"What is your minimum target audience size / demographic expectation for launch? 10k subs, 50k subs, 100k subs, or more ? In other words, how small is your niche tolerance? Ben: We’ll be sustainable with subs in the 10s of thousands. "
I wonder just how low is 10s of thousands realistically - because I think after 6 months or so - this is going to be the real struggle as subs only decrease over time.
I highly disagree. My son (13 years old) and all of his friends are HYPED about Pantheon. They find WoW way too easy. They like games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne because the stuff is dangerous. It's something that has been missing for years in MMOs now.
For instance, I went AFK in WoW the other day and forgot all about it. I windowed back as it was counting me down to log me out and I was still alive and well. I couldn't do that in the original EQ when it launched....well, you could, but not many places.
Dark Souls and Bloodborne are also action games ....with action.
Perhaps you should have your son and his friends play EQ1 to see if they are ready for how mind numbingly boring "old school" games can be.
Both of my daughters play EQ1 with me.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
"Q. Will there be a boob slider in the character creation process? Ben: No."
Well I'm out.
Hehe - seriously though:
"Q. What is your vision for typical time played to reach max level? Chris (Joppa): At a highly aggressive/competitive pace, I’d like to see it take around 2.5 months, ~10 weeks. At a normal pace, around 4 months, ~16-18 weeks. "
Reality - aggressive /competitive pace = 2 weeks.
They should've estimated it in terms of total hours played, not in overall weeks or months. What Joppa considers to be the average playtime per day for an aggressive/competitive pace is anyone's guess.
And due to the learning curve of a new game, it may take the hardcore players 1000 hours (or whatever Joppa's estimate is) to reach max level the first time through. But that first play through will likely happen during alpha / beta, and the launch play through will be must faster.
Regardless, as long as they don't bank on it taking 2.5 months for players to reach max level, and then use that time to add in the end game content -- like they did in Vanguard -- I'll be happy. Fortunately, I do think they've learned from it and won't repeat the same mistake in Pantheon.
They made the same mistake in EQ 1 for months and months all we had to do was go kill two dragons. No raid zones. I forgot but I think they (the dragons) spawned something like once a week unless the server or zone crashed. We use to rush to kill them before anyone else got their.
Like 1% of the population was level 50 when fear and hate came out, so it wasn't really an issue for normal players.
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Both of my daughters play EQ1 with me.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin