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The Beginning of the End
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1) prove it. Seen with your own eyes? People see U.F.O's with their own eyes daily.
It's fact so you can prove it.
If you can't prove it, it isn't fact it's opinion. Your opinion is not fact. It's just your opinion.
I understand that this is your opinion and I believe 3) to be taken with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
1) and 2) may be "fact" but equally they may not be. They don't seem very reasonable to me, and certainly not beyond reasonable doubt.
2) seems believable but not not verifiable.
1), given the context of 2), and 3) doesn't seem reliable. It's possible, but I am doubtful. I would require more than your word alone to consider this factual.
If you want to just drop this, please go ahead.
See I was right, your problem is denial and distrust. I can play that tactic to. Prove there has been a mass exodus? I know for a fact you can't, without lieing. At least for US servers.
Just because you don't want to believe something doesn't make it not true. You know to well the past can't be proven either way. Its fact, because (without lieing to myself) I've seen it first hand and that is what I'm sharing here. Just as others would have, who have also taken note. However, I'm not some nerd who keeps a year's supply of search result screenshots.
"See I was right, your problem is denial and distrust. I can play that tactic to."
This isn't my problem, it's your problem with me. Like it or not I don't have absolute faith in your opinions in the same way you might have.
It is my opinion, and only my opinion, that there has been a mass exodus. I base my opinion on a number of things.
If I could offer you facts, this thread wouldn't be here. We would just link to the population graph and the conversation would be over.
Here are a few of the perceptions which guide me to my current opinion.
My personal experiences on the EU servers. Monitoring of multiple gamezones using the "whoall" command at regular intervals over 20 hour periods for months on end.
The change in numbers of players online for me became very apparent off peak hours. At the start, day or night there was always enough players to find a team in any zone. Over summer this was no longer the case. There were still plenty of players online in everyzone during primetime hours. So if you are primetime player only I don't expect you to have noticed. I don't expect Primetime players to have been checking populations as this is usually only the hobbies of those who have had a problem with it.
Once alerted to it, it's was easy to see the drop. The number of players active in the guilds the numbers of days inactive next to player names.
Then we have the symptoms. The programmers and companies responses to this issue.
We get "Coalition" channel a means by which clans can form an alliance with other clans in order that that the players might form an effective team more easily. Of course when the game launched, this was never an issue. Clans were not full of inactive players. They did not have to form alliances to make teams.
Nerfs. Players level and complete the content too fast and then quit out of boredom. Any playertype that is perceived to level too fast, is nerfed. This keeps people around longer.
Gamebox sales. Unlike WOW, City of Heroes left the top shelf very quickly. Wow is a hot product and still topping the sales charts. It's in demand. COH is not. (City of Villains can expect to rekindle some of this flame for a short while). Faced with a loss of sales and a loss of subscribers the retailers first marketing trick is to drop the price. This ha occoured. The companies next marketing trick, once it realises that no more print runs of the boxed set will sell is......
Free trials. Leaving customers need replacing. If the population base is stable or growing, there will be NO free trials, only paying ones. My experience of free trials has been that Atlas park and the hollows became as busy as when I first bought the game. But after two weeks the sudden drop in population was unignorable. At this point we have another trick to get more players....
Credit card number free, free trials. Scrapping the barrel here. Let the kids in even if we can't guarentee their social responsability.
Community. Of the 10 COH players I am in regular contact with only 2 still play.
Basic trends in video games sales. An expansion pack never sells to everyone who bought the original. Game populations wane over time. The biggest game populations are always at the launch when it is "hot".
"Just because you don't want to believe something doesn't make it not true. You know to well the past can't be proven either way. However, I know what I saw and what others whould have to. So it is fact, unless I'm lieing to myself along with anyone else who would have noticed.
"
But others didn't. So no, it is not fact. (It might be the truth, but that is not the same thing at all.)
You are asking me to take what you have seen as the truth even though it does not match what I have seen. Once again this comes down to witness credibility. Your track record to date has been a bit of a mixed bag. I think I will continue to rate my own opinion over yours for a little while longer.
While it may be a fact that you believe what you are saying, you may or may not be speaking facts. A fact is not defined as "Something Grapevine believes to be true" although an "opinion" might be.
Look I can't comment on EU servers I don't play on them and I'm not disputing what you are seeing or have seen on them However, please don't reflect that on the US ones because for there is itsn't accurate.
I stated ealier that EU localisation of CoH was somewhat of a failure, which is exactly what your've just posted. They are trying to get us EU players on the US servers to transfer across, yet all I see and hear is "no way!!!". Also please note I'm not trying to claim people haven't been upset over nerfs, respecing, the ED or even CoH is a major seller. Just that on the US servers, no matter what, havn't really had their active population numbers affected.
Anyway, this is over as I've had enough. We aren't on the same service.
I'm not sure what it is about the localisation you think has failed?
Perhaps you mean something different by the term.
For me localisation is a marketing term it means the alteration you make to a product to sell it to a different market. For example Asterix books in Britain are translated into English and reprinted. The price on the back is marked in £. jokes about Winston Chuchill shagging children are removed.
Regardless of differences between EU and US there are still basic trends which in my opinion likely hold true to both.
Free trials are a sign of falling sales (You don't give away what you can sell), expansion packs always sell less than originals, overtime player populations dwindle and a game is hottest at it's launch.
I don't have any personal evidence to say that the U.S. servers are not bucking every trend in video game marketing, they might be. But I would need hard evidence of the kind you are not providing to convince me.
The American market is just like the EU market. They play the game until they are bored of it or annoyed with it and then they stop. I don't think that for example, EU players got bored within six months but US players are still excited 12 months on. I think you comments about the release date co-inciding with WOW may have some relevance as to why the starting population of COH EU was only half that of the U.S. but I think a failure in marketing has more to do with it. They either didn't know how to advertise and distributre effectively here, or they misjudged the size of the potential market.
You say that the population of the servers has gone up for the promotion and launch of COV and you expect it to go up further. This is what I expect also. This is what everyone expects. In both the US and the EU. I can well imagine it has gone up in total from the doldrums of the summer, or the post I5 bail out. But I do not expect it to match it's orignal peak playerbase. Expansion packs never do.
Well take an average game that has been localised. Which side has the most servers and the highest population? Its always the US. However, it has a smaller general population and less broadband and internet coverage. Aside from WoW, it would seems few localised games do more than "plod along", in the shadows of their US cousins. Its also very common for those long term mmorpg players to know and play with people internationally, hence they avoid servers that lead to the segregation that is inherent in localisation.
As for EU CoH, it lived in the shadow of WoW right from launch. Terrible timing. Also by the fact that you claim EU numbers are down, while its clearly not the case in the US. Then factor in they are trying to get us to migrate over from the US servers, while not offering the reverse. Personally I see that as an attempt to keep the EU arm of NCSoft alive.
Europe has only been a bigger buyer of PC games than the U.S. for a year now. This is largely because the U.S. market has switched over to console games.
Planetside China is bigger than either the EU and the US.
Lineage and FFXI are bigger in Asia also.
Eve is biggest in the EU.
With older games it might be of intrest to you that U.S. has had broadband for years before the EU. So if you are thinking about older games, that might be a factor. Broadband take up in Europe has been very rapid but only got going in last 2 or 3 years.
Sony has a very poor penetration of Europe outside the U.K. it's not just it's mmo's that don't sell here.
" Its also very common for those long term mmorpg players to know and play with people internationally, hence they avoid servers that lead to the segregation that is inherent in localisation."
I'm sure this is true. But they must be a tiny minority. You play on the U.S localised servers, I think people like that, just do what you do and get an export.
Exactly, hence why did they bother with localisation? Its not cost effective.
EU general population has always been higher than the US, but the markets have been different. As you state.
Its only now the mmorpg market has become more balanced and although the US did adopt the internet and broadband ealier, they have been surpassed and its been like that for a few year. I know, I'm a manager within a broadband R&D centre. So agree entirely.
Personally speaking, as a long term mmorpg player I'd never play on a localised server if there is also an option (by whatever mean) to play on an international one. Simply because the friends I've made trhough it are dotted around the world. I know I'm not alone in that thought.
I believe even WoW has backed down on forced localisation. I know when I played you couldn't subscribe to the US service, unless you had a US credit card or address. Obviously people wormed around that, but last I heard they had removed those restrictions as to many people wanted to play alongside their US friends.
Localisation means to change a product to suit a different markets need.
A game that is not translated into french, will not sell in France, that is why it is localised.
It's very cost effective, for the small price of getting it translated, you can sell the same product you already made a profit on in your own country, to an entire new market in another.
You play on the U.s. servrers? they are localised.
the servers are in the u..s and they are in the english language.
EU servers are international too. But like with the U.s. servers, you would need to get an EU export if you wanted to play from the U.S. People do this, just not many.
I agree it would be nicer if you could choose from all available servers worldwide on the same list as you can with some other games.
I have known some servers portal software to have technical issues with this resulting in lag. Perhaps it is a technical issue.
Yeah, CoH is now a localised game. Although it wasn't and you are right the majority will buy a copy from their local store if they aren't legacy mmorpg players, as they don't have the background in the market.
Technically there is no reason for localising, if the countries speak a common language. That is speaking from first hand experience and for others who do play internationally. I've never experienced any lag (outside of when technical issues arise) in any of the games I've played, as a result. Therefore segragating at the very least UK (or any country where it commonly spoken) and US is not a very cost effective business plan. Really the localisations should be International French, International German, International Spanish and International English. Why does spanish always seem to be ignored. Oh and I'd class Asia as an entirly different market, as they usually do.
Anyway, if you fancy continueing this topic (which is an interesting one) it may be worth while creating a thread in the general discussion area. Think we've taken up enough space within the CoH section.
Just a heads up to you both, and to anyone following this thread (BTW, the whole marketing thing is great stuff to read)
Some naysayers point to the fact that many people are not around now. I would counter saying that street sweeping is not as prevalint. It is far more rewarding to do an instance mission. Also, on Infinity anyways, the CoV Mercy Island has had 2 instances if not 3 sometimes.
There has been a topic that Statesman has been replying to on the CoH boards. Topic: How come we have no red servers yet??? http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=general&Number=4010771&bodyprev=#Post4010771
Some quotes from States:
After I5, some people were saying the same thing..."the game is a ghost town"...to which my reply was, "but we're gaining customers..." Naturally, my reply was dismissed.
And yet then good ole' SirBruce posted his MMP numbers - and City of Heroes was shown gaining subscribers. Odd, isn't it?
;-)
The servers aren't yellow because they had their capacity increased before CoV was added to the existing servers, unlike companies like SOE they don't like to see the servers buckle under the pressure of players before they decide to fork out the cash to upgrade them.
If there was actually a number counter for the active population you'd find that the number of players has actually risen quite sharply.
Ding! We've got a winner!
We substantively increased the number of CPU's in our servers to account for new players....We've hit new highs in active concurrent in the past 24 hours.
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
Anyone complaining about this pittance of a nerf should wanser over to the SWG boards and learn all about the second revamp of the whole damn game.
over 30 professions whittled down to a paltry nine.
Nerfs all around.
Count your blessings.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
From that thread. (I didn't read it all, i reads that final post of statesmans then went looking for the figures he mentioned.
So, where are these figures "good ole sir bruce" posted?
they might be intresting.
ok here they are they look fine to me.
As published by NCsoft apparently, I think it said these are the EU US combined. (you can see the marked increase of player numbers in March)
Highest concurrent users
June 04 31,085
Sept 04 26,870
Dec 04 15,741
Mar 05 21,283
June 05 20,911
Sept 05 22,340
Thats a 30% drop in players online together since launch by September of this year.
This is the kind of thing I was expecting.
If you look at the US figures only (Jun-Dec04) we can see that after 6 months the population has halved. I would have expected the same phenomonon in Eu servers after 6 months also, although this kind of co-incides with some other factors such as I5 and COV, so it will be intresting to see the figures.
Grapes estimate of 13.5k online on US servers is comparable to DEC of last year and might give us a useful estimation of what percentage of the total numbers are US and EU if NCsoft publishes their populations for this month.
Daily access
June 04 69,011
Sept 04 68,073
Dec 04 45,318
Mar 05 56,366
June 05 59,969
Sept 05 59,133
Monthly access
June 04 169,925
Sept 04 163,053
Dec 04 124,435
Mar 05 140,481
June 05 162,922
Sept 05 150,068
Access rates have a lower drop than concurrent, so I might infer that although login numbers are not catastrophically down, each player is putting in a lot less hours.
It will be intresting to see what happens to them over the next two months.
Statesmans comments. LMAO
After I5, some people were saying the same thing..."the game is a ghost town"...to which my reply was, "but we're gaining customers..." Naturally, my reply was dismissed.
Of course it was dismissed, you were telling bare faced lies again.
We could have fun quoting this bloke all day.
If you look at the figures under the microscope (over too short a period of time) you get a distorted image.
For example if I said in March that the numbers were up, I would be telling a truth, but if I said in March the numbers were up from December but down overall I would be telling the truth.
If I checked the sub numbers on the immediate days after I5 launch, I would expect to see the numbers up. After all many people resubbed to try the new content, and if people were so annoyed they quit the game, it might take anytime upto 6 months for their subs to expire. For this period of time, I would expect a slight rise in players followed by a noticeable fall off, up until the beta promotions where it should started to pick up again. (My best guess).
I agree that he was probably "gaining customers", but doubt strongly that he wasn't losing them also.
I6 nerfs ARE extremely bad.
I just try them.
They are ridiculously insane.
Anyone saying otherwise is a madman and should be shot just to make sure the madness stop there.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
LOL! The point is not to know if you can do it or not and if someone can play the game or not.
The point is the nerfs are BAD! Not only a little. I feel like I play the grandma of my toon rather than my toon, those nerfs are lame, bad, dimwit, whoever think it was great should find a new job because they have no understanding of how to handle a game.
Once peoples start playing with set rules, you don't just go and change the rules and remove stuff from them endlessly.
With a Broadsword scrapper, if I waste my best single attack on a minion, I expect the minion to be DEAD and not moving. As it was before. I don't care for numbers or whatever, I care for the heroic feeling, the progression.
The whole point of a RPG is the progression, so if you start changing the rules and make peoples move backward for 4 issues in a row, you have 0 understanding of what a RPG is.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
The reason why peoples play a RPG rather than another game:
THE PROGRESSION.
If you kill the progression than you are completely insane. Cryptic did that not once, not twice, not even 3 times, but 4 times in a row! I dunno how they can be so blind and arrogants.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Well, according to PlayNC (NCSoft) financial standings...3rd quarter sales for CoH are up 10%. Peddle your doom and gloom elsewhere.
http://www.ncsoft.com/eng/nccompany/ir_data_report01.asp 3Q FY 2005 Fact Sheet and result explanation.
Explain to me why myself and people in my supergroup are still having fun and how our SG has grown since issue 5?
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
I was right on the spot! *referring to the new trolls*
However, Sanctus might have join and been no more what he was, that I can't say. Or maybe he is just sour and angry in general.
If I can't do what I use to do, than the progression is clearly destroyed. But that is prolly to hard to understand for some folks who stand behind others and let others do the group work. If you want all class to be equal, why do you bother having class in the first place? Have a SoR system, this is balanced better than any class system. I6 is lame, I5 is lame, I4 is also lame, I3 and I2 are also lame. Someone saying otherwise is a masochist. We are in a GAME, I really can get along with folks who think that removing is acceptable, it is NOT.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Anofalye,
I've always said up front, "if your not having fun, don't play, regardless of what MMO". The one thing that gets under my skin is when people bring in the drama. I dont' care what MMO they play, when they bring in the drama, it's like listening to a broken record.
I did not "join" anyone. I'm a patient man that understands that not everything works for everyone. But to blame the system, be bring the hate and ferver that comes with that hate is not productive in any environment.
I saw your post on the CoH tech forums. Heck I even tried to troubleshoot what might have been the problem. Sure, some people were unreasonable with their responses, but not everyone. Of course, you were put on the spot and because of that you only saw the
and not the 
.
In past posts you were able to step back from the problem and give an honest evaluation. I've not seen those posts with recent problems that you have encounted.
Do those problems suck...ya course they do...I'm sorry to hear you deleted your characters. I know that must have been the hardest thing to do. Good luck.
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
Thanks for kindness. But we will not agree on many points. I could return what you said your way. Drama, well...I could be quiet, but been quiet is been indiferent.
I6 is extremely bad, I would not have been able to bear any of my character with it, so it was a lot easier than I think it would have been.
And yes, the points of those games is to make fun...and if we take them to seriously, nothing bad in that, it just mean we have happy lives with not much troubles in them.
Removing from a player is never acceptable...we are...players!
I will never change opinion on this. 
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
I've said it before, I'll say it again.
I've seen no significant difference. What died with one shot takes two. BFD.
Maybe you just got used to playing way over your head?
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
According to that statement sales are up by 10% last quarter due to increased box sales and subsrcription revenues.
The critcal question has go to be, up 10% from what?
(I wonder when Third quarter ended. Does that include COV boxes? I would expect not, I guess we'll know for sure next quartely report).
Again we are expecting an overall rise in figures over the COV launch period. They have increased their advertising substantianlly and offered a beta promotion to all their subscribers to trial the new content and expanded the content of the original all over this period.
However since the sales of Boxes and subscription for the second quarter were down 8% from the first quarter. That 10% improvement in the third no longer looks quite so impressive.
We were always expecting an increase for COV and it's promotional period. The problem is, this is the last increase we are expecting and we are not expecting that increase to restore COH to it's heyday subscribers.
"Explain to me why myself and people in my supergroup are still having fun and how our SG has grown since issue 5?"
Because you enjoy the game and have been recruiting.
Perhaps there are a lot of players post I5 whom like you still enjoy the game, but who have needed to find a new SG after their previous ones dispersed. Perhaps after I5 everybody who still plays started new heroes because their old ones weren't such fun to continue with and all needed a new SG for players their own levels. Perhaps a whole load of new subscribers who are all having fun have joined your SG for the first time.
I really don't know. Please ask them, not me.
With regards to I5's effect on sales, I refer you to my earlier commentry on Statemans remarks. I5 went live a month before 3rd quarter release. During that month COV promotion begun. I would have expected I5 to create an initial boost to revenue at the beginning of the month, followed by a substantial drop off in the period of months after. Subscriptions, after all, don't expire on a dime.
In all honesty, anyone who cannot see the negative effect I5 has had on game sales simply has their head in the sand. I refer you to the hundreds of posts in umpteen different customer feedback forums, entitled, "I5 ruined my game, I quit" or somesuch.
Unfortunately due to the COV promotions in this period, I don't think we will ever get a data set that will settle that particular debate.
"Peddle your doom and gloom elsewhere".
I'm not selling it, and you are free not to read it.
If I was to play the role of the prophet of doom, I would say "expect server closures in 6 months time." That is my prophecy of doom.