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That must be your experience talking from playing AOC.
Darn I didn't realize the game was crap. I should stop playing then and play a game that isn't crap like AOC. Oh wait a minute - when did I start believing the opinion of people that haven't even played a game that the game is crap.
Perhaps if you had actually played WAR we might think you were a concerned citizen. But since you haven't (which I read in one of your other posts) then WTF crusade are you on.
Do you honestly believe you can convince people enjoying WAR to leave WAR for AOC by posting about xfire figures?
I got no idea what it will do in the coming weeks. I'm guessing that it will probably have a significant drop as the month ends and free subs run out, where after about a month or two people hit lvl 40-50 and found that aoc was unfinished crap.
So I'm guessing however that it won't drop as fast as AoC since war seems like a basically complete game.
However, long term I'm thinking it will probably not do much better since it has some critical flaws in lack of in game communication which help people get the sense that the game is alive and build connections. With this lacking and the game being very large and spread out people won't see a lot of people around except in the main cities. Unfortunately many new people may not stay with the game till they get to the city so ultimately they will leave.
So I'll predict that long term war is gonna very likely be another minor game in the galaxy of wow wannabes...
Ok, here's a few things to think about.
It is entirely logical to predict a drop in usage in a game when the free month runs out because you have 6 months of preorders coming up vs. one month of people choosing to buy the game. In all games (except one) a drop in subscriptions is entirely predictable and logical. Ths weekend will be people playing that is either staying or want the last bit of satisfaction before the sub runs out.
Now, next weekend, we have the entire US pre-order population at a choice point wether to continue with the game or stop playing. This will not be nearly the dip as it is in most game because of the GOA giving people in the EU market an extra week, so only one portion of the population is going to make a decision.
So it is going to be a drop of (people in the US who just played for the free month and decided not to continue with the game) Vs (People who will continue playing the game + People in the free month in EU + People that bought the game after release still in their first month.) Max drop I predict on this is 25% and that's pushing the negative quite a bit. a 15% drop is quite optimistic nowadays for a new MMO for retention.
Now, the week following is going to be another batch of the pre-orders being at a choice point for their subscription. So the equasion will look like this (People in the EU who just played for the free month and decided not to continue with the game + People who bought the game in the first week after release that decided not to continue after the first free month) Vs (People who decided from the US and EU to keep playing the game + People who decided to keep playing the game that bought it in the first week + People who are in their first month from buying the game in the second week and beyond)
At that point, no way do I see it dropping 20% or more. Now, here comes the part that is really needed.
After this point, we can start making reasonable guesses wether the game is growing because the people lost in a month is directly compared to the people gained on a single month basis. At this point we can actually (reasonably) determine if a game is growing or shrinking. Until then, you are trying to find facts to prove your assumption instead of looking at the facts to reach a conclusion. Until you can eliminate unknown quantities that cannot be compared (like comparing loosing players from 6 monthsof sales from preorders to one month in sales) and declaring that the game is failing when the factors are so out of whack, you loose credibility.
And knowing your agenda doesn't hurt either.
To all a good evening and hope that I made some sense to some here.
Xfire doesnt even work for warhammer europe so what does it matter?
Tell me with a straight face that WAR is not in trouble when Xfire show a crazy -26% DECLINE FROM LAST FRIDAY. Look, this is absolutely not normal www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/
I think we see the beginning of a very sad future for WAR. Mass migration, server merge and 50000 subs after Lich King.
You need to start to be objective. Your observation is - your analysis and prediction is a complete piece of crap.
If Warhammer follows all other products we should see a decline from the initial launch until subscriptions starts - 'I hate the game', 'I like WoW more', 'My computer cannot run it' etc.
The questions are then:
- How many people will sub? Do we know - NO.
- How large is new in-flow of players? Do we know - NO.
- What attrition will Warhammer have of players that have started to play the game? Do we know - NO (WoW has roughly 33% pa).
Given that the first observation is in line with a normal expectation and the answers to the key questions are unknown we can only wait and see. And this is true regardless if you like the game, hate the game, wants the game to succeed or wants the game to fail. Same story every time.
Get hold of your brain and start to think.
damn... u cant bloody use xfire for sub numbers get that into your THICK heads! plz..... not everyone fking uses it...
Ohhh Boy you are setting yourself up. All I have to do next monday is to show you that WAR is down another 15%, and the monday after I will show you that it will keep roling that way. You can't force people to play this crap even though you obviously love it.
LOL.....boy you sure are swole about all the people ditching AoC, aren't you? Providing there are more than enough people to sustain a good server population - which I've seen no signs of slowing so far for most of them - that's all anyone really needs. Do I hope more people play the game in the future, if I think the game producer is doing a good job? Sure, as that will lead to (hopefully) more investment in the game and more by good games by that company in the future.
I'll keep playing WAR while it's fun. I hope that continues, as it seems like the best option out there for what I'm looking for at the moment. If it doesn't become fun, I'll stop playing. I surely won't rely on your Xfire though or your posts to tell me how WAR is going.
OK Mr.Troll - belly has to be full now, time for your nap!
Well according to you population trends in game is inverse proportional to Xfire trends so I see where you are getting the AoC ditching fact from. AoC Xfire trend is up, so AoC must obviously loose customers..LOL..
Anyway keep going at your game, it's all good, but it ain't trolling to state the fact which is Xfire show that Xfire users visited WAR 20% less than last week. How you can claim this to be a positive sign is a mystery to me, but by all means I do not want to burst the bubble. See you next monday.
Honestly, dude.
You like AoC.. you don't like WAR. We get it.
Why do you even bother? Why don't you just go play your game and let people who enjoy WAR play theirs?
What does monitoring XFire numbers and posting doom and gloom about WAR's numbers all the time do for you? Does it make you feel better or give you a sense of accomplishment or bloat your ego?
Truly sad, my friend.
_________________________________
JonMichael
Currently: AION, an MMO Beta under NDA
Played: WAR, LOTRO, Hellgate: London, CoX, GW, SotNW, DAOC, EQ2, SWG, WoW, AO, Horizons, Second Life, There, TSO
Beta'd: There, Second Life, EQ2, DAOC:LotM, LOTRO, Tabula Rasa, Gods and Heroes, Hellgate: London, Requiem:Bloodymare, AoC, WAR, DDO, Fallen Earth
A more accurate way might be to check out guilds on wardb.com. Because the guild view shows last login time of all players. I think it doesn't look too bad. There are some guilds, though, whose players seem to have stopped playing the game (last login 7 days ago).
Anyway, we can only make assumptions. Guess we have to wait and see.
You are completly right but you have forgotten 1 important factor in this, WotLK launch Nov 13th
Oct 18th - Free month over for majority
Oct 25th - Free month over for those delayed and those who bought it a bit later
Nov 1st to Nov 12th - Should be pretty stable
Then a steady drop depending on the success of WoW for about a month (people waiting to see if its good or not, time for sub to end, etc.)
So we pretty much won't know how War will settle for a very long time
Exactly - due to two factors that drown the current data set - people that try out and do not like and later the WotLK release.
We will have a clearer grasp of things at the end of Q1 or so next year. Until then we are like analysts trying to make stock market predictions.
Xfire shows DAY by DAY the actual player numbers.
It showed exactly what happeend to AOC on a weekly basis.
Xfire is based on samples. And its sample base is FAR more accurate than samples used for measuring the popularity of TV broadcasts btw.
For a Swedish TV broadcast you need a sample of about 1000 families. The complete commercial market is based on these systems btw.
And the error is less than 3% for all programs being watched above the 200.000 mark.
Xfire has .... 11.000.000 registred users. So the error is even smaller.
You can even see the fluctuation when an extanded patch is being applied to certain games.
Yes it is THAT accurate.
Just one other point. The 'drop' at the end of the free month on Xfire isn't as drastic as you think. Most players that played the game and decided it wasn't for them have probably already greatly decreased their playtime leading up to their cancellation date.
In other words, if someone feels like the game is entirely revolved around scenario grind-fest(ME).. they probably didn't spend the last two weeks of their free month grinding scenerios or playing much at all(ME)The effects of my cancelled account won't be seen on Xfire at the end of my free month, they were already seen over the last two weeks. It's not like a player who decides to quit is going to go crazy the last few days trying to gain as much renown as possible.
The huge drops in Xfire over the last 10 days really has to be people that already decided they were going to quit, and they just stopped playing even though they could log in. In two weeks, the numbers are basically down 40% .. I really don't expect to see much of a drop at all after the free month expires.
But the trend is clearly very negative. There hasn't been a positive day (week over week) in about 2 weeks.
I think AOC stabilizing, Wraith coming on Nov 13th, and the lack of box sales of AOC... it's clear that it will be many months until War hits bottom
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/081010/20081010005390.html?.v=1
The key word is "registered" not actual subscribers.
Which means that if 750K people bought the game they registered to play it.........another thing is if those 750K registered players are still playing ithe game, and that Mr Jacob didn't mention it.
Need to wait a couple of months to be sure if those numbers are the true active subscribers.
The key word is "registered" not actual subscribers.
Which means that if 750K people bought the game they registered to play it.........another thing is if those 750K registered players are still playing ithe game, and that Mr Jacob didn't mention it.
Need to wait a couple of months to be sure if those numbers are the true active subscribers.
I shows that since War now has the same number of players as day 1.... a LOT of players don't actually play the game on a regular basis.
http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/
500 K at launch they said , now + 250 K they said.
And ... the same (or even less) number of players on line.
Check the server status btw. You'll see the activity is MUCH less in server status than 2 weeks ago.
So actually it's not so good news. A lot buy the hype on the shelves, but it actually has less players playing the thing.
Why do you think they made this press release
)))
The key word is "registered" not actual subscribers.
Which means that if 750K people bought the game they registered to play it.........another thing is if those 750K registered players are still playing ithe game, and that Mr Jacob didn't mention it.
Need to wait a couple of months to be sure if those numbers are the true active subscribers.
I shows that since War now has the same number of players as day 1.... a LOT of players don't actually play the game on a regular basis.
http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/
500 K at launch they said , now + 250 K they said.
And ... the same (or even less) number of players on line.
Check the server status btw. You'll see the activity is MUCH less in server status than 2 weeks ago.
So actually it's not so good news. A lot buy the hype on the shelves, but it actually has less players playing the thing.
Why do you think they made this press release
)))
Exactly what I said, 750K boxes sold = 750K "registrations"
But that doesn't mean that all those 750K ares till playing the game o re-subscribed.
The key word is "registered" not actual subscribers.
Which means that if 750K people bought the game they registered to play it.........another thing is if those 750K registered players are still playing ithe game, and that Mr Jacob didn't mention it.
Need to wait a couple of months to be sure if those numbers are the true active subscribers.
I shows that since War now has the same number of players as day 1.... a LOT of players don't actually play the game on a regular basis.
http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/
500 K at launch they said , now + 250 K they said.
And ... the same (or even less) number of players on line.
Check the server status btw. You'll see the activity is MUCH less in server status than 2 weeks ago.
So actually it's not so good news. A lot buy the hype on the shelves, but it actually has less players playing the thing.
Why do you think they made this press release
)))
Exactly what I said, 750K boxes sold = 750K "registrations"
But that doesn't mean that all those 750K ares till playing the game o re-subscribed.
Well this is why I post the Xfire numbers. I was initially very sceptic to them, but I have been thoroughly explained that Xfire numbers are representative for subnumbers. WAR is working well with Xfire on so it should be ok to use xfire player activity as a gauge for WAR subscriptionnumbers. WAR is down from #4 now to #6 and activity and number of players are down -26% from last friday.
www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/
750000 or not, but this game is not played by those customers... Another thing, don't you tell me mister Mark Jacobs that you are happy with only 750000 copies sold when you shipped 1.5 mill out to retail. Only half of the copies are sold and now as people start to realize the content of this game, I swear you will have a hard time reaching 1 mill even.
Xfire is highly innacurate for one simple fact.
It doesn't measure the relevant quantity.
Xfire measures time actually spent in game, while the relevant quantity is the number of monthly subscriptions.
I love WAR but I spend less than 1/2 time on it than I ever did on WoW. And that is a fact. Heck I almost spend more time talking about it with my RL guildmates and discussing tactics and strategies... and I love that bit almost as much as like playing the game itself. As the funny Brittish dude said a long time ago "We are not making just a game but a hobby." (paraphrase obviously) For birthday (amongst other things) my wife is buying me a Swordmaster figure that I can paint and keep by my keyboard while I play. Factor that in into your "success" formula.
By xfire standards a shell of game that is an enormous time-sink requiring you to be logged in 24 hrs per day would be a massive success while a highly satisfying one that leaves you with enough time for a RL would be a massive failure.
Xfire is simply not a relevant measure except very, very generally to follow trends within a certain particular game.
You last comment is exactly the point.
Warhammer has shown about a 40% drop in two weeks (comparing the same day of the week).
Xfire is highly innacurate for one simple fact.
It doesn't measure the relevant quantity.
Xfire measures time actually spent in game, while the relevant quantity is the number of monthly subscriptions.
I love WAR but I spend less than 1/2 time on it than I ever did on WoW. And that is a fact. Heck I almost spend more time talking about it with my RL guildmates and discussing tactics and strategies... and I love that bit almost as much as like playing the game itself. As the funny Brittish dude said a long time ago "We are not making just a game but a hobby." (paraphrase obviously) For birthday (amongst other things) my wife is buying me a Swordmaster figure that I can paint and keep by my keyboard while I play. Factor that in into your "success" formula.
By xfire standards a shell of game that is an enormous time-sink requiring you to be logged in 24 hrs per day would be a massive success while a highly satisfying one that leaves you with enough time for a RL would be a massive failure.
Xfire is simply not a relevant measure except very, very generally to follow trends within a certain particular game.
Sorry to bust your bubble, but Xfire can also display number of players (as in it does not only show the time). And as explained before the decline is as dramatic for number of players as gameingtime.
the numbers this weekend will be interesting. I still think war will do pretty well but time will tell...
---
Ethion
Orionman you are a very sad man. You have gone on saying.. you never played War. Yet you keep coming here to bash and troll the game. You have said Xfire numbers are not accurate to base subs off of. Yet, you say it's the end of War cause of a decline of Xfire users.
You honest to god.. make my brain hurt, reading your crap. Are you that sad... that you have to come here and try to bring down War... maybe you don't want to be alone with AoC sinking ship?? and want War to come down with it??
I dunno, i don't care what your reasons are. Fact is you bout dropped everyones IQ 10 points... making this thread.
Played WoW since launch and no one in my guild of 60+ players used xfire. And we used to clock about 30-35+ hrs a week back then. I know alot of mmo players who dont use xfire.
So yea you can use it to get a lose basis of how many people are playing a certain game but dont you shouldnt run for the hills if the figures show a drop.
Out of that 11MM users, I would wager 95% of them are in Asia. Much more populated than US/Europe, and I'd bet much more apt to use a program like that. And has WAR even been released in Asia yet? I don't think so. I don't buy there are anywhere close to even 11MM users in the US, not even a sniff of that, since not a single person I have ever gamed with has ever mentioned XFire.....and the vast majority of people here (who obviously are very avid gamers) don't use it at all. And 11MM lifetime or what? current? registration by IP, or just tossing in an Email address? People would need to see the data source to even have the slightest confidence in those registration figures.
Again the whole XFire argument is pretty silly, when you can get official numbers from legit game producers on a fairly regular (minimum every few months) basis. Aside from that, who cares?
And really - the most important thing about a game, is what is happening on YOUR server. Providing the game has enough members to turn a profit (which even that PoS AoC does), it's not like people play the whole server farm.