blablabla... technology blablabla... As the platform AoC is build on now is getting increasingly polished, every add on to the already existing product is just going keep diffrentiating AoC from any of the old DX9 (with no hope to upgrade to DX10) games... blablabla...
I do not know whether you deliberately throw out misleading statements, or whether you simply havent got a clue about what you are saying?
DX10 is just an API - A tool... DX10 is not a revolutionary new technology. It is simply evolution, natural progress of the tool that most gamedevelopers use already.
The task of porting existing DX9 applications to DX10 is more trivial than complex! Whether it will be worthwhile for older games is an intirely different matter. Feel free to have a look here for some facts on porting dx9->10
My guess on AoC in a year from now, is that a somewhat steady subscriber base enjoys a game that have matured a lot. The Game Director may have turned focus away from reinventing the wheel and have started doing what most other leading developers does: Bought into middleware technology that works.
This will let FC do what they are good at: Producing gaming content instead of fighting technology.
Quite a few players will have returned for their 2.nd or 3.rd time to AoC, just as a lot of players will have left looking towards the new emerging DX11 games.
(Gameplay wise dx11 will have more impact than dx10 because of the "on the fly" throttling features)
I don't tbink they are going to move to middleware since most of the work on their engine is already done. NOw it just needs to be streamlined. Remember that AO is porting over to the Conan engine and that theeir new MMO is using the same one. That's three dev teams that will be working with the same engine so you should see patches to the engine itself coming faster and faster.
My guess is that after the server mergers, we are left with 4 english servers in EU, 8 localized versions with lower pop and 5 US servers. Huge guesswork here, but I'd estimate about 10k paying customers per server once merged, with less on the Spanish servers. That leaves around 150k customers when we enter into 2009. With good patches with wanted features and content, they can keep that number through 2009 since there's a lot of people already with an account that's likely to recieve a "welcome back" email during the next year. While the ones here that quit make it sound like FC is the devil incarnate, for sure there's a lot of the 500k+ ex-subscribers that is going to try it again. I think the game will be good enough to keep quite a few of those. With the expansion next fall comes the opportunity to do another ad campaign and get more ex-players back, so I think they can actually improve their numbers a bit then (if everything goes right), making them cross back above the 200k mark in about a year. A lot of ifs and estimates, but I think that is a probable scenario if FC delivers in the coming months
I think your thought process is spot on as it's akin to mine :P Although I would like to add that as the market is always growing I think there is a good chunk of people out there that haven't played the game yet. Getting the message across to that core demograph, to see if they think they will like it or not comes down really to word of mouth from essentially those trying it out again and if it passes the grade second time out. The way things are moving now, you can feel the momentum with the game and the focus is great. Substance wise the past month has been the best yet, from which I'm sure the dev's take motivation as it really is a job well done lately. So long as FC can get the very much needed high level content in, this gives people a better impression that the company will look after you/them more when your max level. Taking steps to make Tarantia Commons forth coming update a high level zone instead of mid level is the exact thought process that is needed. Keeping this direction up is key.
Good stuff mentioned in these two posts, for sure.
Yes, I think there X-pac will help substantially. By the time it is released, a good amount of the game should be "finished" (in other words, at the point it was originally meant to be), and AoC will have a second chance at actually advertising the truth and win back a small number of the playerbase. However, if I predict AoC continues down the viral marketting path by the time their X-Pac runs along, they'll simply be plowing the final nail into their chest. It is highly interesting how a company is able to do this to themselves, but we'll see what they do.
The fact that the market is always growing is a good and bad thing, AA. Sure, I agree; word of mouth can help substantially, take VG for example. It basically plummeted to death until it was put on the station pass. By the time it reached rock bottom, over time it eventually has grown to a reasonable playerbase (I'd guess they now have maybe 50k subs), and I highly doubt that would have happened without word of mouth on the changes the game has made. However, right now I don't see how it's helping AoC at the moment; players are declining at a constant pace, there is still no signs of a plateau. However, it may help out later in the future now with Ymir's Pass, the PvP ugrade, the upcoming high-level content and the fact that FC right now seems to be desperately (in a good way) working their arses off. Keep in mind though, even if word of mouth actually helps this game in the future (if anything, of all people you should know, it's been dramatically HURTING this game), it will only be of a mediocre assistance.
The bad thing about the market growing is, obviously, more competition. Multitudes upon multitudes of new, fresh meat is on the horizon. While overall I believe AoC has substantially helped itself in the long run by keeping up it's graphics and quality (whereas this is going to dramatically stunt WAR in the future, that I can guarantee), it is questionable whether that is enough to keep it on the same level of upcoming games. Hell, right now it's questionable if the game can be held up to current MMOs. HOWEVER... as you say, and this is a statement I agree with 110%... "keeping this [content upgrades] up is key". I believe what content they add, how quickly they add it, and the quality they make it with is a HUGE factor on the success of this game.
Comments
I do not know whether you deliberately throw out misleading statements, or whether you simply havent got a clue about what you are saying?
DX10 is just an API - A tool... DX10 is not a revolutionary new technology. It is simply evolution, natural progress of the tool that most gamedevelopers use already.
The task of porting existing DX9 applications to DX10 is more trivial than complex! Whether it will be worthwhile for older games is an intirely different matter. Feel free to have a look here for some facts on porting dx9->10
My guess on AoC in a year from now, is that a somewhat steady subscriber base enjoys a game that have matured a lot. The Game Director may have turned focus away from reinventing the wheel and have started doing what most other leading developers does: Bought into middleware technology that works.
This will let FC do what they are good at: Producing gaming content instead of fighting technology.
Quite a few players will have returned for their 2.nd or 3.rd time to AoC, just as a lot of players will have left looking towards the new emerging DX11 games.
(Gameplay wise dx11 will have more impact than dx10 because of the "on the fly" throttling features)
I don't tbink they are going to move to middleware since most of the work on their engine is already done. NOw it just needs to be streamlined. Remember that AO is porting over to the Conan engine and that theeir new MMO is using the same one. That's three dev teams that will be working with the same engine so you should see patches to the engine itself coming faster and faster.
I think your thought process is spot on as it's akin to mine :P Although I would like to add that as the market is always growing I think there is a good chunk of people out there that haven't played the game yet. Getting the message across to that core demograph, to see if they think they will like it or not comes down really to word of mouth from essentially those trying it out again and if it passes the grade second time out. The way things are moving now, you can feel the momentum with the game and the focus is great. Substance wise the past month has been the best yet, from which I'm sure the dev's take motivation as it really is a job well done lately. So long as FC can get the very much needed high level content in, this gives people a better impression that the company will look after you/them more when your max level. Taking steps to make Tarantia Commons forth coming update a high level zone instead of mid level is the exact thought process that is needed. Keeping this direction up is key.
Good stuff mentioned in these two posts, for sure.
Yes, I think there X-pac will help substantially. By the time it is released, a good amount of the game should be "finished" (in other words, at the point it was originally meant to be), and AoC will have a second chance at actually advertising the truth and win back a small number of the playerbase. However, if I predict AoC continues down the viral marketting path by the time their X-Pac runs along, they'll simply be plowing the final nail into their chest. It is highly interesting how a company is able to do this to themselves, but we'll see what they do.
The fact that the market is always growing is a good and bad thing, AA. Sure, I agree; word of mouth can help substantially, take VG for example. It basically plummeted to death until it was put on the station pass. By the time it reached rock bottom, over time it eventually has grown to a reasonable playerbase (I'd guess they now have maybe 50k subs), and I highly doubt that would have happened without word of mouth on the changes the game has made. However, right now I don't see how it's helping AoC at the moment; players are declining at a constant pace, there is still no signs of a plateau. However, it may help out later in the future now with Ymir's Pass, the PvP ugrade, the upcoming high-level content and the fact that FC right now seems to be desperately (in a good way) working their arses off. Keep in mind though, even if word of mouth actually helps this game in the future (if anything, of all people you should know, it's been dramatically HURTING this game), it will only be of a mediocre assistance.
The bad thing about the market growing is, obviously, more competition. Multitudes upon multitudes of new, fresh meat is on the horizon. While overall I believe AoC has substantially helped itself in the long run by keeping up it's graphics and quality (whereas this is going to dramatically stunt WAR in the future, that I can guarantee), it is questionable whether that is enough to keep it on the same level of upcoming games. Hell, right now it's questionable if the game can be held up to current MMOs. HOWEVER... as you say, and this is a statement I agree with 110%... "keeping this [content upgrades] up is key". I believe what content they add, how quickly they add it, and the quality they make it with is a HUGE factor on the success of this game.
AoC has a huge uphill battle for the word of mouth campaign. It has become the lexicon of a bad game in WoW and WAR chats.
Waiting for the next thing
FunCom has already stated they are adding DirectX 10 in the next update.