Originally posted by VengeSunsoar UO - we can safely say no. They had to implement less FFA to stay afloat.
That is not factual at all. UO was doing very well without a carebear land. UO steadilty grew to 185,000 subscribers over a span of two and a half years while it was completely open PvP and full loot - no consensual PvP whatsoever.
Six months after the consensual only Trammel was piggybacked on to the open PvP full loot world, the game had only grown by 15,000 more subscriptions. 15k is very little next to 185k.
The highest subscriptions since the consensual only Trammel was added were only 65,000 more and it was a very short lived peak surrounding the Age of Shadows release. For most of the time since the consensual Trammel was introduced, the game has not grown.
Since Trammel was added to the open PvP full loot game, UO has actually lost 55,000 subscribers overall and now sits around 130,000. The game stopped growing and is dying now. Many say the consensual only game world piggyback onto the open PvP full loot game, killed the "game."
Well the story I have been told (may be wrong, as I said I haven't played) was that the subs were high, then a certain other game came along and now UO was bleeding subs like crazy. In an effort to stop that they implementd trammel in effect making it more safer, more like that other game. Did it work, maybe - the game didnt' die. So in effect Trammel may have saved it.
Venge Sunsoar
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
UO only did well with open pvp till the point there where actaully games out there that offert a surious competition
...and now the MMORPG markets are 50-100 times larger (means more people) than back then.
There wont be many games that can offer FFA PvP and full loot for simple reason that most MMORPG are so heavily item based, so full loot would suck. So Darkfall wont have much competition in that area.
I find it very amusing that some of you are trying to say there wont be enough interest to full loot while there is already 36 000 members in Darkfall forums and the GAME IS NOT EVEN IN BETA YET. For example VG has 150k members (and I expect LoTR and AoC have about same numbers) and Spellborn has 60-70k. Of course these figures don't actually prove much, but they do show that there is plenty of interest for such a game design, especially when the game isn't advertized anywhere. You can bitch and whine all you like that there isn't enough interest for such a game, but the numbers says otherwise.
I think a lot of people simple cant grasp this: You keep debating whether or not pvp anywhere is 'fun'. Obviously, people buying darkfall already know free pvp is fun, and the game is meant to be a continuation in the aging line of open pvp games, for people who liked those games.
Its basic math: say 2-5 in every 50 players likes open pvp. Scan across the list on the left. Out of 50 or so EQ 'carebear' rulesets, theres maybe 2 that offer darkfalls type of pvp. Your logic seems to be that DF will fail if you convince people its a niche game like niche is a dirty word. The truth is DF will gain its own exclusive share of the market BECAUSE its a niche game.
While WoW, GW, D&DO, etc and 50,000 generic asian games compete for this one single casual player base who enjoys grinding to a max level then maybe fighting in an arena, divided into portions, Darkfall has to compete against maybe 2 other upcoming games that are totally pvp based, not to mention its control scheme alone would likely give it its own market.
the EQ clone/korean exp grind genres are over saturated, DF could probably survive financially for 5 years off of the number of players who sign onto WoW/GW in 1 day.
oh yeah and once again EVERY ITEM IN DARKFALL IS CRAFTED if you lose it the game is supposedly designed so that youd have multiple extras. I want the death penaltys to be MORE severe.
Originally posted by busdriver Originally posted by holythough UO only did well with open pvp till the point there where actaully games out there that offert a surious competition
...and now the MMORPG markets are 50-100 times larger (means more people) than back then.
There wont be many games that can offer FFA PvP and full loot for simple reason that most MMORPG are so heavily item based, so full loot would suck. So Darkfall wont have much competition in that area.
I find it very amusing that some of you are trying to say there wont be enough interest to full loot while there is already 36 000 members in Darkfall forums and the GAME IS NOT EVEN IN BETA YET. For example VG has 150k members (and I expect LoTR and AoC have about same numbers) and Spellborn has 60-70k. Of course these figures don't actually prove much, but they do show that there is plenty of interest for such a game design, especially when the game isn't advertized anywhere. You can bitch and whine all you like that there isn't enough interest for such a game, but the numbers says otherwise. I don't think anyone is denying that there is "a market" for this kind of game. it's a small market, though, when compared with non-FFA PvP games. That fact will result in fewer of these games being made, because there are fewer people who are interested in playing them. It doesn't mean there are *no* people interested in them, but far fewer than for non-FFA games. The facts of the existing market scream this reality, regardless of how some of the members of this board would *like* things to be.
Originally posted by sacred_band I think a lot of people simple cant grasp this: You keep debating whether or not pvp anywhere is 'fun'. Obviously, people buying darkfall already know free pvp is fun, and the game is meant to be a continuation in the aging line of open pvp games, for people who liked those games. Its basic math: say 2-5 in every 50 players likes open pvp. Scan across the list on the left. Out of 50 or so EQ 'carebear' rulesets, theres maybe 2 that offer darkfalls type of pvp. Your logic seems to be that DF will fail if you convince people its a niche game like niche is a dirty word. The truth is DF will gain its own exclusive share of the market BECAUSE its a niche game. While WoW, GW, D&DO, etc and 50,000 generic asian games compete for this one single casual player base who enjoys grinding to a max level then maybe fighting in an arena, divided into portions, Darkfall has to compete against maybe 2 other upcoming games that are totally pvp based, not to mention its control scheme alone would likely give it its own market. the EQ clone/korean exp grind genres are over saturated, DF could probably survive financially for 5 years off of the number of players who sign onto WoW/GW in 1 day. oh yeah and once again EVERY ITEM IN DARKFALL IS CRAFTED if you lose it the game is supposedly designed so that youd have multiple extras. I want the death penaltys to be MORE severe.
I have no idea if Darkfall will "fail" or not. That depends on what their tipping point is financially, which includes how much sunk costs and/or debt they have, and how much revenue they have to make within a certain period in order to stay afloat financially. That could require 20k subs, 50k subs or more ... it's impossible to guess. What I am saying is that because the market for these games is so much smaller than for other games, there will be fewer of them made. That, in a sense, helps to create a niche market, but it also guarantees that there will be fewer titles, which means that there's a greater risk that, at any one point in time, there won't be a title that this market likes (because not every game that is made, in any genre, is good, and if you are making fewer games in a certain genre, it may take longer to a good one to come along).
Here we have a perfect example of a person that live up to the so called "Hardcore Kiddy" stereotype. Everybody that does not agree with his way is a "carebear", and everyone that doesn't support full item looting is a WoW player.
How you use those games as examples is laughable. Darktide is close to empty. Last report I heard from Zaxtor99 was that he was amazed a player base of 200+ was online, Shadowbane, yes, we all know what a big success that game was [/sarcasm] Tibia is popular for the same reason Runescape is popular, its free and has low system requirements. not to mention that the PVP is actually restricted, and you get a nice ban after 12 pk's, and, ofcourse, the server that actually promotes hardcore pvp is the least played of all Tibia servers. you say go look at the forums. count all those posts, you probably won't even find 1000 posts that support that PVP.
Also, the darkfall forums aren't THAT active. if your pointing out to the registered users, mind you the game has been in development since forever, and its forums have been up ever since.
At least I base this on facts, your merely assuming there is a market for it, but the facts go against that.
Its also funny how you try to swap away my comment where I stated that an EQ clone would be more successfull then FFA Hardcore pvp. especialy since World of Warcraft, who brought NOTHING new to the genre and is a polished Everquest clone, holds over 7,5 million players and holds over half of the mmorpg subscriber market. again, facts are facts.
the fact that your flaming me for actually pointing out the facts is amusing, but I suggest you drop that. if don't like it somebody says something negative about your game (which wasn't even about the game directly), then don't come to a forum where people share opinions & FACTS.
Don't go into discussion with me unless you bring some facts to back up your arguement. so far you have picked 2 games that seem to be on the edge of dying (AC and Shadowbane), a game that is partly against hardcore pvp, and has the lowest amount of players on the hardcore pvp server, and a game where it is questionable if the item looting is even the main selling point of the game.
Again, you are just regurgitating that same crap over and over. Your so called facts just merely show that PVE / carebear servers are more popular. No one is arguing against that fact and you seem to be the only one who fails to understand this.
If there were no market for the hardcore crowd these hardcore servers wouldnt exist. The fact is where they do exist they are populated and even more so when the game was fresh / modern. There have being no games recently that have catered for this hardcore crowd and there is a business opportunity right there.
And unless you can bring something of relevance to this discussion Im going to leave you to it.
Do you even read my posts, or do you just open your biased mouth without reading the full post? I NEVER said there wasn't a market for it, I said the market was incredibly small, hence the game won't be "Very successfull". the hardcore servers of those MMORPG is incredibly thin populated, and, has NOT enough players to fund an entire MMORPG.
just face it, you can't bring anything to this discussion.You name games that have hardcore pvp such as Asherons call Darktide. Yet the darktide's population is extremely low, same for Tibia's pvp server. there are barely 2k people playing on those servers. you merely assume there is a big market for it. I can understand your point, in theory it makes sense, no other game has it, and it LOOKS like its a hole in the market. yet if you look at the full picture, you will see that hardcore PVP has done very poorly among MMORPG's.
This game is a pile of vaporware junk.. horrid graphics and not too mention it looks like tis maybe 5% done after 6 years of work. please just let this crap die already. I am sick and tired of hearing about it year after year after year after year. This project is so doomed it isn't even funny.
Guranteed if you brought this up with any seasoned game dev studio they would tell you its a pile of junk.
Here we have a perfect example of a person that live up to the so called "Hardcore Kiddy" stereotype. Everybody that does not agree with his way is a "carebear", and everyone that doesn't support full item looting is a WoW player.
How you use those games as examples is laughable. Darktide is close to empty. Last report I heard from Zaxtor99 was that he was amazed a player base of 200+ was online, Shadowbane, yes, we all know what a big success that game was [/sarcasm] Tibia is popular for the same reason Runescape is popular, its free and has low system requirements. not to mention that the PVP is actually restricted, and you get a nice ban after 12 pk's, and, ofcourse, the server that actually promotes hardcore pvp is the least played of all Tibia servers. you say go look at the forums. count all those posts, you probably won't even find 1000 posts that support that PVP.
Also, the darkfall forums aren't THAT active. if your pointing out to the registered users, mind you the game has been in development since forever, and its forums have been up ever since.
At least I base this on facts, your merely assuming there is a market for it, but the facts go against that.
Its also funny how you try to swap away my comment where I stated that an EQ clone would be more successfull then FFA Hardcore pvp. especialy since World of Warcraft, who brought NOTHING new to the genre and is a polished Everquest clone, holds over 7,5 million players and holds over half of the mmorpg subscriber market. again, facts are facts.
the fact that your flaming me for actually pointing out the facts is amusing, but I suggest you drop that. if don't like it somebody says something negative about your game (which wasn't even about the game directly), then don't come to a forum where people share opinions & FACTS.
Don't go into discussion with me unless you bring some facts to back up your arguement. so far you have picked 2 games that seem to be on the edge of dying (AC and Shadowbane), a game that is partly against hardcore pvp, and has the lowest amount of players on the hardcore pvp server, and a game where it is questionable if the item looting is even the main selling point of the game.
Again, you are just regurgitating that same crap over and over. Your so called facts just merely show that PVE / carebear servers are more popular. No one is arguing against that fact and you seem to be the only one who fails to understand this.
If there were no market for the hardcore crowd these hardcore servers wouldnt exist. The fact is where they do exist they are populated and even more so when the game was fresh / modern. There have being no games recently that have catered for this hardcore crowd and there is a business opportunity right there.
And unless you can bring something of relevance to this discussion Im going to leave you to it.
Do you even read my posts, or do you just open your biased mouth without reading the full post? I NEVER said there wasn't a market for it, I said the market was incredibly small, hence the game won't be "Very successfull". the hardcore servers of those MMORPG is incredibly thin populated, and, has NOT enough players to fund an entire MMORPG.
just face it, you can't bring anything to this discussion. you merely assume there is a big market for it. I can understand your point, in theory it makes sense, no other game has it, and it LOOKS like its a hole in the market. yet if you look at the full picture, you will see that hardcore PVP has done very poorly among MMORPG's.
Here we have a perfect example of a person that live up to the so called "Hardcore Kiddy" stereotype. Everybody that does not agree with his way is a "carebear", and everyone that doesn't support full item looting is a WoW player.
How you use those games as examples is laughable. Darktide is close to empty. Last report I heard from Zaxtor99 was that he was amazed a player base of 200+ was online, Shadowbane, yes, we all know what a big success that game was [/sarcasm] Tibia is popular for the same reason Runescape is popular, its free and has low system requirements. not to mention that the PVP is actually restricted, and you get a nice ban after 12 pk's, and, ofcourse, the server that actually promotes hardcore pvp is the least played of all Tibia servers. you say go look at the forums. count all those posts, you probably won't even find 1000 posts that support that PVP.
Also, the darkfall forums aren't THAT active. if your pointing out to the registered users, mind you the game has been in development since forever, and its forums have been up ever since.
At least I base this on facts, your merely assuming there is a market for it, but the facts go against that.
Its also funny how you try to swap away my comment where I stated that an EQ clone would be more successfull then FFA Hardcore pvp. especialy since World of Warcraft, who brought NOTHING new to the genre and is a polished Everquest clone, holds over 7,5 million players and holds over half of the mmorpg subscriber market. again, facts are facts.
the fact that your flaming me for actually pointing out the facts is amusing, but I suggest you drop that. if don't like it somebody says something negative about your game (which wasn't even about the game directly), then don't come to a forum where people share opinions & FACTS.
Don't go into discussion with me unless you bring some facts to back up your arguement. so far you have picked 2 games that seem to be on the edge of dying (AC and Shadowbane), a game that is partly against hardcore pvp, and has the lowest amount of players on the hardcore pvp server, and a game where it is questionable if the item looting is even the main selling point of the game.
Again, you are just regurgitating that same crap over and over. Your so called facts just merely show that PVE / carebear servers are more popular. No one is arguing against that fact and you seem to be the only one who fails to understand this.
If there were no market for the hardcore crowd these hardcore servers wouldnt exist. The fact is where they do exist they are populated and even more so when the game was fresh / modern. There have being no games recently that have catered for this hardcore crowd and there is a business opportunity right there.
And unless you can bring something of relevance to this discussion Im going to leave you to it.
Do you even read my posts, or do you just open your biased mouth without reading the full post? I NEVER said there wasn't a market for it, I said the market was incredibly small, hence the game won't be "Very successfull". the hardcore servers of those MMORPG is incredibly thin populated, and, has NOT enough players to fund an entire MMORPG.
just face it, you can't bring anything to this discussion. you merely assume there is a big market for it. I can understand your point, in theory it makes sense, no other game has it, and it LOOKS like its a hole in the market. yet if you look at the full picture, you will see that hardcore PVP has done very poorly among MMORPG's.
wrong, 2 words, UO.
1 word: Trammel, UO's hardcore pvp was "removed" because it scared people away. not to mention UO lost loads of people once Everquest, an mmorpg without Hardcore pvp, became popular and well known.
See if this was Darkfall you could have just killed eachother already to settle the issue. This forums non-pvp so instead youre going to need to place trade sanctions on teapot prices and stuff.
Originally posted by Gameloading
1 word: Trammel UO's hardcore pvp was "removed" because it scared people away. not to mention UO lost loads of people once Everquest, an mmorpg without Hardcore pvp, became popular and well known.
The case of UO had more to do with the dawn of Everquest, which featured 3d graphics and no PvP at all when it was released, and simply swamped UO's subs relatively quickly. The creation of Tram was an effort to keep people from walking, by creating a UO environment that was also PvE friendly and less ganktastic ... but ultimately the game hemmorraged many people to EQ in any case.
If you look at how UO developed after that, it did retain players, but the PvP realm was almost empty ... because most people if they have a choice between full-loot FFA PvP and *not* ... will choose *not*. Not all, but most.
EVE also demonstrates this: if you open the map in EVE and look to see where the players are concentrated, it's in high secuirty space, where you can't get ganked without serious consequences for the ganker. The vast majority of space in EVE is FFA space, but it's also very, very empty compared with high sec empire space. Even in a fairly hardcore game like EVE, the % of players who want to play in the FFA environment is small. I played EVE for 2.5 years and lived in 0.0 space for most of it, and I can tell you that the vast majority of the players are hanging out in Empire space, while the relatively smaller number of players are fighting the same folks again and again in 0.0.
FFA PvP takes a certain mentality, and it's not a common one among gamers.
Originally posted by sacred_band See if this was Darkfall you could have just killed eachother already to settle the issue. This forums non-pvp so instead youre going to need to place trade sanctions on teapot prices and stuff.
Yes, because being able to murder people in PvP instantly makes you a genius, and nothing you say afterwards can ever be disputed.
"He who throws the first punch admits he's lost the argument."
See if this was Darkfall you could have just killed eachother already to settle the issue. This forums non-pvp so instead youre going to need to place trade sanctions on teapot prices and stuff.
Originally posted by Gameloading 1 word: Trammel UO's hardcore pvp was "removed" because it scared people away. not to mention UO lost loads of people once Everquest, an mmorpg without Hardcore pvp, became popular and well known.
Originally posted by holythough But basic open pvp withouth any way to prevent or discouragement of griefing won't work.
Originally posted by holythough I don't consider EvE to be an open PvP game with the whole concorde and reputation construction.
Why does open PVP have to not have any consequences? Of course that won't work, that's why it's never been done. Darkfall isn't even doing that, they have a "complicated reputation system" basically alignment.
I can walk in your house right now, hack you up with a big machedi and walk away. You think I'm not going to caught? pft. I just killed you though didn't I?
Darkfall is not FFA thats what people get wrong. Its more like guild vs guild,clan vs clan,organization vs organization,race vs race and kingdom vs kingdom. Its not like you can go up to someone and kill him. There's a alignment system. Theres 1000 kingdoms. Each kingdom has its own city. If you control the city you control the kingdom. The kingdom makes the people who live on their land pay taxes. Clans fight for the cities. So Its not FFA. If Darkfall was crazy FFA where you could kill anyone you want people wouldnt follow the game.
This game has definitely piqued my interest as I've followed it, but I have to say, I'm a bit leery of any game that contains the word "Dark" in the title. Hope it gets made, but so many delays have not instilled much confidence.
Originally posted by donkey35 Darkfall is not FFA thats what people get wrong. Its more like guild vs guild,clan vs clan,organization vs organization,race vs race and kingdom vs kingdom. Its not like you can go up to someone and kill him. There's a alignment system. Yes, there is aligment system, but you still can (try to) kill anyone you want, anytime you want. Theres 1000 kingdoms. Each kingdom has its own city. If you control the city you control the kingdom. The kingdom makes the people who live on their land pay taxes. I have never heard anything like this. I dare say, you're wrong about this. Clans fight for the cities. So Its not FFA. If Darkfall was crazy FFA where you could kill anyone you want people wouldnt follow the game. Partially true, it has elements that support clan warfare, but it's not enforced.
Originally posted by donkey35 Its not like you can go up to someone and kill him.
That right there voids everything you just said because you haven't been following the game at all.
You can kill someone INSIDE a city. If you wanted to. There are no zones, there are no rules (as far as why, IE: race vs race, etc), except for alignment and punishment.
Until proven otherwise, I consider this vaporware.
Seeing the history of this game and all the other ambitious low budget MMOs recently ( DnL, Mourning, Wish, aso ), you'd be stupid not to. The feature list of Darkfall causes some additional suspicion, it is just way too tightly fitted to the needs of an abysmally small segment of the MMO playerbase.
You can go up to someone and kill him but if you do that you go Evil and if you kill someone of your own race you will be killable without punishment. So everyone jumps on you and if your evil everyone kills you.
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar UO - we can safely say no. They had to implement less FFA to stay afloat.
That is not factual at all. UO was doing very well without a carebear land. UO steadilty grew to 185,000 subscribers over a span of two and a half years while it was completely open PvP and full loot - no consensual PvP whatsoever.
Six months after the consensual only Trammel was piggybacked on to the open PvP full loot world, the game had only grown by 15,000 more subscriptions. 15k is very little next to 185k.
The highest subscriptions since the consensual only Trammel was added were only 65,000 more and it was a very short lived peak surrounding the Age of Shadows release. For most of the time since the consensual Trammel was introduced, the game has not grown.
Since Trammel was added to the open PvP full loot game, UO has actually lost 55,000 subscribers overall and now sits around 130,000. The game stopped growing and is dying now. Many say the consensual only game world piggyback onto the open PvP full loot game, killed the "game."
Well the story I have been told (may be wrong, as I said I haven't played) was that the subs were high, then a certain other game came along and now UO was bleeding subs like crazy. In an effort to stop that they implementd trammel in effect making it more safer, more like that other game. Did it work, maybe - the game didnt' die. So in effect Trammel may have saved it.
Venge Sunsoar
The thing is, the open PvP, full loot UO did not need to be saved. It was growing at a good consistent rate for it's entire existence, over two and a half years, even right up to the release of the carebear lands. There was never an overall loss of subscribers or even slowing of growth, absolutely nothing to justify making such dramatic changes. The only excuse I have ever been given is "churn," but churn is less important than active growth. A game will always have churn, but as long as more players are joining than leaving, the game continues to grow - just as the open PvP, full loot UO did in fact. Of course there are many factors, but the fact that the game never lost subscribers and continued on a consistent growth rate until after the carebear lands were released is hardly something to ignore.
What happened is that after the much prettier 3d Everquest and Asheron's Call were released and had grown to over 300,000 subscribers combined, even though UO had continued on the same growth rate since it's release during this period, a year later the greedy EA decided to release a carebear version of Ultima Online also in order to compete and hopefully capture some of the same market the other two games were capturing. The sole mistake was piggybacking these new carebear lands onto the existing game, essentially creating two sets of rules for the same game, an easy set and a challenging set. It was a no brainer, everyone took their cake and ate it too, but as a result the virtual world was ruined and the "game" lost, forever destroyed.
Ironically, after changing focus to a carebear type game, Ultima Online actually put itself in direct competition with these newer 3d carebear games and alienated their long-term playerbase at the same time; terrible mistakes indeed.
Actually, Subs began to grow again after the Trammel release. I clearly remember a post of a developer who stated loads of people quit because of PlayerKillers. also, the fact that 90% of the population went to trammel also proves that very little people were intrested int he PK content of UO.
The sole mistake was piggybacking these new carebear lands onto the existing game, essentially creating two sets of rules for the same game, an easy set and a challenging set. It was a no brainer, everyone took their cake and ate it too, but as a result the virtual world was ruined and the "game" lost, forever destroyed.
Yeah that's the weak point of what you wrote. If most UO players just loved the full loot FFA PvP system, they wouldn't have migrated to the other rulseset. The fact that players stampeded to the other ruleset simply reinforces the main point that a few of us here have been making: given a choice, most players will choose to avoid full loot PvP games and, when playing a game that allows that, will choose to play in areas where that aspect isn't present. Thus demonstating that the market for ful loot FFA PvP is indeed a *very* small one. Even in pre-Tram UO, a "hardcore PvP game", virtually all the players opted for a non-FFA ruleset when it was made available. It speaks voumes as to the playing preferences of most gamers.
Wrong, it proves nothing other than human nature - most will always take the easy path taking advantage of everything easily available to them (step through a moongate - become invulnerable!); especially when the material benefits are the same! The only way to have seen which game was superior would have been to create new carebear servers and left the virtual world servers alone.
Comments
That is not factual at all. UO was doing very well without a carebear land. UO steadilty grew to 185,000 subscribers over a span of two and a half years while it was completely open PvP and full loot - no consensual PvP whatsoever.
Six months after the consensual only Trammel was piggybacked on to the open PvP full loot world, the game had only grown by 15,000 more subscriptions. 15k is very little next to 185k.
The highest subscriptions since the consensual only Trammel was added were only 65,000 more and it was a very short lived peak surrounding the Age of Shadows release. For most of the time since the consensual Trammel was introduced, the game has not grown.
Since Trammel was added to the open PvP full loot game, UO has actually lost 55,000 subscribers overall and now sits around 130,000. The game stopped growing and is dying now. Many say the consensual only game world piggyback onto the open PvP full loot game, killed the "game."
Well the story I have been told (may be wrong, as I said I haven't played) was that the subs were high, then a certain other game came along and now UO was bleeding subs like crazy. In an effort to stop that they implementd trammel in effect making it more safer, more like that other game. Did it work, maybe - the game didnt' die. So in effect Trammel may have saved it.
Venge Sunsoar
There wont be many games that can offer FFA PvP and full loot for simple reason that most MMORPG are so heavily item based, so full loot would suck. So Darkfall wont have much competition in that area.
I find it very amusing that some of you are trying to say there wont be enough interest to full loot while there is already 36 000 members in Darkfall forums and the GAME IS NOT EVEN IN BETA YET.
For example VG has 150k members (and I expect LoTR and AoC have about same numbers) and Spellborn has 60-70k.
Of course these figures don't actually prove much, but they do show that there is plenty of interest for such a game design, especially when the game isn't advertized anywhere. You can bitch and whine all you like that there isn't enough interest for such a game, but the numbers says otherwise.
I think a lot of people simple cant grasp this: You keep debating whether or not pvp anywhere is 'fun'. Obviously, people buying darkfall already know free pvp is fun, and the game is meant to be a continuation in the aging line of open pvp games, for people who liked those games.
Its basic math: say 2-5 in every 50 players likes open pvp. Scan across the list on the left. Out of 50 or so EQ 'carebear' rulesets, theres maybe 2 that offer darkfalls type of pvp. Your logic seems to be that DF will fail if you convince people its a niche game like niche is a dirty word. The truth is DF will gain its own exclusive share of the market BECAUSE its a niche game.
While WoW, GW, D&DO, etc and 50,000 generic asian games compete for this one single casual player base who enjoys grinding to a max level then maybe fighting in an arena, divided into portions, Darkfall has to compete against maybe 2 other upcoming games that are totally pvp based, not to mention its control scheme alone would likely give it its own market.
the EQ clone/korean exp grind genres are over saturated, DF could probably survive financially for 5 years off of the number of players who sign onto WoW/GW in 1 day.
oh yeah and once again EVERY ITEM IN DARKFALL IS CRAFTED if you lose it the game is supposedly designed so that youd have multiple extras. I want the death penaltys to be MORE severe.
...and now the MMORPG markets are 50-100 times larger (means more people) than back then.
There wont be many games that can offer FFA PvP and full loot for simple reason that most MMORPG are so heavily item based, so full loot would suck. So Darkfall wont have much competition in that area.
I find it very amusing that some of you are trying to say there wont be enough interest to full loot while there is already 36 000 members in Darkfall forums and the GAME IS NOT EVEN IN BETA YET.
For example VG has 150k members (and I expect LoTR and AoC have about same numbers) and Spellborn has 60-70k.
Of course these figures don't actually prove much, but they do show that there is plenty of interest for such a game design, especially when the game isn't advertized anywhere. You can bitch and whine all you like that there isn't enough interest for such a game, but the numbers says otherwise.
I don't think anyone is denying that there is "a market" for this kind of game. it's a small market, though, when compared with non-FFA PvP games. That fact will result in fewer of these games being made, because there are fewer people who are interested in playing them. It doesn't mean there are *no* people interested in them, but far fewer than for non-FFA games. The facts of the existing market scream this reality, regardless of how some of the members of this board would *like* things to be.
Here we have a perfect example of a person that live up to the so called "Hardcore Kiddy" stereotype. Everybody that does not agree with his way is a "carebear", and everyone that doesn't support full item looting is a WoW player.
How you use those games as examples is laughable. Darktide is close to empty. Last report I heard from Zaxtor99 was that he was amazed a player base of 200+ was online, Shadowbane, yes, we all know what a big success that game was [/sarcasm] Tibia is popular for the same reason Runescape is popular, its free and has low system requirements. not to mention that the PVP is actually restricted, and you get a nice ban after 12 pk's, and, ofcourse, the server that actually promotes hardcore pvp is the least played of all Tibia servers. you say go look at the forums. count all those posts, you probably won't even find 1000 posts that support that PVP.
Also, the darkfall forums aren't THAT active. if your pointing out to the registered users, mind you the game has been in development since forever, and its forums have been up ever since.
At least I base this on facts, your merely assuming there is a market for it, but the facts go against that.
Its also funny how you try to swap away my comment where I stated that an EQ clone would be more successfull then FFA Hardcore pvp. especialy since World of Warcraft, who brought NOTHING new to the genre and is a polished Everquest clone, holds over 7,5 million players and holds over half of the mmorpg subscriber market. again, facts are facts.
the fact that your flaming me for actually pointing out the facts is amusing, but I suggest you drop that. if don't like it somebody says something negative about your game (which wasn't even about the game directly), then don't come to a forum where people share opinions & FACTS.
Don't go into discussion with me unless you bring some facts to back up your arguement. so far you have picked 2 games that seem to be on the edge of dying (AC and Shadowbane), a game that is partly against hardcore pvp, and has the lowest amount of players on the hardcore pvp server, and a game where it is questionable if the item looting is even the main selling point of the game.
Again, you are just regurgitating that same crap over and over. Your so called facts just merely show that PVE / carebear servers are more popular. No one is arguing against that fact and you seem to be the only one who fails to understand this.
If there were no market for the hardcore crowd these hardcore servers wouldnt exist. The fact is where they do exist they are populated and even more so when the game was fresh / modern. There have being no games recently that have catered for this hardcore crowd and there is a business opportunity right there.
And unless you can bring something of relevance to this discussion Im going to leave you to it.
Do you even read my posts, or do you just open your biased mouth without reading the full post? I NEVER said there wasn't a market for it, I said the market was incredibly small, hence the game won't be "Very successfull". the hardcore servers of those MMORPG is incredibly thin populated, and, has NOT enough players to fund an entire MMORPG.
just face it, you can't bring anything to this discussion.You name games that have hardcore pvp such as Asherons call Darktide. Yet the darktide's population is extremely low, same for Tibia's pvp server. there are barely 2k people playing on those servers. you merely assume there is a big market for it. I can understand your point, in theory it makes sense, no other game has it, and it LOOKS like its a hole in the market. yet if you look at the full picture, you will see that hardcore PVP has done very poorly among MMORPG's.
This game is a pile of vaporware junk.. horrid graphics and not too mention it looks like tis maybe 5% done after 6 years of work. please just let this crap die already. I am sick and tired of hearing about it year after year after year after year. This project is so doomed it isn't even funny.
Guranteed if you brought this up with any seasoned game dev studio they would tell you its a pile of junk.
Here we have a perfect example of a person that live up to the so called "Hardcore Kiddy" stereotype. Everybody that does not agree with his way is a "carebear", and everyone that doesn't support full item looting is a WoW player.
How you use those games as examples is laughable. Darktide is close to empty. Last report I heard from Zaxtor99 was that he was amazed a player base of 200+ was online, Shadowbane, yes, we all know what a big success that game was [/sarcasm] Tibia is popular for the same reason Runescape is popular, its free and has low system requirements. not to mention that the PVP is actually restricted, and you get a nice ban after 12 pk's, and, ofcourse, the server that actually promotes hardcore pvp is the least played of all Tibia servers. you say go look at the forums. count all those posts, you probably won't even find 1000 posts that support that PVP.
Also, the darkfall forums aren't THAT active. if your pointing out to the registered users, mind you the game has been in development since forever, and its forums have been up ever since.
At least I base this on facts, your merely assuming there is a market for it, but the facts go against that.
Its also funny how you try to swap away my comment where I stated that an EQ clone would be more successfull then FFA Hardcore pvp. especialy since World of Warcraft, who brought NOTHING new to the genre and is a polished Everquest clone, holds over 7,5 million players and holds over half of the mmorpg subscriber market. again, facts are facts.
the fact that your flaming me for actually pointing out the facts is amusing, but I suggest you drop that. if don't like it somebody says something negative about your game (which wasn't even about the game directly), then don't come to a forum where people share opinions & FACTS.
Don't go into discussion with me unless you bring some facts to back up your arguement. so far you have picked 2 games that seem to be on the edge of dying (AC and Shadowbane), a game that is partly against hardcore pvp, and has the lowest amount of players on the hardcore pvp server, and a game where it is questionable if the item looting is even the main selling point of the game.
Again, you are just regurgitating that same crap over and over. Your so called facts just merely show that PVE / carebear servers are more popular. No one is arguing against that fact and you seem to be the only one who fails to understand this.
If there were no market for the hardcore crowd these hardcore servers wouldnt exist. The fact is where they do exist they are populated and even more so when the game was fresh / modern. There have being no games recently that have catered for this hardcore crowd and there is a business opportunity right there.
And unless you can bring something of relevance to this discussion Im going to leave you to it.
Do you even read my posts, or do you just open your biased mouth without reading the full post? I NEVER said there wasn't a market for it, I said the market was incredibly small, hence the game won't be "Very successfull". the hardcore servers of those MMORPG is incredibly thin populated, and, has NOT enough players to fund an entire MMORPG.
just face it, you can't bring anything to this discussion. you merely assume there is a big market for it. I can understand your point, in theory it makes sense, no other game has it, and it LOOKS like its a hole in the market. yet if you look at the full picture, you will see that hardcore PVP has done very poorly among MMORPG's.
wrong, 2 words, UO.
Here we have a perfect example of a person that live up to the so called "Hardcore Kiddy" stereotype. Everybody that does not agree with his way is a "carebear", and everyone that doesn't support full item looting is a WoW player.
How you use those games as examples is laughable. Darktide is close to empty. Last report I heard from Zaxtor99 was that he was amazed a player base of 200+ was online, Shadowbane, yes, we all know what a big success that game was [/sarcasm] Tibia is popular for the same reason Runescape is popular, its free and has low system requirements. not to mention that the PVP is actually restricted, and you get a nice ban after 12 pk's, and, ofcourse, the server that actually promotes hardcore pvp is the least played of all Tibia servers. you say go look at the forums. count all those posts, you probably won't even find 1000 posts that support that PVP.
Also, the darkfall forums aren't THAT active. if your pointing out to the registered users, mind you the game has been in development since forever, and its forums have been up ever since.
At least I base this on facts, your merely assuming there is a market for it, but the facts go against that.
Its also funny how you try to swap away my comment where I stated that an EQ clone would be more successfull then FFA Hardcore pvp. especialy since World of Warcraft, who brought NOTHING new to the genre and is a polished Everquest clone, holds over 7,5 million players and holds over half of the mmorpg subscriber market. again, facts are facts.
the fact that your flaming me for actually pointing out the facts is amusing, but I suggest you drop that. if don't like it somebody says something negative about your game (which wasn't even about the game directly), then don't come to a forum where people share opinions & FACTS.
Don't go into discussion with me unless you bring some facts to back up your arguement. so far you have picked 2 games that seem to be on the edge of dying (AC and Shadowbane), a game that is partly against hardcore pvp, and has the lowest amount of players on the hardcore pvp server, and a game where it is questionable if the item looting is even the main selling point of the game.
Again, you are just regurgitating that same crap over and over. Your so called facts just merely show that PVE / carebear servers are more popular. No one is arguing against that fact and you seem to be the only one who fails to understand this.
If there were no market for the hardcore crowd these hardcore servers wouldnt exist. The fact is where they do exist they are populated and even more so when the game was fresh / modern. There have being no games recently that have catered for this hardcore crowd and there is a business opportunity right there.
And unless you can bring something of relevance to this discussion Im going to leave you to it.
Do you even read my posts, or do you just open your biased mouth without reading the full post? I NEVER said there wasn't a market for it, I said the market was incredibly small, hence the game won't be "Very successfull". the hardcore servers of those MMORPG is incredibly thin populated, and, has NOT enough players to fund an entire MMORPG.
just face it, you can't bring anything to this discussion. you merely assume there is a big market for it. I can understand your point, in theory it makes sense, no other game has it, and it LOOKS like its a hole in the market. yet if you look at the full picture, you will see that hardcore PVP has done very poorly among MMORPG's.
wrong, 2 words, UO.
1 word: Trammel, UO's hardcore pvp was "removed" because it scared people away. not to mention UO lost loads of people once Everquest, an mmorpg without Hardcore pvp, became popular and well known.
The case of UO had more to do with the dawn of Everquest, which featured 3d graphics and no PvP at all when it was released, and simply swamped UO's subs relatively quickly. The creation of Tram was an effort to keep people from walking, by creating a UO environment that was also PvE friendly and less ganktastic ... but ultimately the game hemmorraged many people to EQ in any case.
If you look at how UO developed after that, it did retain players, but the PvP realm was almost empty ... because most people if they have a choice between full-loot FFA PvP and *not* ... will choose *not*. Not all, but most.
EVE also demonstrates this: if you open the map in EVE and look to see where the players are concentrated, it's in high secuirty space, where you can't get ganked without serious consequences for the ganker. The vast majority of space in EVE is FFA space, but it's also very, very empty compared with high sec empire space. Even in a fairly hardcore game like EVE, the % of players who want to play in the FFA environment is small. I played EVE for 2.5 years and lived in 0.0 space for most of it, and I can tell you that the vast majority of the players are hanging out in Empire space, while the relatively smaller number of players are fighting the same folks again and again in 0.0.
FFA PvP takes a certain mentality, and it's not a common one among gamers.
Yes, because being able to murder people in PvP instantly makes you a genius, and nothing you say afterwards can ever be disputed.
"He who throws the first punch admits he's lost the argument."
1 word + explenation really
Why does open PVP have to not have any consequences? Of course that won't work, that's why it's never been done.
Darkfall isn't even doing that, they have a "complicated reputation system" basically alignment.
I can walk in your house right now, hack you up with a big machedi and walk away. You think I'm not going to caught? pft. I just killed you though didn't I?
A Work in Progress.
Add Me
Darkfall the only real game (if it comes out)
That right there voids everything you just said because you haven't been following the game at all.
You can kill someone INSIDE a city. If you wanted to. There are no zones, there are no rules (as far as why, IE: race vs race, etc), except for alignment and punishment.
A Work in Progress.
Add Me
@ donkey, read the FAQ at darkfalls website
you can kill anyone, anywhere
you can ally with anyone from any faction and even form outlaw bandit/pirate guilds that prey on your own race if youre a traitor or evil etc
im not saying these features will be in at release but, thats what their site says, you can attack anyone anywhere for whatever reason with anyone
Seeing the history of this game and all the other ambitious low budget MMOs recently ( DnL, Mourning, Wish, aso ), you'd be stupid not to. The feature list of Darkfall causes some additional suspicion, it is just way too tightly fitted to the needs of an abysmally small segment of the MMO playerbase.
Darkfall the only real game (if it comes out)
That is not factual at all. UO was doing very well without a carebear land. UO steadilty grew to 185,000 subscribers over a span of two and a half years while it was completely open PvP and full loot - no consensual PvP whatsoever.
Six months after the consensual only Trammel was piggybacked on to the open PvP full loot world, the game had only grown by 15,000 more subscriptions. 15k is very little next to 185k.
The highest subscriptions since the consensual only Trammel was added were only 65,000 more and it was a very short lived peak surrounding the Age of Shadows release. For most of the time since the consensual Trammel was introduced, the game has not grown.
Since Trammel was added to the open PvP full loot game, UO has actually lost 55,000 subscribers overall and now sits around 130,000. The game stopped growing and is dying now. Many say the consensual only game world piggyback onto the open PvP full loot game, killed the "game."
Well the story I have been told (may be wrong, as I said I haven't played) was that the subs were high, then a certain other game came along and now UO was bleeding subs like crazy. In an effort to stop that they implementd trammel in effect making it more safer, more like that other game. Did it work, maybe - the game didnt' die. So in effect Trammel may have saved it.
Venge Sunsoar
The thing is, the open PvP, full loot UO did not need to be saved. It was growing at a good consistent rate for it's entire existence, over two and a half years, even right up to the release of the carebear lands. There was never an overall loss of subscribers or even slowing of growth, absolutely nothing to justify making such dramatic changes. The only excuse I have ever been given is "churn," but churn is less important than active growth. A game will always have churn, but as long as more players are joining than leaving, the game continues to grow - just as the open PvP, full loot UO did in fact. Of course there are many factors, but the fact that the game never lost subscribers and continued on a consistent growth rate until after the carebear lands were released is hardly something to ignore.
What happened is that after the much prettier 3d Everquest and Asheron's Call were released and had grown to over 300,000 subscribers combined, even though UO had continued on the same growth rate since it's release during this period, a year later the greedy EA decided to release a carebear version of Ultima Online also in order to compete and hopefully capture some of the same market the other two games were capturing. The sole mistake was piggybacking these new carebear lands onto the existing game, essentially creating two sets of rules for the same game, an easy set and a challenging set. It was a no brainer, everyone took their cake and ate it too, but as a result the virtual world was ruined and the "game" lost, forever destroyed.
Ironically, after changing focus to a carebear type game, Ultima Online actually put itself in direct competition with these newer 3d carebear games and alienated their long-term playerbase at the same time; terrible mistakes indeed.
The sole mistake was piggybacking these new carebear lands onto the existing game, essentially creating two sets of rules for the same game, an easy set and a challenging set. It was a no brainer, everyone took their cake and ate it too, but as a result the virtual world was ruined and the "game" lost, forever destroyed.
Yeah that's the weak point of what you wrote. If most UO players just loved the full loot FFA PvP system, they wouldn't have migrated to the other rulseset. The fact that players stampeded to the other ruleset simply reinforces the main point that a few of us here have been making: given a choice, most players will choose to avoid full loot PvP games and, when playing a game that allows that, will choose to play in areas where that aspect isn't present. Thus demonstating that the market for ful loot FFA PvP is indeed a *very* small one. Even in pre-Tram UO, a "hardcore PvP game", virtually all the players opted for a non-FFA ruleset when it was made available. It speaks voumes as to the playing preferences of most gamers.
Wrong, it proves nothing other than human nature - most will always take the easy path taking advantage of everything easily available to them (step through a moongate - become invulnerable!); especially when the material benefits are the same! The only way to have seen which game was superior would have been to create new carebear servers and left the virtual world servers alone.