.
I dont know what the actual record is but the most I have seen is 52k on at one time. The way their game runs through is a cluster of computer servers and each solar system is like a zone. You have to use a jump gate to get to another solar system. So in any given "zone" you will see anywhere from 10 people to 400 or 500 people. Since each zone can be handled seperately resource wise their system should be scalable to infinity with enough computers hooked up.
Any game could accomplish this same feat if you have a reasonable method of breaking zones up that players like. The reason most MMO's choose shards of one player world is content duplication. If I can make 5000 people happy at the same time with a single zone that costs a heck of a lot less then creating 50 distinct zones with 100 people each. Eve can get away with it due to the fact that creating a solar system is pretty simple from their perspective. When they go to planets and such with their dust 514 or whatever its called you will probably see about 10 or 20 stock planets repeating over and over environment wise with some player installations being the only thing differentiating them.
Now to have say 50k people in a non instanced single world...that is a monumental task. It can be done with the right tools, but its going to create a different type of game than your normal MMO for a vareity of reasons. This I think is the goal that Xyson devs are aiming towards...I dunno about the actual number of players per se but just the idea....whether they can accomplish that remains to be seen. The reason I would assume behind a gradual release. Get the base core of the game working properly before you start cloning it and all the errors that exist within it over and over again.
Again though everything sounds good on paper for what they are saying. We just have to wait to see if they actually deliver it. Even if the prelude is buggy and not all their ... that to me still wouldnt prove anything one way or another. In fact I expect the prelude to fall short. The real question to me is can they get it together by the time their prelude ends.
I will wait and see on this one. I would be willing to pay $5 bucks perhaps to get a first hand look and feel of the game but no more than that.