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Funcom should do like Turbine...
Skeeterxi
Member Posts: 265
And credit old accounts with a week of free gameplay so old players can come back and test it out. Once in a while Turbine will have an event like this for Lotro and it will last a week or so. I think it would be a good idea for Funcom. I'm sure there are a lot of people who are curious about trying all the changes but feel burned by Funcom and don't want to pay because they have doubts. Advertise it on forums and send out emails to old accounts. Theres a lot of people interested in trying it out to see if there was improvements, especially now that there is a new GD, but most just won't pay to try it out again.
Comments
Well, FC mentions in their Q3 report that they plan on giving out free trials in the beginning of '09, so I wouldn't be surprised if they offered free time to old players as well. It only makes sense, considering by then they probably would have added the stuff that was originally meant to be in at launch.
Yes, they should definitely do this, but before they do it, they'll have to make sure there really is some obvious stuff that shows how the game is different from before. Just less bugs won't do it.
Offering trials for a dead game. I'm missing somethign here.
I'm not a no life that sits in front of his computer all day long, I'm an intern that sits in front of his computer all day long.
A game with about 100k subs in NA and about 150k subs in Europe is dead? I must be missing something.
As others have said they plan on doing this once DX10 is on the live servers somewhere around the end of Jan.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
Awww I was hoping for an Asheron's Call 2 reference.
A game with about 100k subs in NA and about 150k subs in Europe is dead? I must be missing something.
As others have said they plan on doing this once DX10 is on the live servers somewhere around the end of Jan.
Where did you get the numbers? Source?
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
A game with about 100k subs in NA and about 150k subs in Europe is dead? I must be missing something.
As others have said they plan on doing this once DX10 is on the live servers somewhere around the end of Jan.
Where did you get the numbers? Source?
Q4 estimated numbers?? I saw that flying around here somewhere.
Well I've deleted the game from my harddrive and threw away the disks. Unless they include an online download, I won't come back... and even then I may not...
Wise word from an intelligent man...NOT. Tell me do you also kick your radio if it buzzes, or perhaps you hit your car with a sledgehammer when it's time to change the airintake. lol. If AoC game you performance issues at launch the sensible thing to do would be to put it on the shelf for a while. On the other hand though, you are probably just pulling our leg
Wise word from an intelligent man...NOT. Tell me do you also kick your radio if it buzzes, or perhaps you hit your car with a sledgehammer when it's time to change the airintake. lol. If AoC game you performance issues at launch the sensible thing to do would be to put it on the shelf for a while. On the other hand though, you are probably just pulling our leg
I didn't start playing this game right at launch so I didn't have the usual start up game issues. What I did have to recall is though I like PvP, I don't like rampant ganking that have no consequences (I should have learned that back in my UO days). So I deleted and now play Warhammer. At least there I can count oun team play... well sort of.
Say what you want. The games not for me and as someone who belongs to a rather large online gaming group, many had the same complaint and won't go back either (well they might for a week of freebie look 'n see)
A game with about 100k subs in NA and about 150k subs in Europe is dead? I must be missing something.
As others have said they plan on doing this once DX10 is on the live servers somewhere around the end of Jan.
And I say there are 10k players. Oops my source is as reliable as yours. Sadly there is no independant source for player numbers and the companies ( not just saying FC) can use many variations of population counting to get numbers that make them look good. Its the cousin of creative accounting which is also used liberally by companies.
Also those numbers you listed, while ok, are far from what FC was planning on having at this point. THAT is fact. You dont kill harmless hamsters driving a hype machine ( please see current mount discussion that they released a video marketing campaign of before launch as an example) like they did prelaunch and expect to have just "average" numbers.
Fungerer som det skal
Need a digital download?
http://aocanonymous.googlepages.com/index.html
A game with about 100k subs in NA and about 150k subs in Europe is dead? I must be missing something.
As others have said they plan on doing this once DX10 is on the live servers somewhere around the end of Jan.
Where did you get the numbers? Source?
Q4 estimated numbers?? I saw that flying around here somewhere.
I see, so it's just a meaningless guess. Thanks.
To be honest, I don't really care what the sub numbers are. I do get tired of people slinging baseless claims around as if they were fact in an attempt to deceive people.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
What I did have to recall is though I like PvP, I don't like rampant ganking that have no consequences (I should have learned that back in my UO days).
So, this is the reason you do not try again? Even though this issue does not exist anymore?
I am confused over stupid answers like this.
WoW in the first few months would be down for hours or days at a time during launch, yet people were willing to give them a chance. WAR's population is decreasing each day, yet people do not complain about the issue with the non-contribution system (oops...you mean Mythic lied also?)
So, because Funcom kicked your dog, and stole your girlfriend...oh wait...they didn't. See how silly that sounds? Yet, you hold a grudge for something else that is not an issue anymore.
People are ridiculous.
What I did have to recall is though I like PvP, I don't like rampant ganking that have no consequences (I should have learned that back in my UO days).
So, this is the reason you do not try again? Even though this issue does not exist anymore?
I am confused over stupid answers like this.
WoW in the first few months would be down for hours or days at a time during launch, yet people were willing to give them a chance. WAR's population is decreasing each day, yet people do not complain about the issue with the non-contribution system (oops...you mean Mythic lied also?)
So, because Funcom kicked your dog, and stole your girlfriend...oh wait...they didn't. See how silly that sounds? Yet, you hold a grudge for something else that is not an issue anymore.
People are ridiculous.
Yes and these types of responses are making me (and people like me) just want to come back and play again.
Heres a hint: Trying to refute my true feelings about the game by mocking me is not a successful marketing technique.
Now mock away and continue to push me and others like me further away.
BTW, had you not of mocked me, I actually thought for a moment that if it was true what you wrote it might be worth returning.... but after reading all the added garbage, I'm thinking, "not so much"
Warning #1: A statistician will probably tell me why this approach is completely wrong... it probably is... but what the heck, it's probably as good as any other guesstimate... you've been warned.
Warning #2: I really don't care what the actual subscription numbers are... I subscribed when the game was launched, left because the servers began to feel empty, and plan to try it again when the server merge happens.
One potential way to measure game usage is by taking a game we all have rough numbers on (WoW at 11 million last time I checked), and then use Xfire as a statistical sample plus some basic math...
As of this moment:
That gives us a multiplier that we can use against the AoC number, assuming that there are statistically as many people running Xfire with WoW (as a percentage) as those who run Xfire with AoC.
So... with lots of assumptions and some questionable statistical relevance (remember, I warned you
), one could make the argument that AoC has about 100k subscribers.
Not bad. Not great, but hardly a "dead game" as one previous poster mentioned.
As for the OP's suggestion, I completey agree. Other MMO's have certainly set this precedent (offer a "come back for 1 month free"), and I'd be surprised if Funcom doesn't try the same thing. I suspect they're waiting to get things a bit more polished, DX10, etc. before they try though...
Yes and these types of responses are making me (and people like me) just want to come back and play again.
Heres a hint: Trying to refute my true feelings about the game by mocking me is not a successful marketing technique.
Now mock away and continue to push me and others like me further away.
BTW, had you not of mocked me, I actually thought for a moment that if it was true what you wrote it might be worth returning.... but after reading all the added garbage, I'm thinking, "not so much"
Thats right. Because I responded to a comment about something that does not exist in game anymore, I have pushed you away from the game?
No one makes up your mind for you,....or do they?
Luckily so many issues from launch are gone, but some people let others hurt their feelings so much so, that they decide to not go back?
This makes even less sense than the reasons you don't try in the first place.
xfire shows less than 1000 players playing AoC. Ive even seen it under 800. So by your numbers, AoC has around 30k subs which puts Funcom into bankrupcy.
xfire shows less than 1000 players playing AoC. Ive even seen it under 800. So by your numbers, AoC has around 30k subs which puts Funcom into bankrupcy.
Sorry I should have been clearer - the numbers I was working off of for both games (3,687 for AoC and 362,977 for WoW) were the number of hours played, not the number of users (I'm looking at the"hours" column here: www.xfire.com/games/)
Using the same logic, but this time with the reported number of users:
Using 120.05 as the multiplier...
Surprisingly consistent between the two different methods of calculation (117k vs. 113k), perhaps lending additional credence to the methodology. It would be helpful if we had definite subscriber numbers from some other games of course, to check the multiplier...
I have no idea how much it costs to run a game, but:
Probably enough to keep the game afloat.
xfire shows less than 1000 players playing AoC. Ive even seen it under 800. So by your numbers, AoC has around 30k subs which puts Funcom into bankrupcy.
Sorry I should have been clearer - the numbers I was working off of for both games (3,687 for AoC and 362,977 for WoW) were the number of hours played, not the number of users (I'm looking at the"hours" column here: www.xfire.com/games/)
Using the same logic, but this time with the reported number of users:
Using 120.05 as the multiplier...
Surprisingly consistent between the two different methods of calculation (117k vs. 113k), perhaps lending additional credence to the methodology. It would be helpful if we had definite subscriber numbers from some other games of course, to check the multiplier...
I have no idea how much it costs to run a game, but:
Probably enough to keep the game afloat.
More than enough. Also considering their $25m estimated development budget:
800,000 copies @ $49.99(SE's at least) = $39,992,000
Even though they had bad retention, they banked almost $15m in profit from box sales alone. Add that to the people playing now and people who were subbed previously, it is a financial success. Too bad it was mired with problems after launch.
You should also count in that there are some issues with X-fire in AoC so more people use ventrilo there. 150K players would probably be close to the real number. Still. it is not great numbers but it could be worse. It seems to have less players than LOTRO and WAR but more than EQ2, and more importantly are the number rising now. 30K is a really bad guess, it have a lot more hours than EQ2 and EQ2 is suppose to have around 100K players, not 20K.
But I agree with the OP, a free weeks for people who bought the game but quited is a good idea, but they should wait with it until Tarantia common district is out, the high level game is still lacking content.
I played AoC for awhile after launch, but left due to the lack of quests at the end. I told my friends in AoC I would probably come back when the DX10 update comes. A free week or 2 for old players to come back and see what's new would be a good idea for funcom. I would surely come back and see. I didn't spend a bunch of money on my computer just to use lame old DX9
Besides the giant list of problems and missing content with this game, some of which has been fixed, one of my biggest gripes is how small and linear the world is. The instancing and zoning in AoC destroys immersion for me. Unless they are planning to rebuild and open up /expand the game world, then get rid of the instancing of the "persistant" game world zones, there is no way I will play it again. I couldn't stand how limited exploration was, and how many invisible walls / inaccessible area there were.
It was clear that the game was designed with a future on consoles in mind. That makes me throw up in my mouth.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Not a big deal, but something to keep in mind - $49.99 is what retailers sold it for (after they purchased it from the distributor for probably around half that). FC would ultimately only get a percentage of the box sales, not the full retail price.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Not a big deal, but something to keep in mind - $49.99 is what retailers sold it for (after they purchased it from the distributor for probably around half that). FC would ultimately only get a percentage of the box sales, not the full retail price.
This is an age old discussion that seems to keep cropping up. I use to have a link to someone's analysis on how much it cost to create, produce, update, and maintain games... it's not cheap...
Yes a lot of revenue is generated by a game but the costs are high too. Payroll for everyone involved in the game, hardware, upkeep and replacement of hardware, internet costs, building costs (lease or payment) electric, gas, garbage, telephone. Then you have the retailers, the marketers, the producers, the shareholders of the company, I can't even think of all the things associated with a game.
The bottom line is a game generates a lot of money. But it also has a lot of outgo too.
(Wish that link had never been wiped)