Look guys thee are some very basic facts available to you: 1) DAOC wasn't exactly "agressively" marketted: It has 5 times the subscriber base of AC 2) EVE isn't advertized or marketted at ALL... has it even BEEN on store shelves? I've never seen it on a shelf: Nearly 3 times the number of subscribers that AC has. 3) CoH: Not agressively marketted. Haven't seen it on shelves in a while: 4-5x the subscriber base. 4) UO: Been out longer, hasn't been advertized in ages, older technology, not even 3D graphics: 3x the subscriber base 5) Runescape: I never once saw this advertized and haven't ever seen it on the shelf at EB or BestBuy. 7x the subscriber base.
I'm not going to list EQ, SWG, WoW, Lineage (also not advertized), Lineage II (not advertized), EQII, EQOA, PlanetSide or many other games .... the above 5 make my point quite well.
Just because a game isn't advertized doesn't mean it wont do well.
AC is a good game. Nobody is saying it's not. But it doesn't appeal to enough people to justify a total rewrite of the game to a new graphics engine. It just isn't going to happen. You're smoking crack if you think Turbine is going to invest millions into a fading MMORPG. It just won't make a difference in the long run. And to those who keep saying it hasn't been on shelves I see Asherons Call on the shelves at Best Buy almost every time I go in. It's just not a valid arguement that it doesn't get any visibility. The problem is that the game just doesn't appeal to a large enough segment of the MMORPG community. It's just that simple.
When you peel back the onion there isn't really anything other than the monthly live events (do they still do those?) that used to go on to make it stand out from the rest of the MMO's out there. And most MMO's have events even more frequently than that as well as player driven event content now. AC is a good game. But it's not popular enough that Turbine is going to go sink millions of dollars into a major rewrite of the game on the off-chance that a miracle might happen to make the game suddenly popular again.
Most people only care that graphics are good enough not to break the FEEL of an MMO. AC's graphics are already plenty good for that. They're not bad at all and they just recently got a little bit better (they re-skinned everything in the old engine). Just improving the graphics by a bit is not going to save this game. Period. New graphics doesn't make a game recover when it's in decline. Games don't decline because of slightly below average graphics, they decline because of lack of interest in the GAME, not the Graphics.
Hell... look at UO... still has over 150,000 subscribers and it's graphics are among the worst in the industry right now. It survives because it's got fantastic gameplay. Though it, too, has started to decline. EQ has as well. Newer games with greater appeal have come out and taken the old games places. A facelift just isn't going to cut it.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
Originally posted by Merodoc Asheron's Call is a great game, produced by a great company. Turbine has always stood by its community tyhroughout gamre production, and since they are heralding two of the biggest MMO release next year, I understand the AC has been getting the backseat.
Fear not! I have heard from some of my copatriots that this year's Turbine Nation should prove excellent for AC!
errrr, no, its now that AC is actually getting alittle front seat. I got the backseat when Turbine wasn't working on bigger projects. Too little too late...
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Originally posted by Falconoffury AC is dated, it's old, and it's got some flaws that people can't get past. And, frankly, I think Turbine is just running it in maintenance level mode because they know that there isn't anything they can do to bring it back to life.
I'll agree that it's old, but being old isn't bad. You talk a lot about flaws in general, but you aren't saying what they are. If adding and updating content functionality, and adding new quests and activities means maintenance then you are right. You also said the game isn't great because not a lot of people play it. Allow me to suggest another reason why it's not as populated. The game is not very accessible to the casual gamer. I am a hardcore gamer, and casual games really don't interest me. I don't play WoW because it is geared towards the casual gamer, and it's too simple. I like complex games with long learning curves. Ease of use and streamlined games are not qualities I look for. I am a serious, hardcore gamer, and AC is perfect for me.
The PC games market has grown over the last 10 years. The only reason it appears to be shrinking is because the console game market has exploded in growth over the last 10 years.
And finally, I will retort against the idea that the game is flawed because of the use of 3rd party apps. Even if you don't use 3rd party apps in this game, it many times more complex, satisfying, content-rich, and fun than 95% of the mmorpg market. The 3rd party apps are no longer required. Buffing is streamlined. Salvaging is streamlined. Even alchemy and cooking are easier than early on in the game. There are no true flaws in this game that require 3rd party apps. They are simply cool touches.
The best 3 mmorpgs for the hardcore gamer of all time are AC, Eve, and UO. I stick by that statement.
I am not sure how this game isn't casual. I used to sit in Olthoi dungeons and solo about 15 Olthoi at once grinding experience like mad. You could hit the old level cap in a few months if you worked at it. Buffs were like buffs from SWG, they could dam near put you in god mode. And what was worse is all you needed was high allegiance rank and you could buff yourself with items insanely. I played it casually and I was rank 8 in my chain. I could buff myself and mop entire dungeons solo all day long.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
When you peel back the onion there isn't really anything other than the monthly live events (do they still do those?) that used to go on to make it stand out from the rest of the MMO's out there.
Are you kidding me? You didn't even know about the monthly updates? The monthly updates turned me into a fan of this game. I was not a fan when this game came out. I thought it was alright. The stuff added in the monthly updates made this game amazingly good. I play a lot more now than I did at release. The casual player would say this game was at its best during the first year because it felt new and there were more players. The hardcore gamer isn't interested in those things, he is interested in the gameplay features, activities, and content, and all of those things are much more in-depth because of the monthly updates. My server had 600 players average peaks a few weeks before the expansion. Subtract about 50 bots, and that's still enough players for me to get into some large quest groups. I am expecting 1000 players average peak over the next few weeks. My server broke 1000 players during march of this year, so it's not an unreasonable expectation.
In my opinion, AC stands out because its gameplay feels different from everything else on the market. Most mmorpgs are EQ clones, where you fight one monster at a time and lose over half your health from just one monster, and then you rest. In AC you feel like a hero. You can mow down a dozen pretty strong monsters if you have good equipment and know what you are doing. It's like a 3D Diablo.
Elnator, by your comments I suspect that this game lacks players simply due to ignorance. It's gameplay elements and content has become truly great over the years, but everyone writes it off because it's an old game. This game has really evolved, and almost everything has changed.
Originally posted by Falconoffury In my opinion, AC stands out because its gameplay feels different from everything else on the market. Most mmorpgs are EQ clones, where you fight one monster at a time and lose over half your health from just one monster, and then you rest.
If thats all you got out of EQ's combat Falcon I would say you have never played it in depth. Thats the average low level method til I a person learns the in's and out's of the game, mezzing, crowd control, and so on. Combat can be very exciting in everquest, and alot more realistic then 15 Olthoi 20 levels above you gang piling you and you just sit there and stab or drain away til they are all dead. I have no problem with AC, but you really aren't giving very good points to anything. Your just showing me that all you really know is AC and are guessing or using knowledge gained from VERY limited experiences in EQ.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
For all of you that don't believe that Asheron's Call has what it takes to be a contender in todays mmo market, regardless of graphics overhaul or not...
Tell me why it is that in my small town in Idaho of all places... two EB Games stores sold out of 96 copies of the new expansion of Asherons Call in under one hour?
And that's in a very unpopulated area compared to most of the USA.
Sounds to me that just based on that, that if this game was out on the shelves of all the major retailers... that if it DID have a true graphics overhaul to bring it up to par with newer games like Guild Wars... that it just might do very well.
Just do the math. Seriously. On this expansion which is nothing compared to a graphics upgrade like I suggest... 96 copies sell out in under an hour... the population in this area is under 200,000. 280 million people in the USA. Roughly 1400 times my areas population in the United States. 1400 times 96 is roughly 140,000 copies. And thats based on ONE STOREs sellout of this expansion in UNDER ONE HOUR.
Now my math could be flawed compared to actual sales figures for this expansion... But I am simply doing simple math to see that this expansion here could very well be selling extremely well. Imagine if only it was widely exposed, advertised much more, and perhaps even if it had the supreme graphical revamp that I suggest.
Asheron's Call isn't quite the old, dusty, and ancient piece of crap coding that many of you seem to suggest. Its years of monthly content has enriched this game to a whole new level that all of the newer, prettier mmos can't begin to touch as far as depth and features.
Also to the person who asked or suggested that Turbine isn't continuing the monthly live updates.. they are still doing those every month. They have't had any in a few months because of this expansion which has a lot of that new content, but they are promising that the monthly updates will not end any time soon.
On a side note, another successful mmo that could also do very well with a brand new 3D expansion and 2005 graphics with its same content and features it has now is Ultima Online. Give UO a brand new 2005 3D graphics overhaul and make a couple of PvP Felucia only servers, and UO would also gain a LOT of new and old subscribers I would think.
Only the server counts are going to give the truth on that over the next few weeks. I actually find it questionable that many sold out of 2 EB's anywhere for AC in a day but I am not going to disbeleive it so far to say the person lied too you. I just find it abit spectacular.
Anyways, truth will come out with the populations on the servers. You should know pretty quick if the expansion was a success.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Originally posted by Falconoffury When you peel back the onion there isn't really anything other than the monthly live events (do they still do those?) that used to go on to make it stand out from the rest of the MMO's out there.
Are you kidding me? You didn't even know about the monthly updates? The monthly updates turned me into a fan of this game. I was not a fan when this game came out. I thought it was alright. The stuff added in the monthly updates made this game amazingly good. I play a lot more now than I did at release. The casual player would say this game was at its best during the first year because it felt new and there were more players. The hardcore gamer isn't interested in those things, he is interested in the gameplay features, activities, and content, and all of those things are much more in-depth because of the monthly updates. My server had 600 players average peaks a few weeks before the expansion. Subtract about 50 bots, and that's still enough players for me to get into some large quest groups. I am expecting 1000 players average peak over the next few weeks. My server broke 1000 players during march of this year, so it's not an unreasonable expectation.
In my opinion, AC stands out because its gameplay feels different from everything else on the market. Most mmorpgs are EQ clones, where you fight one monster at a time and lose over half your health from just one monster, and then you rest. In AC you feel like a hero. You can mow down a dozen pretty strong monsters if you have good equipment and know what you are doing. It's like a 3D Diablo.
Elnator, by your comments I suspect that this game lacks players simply due to ignorance. It's gameplay elements and content has become truly great over the years, but everyone writes it off because it's an old game. This game has really evolved, and almost everything has changed.
By your comments it's obvious that you are either deliberately missunderstanding or incapable of basic comprehension when someone points out aspects of why AC isn't as popular as it used ti be.
How did I "not know about the monthly updates" when I specifically mentioned them and asked if they were still doing them? I DO know about them you goof. I asked if they were STILL doing them because I don't play AC anymore. I left the game because *gasp* I didn't like it as much as I liked other titles out there.
And, I'm sorry, the ability to kill 15 nasties at once does not make a game "hard core". To me a Hard Core MMORPG is one that requires massive ammounts of teamwork and cooperation to achieve a goal. Not being a 1 man army. AC did have some hard core aspects but the overall game felt about average for an MMO to me (and, trust me, I've played far far more than my fair share of MMO's). I beta tested AC with my roomate and I played for about 4 months of release. I liked it but it wasn't good enough for me to want to stay.
AC is a good game. I never said it WASNT a good game. I said it doesn't appeal to as many people as other games on the market. That fact is VERY evident when you just look at it's subscriber numbers and it's population curve. When it initially came out it had a huge growth followed by steady and solid decline. What that generally indicates is that there was a LOT of initial interest in the game, people came out RAPIDLY to try it out and found it to be something they weren't interested in and they slowly let their subscriptions expire. Around 120,000 people played it at one point and over 2/3 of them have left the game and have not been replaced by new subscribers. That means that the majority of those who try the game do not like it enough to stick with it. Just updating the graphics isn't going to change that. It seems to have, at least temporarily, plateau'd at around 37,000 users. Nothing wrong with that but saying it's the best MMO on the market is just silly.
Just a clue: There is no such thing as a 'best' MMO. There is only a "best MMO for me". Everyone is different. You like AC, I did too, but not enough to pay for it. Evidently the majority of people who have tried it out over the years agree with me rather than you since it's subscribers have declined, and not increased. Blaming that on bad marketting is ignoring the fact that more people leave the game after trying it than stay.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
Originally posted by zaxtor99 For all of you that don't believe that Asheron's Call has what it takes to be a contender in todays mmo market, regardless of graphics overhaul or not...Tell me why it is that in my small town in Idaho of all places... two EB Games stores sold out of 96 copies of the new expansion of Asherons Call in under one hour?And that's in a very unpopulated area compared to most of the USA.Sounds to me that just based on that, that if this game was out on the shelves of all the major retailers... that if it DID have a true graphics overhaul to bring it up to par with newer games like Guild Wars... that it just might do very well. Just do the math. Seriously. On this expansion which is nothing compared to a graphics upgrade like I suggest... 96 copies sell out in under an hour... the population in this area is under 200,000. 280 million people in the USA. Roughly 1400 times my areas population in the United States. 1400 times 96 is roughly 140,000 copies. And thats based on ONE STOREs sellout of this expansion in UNDER ONE HOUR.Now my math could be flawed compared to actual sales figures for this expansion... But I am simply doing simple math to see that this expansion here could very well be selling extremely well. Imagine if only it was widely exposed, advertised much more, and perhaps even if it had the supreme graphical revamp that I suggest. Asheron's Call isn't quite the old, dusty, and ancient piece of crap coding that many of you seem to suggest. Its years of monthly content has enriched this game to a whole new level that all of the newer, prettier mmos can't begin to touch as far as depth and features.Also to the person who asked or suggested that Turbine isn't continuing the monthly live updates.. they are still doing those every month. They have't had any in a few months because of this expansion which has a lot of that new content, but they are promising that the monthly updates will not end any time soon.On a side note, another successful mmo that could also do very well with a brand new 3D expansion and 2005 graphics with its same content and features it has now is Ultima Online. Give UO a brand new 2005 3D graphics overhaul and make a couple of PvP Felucia only servers, and UO would also gain a LOT of new and old subscribers I would think. But then again, I'm just one fan. What do I know?- Zaxx
Hey if it makes a big turnaround then GREAT! But the fact is we won't know for sure for a while. Personally I'm not willing to give AC another chance unless I see the number of subscribers going up instead of down. Even then I probably won't because I'm *gasp* happy playing the games I already know I enjoy and don't have any real inclination to leave because I find them *fun*. Why would I go start over in another game when I'm already having fun and have a bunch of friends who I enjoy playing with?
Besides, right now I can see, by virtue of the fact that it's subscriber base has been going steadily DOWN for YEARS, that more people like it less than something else than like it enough to stay. Otherwise the curve would be flat or up, regardless of how much advertizing the game gets. Current data shows that the game is in decline. If the new expansion turns it around and it starts to increase again then FANTASTIC!!!! I'll be happy for you and those who are enjoying it. I didn't leave AC because of GRAPHICS, however, I left because, while I liked the game, I didn't like it as much as other titles that were more fun.
I know, it's hard to admit that a game doesn't appeal to everyone. It took me a long time to realize it too back when I used to defend EQ against everyone who would bash it endlessly. But the fact is that you can love a game that most everyone else doesn't. Nothing wrong with that, just don't assume that a facelift and some new sparkles will make it a #1 game or even a contender. Hell, AC wasn't even a contender when it was new.
If AC makes a huge turn around because of the expansion then fantastic. But I wouldn't be holding my breath, if I were you, till you actually start seeing more people IN the game. We all got really excited about Star Wars Galaxies when ROTW came out and were excited. But I didn't start saying it was growing again until I actually started seeing server populations increase.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
Arg, i find it incredible how people say "oh just slap a new engine on it and it will look great".... can you even imagine the ammount of work involved in that? you cant use the same textures or models of the old engine, you need to do everything from scratch, the only thing you are going to use from the old game is the ruleset, quest material and that sorta stuff, in essense, its a whole new game your building, when DAOC upgraded its gfx engine recently it didnt implement a new engine, it added new textures, new models and new shader effects to the game, and even then they didnt add the new textures to the entire game world, only to some areas.
Originally posted by Kem0sabe Arg, i find it incredible how people say "oh just slap a new engine on it and it will look great".... can you even imagine the ammount of work involved in that? you cant use the same textures or models of the old engine, you need to do everything from scratch, the only thing you are going to use from the old game is the ruleset, quest material and that sorta stuff, in essense, its a whole new game your building, when DAOC upgraded its gfx engine recently it didnt implement a new engine, it added new textures, new models and new shader effects to the game, and even then they didnt add the new textures to the entire game world, only to some areas.
No worries, it's obvious they have no clue the scope of the project that they're talking about.
If Turbine was going to go through all that trouble they'd just make AC2... eerrrr. ... wait... they already did.... ok... they'd just make AC 3
I mean, if you're going to re-code all the HARD stuff why not make the changes that are easy by comparison.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
I never liked AC or AC2. I dunno why but they just never appealed to me. Maybe i was just too hooked on EQ. I spent 6 years on EQ and they were fun but now i know what pvp is like and i cant even log onto EQ without being bored. People need to quit looking at the past and look towards the future. Vanguard will be great for those who like the PvE thing and Irth Online is really looking promising for those who like realm pvp. In any case Turbine could shit a turnip that looks like Jesus and i wouldn't care.
Originally posted by Copeland Vanguard will be great for those who like the PvE thing and Irth Online is really looking promising for those who like realm pvp. In any case Turbine could shit a turnip that looks like Jesus and i wouldn't care.
Hey cope, let's stop with the Turbine bashing. Magic Hat shit a Beta that looked like a turd, but you are madly in love with that.
Originally posted by Copeland I never liked AC or AC2. I dunno why but they just never appealed to me. Maybe i was just too hooked on EQ. I spent 6 years on EQ and they were fun but now i know what pvp is like and i cant even log onto EQ without being bored. People need to quit looking at the past and look towards the future. Vanguard will be great for those who like the PvE thing and Irth Online is really looking promising for those who like realm pvp. In any case Turbine could shit a turnip that looks like Jesus and i wouldn't care.
I'm pretty burned out on Fantasy but I have to admit, Irith has me intrigued.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
Im also pretty much burned out on fantasy, wont be playing much of anything till D&DO comes out, will give it a chance, then will give a serious try to vanguard later next year, untill then proly have D&DO if its any good or maybe try EVE or SWG again.
EQ2 didn't even hit half a million initial sales and it WAS agressively marketed.
You need to go deeper. EQ2 did have 500k sales. But some players do not play anymore for whatever reason. EQ2 has roughly 200k-300k active subscribers.
SWG didn't hit half a million.
SWG most definatly had 500k sales. But many players no longer play. SWG peaked at 330k active players. SWG would have kept on growing if it were not for the JHMess. (Jedi Hologrind Mess. Mostly fault of LucasArts. Some fault to SOE.) It currently has roughly 200k active players.
Only WoW hit that number and that was because every warcraft and diablo player in the world knows and trusts Blizzard.
Most players who purchased WoW are still playing it. It has a low turnover rate because players who purchased it were already ahead of time loyal to Blizzard.
No way do I see a revamped version of an old game getting half a million initial sales.
It is possible. Look at UO. It re-exploded to 300k players, up from 100k players, after its revamp.
Not when every MMO player out there already knows about AC and has formed at least a partial opinion of it.
No. To this day, AC is still not known by the majority of mmorpg players. AC has had zero marketing. And still does. New mmorpg virgin players have no idea what AC is.
The only real growth would be from new sales and I just don't see where they'd get the numbers you are talking about.
Every year there is a new crop of millions of gamers. Hudreds of thousands of new virgin mmorpg players. Every year a new generation of people turn age 5, age 8, age 12, age 14, etc... and play a computer game for their first time. Play a RPG for their first time. And... play a mmorpg for their first time. IF AC ever updated its game engine, and aggressivly marketed itself, it could indeed double its playerbase. I do agree even AC could never reach 500k players. There is far too much competition at present time. When AC first came out, there was only AC and EQ as the modern mmorpgs.
Regardless of marketting or advertizement. EVE has had little or no marketting at all.
Sorry but you are wrong about EvE. EvE has indeed been aggresivly marketed. Especially on the internet. EvE has had one of the longest, ongoing free trials in mmorpg history. AC has had only 1 free trial and it was for 1 month. Was softly marketed for 1 month.
It's only ever been on store shelves like once. Yet it has twice the number of subscribers AC does, it's in a smaller niche market, and is GROWING. AC is shrinking and has more marketting than EVE ever has.
EvE is still on the store shelves of major comptuer stores. (Comp USA, GameSpot, etc...). EvE has never had twice the number of players as AC. EvE has roughly the same number of players as AC - a game roughly 5 years older than EvE. That says a lot about AC. When and if EvE ever peaks at 100k players and holds that for 1 year or more, then EvE can be brought up in a discussion comparing it vs AC.
I don't think a new graphics engine would really help the game that much. The graphics in AC are really not all that bad. They're a little dated but it's not like we're talking about UO graphics here. They are good enough that if the gameplay were as fun as you claim people would play it despite the graphics. And that just isn't happening.
Marketing is everything. Having zero marketing is what has hurt AC for years.
AC is dated, it's old, and it's got some flaws that people can't get past. And, frankly, I think Turbine is just running it in maintenance level mode because they know that there isn't anything they can do to bring it back to life. If they could they would have, it's their flagship after all. If they'd thought your idea would work, at all, they'd have done it.
Turbine has in the past 3 years been one of the most miss-managed companies in existance. Turbine went down hill after MicroSoft took it over. Even though right now MS is now out of the picture, the damage MS did to Turbine is irreversable. There is no such thing as "maintenance mode" in a mmorpg. It either is online, at normal operating level - or it is dead, unplugged, offline, like MCO, EnB, and... Dawn LOL.
People also keep saying that Turbine is using AC profits to produce DDO and LOTR... they are not. They are using outside investor money for the most part.
How did Turbine get investors to invest in it? Because of AC. AC and its profits are being used to make DDO, and MEO/LOTRO. AC and its profits are collaterial. Investors never invest their money for no reason. They want collaterial. DDO and MEO do not exist. So the only collaterial of value is AC and its profits.
AC did ok in it's time. It was a somewhat fun game. But it's prime is long past and other games are far more fun to play now.
AC did more than OK. It was a bona fid hit MMORPG. It peaked at 100k players. (closer to 140k actually!). Again, because of no marketing, AC never continued building on itself after the mmorpg market became more crowded.
It really is a mystery why AC has never been aggresivly marketed. Why it still is not marketed even right now.
If it were more fun to play, as I said, more people would be playing it. You can only blame so much on lack of marketting. The rest is pure and simple game appeal. AC apparently doesn't have enough to keep people coming back. It's not like folks haven't tried it, they have. Almost everyone I know has tried AC, some of them many times, and they keep leaving it for other games. And none of them have ever gone back.
AC was, and still currently is, fun to play. Remember..... AC peaked at roughly 140k players. It did so have plenty of game appeal. And it was good enough to keep people playing and coming back. Marketing really is brutally important. In every market, for every product, genre, everything. Marketing/Advertisment/Sales/Selling really is extreemly signifigant and can make or break a product. Lack of aggresive marketing is responsible for AC going from 140k players down to roughly 40k players. How to stand out from the sea of competition? From the crowded mmorpg market? Marketing - Advertisement.
AC has a loyal core of players that will probably play it for a long time yet to come. But the odds of it becoming a major MMO again are slim at best.
Once a game becomes a major mmorpg, it forever is a major mmorpg. It is like saying Elvis went back to being an unknown, a non-star, the last 4 years of his life.
Ummm... Xplororer... initial sales. Not total. WOW and Lineage II are the ONLY MMO's that had 500,000 INITIAL sales. Lineage I took several months to hit 500,000 users as did FFXI and Runescape. I just don't see an upgraded version of an existing MMO that only has 37,000 current subscriptions getting 500,000 initial box sales when they release the expansion/upgrade. Especially when it's Turbine we're talking about doing the release.
Sheez.
Oh... and UO has never had a jump like that, of any kind. I wish it had. It's easily one of my favorite MMO's of all time. But It, in fact: 1) Never hit 300,000 users 2) Never been as low as 100,000 users yet (Currently at about 155,000 users) 3) Never had a 200,000 user jump in a short period. It took 3 YEARS for it to reach 200,000 users from release.
When they released the graphics engine upgrade It had dipped from about 240,000 at peak to around 200,000 and went up to 250,000 when the graphics upgrade went through. That lasted about 9 months.
And I never said AC wasn't fun to play. I said it was not as fun to play as other offerings in the same genre. Because if it were MORE fun than the competition fewer people would leave than try it in any given time span which would cause the population to grow. That hasn't been the case. I have also cited EXAMPLES of other MMO's that haven't had any/much marketting either (less than AC in many cases) but have managed to GROW in the same timespan that AC has been in steady, constant, uninterupted decline.
AC is a good game. But thinking that all it'll take to turn it around is a multi-million dollar graphics engine upgrade and some marketting is just plain silly. UO is a classic example: They did a HUGE graphics upgrade and got about a 15% to 20% boost in it's total playerbase for about 9 months before the number of subscribers dropped back down and actually wound up dropping lower than before the graphics upgrade.
AC is in a lot worse shape, number of subscribers wise, than UO was. They're at 37,000.... Even if they got a 50% boost in subscribers that would only take them up by 18,000 subscribers. If that lasted hmm.... 18 months... they MIGHT cover the cost of the graphics engine upgrade. MIGHT....
Like I said, I really hope the most recent expansion turns things around for AC. It's a GOOD game. It just hasn't done well since very early in it's life. It had a huge initial growth followed by steady decline. Yes, it was a HIT at release. But about a year after release it began to dwindle and never turned it back around. It has steadily declined over the past 4 years. And it's not like it is never on shelves. It's been on shelves pretty reliably over the years. I've seen it on the shelves most times I go into Best Buy.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
You continue to argue points that make absolutely no sense.
You say in one of the oldest mmos today, that advertising aggressively, updating the graphics to todays standards, and putting it out on all major department store shelves wouldn't help the sales of this game.
Ofcourse you are right....'cuz we all know that: - Advertising is a waste. That's why Ford and Coca-Cola and Pepsi and Budweiser don't spend a dime on advertising. - Making a game with superior graphics doesn't help it one bit. Most gamers who go to buy a football game would just as likely choose a football game with X's and O's that move one block at a time over a 2005 graphically superior Madden 2006 type of game. Cuz good graphics don't help sales at all. Naw, ofcourse not. - And putting Asherons Call on all Walmart game shelves, all Best Buy shelves, all Target shelves, and all other major department video game shelves wouldn't help it one bit. Ofcourse not. Exposure is also nothing.
So by your analysis, even if Turbine was to totally revamp Asheron's Call with graphics that blew away EQ2 and Guild Wars, advertised the living hell out of it, and put it on every major dept store shelf, the total subscribers would remain constant at 37,000 or so.
My projections might be a little optimistic, but the things you say about Asheron's Call are so pesimistic and ridiculous, you almost sound like a troll bent on nothing more then bashing AC cuz this isn't a thread supporting whatever game you currently play.
Ofcourse advertising helps. It helps a TON. Ofcourse people, especially all the millions of new mmo players in recent years would rather pick up an mmo off a shelf if it looked to have awesome graphics over dated, 1999 graphics. And ofcourse making the game more accessible and easier to reach and see would help it's sales.
Originally posted by zaxtor99 Elnator...You continue to argue points that make absolutely no sense.You say in the one of the oldest mmos today, that advertising aggressively, updating the graphics to todays standards, and putting it out on all major department store shelves wouldn't help the sales of this game.Ofcourse you are right....'cuz we all know that: - Advertising is a waste. That's why Ford and Coca-Cola and Pepsi and Budweiser don't spend a dime on advertising. - Making a game with superior graphics doesn't help it one bit. Most gamers who go to buy a football game would just as likely choose a football with X's and O's that move one block at a time over a 2005 graphically superior Madded 2006 type of game. Cuz good graphics don't help sales at all. Naw, ofcourse not. - And putting Asherons Call on all Walmart game shelves, all Best Buy shelves, all Target shelves, and all other major department video game shelves wouldn't help it one bit. Ofcourse not. Exposure is also nothing.So by your analysis, even if Turbine was to totally revamp Asheron's Call with graphics that blew away EQ2 and Guild Wars, advertised the living hell out of it, and put it on every major dept store shelf, the total subscribers would remain constant at 37,000 or so.My projections might be a little optimistic, but the things you say about Asheron's Call are so pesimistic and ridiculous, you almost sound like a troll bent on nothing more then bashing AC cuz this isn't a thread supporting whatever game you currently play.Ofcourse advertising helps. It helps a TON. Ofcourse people, especially all the millions of new mmo players in recent years would rather pick up an mmo off a shelf if it looked to have awesome graphics over dated, 1999 graphics. And ofcourse making the game more accessible and easier to reach and see would help it's sales.- Zaxx
Nope I didn't say it wouldn't grow. I said it would probably grow by about 50%. Even if it grew by more it wouldn't LAST. People left AC for reasons other than graphics! In 2001, when the game started to dwindle, it's graphics were still among the best in the industry and nobody was really marketting much at all back then either. The ONLY competition was EQ, UO and DAOC at the time. Lineage wasn't even known in the states for the most part at the time, it was pretty much strictly a korean MMORPG.
IT'S NOT JUST THE GRAPHICS AND THE LACK OF ADVERTIZING that cost them players. AC has been available on shelves pretty regularly over the years. Not as much as EQ, SWG and other titles, I'll grant that. But to say that just throwing a new face on an old game and marketting the hell out of it is going to get them 500,000 box sales out the gate is utterly ludicrous. It's a HUGE risk for a company to take. You're talking about a multi-million dollar overhaul of the entire game content currently in existance and slapping a multi-million dollar ADD CAMPAIGN on top of it? On a game that was old 3 years ago?
What company is going to risk that kind of resources on wishful thinking? I'm not bashing your freaking game. I've said that it's a decent game but the odds of something like this working are slim. If Turbine thought something like this would work don't you think they'd have DONE it already? If they thought they'd make a huge profit off something like that they'd have DONE IT. Instead they are working on DDO and LOTR. That should tell you that they don't think it's a wise move.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
Originally posted by Elnator AC is a good game. But thinking that all it'll take to turn it around is a multi-million dollar graphics engine upgrade and some marketting is just plain silly. UO is a classic example: They did a HUGE graphics upgrade and got about a 15% to 20% boost in it's total playerbase for about 9 months before the number of subscribers dropped back down and actually wound up dropping lower than before the graphics upgrade.
Uhhh, sorry pal, but UOs 3D graphic upgrade was not a major graphical upgrade. It was total BS. It made the game murky, dark and look like a mess. Most everyone that plays UO plays the old 2D client because it looks better. That was not a "HUGE" graphics upgrade. It was an embarrassment that I doubt they even spent 2 months working on. I'm talking about a superior graphics revamp to make AC look as good if not better then Guild Wars bro.
And it's not like it is never on shelves. It's been on shelves pretty reliably over the years. I've seen it on the shelves most times I go into Best Buy.
You've seen Asheron's Call on the Best Buy shelves for years huh? Uh huh. Since it was recalled off all store shelves and couldnt even be purchased at ANY store or even online for like a year and a half, this is another totally ridiculous statement. Only about a year or so ago did they make the game available for a purchased download online. And the game has still been nearly impossible to find in stores. Hell a couple years ago, you couldn't even go to ANY retailer and order it. It was impossible to order, much less was it on the shelves everywhere or at BestBuy like you claim.
Oh and this link should go to show you just how widely available "Asherons Call" is at Best Buy locations across the country:
Oh, and heres yet another link that shows just how available the game is at BestBuy. This is a good one that proves my point about AC's lack of distribution even further:
Zax: I stand by my statement. Our local best buy has had AC on the game shelves pretty reliably. It's been up on the shelves all year this past year because there have been a few times that I saw it and considered picking it back up. So I know for a fact that it's been there for at least the past 1.5 years, if not more. Before that you could be right. Maybe it was off the shelves completely during that time. But how do you explain the success of EVE online which has never been on shelves in most places and has been growing steadily for the last 2 years and hasn't had a single dip in subscribers DESPITE never being sold in stores or been aggressively advertized. Mind you it was in direct competition with SWG and PlanetSide and AO all this time in the Sci Fi market.
You can say it's a totaly rediculous statement all you want but it is, nonetheless, true that AC has been available for those who wanted to play it.
When, by the way, did they recall the game? I don't remember that.
As to UO's graphics engine update? They didn't exactly have a lot to work with and it WAS a lot of work, I forget the dollar figure involved but it cost Origin a LOT of money to do that upgrade. And it fell flat, yes, I agree. But my point is that if you look at all the 'graphics upgrades' that have been done to various games over the years they have been as follows:
1) Only done in NEW content, the old content was always left as-is... there's a reason for that: Because it's prohibitively expensive to go back and rebuild the entire game's graphics in the new engine from scratch.
2) Never resulted in a big change in subscriber numbers.
EQ's engine has been upgraded numerous times in it's lifetime. It's numbers never really changed due to it. New content looks better and better and better as time goes by and the old content just kind of sits out there looking ho-hum. Players, honestly, don't care When I still played Oasis was still a 'hotspot' despite people being in Luclin and PoP. It wasn't because the graphics were good, it's because the gameplay there was good. Same with various other areas.
Yes, a graphics upgrade and massive marketting would help the game in the short term but it wouldn't be profitable, imo. Now, if they just started MARKETTING what they HAVE they could probably turn subscriber numbers around and slowly grow the game. It's a SOLID game. But sinking millions of dollars into a graphics upgrade that, frankly, really isn't needed is just plain stupid. There's no way they're going to do it. Even by today's standards the graphics in AC really aren't all THAT bad. They're a little dated but it's not like we're talking about UO graphics here.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
can you say 'owned' elnator? Because you just got it with zax links showing how much Bestbuy sells AC. Think that pretty much dismisses your claim that bestbuy has always had the game everytime you ever went in there, lol.
and for u to think that a awesome graphics AC, widely delivered to stores everywhere and advertized like crazy would only expand ACs subscribers by 18k out of the millions of mmorpg players around the world is completely foolish.
So, how much has the expansion actually helped? It's day 3 and are there any extreme changes in population? I would guess before the expansion there were around 1000 players on each server at peak times (I guess because I haven't played in over a year). What's the most online these last few days and what were the pops really like before for camparison?
And whoever brought up EVE doing better even when it isn't in stores is a pointless argument. EVE is so much newer than AC1. Give EVE the years to catch up with AC1 age wise and not being in stores will definetly hurt EVE in the long run.
Comments
Look guys thee are some very basic facts available to you:
1) DAOC wasn't exactly "agressively" marketted: It has 5 times the subscriber base of AC
2) EVE isn't advertized or marketted at ALL... has it even BEEN on store shelves? I've never seen it on a shelf: Nearly 3 times the number of subscribers that AC has.
3) CoH: Not agressively marketted. Haven't seen it on shelves in a while: 4-5x the subscriber base.
4) UO: Been out longer, hasn't been advertized in ages, older technology, not even 3D graphics: 3x the subscriber base
5) Runescape: I never once saw this advertized and haven't ever seen it on the shelf at EB or BestBuy. 7x the subscriber base.
I'm not going to list EQ, SWG, WoW, Lineage (also not advertized), Lineage II (not advertized), EQII, EQOA, PlanetSide or many other games .... the above 5 make my point quite well.
Just because a game isn't advertized doesn't mean it wont do well.
AC is a good game. Nobody is saying it's not. But it doesn't appeal to enough people to justify a total rewrite of the game to a new graphics engine. It just isn't going to happen. You're smoking crack if you think Turbine is going to invest millions into a fading MMORPG. It just won't make a difference in the long run. And to those who keep saying it hasn't been on shelves I see Asherons Call on the shelves at Best Buy almost every time I go in. It's just not a valid arguement that it doesn't get any visibility. The problem is that the game just doesn't appeal to a large enough segment of the MMORPG community. It's just that simple.
When you peel back the onion there isn't really anything other than the monthly live events (do they still do those?) that used to go on to make it stand out from the rest of the MMO's out there. And most MMO's have events even more frequently than that as well as player driven event content now. AC is a good game. But it's not popular enough that Turbine is going to go sink millions of dollars into a major rewrite of the game on the off-chance that a miracle might happen to make the game suddenly popular again.
Most people only care that graphics are good enough not to break the FEEL of an MMO. AC's graphics are already plenty good for that. They're not bad at all and they just recently got a little bit better (they re-skinned everything in the old engine). Just improving the graphics by a bit is not going to save this game. Period. New graphics doesn't make a game recover when it's in decline. Games don't decline because of slightly below average graphics, they decline because of lack of interest in the GAME, not the Graphics.
Hell... look at UO... still has over 150,000 subscribers and it's graphics are among the worst in the industry right now. It survives because it's got fantastic gameplay. Though it, too, has started to decline. EQ has as well. Newer games with greater appeal have come out and taken the old games places. A facelift just isn't going to cut it.
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errrr, no, its now that AC is actually getting alittle front seat. I got the backseat when Turbine wasn't working on bigger projects. Too little too late...
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
I'll agree that it's old, but being old isn't bad. You talk a lot about flaws in general, but you aren't saying what they are. If adding and updating content functionality, and adding new quests and activities means maintenance then you are right. You also said the game isn't great because not a lot of people play it. Allow me to suggest another reason why it's not as populated. The game is not very accessible to the casual gamer. I am a hardcore gamer, and casual games really don't interest me. I don't play WoW because it is geared towards the casual gamer, and it's too simple. I like complex games with long learning curves. Ease of use and streamlined games are not qualities I look for. I am a serious, hardcore gamer, and AC is perfect for me.
The PC games market has grown over the last 10 years. The only reason it appears to be shrinking is because the console game market has exploded in growth over the last 10 years.
And finally, I will retort against the idea that the game is flawed because of the use of 3rd party apps. Even if you don't use 3rd party apps in this game, it many times more complex, satisfying, content-rich, and fun than 95% of the mmorpg market. The 3rd party apps are no longer required. Buffing is streamlined. Salvaging is streamlined. Even alchemy and cooking are easier than early on in the game. There are no true flaws in this game that require 3rd party apps. They are simply cool touches.
The best 3 mmorpgs for the hardcore gamer of all time are AC, Eve, and UO. I stick by that statement.
I am not sure how this game isn't casual. I used to sit in Olthoi dungeons and solo about 15 Olthoi at once grinding experience like mad. You could hit the old level cap in a few months if you worked at it. Buffs were like buffs from SWG, they could dam near put you in god mode. And what was worse is all you needed was high allegiance rank and you could buff yourself with items insanely. I played it casually and I was rank 8 in my chain. I could buff myself and mop entire dungeons solo all day long.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Are you kidding me? You didn't even know about the monthly updates? The monthly updates turned me into a fan of this game. I was not a fan when this game came out. I thought it was alright. The stuff added in the monthly updates made this game amazingly good. I play a lot more now than I did at release. The casual player would say this game was at its best during the first year because it felt new and there were more players. The hardcore gamer isn't interested in those things, he is interested in the gameplay features, activities, and content, and all of those things are much more in-depth because of the monthly updates. My server had 600 players average peaks a few weeks before the expansion. Subtract about 50 bots, and that's still enough players for me to get into some large quest groups. I am expecting 1000 players average peak over the next few weeks. My server broke 1000 players during march of this year, so it's not an unreasonable expectation.
In my opinion, AC stands out because its gameplay feels different from everything else on the market. Most mmorpgs are EQ clones, where you fight one monster at a time and lose over half your health from just one monster, and then you rest. In AC you feel like a hero. You can mow down a dozen pretty strong monsters if you have good equipment and know what you are doing. It's like a 3D Diablo.
Elnator, by your comments I suspect that this game lacks players simply due to ignorance. It's gameplay elements and content has become truly great over the years, but everyone writes it off because it's an old game. This game has really evolved, and almost everything has changed.
If thats all you got out of EQ's combat Falcon I would say you have never played it in depth. Thats the average low level method til I a person learns the in's and out's of the game, mezzing, crowd control, and so on. Combat can be very exciting in everquest, and alot more realistic then 15 Olthoi 20 levels above you gang piling you and you just sit there and stab or drain away til they are all dead. I have no problem with AC, but you really aren't giving very good points to anything. Your just showing me that all you really know is AC and are guessing or using knowledge gained from VERY limited experiences in EQ.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
For all of you that don't believe that Asheron's Call has what it takes to be a contender in todays mmo market, regardless of graphics overhaul or not...
Tell me why it is that in my small town in Idaho of all places... two EB Games stores sold out of 96 copies of the new expansion of Asherons Call in under one hour?
And that's in a very unpopulated area compared to most of the USA.
Sounds to me that just based on that, that if this game was out on the shelves of all the major retailers... that if it DID have a true graphics overhaul to bring it up to par with newer games like Guild Wars... that it just might do very well.
Just do the math. Seriously. On this expansion which is nothing compared to a graphics upgrade like I suggest... 96 copies sell out in under an hour... the population in this area is under 200,000. 280 million people in the USA. Roughly 1400 times my areas population in the United States. 1400 times 96 is roughly 140,000 copies. And thats based on ONE STOREs sellout of this expansion in UNDER ONE HOUR.
Now my math could be flawed compared to actual sales figures for this expansion... But I am simply doing simple math to see that this expansion here could very well be selling extremely well. Imagine if only it was widely exposed, advertised much more, and perhaps even if it had the supreme graphical revamp that I suggest.
Asheron's Call isn't quite the old, dusty, and ancient piece of crap coding that many of you seem to suggest. Its years of monthly content has enriched this game to a whole new level that all of the newer, prettier mmos can't begin to touch as far as depth and features.
Also to the person who asked or suggested that Turbine isn't continuing the monthly live updates.. they are still doing those every month. They have't had any in a few months because of this expansion which has a lot of that new content, but they are promising that the monthly updates will not end any time soon.
On a side note, another successful mmo that could also do very well with a brand new 3D expansion and 2005 graphics with its same content and features it has now is Ultima Online. Give UO a brand new 2005 3D graphics overhaul and make a couple of PvP Felucia only servers, and UO would also gain a LOT of new and old subscribers I would think.
But then again, I'm just one fan. What do I know?
- Zaxx
Only the server counts are going to give the truth on that over the next few weeks. I actually find it questionable that many sold out of 2 EB's anywhere for AC in a day but I am not going to disbeleive it so far to say the person lied too you. I just find it abit spectacular.
Anyways, truth will come out with the populations on the servers. You should know pretty quick if the expansion was a success.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Are you kidding me? You didn't even know about the monthly updates? The monthly updates turned me into a fan of this game. I was not a fan when this game came out. I thought it was alright. The stuff added in the monthly updates made this game amazingly good. I play a lot more now than I did at release. The casual player would say this game was at its best during the first year because it felt new and there were more players. The hardcore gamer isn't interested in those things, he is interested in the gameplay features, activities, and content, and all of those things are much more in-depth because of the monthly updates. My server had 600 players average peaks a few weeks before the expansion. Subtract about 50 bots, and that's still enough players for me to get into some large quest groups. I am expecting 1000 players average peak over the next few weeks. My server broke 1000 players during march of this year, so it's not an unreasonable expectation.
In my opinion, AC stands out because its gameplay feels different from everything else on the market. Most mmorpgs are EQ clones, where you fight one monster at a time and lose over half your health from just one monster, and then you rest. In AC you feel like a hero. You can mow down a dozen pretty strong monsters if you have good equipment and know what you are doing. It's like a 3D Diablo.
Elnator, by your comments I suspect that this game lacks players simply due to ignorance. It's gameplay elements and content has become truly great over the years, but everyone writes it off because it's an old game. This game has really evolved, and almost everything has changed.
By your comments it's obvious that you are either deliberately missunderstanding or incapable of basic comprehension when someone points out aspects of why AC isn't as popular as it used ti be.
How did I "not know about the monthly updates" when I specifically mentioned them and asked if they were still doing them? I DO know about them you goof. I asked if they were STILL doing them because I don't play AC anymore. I left the game because *gasp* I didn't like it as much as I liked other titles out there.
And, I'm sorry, the ability to kill 15 nasties at once does not make a game "hard core". To me a Hard Core MMORPG is one that requires massive ammounts of teamwork and cooperation to achieve a goal. Not being a 1 man army. AC did have some hard core aspects but the overall game felt about average for an MMO to me (and, trust me, I've played far far more than my fair share of MMO's). I beta tested AC with my roomate and I played for about 4 months of release. I liked it but it wasn't good enough for me to want to stay.
AC is a good game. I never said it WASNT a good game. I said it doesn't appeal to as many people as other games on the market. That fact is VERY evident when you just look at it's subscriber numbers and it's population curve. When it initially came out it had a huge growth followed by steady and solid decline. What that generally indicates is that there was a LOT of initial interest in the game, people came out RAPIDLY to try it out and found it to be something they weren't interested in and they slowly let their subscriptions expire. Around 120,000 people played it at one point and over 2/3 of them have left the game and have not been replaced by new subscribers. That means that the majority of those who try the game do not like it enough to stick with it. Just updating the graphics isn't going to change that. It seems to have, at least temporarily, plateau'd at around 37,000 users. Nothing wrong with that but saying it's the best MMO on the market is just silly.
Just a clue: There is no such thing as a 'best' MMO. There is only a "best MMO for me". Everyone is different. You like AC, I did too, but not enough to pay for it. Evidently the majority of people who have tried it out over the years agree with me rather than you since it's subscribers have declined, and not increased. Blaming that on bad marketting is ignoring the fact that more people leave the game after trying it than stay.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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Hey if it makes a big turnaround then GREAT! But the fact is we won't know for sure for a while. Personally I'm not willing to give AC another chance unless I see the number of subscribers going up instead of down. Even then I probably won't because I'm *gasp* happy playing the games I already know I enjoy and don't have any real inclination to leave because I find them *fun*. Why would I go start over in another game when I'm already having fun and have a bunch of friends who I enjoy playing with?
Besides, right now I can see, by virtue of the fact that it's subscriber base has been going steadily DOWN for YEARS, that more people like it less than something else than like it enough to stay. Otherwise the curve would be flat or up, regardless of how much advertizing the game gets. Current data shows that the game is in decline. If the new expansion turns it around and it starts to increase again then FANTASTIC!!!! I'll be happy for you and those who are enjoying it. I didn't leave AC because of GRAPHICS, however, I left because, while I liked the game, I didn't like it as much as other titles that were more fun.
I know, it's hard to admit that a game doesn't appeal to everyone. It took me a long time to realize it too back when I used to defend EQ against everyone who would bash it endlessly. But the fact is that you can love a game that most everyone else doesn't. Nothing wrong with that, just don't assume that a facelift and some new sparkles will make it a #1 game or even a contender. Hell, AC wasn't even a contender when it was new.
If AC makes a huge turn around because of the expansion then fantastic. But I wouldn't be holding my breath, if I were you, till you actually start seeing more people IN the game. We all got really excited about Star Wars Galaxies when ROTW came out and were excited. But I didn't start saying it was growing again until I actually started seeing server populations increase.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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Arg, i find it incredible how people say "oh just slap a new engine on it and it will look great".... can you even imagine the ammount of work involved in that? you cant use the same textures or models of the old engine, you need to do everything from scratch, the only thing you are going to use from the old game is the ruleset, quest material and that sorta stuff, in essense, its a whole new game your building, when DAOC upgraded its gfx engine recently it didnt implement a new engine, it added new textures, new models and new shader effects to the game, and even then they didnt add the new textures to the entire game world, only to some areas.
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
No worries, it's obvious they have no clue the scope of the project that they're talking about.
If Turbine was going to go through all that trouble they'd just make AC2... eerrrr. ... wait... they already did.... ok... they'd just make AC 3
I mean, if you're going to re-code all the HARD stuff why not make the changes that are easy by comparison.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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"I'm sorry but your mmo has been diagnosed with EA and only has X number of days to live."
I never liked AC or AC2. I dunno why but they just never appealed to me. Maybe i was just too hooked on EQ. I spent 6 years on EQ and they were fun but now i know what pvp is like and i cant even log onto EQ without being bored. People need to quit looking at the past and look towards the future. Vanguard will be great for those who like the PvE thing and Irth Online is really looking promising for those who like realm pvp. In any case Turbine could shit a turnip that looks like Jesus and i wouldn't care.
Make a difference!
I'm pretty burned out on Fantasy but I have to admit, Irith has me intrigued.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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Im also pretty much burned out on fantasy, wont be playing much of anything till D&DO comes out, will give it a chance, then will give a serious try to vanguard later next year, untill then proly have D&DO if its any good or maybe try EVE or SWG again.
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
EDIT: AC is wicked, if they revamped it graphically, I'm there.
Ummm... Xplororer...
initial sales. Not total. WOW and Lineage II are the ONLY MMO's that had 500,000 INITIAL sales. Lineage I took several months to hit 500,000 users as did FFXI and Runescape. I just don't see an upgraded version of an existing MMO that only has 37,000 current subscriptions getting 500,000 initial box sales when they release the expansion/upgrade. Especially when it's Turbine we're talking about doing the release.
Sheez.
Oh... and UO has never had a jump like that, of any kind. I wish it had. It's easily one of my favorite MMO's of all time. But It, in fact:
1) Never hit 300,000 users
2) Never been as low as 100,000 users yet (Currently at about 155,000 users)
3) Never had a 200,000 user jump in a short period. It took 3 YEARS for it to reach 200,000 users from release.
When they released the graphics engine upgrade It had dipped from about 240,000 at peak to around 200,000 and went up to 250,000 when the graphics upgrade went through. That lasted about 9 months.
And I never said AC wasn't fun to play. I said it was not as fun to play as other offerings in the same genre. Because if it were MORE fun than the competition fewer people would leave than try it in any given time span which would cause the population to grow. That hasn't been the case. I have also cited EXAMPLES of other MMO's that haven't had any/much marketting either (less than AC in many cases) but have managed to GROW in the same timespan that AC has been in steady, constant, uninterupted decline.
AC is a good game. But thinking that all it'll take to turn it around is a multi-million dollar graphics engine upgrade and some marketting is just plain silly. UO is a classic example: They did a HUGE graphics upgrade and got about a 15% to 20% boost in it's total playerbase for about 9 months before the number of subscribers dropped back down and actually wound up dropping lower than before the graphics upgrade.
AC is in a lot worse shape, number of subscribers wise, than UO was. They're at 37,000.... Even if they got a 50% boost in subscribers that would only take them up by 18,000 subscribers. If that lasted hmm.... 18 months... they MIGHT cover the cost of the graphics engine upgrade. MIGHT....
Like I said, I really hope the most recent expansion turns things around for AC. It's a GOOD game. It just hasn't done well since very early in it's life. It had a huge initial growth followed by steady decline. Yes, it was a HIT at release. But about a year after release it began to dwindle and never turned it back around. It has steadily declined over the past 4 years. And it's not like it is never on shelves. It's been on shelves pretty reliably over the years. I've seen it on the shelves most times I go into Best Buy.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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Elnator...
You continue to argue points that make absolutely no sense.
You say in one of the oldest mmos today, that advertising aggressively, updating the graphics to todays standards, and putting it out on all major department store shelves wouldn't help the sales of this game.
Ofcourse you are right....'cuz we all know that:
- Advertising is a waste. That's why Ford and Coca-Cola and Pepsi and Budweiser don't spend a dime on advertising.
- Making a game with superior graphics doesn't help it one bit. Most gamers who go to buy a football game would just as likely choose a football game with X's and O's that move one block at a time over a 2005 graphically superior Madden 2006 type of game. Cuz good graphics don't help sales at all. Naw, ofcourse not.
- And putting Asherons Call on all Walmart game shelves, all Best Buy shelves, all Target shelves, and all other major department video game shelves wouldn't help it one bit. Ofcourse not. Exposure is also nothing.
So by your analysis, even if Turbine was to totally revamp Asheron's Call with graphics that blew away EQ2 and Guild Wars, advertised the living hell out of it, and put it on every major dept store shelf, the total subscribers would remain constant at 37,000 or so.
My projections might be a little optimistic, but the things you say about Asheron's Call are so pesimistic and ridiculous, you almost sound like a troll bent on nothing more then bashing AC cuz this isn't a thread supporting whatever game you currently play.
Ofcourse advertising helps. It helps a TON. Ofcourse people, especially all the millions of new mmo players in recent years would rather pick up an mmo off a shelf if it looked to have awesome graphics over dated, 1999 graphics. And ofcourse making the game more accessible and easier to reach and see would help it's sales.
- Zaxx
Nope I didn't say it wouldn't grow. I said it would probably grow by about 50%. Even if it grew by more it wouldn't LAST. People left AC for reasons other than graphics! In 2001, when the game started to dwindle, it's graphics were still among the best in the industry and nobody was really marketting much at all back then either. The ONLY competition was EQ, UO and DAOC at the time. Lineage wasn't even known in the states for the most part at the time, it was pretty much strictly a korean MMORPG.
IT'S NOT JUST THE GRAPHICS AND THE LACK OF ADVERTIZING that cost them players. AC has been available on shelves pretty regularly over the years. Not as much as EQ, SWG and other titles, I'll grant that. But to say that just throwing a new face on an old game and marketting the hell out of it is going to get them 500,000 box sales out the gate is utterly ludicrous. It's a HUGE risk for a company to take. You're talking about a multi-million dollar overhaul of the entire game content currently in existance and slapping a multi-million dollar ADD CAMPAIGN on top of it? On a game that was old 3 years ago?
What company is going to risk that kind of resources on wishful thinking? I'm not bashing your freaking game. I've said that it's a decent game but the odds of something like this working are slim. If Turbine thought something like this would work don't you think they'd have DONE it already? If they thought they'd make a huge profit off something like that they'd have DONE IT. Instead they are working on DDO and LOTR. That should tell you that they don't think it's a wise move.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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Uhhh, sorry pal, but UOs 3D graphic upgrade was not a major graphical upgrade. It was total BS. It made the game murky, dark and look like a mess. Most everyone that plays UO plays the old 2D client because it looks better. That was not a "HUGE" graphics upgrade. It was an embarrassment that I doubt they even spent 2 months working on. I'm talking about a superior graphics revamp to make AC look as good if not better then Guild Wars bro.
You've seen Asheron's Call on the Best Buy shelves for years huh? Uh huh. Since it was recalled off all store shelves and couldnt even be purchased at ANY store or even online for like a year and a half, this is another totally ridiculous statement. Only about a year or so ago did they make the game available for a purchased download online. And the game has still been nearly impossible to find in stores. Hell a couple years ago, you couldn't even go to ANY retailer and order it. It was impossible to order, much less was it on the shelves everywhere or at BestBuy like you claim.
Oh and this link should go to show you just how widely available "Asherons Call" is at Best Buy locations across the country:
Best Buy availability of Asherons Call, Click Here
Oh, and heres yet another link that shows just how available the game is at BestBuy. This is a good one that proves my point about AC's lack of distribution even further:
BestBuy availablity of Asherons Call link #2
- Zaxx
Zax:
I stand by my statement. Our local best buy has had AC on the game shelves pretty reliably. It's been up on the shelves all year this past year because there have been a few times that I saw it and considered picking it back up. So I know for a fact that it's been there for at least the past 1.5 years, if not more. Before that you could be right. Maybe it was off the shelves completely during that time. But how do you explain the success of EVE online which has never been on shelves in most places and has been growing steadily for the last 2 years and hasn't had a single dip in subscribers DESPITE never being sold in stores or been aggressively advertized. Mind you it was in direct competition with SWG and PlanetSide and AO all this time in the Sci Fi market.
You can say it's a totaly rediculous statement all you want but it is, nonetheless, true that AC has been available for those who wanted to play it.
When, by the way, did they recall the game? I don't remember that.
As to UO's graphics engine update? They didn't exactly have a lot to work with and it WAS a lot of work, I forget the dollar figure involved but it cost Origin a LOT of money to do that upgrade. And it fell flat, yes, I agree. But my point is that if you look at all the 'graphics upgrades' that have been done to various games over the years they have been as follows:
1) Only done in NEW content, the old content was always left as-is... there's a reason for that: Because it's prohibitively expensive to go back and rebuild the entire game's graphics in the new engine from scratch.
2) Never resulted in a big change in subscriber numbers.
EQ's engine has been upgraded numerous times in it's lifetime. It's numbers never really changed due to it. New content looks better and better and better as time goes by and the old content just kind of sits out there looking ho-hum. Players, honestly, don't care
When I still played Oasis was still a 'hotspot' despite people being in Luclin and PoP. It wasn't because the graphics were good, it's because the gameplay there was good. Same with various other areas.
Yes, a graphics upgrade and massive marketting would help the game in the short term but it wouldn't be profitable, imo. Now, if they just started MARKETTING what they HAVE they could probably turn subscriber numbers around and slowly grow the game. It's a SOLID game. But sinking millions of dollars into a graphics upgrade that, frankly, really isn't needed is just plain stupid. There's no way they're going to do it. Even by today's standards the graphics in AC really aren't all THAT bad. They're a little dated but it's not like we're talking about UO graphics here.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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lol Zax.
can you say 'owned' elnator? Because you just got it with zax links showing how much Bestbuy sells AC. Think that pretty much dismisses your claim that bestbuy has always had the game everytime you ever went in there, lol.
and for u to think that a awesome graphics AC, widely delivered to stores everywhere and advertized like crazy would only expand ACs subscribers by 18k out of the millions of mmorpg players around the world is completely foolish.
So, how much has the expansion actually helped? It's day 3 and are there any extreme changes in population? I would guess before the expansion there were around 1000 players on each server at peak times (I guess because I haven't played in over a year). What's the most online these last few days and what were the pops really like before for camparison?
And whoever brought up EVE doing better even when it isn't in stores is a pointless argument. EVE is so much newer than AC1. Give EVE the years to catch up with AC1 age wise and not being in stores will definetly hurt EVE in the long run.