Im sure the title wont live up to the studios expectations, but it will live up to the markets expectations of success being 200k-300k sustained subscribers 3-6months post-launch. Not a bad thing, but nothing to be all boastful about. Rift game me alot of enjoyment over the 6-weeks I played it. I've got a level 50 toon, had fun on the journey, but refuse to pay $15/month to play their end-game content without features by sitting around reapeating the same BattleGrounds/Warfronts over and over or spending a couple hours doing the same dungeons over and over just for the sake of a purple item. But that's me.
Actually, in interviews a number of months back Trion people themselves said that they'd be happy with a few hundred k of subs, anything more would be a bonus.
Well that is one of the problems with the genre currently. These "chewing gum" MMORPGs where you play for a short while and then dump, due to lack of content and longetivity, is apparently enough to make some profit for the companies so they keep making them.
In effect MMORPGs have become more like single player games where companies release one with enough content for 1-2 months, make a quick buck and then move on with a skeleton crew to maintain the game for whatever subs it has left. Cryptic are experts at this model it seems.
you immediately lose any credibility by citing xfire numbers.
Also, why the fuck would ANYONE be surprised in a drop of players after their FREE month was up? The game definitely had people playing that had no intention of staying.
Back in the EQ/DOAC days, the devs said that a 70% retention rate was normal for a game. A 20% drop seems like things are going pretty well for Rift considering that.
I personally think that most games will see a drop in hours played after launch as people get into more reasonable playing times. People tend to consume new games very heavily in the first few weeks and then gradually scale back playtimes.
The curious thing is if this means the huge growth of the game has stopped or the xfire numbers mainly represent early adoptors to the game.
On the flip side, DCU saw alomst 70% decline after its first month and is somewhere above 90% decline currently. Rift doesn't seem to have to much to worry about yet.
Show me a linke please. I played both of these games and none of them showed a significant drop in subs. It rather felt that EQ even gained subs months for quite a few months after release and held steady at around 300k or so.
Considering it took months, with a dedicated team, to cap back at those days it is not so strange. It takes what, 2-4 weeks to cap in Rift? 1 week in DCU?
you immediately lose any credibility by citing xfire numbers.
Also, why the fuck would ANYONE be surprised in a drop of players after their FREE month was up? You definitely had people playing that had no intention of staying.
Every single mmo released into this market will drop noticably in subs after the first month of free play. /thread
That only holds true for WoW clones. Alot of old MMORPGs did not lose subs but rather slowly gained.
Eve, EQ, DAoC, Asherons Call, UO, FF IX, Lineage 2 all of them gained subs months after release and in some cases maintained them for YEARS before starting to drop. Check out http://www.mmodata.net/ to see yourself.
Even LOTRO gained subs for over a year before starting to slowly drop. It is rather WAR and AoC (and other WoW clones) which dropped significantly in subs.
This I think is a factor but I don't know if it's major. Trion has already shown they have a deft hand for releasing content that can pull players in (esp. at end game).
The problem I see is the replayability of the game. I'm gunna say it.. WoW... gasp ... had 3-4 different places you could level through. Each starter and then atleast 2-3 zones throughout the world that were level for whomever wanted to do it. You could complete a continent if you wanted, or boat back and forth for XP.
Rift doesn't have that. And with the use of public questing/Rifts you NEED people in zones otherwise new players, or alts, are just going to get disgusted with the game. I found during my playtimes, many zones were empty of players but had so many Rifts that questing was impossible.
That's true. A lot depends upon how good their tweaking and finetuning of rift scalability is, they could lose a lot of MMO gamers there because of either frustration (too hard/impossible) or boredom (too easy) when they do it wrong.
As for replayability, that's a good point.
Endgame content and replayability: after leveling, those are the two gameplay areas that determines whether people stay around or not. And community, a third one, but that's more of a fuzzy variable that changes from 1 server to the next.
I think what Rift shows is that there are quite a lot of MMO gamers who still like the themepark style of MMO's. SWTOR and GW2 I think will have an added advantage upon Rift:
- GW2 because of the changeable nature of the Events, making an area feel fresh and different for a longer period of time than static environments, GW2's world will be 5 times the size of Rift and it has 5 different starting areas instead of Rift's 2. Which all add up to a longer replayability.
- SWTOR because it has bucketloads of content, decisions in quests that lead to different leveling experiences, 8 fully unique leveling experiences, and a world that's easily 10 times the size of Rift's world. Which all add to a lot more replayability value, plus that it's Star Wars.
However, both those games won't be launched for more than 5 months, so in that time Rift will be the only new AAA MMORPG on the block.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
you immediately lose any credibility by citing xfire numbers.
Also, why the fuck would ANYONE be surprised in a drop of players after their FREE month was up? You definitely had people playing that had no intention of staying.
You have a better source?
Lack of a better source doesn't justify an incredibly shitty one. unless you're religious of course.
And what rational reason do you have for XFire not being representative of MMORPG gamers?
Sounds to me like you want Rift to fail a little too much with a little too high a level of enthusiasm and gloating anticipation, eh OP?
Anyway, I wonder about Rift's longterm retention as well, whether it has enough endgame content to keep players entertained. Rift seems to be a hell of a lot more polished right out of the door with finished features than WAR or AoC had, the Rift dev teams are a lot faster and more efficient with updates, with as a result a far lower level of QQing and whine rant explosions than those other games had and an overall more content player (and ex-player) population than those other 2 MMO's had.
No, a better example would be Aion: also an MMORPG that had a high level of polish right at launch, but it couldn't prevent large dropoffs from players in the months afterwards. I'd say that the grind from midlevel onwards was the biggest turnoff to many in Aion's case, not the disappointment and embitterment of broken expectations and unfinished or bugged features and content as was the case with WAR and AoC.
As for Rift, I think a decrease in players is to be expected, however, following the statistics of XFire, Raptr and Steam now for a while, I find that the dropoff after the free month so far has been a lot less than I'd expected.
We'll see how things progress in the months ahead.
It's natural for people to 'hate' a MMO these days sadly because IF 'the one MMO' does come out all their 'investment' into their characters in 'the popular games' will be redered moot - players are simplely putting too much status into their characters in MMOs: 'that Game = life' to them and they don't really want to admit all a game really is a timesink nothing more.
Aion fell on it's face due to the fact they attempted to 'westenise' a Aisan MMO, it just felt 'wrong' plus NC isn't the best when it comes to post-release support it just imploded, it's stablised now but it's nowhere near what everyone wanted it to be.
Rift on the other hand is different in that respect because Trion actally are doing more now then hiding behind the 'later date/comming soon' PR guff, in the hopes that players will accept the halfed baked rubbish that has come out because 'it'll be fixed later'.
Trion have seen this before and gladly havn't treated the players like fools and actally gave us a working product with a 'full' game to it, granted the game is a bit 'samey' but at least Trion have had the balls to say 'yes it's samey why fix which isn't broken' however at the same time have improved the client/server end vastly, farmer adbots are 'locked' in the starter areas unable to access the main world, coinlock prevents hacked accounts from losing items, and the CTD to restart times are near enough instantly, which is far far better then the 'big names' have done in the 6 years before hand
Aye customer support has been a little bad but which MMOs havn't had that issue in the first 6 months before, if people ACTALLY READ THE QUEST TEXT instead of trying to bug report it perhaps there wouldn't have been such a backlog with people with actal issues, which at least Trion actally gave gametime to players whom they took far too long in helping, not only that but with the issue with the CE UBS at least they had the guts to admit falut and gave the players either a new UBS or gametime and items for the mistake - both of those show much more respect to the players then other publishers had.
Trion have actally done somthing very few MMOs do and thats treat the players AS paying customers and not just a 'drop in the ocean' like a lot of them do, the game may be a bit meh, but it's a new game, but Trion is going to hold onto more people because they've been treated better then they have in the past
XFire shows a 20% drop of played hours compared to the peak one month ago. So as predicted this latest "great" game is starting to lose ground.
How much you wanna bet that by next month it will be at 50% of peak?
Thats because most of the unemployed people who managed to trade half their xbox 360 game library for rift free month is up. It will happen with all Sub games except the upcoming "spectacular" GW2 since it doesnt have a sub fee. Personally the game is just where it should be, at the top of the MMO genre.
With that said, yes, many of the WoW people who couldnt afford 2 monthly subs (since they are primarily 12 - 16 yrs of age) went back to WoW (good riddance), the unemployed, went to back to just that, being unemployed, leaving a solid, mature, and very active community. Atleast on our RP server
Im sure the title wont live up to the studios expectations, but it will live up to the markets expectations of success being 200k-300k sustained subscribers 3-6months post-launch.
Well that is one of the problems with the genre currently. These "chewing gum" MMORPGs where you play for a short while and then dump, due to lack of content and longetivity, is apparently enough to make some profit for the companies so they keep making them.
In effect MMORPGs have become more like single player games where companies release one with enough content for 1-2 months, make a quick buck and then move on with a skeleton crew to maintain the game for whatever subs it has left. Cryptic are experts at this model it seems.
Bingo. I'm looking for another MMO I can invest in for years and years like I did with EQ and WoW.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Well that is one of the problems with the genre currently. These "chewing gum" MMORPGs where you play for a short while and then dump, due to lack of content and longetivity, is apparently enough to make some profit for the companies so they keep making them.
In effect MMORPGs have become more like single player games where companies release one with enough content for 1-2 months, make a quick buck and then move on with a skeleton crew to maintain the game for whatever subs it has left. Cryptic are experts at this model it seems.
It's the strength of themepark MMO's. People like the guided experience with ready-at-hand content it brings. No need for having to search for something to do or creating your own content and fun.
The flaw of themepark MMO's is longevity issues after leveling/questing is done and the sense of bait-and-switch some players feel when gameplay changes towards repeatable raids and dungeons.
While I agree that MMO launches these days are in such a way that a lot of money is made at their launch, I don't see how current MMO's are smaller in size or content compared to earlier MMO's: after all, how former MMO's spread out the content was to add a far more intensive grind to the gameplay. EQ had a lot less content, but the long time of leveling and the means of mob grinding instead of quest leveling assured that people had to play for months and a hell of a lot more hours to reach level cap. I doubt that current MMO gamers would want to go back to those days. The result however is that MMO gamers run faster through the content.
As for Cryptic, I don't see them as ripping off players with their games: they had little content at start, but they have a model where they add a lot more updates in smaller portions throughout the year compared to other MMO companies. Plus their addition of the Foundry, a UGC (user generated content) tool, I find a work of passion and brilliance: I wish more MMO's would have such tooling for players.
Originally posted by Yamota
Eve, EQ, DAoC, Asherons Call, UO, FF IX, Lineage 2 all of them gained subs months after release and in some cases maintained them for YEARS before starting to drop. Check out http://www.mmodata.net/ to see yourself.
Even LOTRO gained subs for over a year before starting to slowly drop. It is rather WAR and AoC (and other WoW clones) which dropped significantly in subs.
Those were different times, the whole MMO playerbase had a different take on MMO's and it was still growing, more and more people gradually entering the MMO scene and compensating for those players who stopped playing. Nowadays the whole MMO scene and culture is differently, up to the point that a lot of MMO devs are saying that nowadays an open beta is more of a promotion tool than actual beta like it was in those early years. Interest for new MMO's is at a far higher level of anticipation far earlier than it was in those years of EQ, DAoC etc.
As for LotrO, LotrO is one the themepark MMO's resembling closest WoW in its gameplay features and design. It 's the one themepark MMO that did well for a longer period of time because it delivered more on its promises than MMO's like WAR and AoC did.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Lack of a better source doesn't justify an incredibly shitty one. unless you're religious of course.
And what rational reason do you have for XFire not being representative of MMORPG gamers?
Do you honestly think that the average gamer out there today uses a program like xfire? It doesn't represent mainstream gamers rendering it useless in tracking any sort of trend other than within the small minority that uses it.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I dropped my sub in favor of nothing at all, MMO-wise.
I will say this though, I would never go back to WoW, so long as Rift exists. It's just that neither game is for me, but I do see a lot of potential for Rift. I'm just not going to wait around for it. I was hoping for some PvP rifts or faction invasions, or just more world PvP.
For now, I'm going to put my head down and forget all about the genre until TOR or GW2 come along- but crap MMO or not- TOR will be the pinnacle of it all for me. It's really all I ever wanted in the genre. I'm not looking for groundbreaking, just KOTOR/the BioWare model, in MMO form.
Oh, and slightly more on topic- I'm a longtime gamer/fan of the genre, but have never used xfire or anything similar.
you immediately lose any credibility by citing xfire numbers.
Also, why the fuck would ANYONE be surprised in a drop of players after their FREE month was up? You definitely had people playing that had no intention of staying.
You have a better source?
Lack of a better source doesn't justify an incredibly shitty one. unless you're religious of course.
And what rational reason do you have for XFire not being representative of MMORPG gamers?
Of course it's representative, just not a good one. The fact that it takes effort to even be part of the xifre community proves that. Not to mention other similar/competing systems existing such as Raptr. But you're making the 'positive' claim here, so if you have any proof that Xfire is an accurate sampling of every type of person that plays MMO's please enlighten me.
Back in the EQ/DOAC days, the devs said that a 70% retention rate was normal for a game. A 20% drop seems like things are going pretty well for Rift considering that.
I personally think that most games will see a drop in hours played after launch as people get into more reasonable playing times. People tend to consume new games very heavily in the first few weeks and then gradually scale back playtimes.
The curious thing is if this means the huge growth of the game has stopped or the xfire numbers mainly represent early adoptors to the game.
On the flip side, DCU saw alomst 70% decline after its first month and is somewhere above 90% decline currently. Rift doesn't seem to have to much to worry about yet.
Show me a linke please. I played both of these games and none of them showed a significant drop in subs. It rather felt that EQ even gained subs months for quite a few months after release and held steady at around 300k or so.
Considering it took months, with a dedicated team, to cap back at those days it is not so strange. It takes what, 2-4 weeks to cap in Rift? 1 week in DCU?
I'm not sure which part you want a link for, but I'll guess the 70% retention. LINK is one exmaple of Marc Jacobs referencing DAOCs retention of new players at 70%.
However you are right that the games felt like they were growing, because they were. While 7/10 new players stuck with the game, they were also gaining more new players than they were losing. For every 3 players that were leaving 4 or more were jumping in to take their place. The xfire number suggests that might not be happening for rift, but it is way to soon to tell.
I don't really know about the leveling speed of Rift, but DCU was extremely quick. 1 weeks sounds about right, perhaps 2 at a casual pace. Though I don't subscribe to the speed of leveling as being important as long as there are plenty of activities to engage in. If the act of leveling a character is enjoyable then the amount of time it requires doesn't matter much. If it is boring then it is just a barrier to the fun parts of a game.
I dropped my sub in favor of nothing at all, MMO-wise.
I will say this though, I would never go back to WoW, so long as Rift exists. It's just that neither game is for me, but I do see a lot of potential for Rift. I'm just not going to wait around for it. I was hoping for some PvP rifts or faction invasions, or just more world PvP.
For now, I'm going to put my head down and forget all about the genre until TOR or GW2 come along- but crap MMO or not- TOR will be the pinnacle of it all for me. It's really all I ever wanted in the genre. I'm not looking for groundbreaking, just KOTOR/the BioWare model, in MMO form.
Oh, and slightly more on topic- I'm a longtime gamer/fan of the genre, but have never used xfire or anything similar.
Good luck with TOR :P talk about a Hyper-hyped game that will disappoint many, breaking the hearts of fans of SW... just look at ST:O... heh SWG was a failure, and TOR is the sequel in the line of fail.
Have you never played a new MMO? Every AAA mmo loses subs once the monthly fee kicks in. This is nothing out of the ordinary. If its 20% as you said that is actually below average, but of course I am sure you won't listen to me and will continue to claim the sky is falling.
Lack of a better source doesn't justify an incredibly shitty one. unless you're religious of course.
And what rational reason do you have for XFire not being representative of MMORPG gamers?
Do you honestly think that the average gamer out there today uses a program like xfire? It doesn't represent mainstream gamers rendering it useless in tracking any sort of trend other than within the small minority that uses it.
What do you consider an average gamer?
I play games maybe 10-20 hours per week and I would say that is quite average and I am using XFire to track my gaming time. Really dont see anything hardcore with XFire, it is easy to install and configure so why would not average gamers use it?
Lack of a better source doesn't justify an incredibly shitty one. unless you're religious of course.
And what rational reason do you have for XFire not being representative of MMORPG gamers?
Do you honestly think that the average gamer out there today uses a program like xfire? It doesn't represent mainstream gamers rendering it useless in tracking any sort of trend other than within the small minority that uses it.
What do you consider an average gamer?
I play games maybe 10-20 hours per week and I would say that is quite average and I am using XFire to track my gaming time. Really dont see anything hardcore with XFire, it is easy to install and configure so why would not average gamers use it?
because I dont like installing worthless Caca on my machine? clutter... a horrible habit a hoarder dabbles in.. I like as little as possible running on my machine... think there are many like me.
Comments
Well that is one of the problems with the genre currently. These "chewing gum" MMORPGs where you play for a short while and then dump, due to lack of content and longetivity, is apparently enough to make some profit for the companies so they keep making them.
In effect MMORPGs have become more like single player games where companies release one with enough content for 1-2 months, make a quick buck and then move on with a skeleton crew to maintain the game for whatever subs it has left. Cryptic are experts at this model it seems.
My gaming blog
you immediately lose any credibility by citing xfire numbers.
Also, why the fuck would ANYONE be surprised in a drop of players after their FREE month was up? The game definitely had people playing that had no intention of staying.
Show me a linke please. I played both of these games and none of them showed a significant drop in subs. It rather felt that EQ even gained subs months for quite a few months after release and held steady at around 300k or so.
Considering it took months, with a dedicated team, to cap back at those days it is not so strange. It takes what, 2-4 weeks to cap in Rift? 1 week in DCU?
My gaming blog
Every single mmo released into this market will drop noticably in subs after the first month of free play. /thread
You have a better source?
My gaming blog
That only holds true for WoW clones. Alot of old MMORPGs did not lose subs but rather slowly gained.
Eve, EQ, DAoC, Asherons Call, UO, FF IX, Lineage 2 all of them gained subs months after release and in some cases maintained them for YEARS before starting to drop. Check out http://www.mmodata.net/ to see yourself.
Even LOTRO gained subs for over a year before starting to slowly drop. It is rather WAR and AoC (and other WoW clones) which dropped significantly in subs.
My gaming blog
That's true. A lot depends upon how good their tweaking and finetuning of rift scalability is, they could lose a lot of MMO gamers there because of either frustration (too hard/impossible) or boredom (too easy) when they do it wrong.
As for replayability, that's a good point.
Endgame content and replayability: after leveling, those are the two gameplay areas that determines whether people stay around or not. And community, a third one, but that's more of a fuzzy variable that changes from 1 server to the next.
I think what Rift shows is that there are quite a lot of MMO gamers who still like the themepark style of MMO's. SWTOR and GW2 I think will have an added advantage upon Rift:
- GW2 because of the changeable nature of the Events, making an area feel fresh and different for a longer period of time than static environments, GW2's world will be 5 times the size of Rift and it has 5 different starting areas instead of Rift's 2. Which all add up to a longer replayability.
- SWTOR because it has bucketloads of content, decisions in quests that lead to different leveling experiences, 8 fully unique leveling experiences, and a world that's easily 10 times the size of Rift's world. Which all add to a lot more replayability value, plus that it's Star Wars.
However, both those games won't be launched for more than 5 months, so in that time Rift will be the only new AAA MMORPG on the block.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
And what rational reason do you have for XFire not being representative of MMORPG gamers?
My gaming blog
Sure some people left the game but 20% is not alot.
Most people play many houres per day the first few weeks after release then they slow down abit.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
It's natural for people to 'hate' a MMO these days sadly because IF 'the one MMO' does come out all their 'investment' into their characters in 'the popular games' will be redered moot - players are simplely putting too much status into their characters in MMOs: 'that Game = life' to them and they don't really want to admit all a game really is a timesink nothing more.
Aion fell on it's face due to the fact they attempted to 'westenise' a Aisan MMO, it just felt 'wrong' plus NC isn't the best when it comes to post-release support it just imploded, it's stablised now but it's nowhere near what everyone wanted it to be.
Rift on the other hand is different in that respect because Trion actally are doing more now then hiding behind the 'later date/comming soon' PR guff, in the hopes that players will accept the halfed baked rubbish that has come out because 'it'll be fixed later'.
Trion have seen this before and gladly havn't treated the players like fools and actally gave us a working product with a 'full' game to it, granted the game is a bit 'samey' but at least Trion have had the balls to say 'yes it's samey why fix which isn't broken' however at the same time have improved the client/server end vastly, farmer adbots are 'locked' in the starter areas unable to access the main world, coinlock prevents hacked accounts from losing items, and the CTD to restart times are near enough instantly, which is far far better then the 'big names' have done in the 6 years before hand
Aye customer support has been a little bad but which MMOs havn't had that issue in the first 6 months before, if people ACTALLY READ THE QUEST TEXT instead of trying to bug report it perhaps there wouldn't have been such a backlog with people with actal issues, which at least Trion actally gave gametime to players whom they took far too long in helping, not only that but with the issue with the CE UBS at least they had the guts to admit falut and gave the players either a new UBS or gametime and items for the mistake - both of those show much more respect to the players then other publishers had.
Trion have actally done somthing very few MMOs do and thats treat the players AS paying customers and not just a 'drop in the ocean' like a lot of them do, the game may be a bit meh, but it's a new game, but Trion is going to hold onto more people because they've been treated better then they have in the past
Bring on the WARRRRGGHH!
seconded. lol
Thats because most of the unemployed people who managed to trade half their xbox 360 game library for rift free month is up. It will happen with all Sub games except the upcoming "spectacular" GW2 since it doesnt have a sub fee. Personally the game is just where it should be, at the top of the MMO genre.
With that said, yes, many of the WoW people who couldnt afford 2 monthly subs (since they are primarily 12 - 16 yrs of age) went back to WoW (good riddance), the unemployed, went to back to just that, being unemployed, leaving a solid, mature, and very active community. Atleast on our RP server
Bingo. I'm looking for another MMO I can invest in for years and years like I did with EQ and WoW.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
It's the strength of themepark MMO's. People like the guided experience with ready-at-hand content it brings. No need for having to search for something to do or creating your own content and fun.
The flaw of themepark MMO's is longevity issues after leveling/questing is done and the sense of bait-and-switch some players feel when gameplay changes towards repeatable raids and dungeons.
While I agree that MMO launches these days are in such a way that a lot of money is made at their launch, I don't see how current MMO's are smaller in size or content compared to earlier MMO's: after all, how former MMO's spread out the content was to add a far more intensive grind to the gameplay. EQ had a lot less content, but the long time of leveling and the means of mob grinding instead of quest leveling assured that people had to play for months and a hell of a lot more hours to reach level cap. I doubt that current MMO gamers would want to go back to those days. The result however is that MMO gamers run faster through the content.
As for Cryptic, I don't see them as ripping off players with their games: they had little content at start, but they have a model where they add a lot more updates in smaller portions throughout the year compared to other MMO companies. Plus their addition of the Foundry, a UGC (user generated content) tool, I find a work of passion and brilliance: I wish more MMO's would have such tooling for players.
Those were different times, the whole MMO playerbase had a different take on MMO's and it was still growing, more and more people gradually entering the MMO scene and compensating for those players who stopped playing. Nowadays the whole MMO scene and culture is differently, up to the point that a lot of MMO devs are saying that nowadays an open beta is more of a promotion tool than actual beta like it was in those early years. Interest for new MMO's is at a far higher level of anticipation far earlier than it was in those years of EQ, DAoC etc.
As for LotrO, LotrO is one the themepark MMO's resembling closest WoW in its gameplay features and design. It 's the one themepark MMO that did well for a longer period of time because it delivered more on its promises than MMO's like WAR and AoC did.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Problem I have with your numbers is Xfire while a generally accuarate small sampling is primarily used by more hardcore old school users.
RIFT was designed for the casual gamer most of which do not use xfire.
We all can only be who we are Nothing more nothing less.
Do you honestly think that the average gamer out there today uses a program like xfire? It doesn't represent mainstream gamers rendering it useless in tracking any sort of trend other than within the small minority that uses it.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I dropped my sub in favor of nothing at all, MMO-wise.
I will say this though, I would never go back to WoW, so long as Rift exists. It's just that neither game is for me, but I do see a lot of potential for Rift. I'm just not going to wait around for it. I was hoping for some PvP rifts or faction invasions, or just more world PvP.
For now, I'm going to put my head down and forget all about the genre until TOR or GW2 come along- but crap MMO or not- TOR will be the pinnacle of it all for me. It's really all I ever wanted in the genre. I'm not looking for groundbreaking, just KOTOR/the BioWare model, in MMO form.
Oh, and slightly more on topic- I'm a longtime gamer/fan of the genre, but have never used xfire or anything similar.
Of course it's representative, just not a good one. The fact that it takes effort to even be part of the xifre community proves that. Not to mention other similar/competing systems existing such as Raptr. But you're making the 'positive' claim here, so if you have any proof that Xfire is an accurate sampling of every type of person that plays MMO's please enlighten me.
I'm not sure which part you want a link for, but I'll guess the 70% retention. LINK is one exmaple of Marc Jacobs referencing DAOCs retention of new players at 70%.
However you are right that the games felt like they were growing, because they were. While 7/10 new players stuck with the game, they were also gaining more new players than they were losing. For every 3 players that were leaving 4 or more were jumping in to take their place. The xfire number suggests that might not be happening for rift, but it is way to soon to tell.
I don't really know about the leveling speed of Rift, but DCU was extremely quick. 1 weeks sounds about right, perhaps 2 at a casual pace. Though I don't subscribe to the speed of leveling as being important as long as there are plenty of activities to engage in. If the act of leveling a character is enjoyable then the amount of time it requires doesn't matter much. If it is boring then it is just a barrier to the fun parts of a game.
Good luck with TOR :P talk about a Hyper-hyped game that will disappoint many, breaking the hearts of fans of SW... just look at ST:O... heh SWG was a failure, and TOR is the sequel in the line of fail.
Have you never played a new MMO? Every AAA mmo loses subs once the monthly fee kicks in. This is nothing out of the ordinary. If its 20% as you said that is actually below average, but of course I am sure you won't listen to me and will continue to claim the sky is falling.
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What do you consider an average gamer?
I play games maybe 10-20 hours per week and I would say that is quite average and I am using XFire to track my gaming time. Really dont see anything hardcore with XFire, it is easy to install and configure so why would not average gamers use it?
My gaming blog
because I dont like installing worthless Caca on my machine? clutter... a horrible habit a hoarder dabbles in.. I like as little as possible running on my machine... think there are many like me.