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State of The Game
Sanctus_Mors
Member Posts: 597
State of The Game discussed @ gamespy. Most of it has been discussed here on these and other forums.
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
Comments
Wow. What was that guy smoking when he wrote that crap??? Looked more like a press release than an objective analysis.
He obviously hasn't read the investor reports that state - as of March 06 - CoH/V earnings are down 32% from last year.
(Guild Wars is up 60% by comparison, and that's with a game that has no subscription fee!)
June 04 highest monthly accessess: @163,000 (across 11 servers, CoH only).
March 06 highest monthly accesses: @182,000. (across 16 servers, includes CoV).
These are "hits" on the servers, NOT necessarily subscriptions.
If the future looks "quite promising" based on that kind of growth, I'd hate to see what he thinks "dismal" is.
And how do you lose 32% of your revenues in a year when you've allegedly added so many new players? Here's a hint: NCSoft is doing something with CoH/V that it didn't have to do right after release: give away free trial accounts. You don't give freebies away for a successful product: you give them away for a product that's struggling to survive.
I agree. That feature had no teeth.
Waste of a read I thought. Like Serling says, it read like a press release.
That's the kind of article that I would demand in return for placing an advert.
From that statement you imply that any MMO that offers free trials are struggling?
Just want clarification.
I've seen some recent WoW trial offers and Eve 14 day trial offers. Seems like every MMO is going that route, the try before your buy or the buddy offer.
With that statment in mind, are all MMO's going south?
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
The game is great for first time people into MMORPG gamespace. Beyond that it doesn't grow with them.
Let's look at the numbers again:
163,000 "hits" on 11 servers for quarter ending June 04.
182,000 "hits" on 16 servers for quarter ending March 06.
36% increase in servers. 50% decrease in player population per server (only a 19% increase in number of "hits" with CoV factored in).
People using free trials count as "hits" (accesses).
Retail DVDs are selling as cheaply as $19.99 USD. Revised earnings are down 32% over last year's levels.
So tell me, does this sound like a franchise that's got a long-term future, or one that's circling the rim?
As far as people still paying sub fees? Who knows? How many are playing on free trial acounts right now?
I don't know about WoW. Please try to remember the forum and context in which this discussion is occuring. NCSoft didn't start offering free trials until a year after CoH's release, when the numbers started to fall rather dramatically. (Coinciding with travel suppression and I4).
Apparently, NCSoft felt compelled to start offering freebies to attract new players to a flagging franchise, and while it's been successful in propping up short-term numbers, the game isn't retaining players and is - in fact - losing money. (That often happens when you give it away).
This game still holds a LOT of potential. I don't believe in Cryptic using this potential well anymore, but that doesn't mean it is dying fast.
Some peoples put EvE in comparaison for some reason and assume EvE is going strong...well EvE would be happy if they ever reach that amount of online peoples. Passing from 2 to 5 like EvE while CoV/CoH are passing from 16 to 18 (including CoV, Europe and Free trials) can be argue as who is doing better.
CoV/CoH is still the less bad MMO on the market, despite their many mistakes which start with the endless nerfing. How can they expect peoples to be building and achieving stuff while the rules keep been changed is a mystery to me, I got no idea what they are thinking about...beside that they are fans of PvP themselves. As killers-players, they listen to their fanbase and they naturally get swayed by the vocal minority who happen to be nearly exclusively socialisers-type players. Really, they should stop thinking in a Killer-way or listening solely to socialisers, as socialisers will adapt and socialise anyway.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
I constantly recieve free trials and offers to return to mmo's I have quit in the past. That is to say, I get them from almost every mmo, as I have played most. If Cryptic giving free trials away means that CoX is struggling, then that must mean WoW is struggling, as well. I recieved an offer for free time to return last week (and promptly deleted it). It is not a sign that the games are struggling, as they all do it.
"Recently to try and improve their subscriber rate they've focused quite heavily on PvP, and I bet part of that May 2006 number is do to a large bit of PvP having been added in the last patch."
Not to split hairs here, but pvp was actually added a couple issues ago. I5 saw arenas. I6 saw CoV and hero/villian pvp zones. I7 (the most recent) only added 1 more pvp zone. That is about a year's worth of majour updates. PvP cannot take credit for any increase in subscriptions, despite the attempt to give it. It was simply in-game too long before the increase to be the factor. In fact, I know many who have quit because of the impact that the pvp changes have made on pve (which had always been the majour focus of the game).
http://wuyausu.com
Who stopped payment on my reality check?
I would argue that the game is in the best shape of its life, thats not to say the game isn't still a little to linear but the game seems to be going in the right direction.
The reason I say this is mainly due to the fact I played at launch for a couple months and left due to the linear nature and lack of variety in game. I returned around 5 months ago after leaving SWG due to NGE to find that after my purchase of COV (gives alot of new content and a month of service for 30 bucks if you buy it online), the game is much expanded upon. Don't get me wrong this game is not for everyone, it appeals to a certain niche market, which in my opinion, explains the 200k or so that play it.
What I really do dig about the new pvp content is the way its set up, if you don't wanna be hassled by that griefer standing outside of town(lineage II comes to mind) you can just avoid the pvp areas. I'm not a big PVP person and I'm a blaster which makes me less than the best for pvp in general but when I do venture into the pvp areas in a team I have fun, with some of the better balanced pvp battles I've seen in any mmo. Granted I"m only lvl 40 but I"m looking forward to starting a epic class character and starting my villain when I get the time. One last thing if you do get into the game make sure you get Villains also, its worth it to get access to the supergroup base building.
I actually belong to a multi-game guild and a friend and I started the COH branch, so far so good although I would say that it can be tough to keep some people in the SG due to the fact that you can pretty much go through the game and never even consider joining a SG if thats your desire. Thats not to say the games perfect, I'd like to see some new classes to choose from and a true inventory with the ability to further customize your toon would be nice. I have other things I would like to see but to the credit of NCsoft they do seem to listen to their customer base and make changes that benefit the community as a whole.
As far as the free trial thing I've recieved offers for trials from basically every major MMO on the market atm, seems to be a good way to pull in some new players here and there, but I wouldn't consider it desperation on the part of the developers. For those who enjoy comic books and super hero content in general give it a try, and I think you'll find a good community full of dedicated and very helpful players to help if the need arises. For those interested I'm the leader of a SG on Freedom called the Royal Black Watch if you need a SG.
Best Regards to all,
Trey Smooth
Just to make sure you know where I'm coming from and not some fanboi trying to defend my game: I think CoH/v Is one of the worst MMO's on the market. I can't believe people are silly enough to pay monthly for what should be a single player game, but that doesn't make your statement any more true.
This is a love letter IMO. . . he speaks about the grind and mentions the frequent nerfs in passing, but mostly he talks about all of the (honestly fairly shallow) content additions the game has received over the years. No mention of the fact that you spend half your time in CoV fighting other villains. . .
Oh well. . . I'd go back if they just upped the xp rate from level 20 to 50 by 100%. If levels came twice as fast as they come now during those levels, then the game woudl be fun for me again, especially since those levels are only about half as good as they were before the enhancement nerfs that came with Issue 6.
The game is 2 years old. They haven't imo made great changes as they went along, but imo almost all mmo's fail here miserably as well. The game is great to play a month or two at a time, take some time off, rinse repeat. It has imo by far the best combat model of a mmo. You get a good mission with 5+ players and it's pretty special. You do get value if you own both COH and COV for one monthly cost.
Again the problem is Cryptic couldn't add anything really fresh as they went along. They still made over $100 million and the game was a HUGE success, huge. Jack will never have to ever work again if he doesn't want to.
Mmo's continually point to me the most important part of them (after it's stable) is an engine designed to add tons of content and options quickly, make great after-release tools while designing the core game. IMO it's a major part of any new mmo, as we all want and need new things much more quickly then they can supply as too many of them are bears to deal with after go-live.
What part of my statement isn't true??? I made several and all of them are absolutely true!
CoH wasn't offering free trials just after release. It's losing money: revised earnings as of March 06 (Q1) down 32%. The servers (16 of them) are half as populated as at release.
I don't care what WoW does or sdoesn't do! I'm talking about Cryptic/NCSoft and CoH here.
Read the investor reports for CoH/V at NCSoft's website for yourself.
You said, "You don't give freebies away for a successful product: you give them away for a product that's struggling to survive."
WoW gives freebies; it's successful, therefore your statement is false.
AFAIK, when CoX launched in Korea, subscriptions barely went up at all (probably because superheroes are big mainly in US). On top of that, why would it be divided evenly when US has 11 servers and the other regions have less than half of that each? I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing the logic where, say, CoX has 180k subscribers (US+UK), then the Korea version launches, then say 60k subscribers from Korea join, and suddenly 30k from both the US and the UK quit for no reason other than to make the region populations even (each region having 60k, in this situation).
Now do you see why I find that whole thinking to be ridiculous? It's like saying the world has 6.5 billion people, therefore by taking that number and dividing it by the number of countries in the world, all the countries have the exact same population.
Not to nitpick either, but it's 160k atm, not 150k.
I gotta remind those who want to totally dismiss the game due to the sub 200k user base, that its kinda a niche market to begin with. Superhero mmo's don't dominate the market, fantasy mmo's do and probably always will, its nice to have a alternative though for those of us that prefer something different.
As for myself I prefer the sci-fi and superhero type mmo's but I also understand this automatically puts me in the minority, likelyhood is that I'll never be apart of one of the major mmo's beside the fact I play guild wars with 2 million others but as preivous posted guild wars isn't really a true mmo(though it still rocks). I personally am ok with that fact, those that play COH such as myself dig the comic book story arches and the whole play the super hero role, its fresh, fun, and very easy to get a group fast. Then once you get into the mission the team dynamic in COH absolutely rocks, I love the fast paced battles that still seem to pack alot of strategy into the battle.
Peace
Also, it should be noted that the subscription base for many folks playing CoH/CoV is cyclical. They'll subscribe for a month or two and complete content and hang around, then let their subscription lapse for several months untill the next issue is released and then return for another couple of months. A good number more subscribers fell into this cycle with the last issue due to the absurdly long amount of time it took for them to get Issue 7 released.
Made a $100 million?
Not very likely. I doubt they heve even netted half of that, let alone made it.
Broadly mirroring his current work ethic.
This is not correct, the stockholder reports make it clear that these are "users" and not subscribers. NCsoft employee's my lie or post in error on the forums, but not in their investor reports.
The figures given are of users (people who connect to the server) only and not subscriptions.
.
This is in marked contrast to WoW's figures which are specifically for subscriptions and give special notification of this each time they publish them.
Read the quote you cited above in context, dude.
Wow has only just started giving Freebies. This is widely seen as a sign that it's subscriptions in North America are flagging.
Clearly you don't give away for free what you can sell.
Where is the watermark between profitable and unprofitable? Quite a way away for WoW I think, COH has had some hairy moments and I wouldn't be buying any stock yet.
Bear in mind that even games as poor as Matrix online, or as old as Anarchy Online still have the servers switched on. They are in some way profitable still.
With COH I think the expansion has staved off death for a while longer. Now as long as they can get another one out before the population droops it will keep going for another 18 months.
While COH has now got more subscribers than ever before, I think that they will also be leaving COH faster than ever before. (They were already bored of the game, before they returned for the expansion). So far I am happy that the figures seem to support my opinion, but as not enough figures have been released, only time will tell.