I have seen an huge change in number of players since I start beginning of this year. If I search for people on that search thing up in the corner I get close to 20 online pleyers pr level and that is on a weekday out of primetime. I think AoC has much better population than many other games I have played.
psssssssst I will tell ya a secret. they just merged servers from 50 down to18. Ya think that might have something to do with how many people you are seeing ?
Ohhh don't be too hard on the Noob 20 people pr level logged on in none prime time is a lot, merge or no merge.
shit I didn't see a dozen people in Tarrantia on Wicanna EST prime time just now. AoC has not seen 20 people per level since the week after launch LOL.70K subs on 20 servers dude, read it and weep. Thats a average of what 3K per server if everyone logged on at the same time. I used to see 2 - 3 K logged on Guiniverre when I played DaOC and AoC is averaging that as a total server pop?
He estimates that the "Age of Conan" now has around 70,000 players, against the 415,000 active players Funcom reported in August last year.
his credentials:
Currently working for DnB NOR Markets in Oslo, Norway with equity research, following the Nordic Information Technology sector. Previous experience from the software industry, MBA in International Business, undergrad Economics and Computer Science.
Current Position
* Equity Analyst at DnB NOR Markets
Education
* Monterey Institute of International Studies, Fisher Graduate School of International Business
DnB NOR Markets provides capital markets services. The company’s services include equities trading, corporate finance, foreign exchange dealing, and interest-rate futures and options. It also analyzes and advises on securities, interest rate, and currency markets and offers online investor accounting services. DnB Markets is based in Oslo, Norway and has offices in London, New York, and Singapore.
got any solid figures from another investment company or a quote from anyone with better credentials?
Until you do I think we can go with 70K as a pretty accurate figure. I am sure you do not like that figure, but that is just tough cookies as they say. The cat is no longer in the bag, the fanboys cry, the shills have no source to prove otherwise.
Last time I checked it's the guy that try to establish something that need to back it up with facts. You refer to one sentence by a guy you belive a lot in (Your whole post is about how much you belive in him actually). But you see, regardless of how much you worship this guy, you still have failed to bring up the calculation or other numbers that support your claim. I say again, Ref please?
Yep just one sentence from a guy with a MBA , 2 undergrad degrees and who evaluates companies and their worth as investments as his profession
Last time I checked the fanboys were the one posting that the game had several hundred thousand subscribers based on nothing more than Funcoms press releases and what they said they saw when playing..
Let me get something straight though, when XFire numbers were going down from 60K hours a day to 4K hours a day they were were bad and useless. In December when they got a spike back up into the 5k a day range they were good and wonderful tools. Now when a investment banker from a international company who has a MBA and 2 undergrad degrees uses them to project that the game has 70K subscribers they are once again unreliable and bad.
In the same way the haters seem to in a funny way look away from Xfire numbers now when AoC is up. My suggestion to you all, screw Xfire and play the game. If there is anything we have learned over the last days, it is that AoC now have serverpopulation supporting fun MMOing. That's all we really need to know.
"AoC is the most kick ass MMO ever made", Nack Gurtelrose.
In the same way the haters seem to in a funny way look away from Xfire numbers now when AoC is up. My suggestion to you all, screw Xfire and play the game. If there is anything we have learned over the last days, it is that AoC now have serverpopulation supporting fun MMOing. That's all we really need to know.
Here is the funny thing though. AOC is not 'up' on Xfire. It has been 50 for the past two days.. exactly where it was a month ago, and two months ago. The OP used one of AOC's 'good days' to try and convince people that AOC was trending higher. The fact is the game occassionally spikes up the charts a few spots, then falls back.
Read the early part of the thread.. people said " when it breaks into the low 40's, it will mean something". It did get up all the way to 45 for one day, which was kinda close.. but it has now fallen back to the 50's, like most people who have been following Xfire knew it would.
In the same way the haters seem to in a funny way look away from Xfire numbers now when AoC is up. My suggestion to you all, screw Xfire and play the game. If there is anything we have learned over the last days, it is that AoC now have serverpopulation supporting fun MMOing. That's all we really need to know.
Here is the funny thing though. AOC is not 'up' on Xfire. It has been 50 for the past two days.. exactly where it was a month ago, and two months ago. The OP used one of AOC's 'good days' to try and convince people that AOC was trending higher. The fact is the game occassionally spikes up the charts a few spots, then falls back.
Read the early part of the thread.. people said " when it breaks into the low 40's, it will mean something". It did get up all the way to 45 for one day, which was kinda close.. but it has now fallen back to the 50's, like most people who have been following Xfire knew it would.
Alandora, xfire is up about 30% in game time on xfire since early december. Back then it had about 930 active players on a tuesday. Yesterday it had about 1130. Thats a pretty big increase % wise. I posted my figures here on this forum proving this.
Regarding Thoresen. Hi is a good analyst, however he has been wrong many times. This is the nature of financial analysis. They are paid to give best guesses. Now read that last word again. Guesses! 70k is a guess. A good guess but still a guess. In addition the 70k guess does not take into cosideration the latest increase in players as it is several weeks old. Analysts give their figures to their customer first, then after a while they give it to the public. So its probably from december when funcom was 30% lower.
So lets assume that its correct and we know that xfire has grown by 30%. The new player base should be 91K.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
In the same way the haters seem to in a funny way look away from Xfire numbers now when AoC is up. My suggestion to you all, screw Xfire and play the game. If there is anything we have learned over the last days, it is that AoC now have serverpopulation supporting fun MMOing. That's all we really need to know.
Here is the funny thing though. AOC is not 'up' on Xfire. It has been 50 for the past two days.. exactly where it was a month ago, and two months ago. The OP used one of AOC's 'good days' to try and convince people that AOC was trending higher. The fact is the game occassionally spikes up the charts a few spots, then falls back.
Read the early part of the thread.. people said " when it breaks into the low 40's, it will mean something". It did get up all the way to 45 for one day, which was kinda close.. but it has now fallen back to the 50's, like most people who have been following Xfire knew it would.
Alandora, xfire is up about 30% in game time on xfire since early december. Back then it had about 930 active players on a tuesday. Yesterday it had about 1130. Thats a pretty big increase % wise. I posted my figures here on this forum proving this.
Regarding Thoresen. Hi is a good analyst, however he has been wrong many times. This is the nature of financial analysis. They are paid to give best guesses. Now read that last word again. Guesses! 70k is a guess. A good guess but still a guess. In addition the 70k guess does not take into cosideration the latest increase in players as it is several weeks old. Analysts give their figures to their customer first, then after a while they give it to the public. So its probably from december when funcom was 30% lower.
So lets assume that its correct and we know that xfire has grown by 30%. The new player base should be 91K.
Sorry, yeah, but the OP started this thread using the 'ranking' as his proof so that is what we go by. And the OP is the one throwing out the 200-350k subscriber number. Those are the posts most of us are replying to.
If you read this thread, most people think that both AOC populations AND Xfire use for AOC have been increasing the past month. Both for good reasons, and 'scam type' reasons. Mergers have created a lot of excitement, and more players per server means more fun gameplay which means the average time per player has increased. The cheap boxes also brought in a lot of new players. But also the Xfire numbers have been 'tampered' with because it is being actively promoted on the official forums.
One of the reasons these boards get trolled so much, and some 'average' posters end up sounding like trolls is because certain people (and their alts) are just egging them on by making rediculous comments. It just reminds players of the crazy hype comments that the developers were saying pre-launch.
The reason people created 'failcom' logos wasn't because the game was bad at launch (most players would just move on).. the reason there is so much 'hate' towards Funcom is because they were so deceptive and rediculous in their marketing pre-launch. The alt-poster on this forum is doing exactly the same thing... and it just stirs up the trolls.
In the same way the haters seem to in a funny way look away from Xfire numbers now when AoC is up. My suggestion to you all, screw Xfire and play the game. If there is anything we have learned over the last days, it is that AoC now have serverpopulation supporting fun MMOing. That's all we really need to know.
Here is the funny thing though. AOC is not 'up' on Xfire. It has been 50 for the past two days.. exactly where it was a month ago, and two months ago. The OP used one of AOC's 'good days' to try and convince people that AOC was trending higher. The fact is the game occassionally spikes up the charts a few spots, then falls back.
Read the early part of the thread.. people said " when it breaks into the low 40's, it will mean something". It did get up all the way to 45 for one day, which was kinda close.. but it has now fallen back to the 50's, like most people who have been following Xfire knew it would.
Alandora, xfire is up about 30% in game time on xfire since early december. Back then it had about 930 active players on a tuesday. Yesterday it had about 1130. Thats a pretty big increase % wise. I posted my figures here on this forum proving this.
Regarding Thoresen. Hi is a good analyst, however he has been wrong many times. This is the nature of financial analysis. They are paid to give best guesses. Now read that last word again. Guesses! 70k is a guess. A good guess but still a guess. In addition the 70k guess does not take into cosideration the latest increase in players as it is several weeks old. Analysts give their figures to their customer first, then after a while they give it to the public. So its probably from december when funcom was 30% lower.
So lets assume that its correct and we know that xfire has grown by 30%. The new player base should be 91K.
My personal guess is around 100 - 125K at present But then that is also just a guess.
It's a great game, it deserves so much more players though. I hope this game really does do better for it's self. The problem is the damage has all ready been done really. Lets hope funny fun funcom can pull things around, seems to be the case now!
One annoying thing about this game, is that the character creation is just SOO much....I just love to try loads of classes before I even start getting into one.....just means I have to make each and everyone look sexeh before I can play them
It's a great game, it deserves so much more players though. I hope this game really does do better for it's self. The problem is the damage has all ready been done really. Lets hope funny fun funcom can pull things around, seems to be the case now!
One annoying thing about this game, is that the character creation is just SOO much....I just love to try loads of classes before I even start getting into one.....just means I have to make each and everyone look sexeh before I can play them
Yes, damage has been done, but damage can be fixed. FC has already shown that they have the qualities I demand from my MMO developer:
They follow up on shit that needs to be fixed
They listen to oppinions and suggestions from the community
They are dedicated
They walk on fire to stand up for their guys
To give examples of the 4:
Fixed, Stability, lag, FPS, PvP,General Content, Bugs, More Zones, PvP equipment, Sieges, Population management
More items/receipts, more Lvl 80 content, Player Houses, The Merge-Transfer,..
Many people was hard on FC when the going was at it's toughest. But they kept plugging along in spite of this. They have lately showed very determined effords.
When EU had that little item merger bug in the middle of Saturday night, they pulled people into the office to sort things out for their gaming crowd.
Much of AoC is already in place. It is only a question about time now before people come back. We are seeing already a lot of people coming, but it will take several months before the game is back to old numbers.
Sorry, yeah, but the OP started this thread using the 'ranking' as his proof so that is what we go by. And the OP is the one throwing out the 200-350k subscriber number. Those are the posts most of us are replying to. If you read this thread, most people think that both AOC populations AND Xfire use for AOC have been increasing the past month. Both for good reasons, and 'scam type' reasons. Mergers have created a lot of excitement, and more players per server means more fun gameplay which means the average time per player has increased. The cheap boxes also brought in a lot of new players. But also the Xfire numbers have been 'tampered' with because it is being actively promoted on the official forums. One of the reasons these boards get trolled so much, and some 'average' posters end up sounding like trolls is because certain people (and their alts) are just egging them on by making rediculous comments. It just reminds players of the crazy hype comments that the developers were saying pre-launch. The reason people created 'failcom' logos wasn't because the game was bad at launch (most players would just move on).. the reason there is so much 'hate' towards Funcom is because they were so deceptive and rediculous in their marketing pre-launch. The alt-poster on this forum is doing exactly the same thing... and it just stirs up the trolls.
I agree with you. Good innsight! I am hoping that Funcom has learned that lying to the community directly reflects on their earnings. Still I dont really beleive that they will stop the lying and exagerations. Its in their nature, and its part of their company culture. This is because the majority owner and the CEO (Trond Aas) beleive in holding back information and twisting the truth. (i.e. lying) This trinkles down the organisation and becomes part of the company.
I beleive that most Funcom employees are honest, competent, and hard working people with the best intentions. But they are not the ones calling the shots.
Now having said that I sincerely beleive that AoC is an extremely good game. It is very good fun. I also beleive that the new Game Director is doing great things with the game and the community. I beleive the game will grow and that it will be a benchmark game.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
I agree about the new director, and about the game having gotten much better, especially the client stability issues. The lying from Funcom was basically only 2 people (1 of which is now gone) that we know of. And the new director is certainly a step up from MJ from warhammer.
But these forums are a different matter. I think most people have a ballpark figure of how many subscribers each game has. If you ask on LotRO, Warhammer, WOW an EVE... even the biggest fanboys will probably be within 25% of the average forum poster's opinion. Come to AOC, and Mr Alts and a few others are stil claiming 400% of the most likely value.
There is no other game on these forums, or on their official forums that seems to have a campaign to prove high subscriber numbers (or returning/new players) that really feels like a continuation of the deceitfulness of EE and GG. " Hi, i've never posted here before, but i just had to come here and tell you how great the game is and that I"m having a blast since returning" < total post count - 1>
Well, there are some pretty fanatic people over at Darkfall. Try writing bad stuff about Darkfall and you will be attacked. Having said that I agree that the AOC forum is a bit crazy. However it has changed during the last 6 months from an extreemly hate orientated attitude too a overly positive tone. Bottom line is that its a extreme attitude here. Either positive or negative.
As for subscription numbers i basically see three categories of people. The ones saying 50-70K subs, the ones saying 100-125k subs and the ones with 250k and above. The last one is just stupid. The server capacity now (after merge) is 300K players and they are far from full. Dont take them seriously. /ignore...
As for place on xfire AoC was between 55th and 58th back in early december. Now they are between 48 and 51. Quite nice. I am hoping this trend continues.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
Well, there are some pretty fanatic people over at Darkfall. Try writing bad stuff about Darkfall and you will be attacked. Having said that I agree that the AOC forum is a bit crazy. However it has changed during the last 6 months from an extreemly hate orientated attitude too a overly positive tone. Bottom line is that its a extreme attitude here. Either positive or negative. As for subscription numbers i basically see three categories of people. The ones saying 50-70K subs, the ones saying 100-125k subs and the ones with 250k and above. The last one is just stupid. The server capacity now (after merge) is 300K players and they are far from full. Dont take them seriously. /ignore... As for place on xfire AoC was between 55th and 58th back in early december. Now they are between 48 and 51. Quite nice. I am hoping this trend continues.
It's more than quite nice. 4250 gaming hours is with 7 hours server downtime (patchday yesterday).
so the real number is more like 4250/ (17/24) = 6070 on a normal weekday. Thats like in the 30's. We will see end of this week or in weekend how this is going. But mark my words. There is a huge backflux of people these days.
Well, there are some pretty fanatic people over at Darkfall. Try writing bad stuff about Darkfall and you will be attacked. Having said that I agree that the AOC forum is a bit crazy. However it has changed during the last 6 months from an extreemly hate orientated attitude too a overly positive tone. Bottom line is that its a extreme attitude here. Either positive or negative. As for subscription numbers i basically see three categories of people. The ones saying 50-70K subs, the ones saying 100-125k subs and the ones with 250k and above. The last one is just stupid. The server capacity now (after merge) is 300K players and they are far from full. Dont take them seriously. /ignore... As for place on xfire AoC was between 55th and 58th back in early december. Now they are between 48 and 51. Quite nice. I am hoping this trend continues.
It's more than quite nice. 4250 gaming hours is with 7 hours server downtime (patchday yesterday).
so the real number is more like 4250/ (17/24) = 6070 on a normal weekday. Thats like in the 30's. We will see end of this week or in weekend how this is going. But mark my words. There is a huge backflux of people these days.
Unless there is really something crazy that happens on patch days, it doesn't affect the numbers. Most of the time you can't even tell which Tuesdays they have 8 hr maintanince and which they have 15 min rolling restarts in WOW. Players will just wait to get their 2-4 hours of gametime. There have been 12hour downtimes on major patch days that actually see an increase (because people want to see the new content). The dowtimes are off-peak hours and people just wait to play when the servers come back up. Only in really long downtimes do they show up on Xfire.
As to Acuendor. I'm actually edging up closer to 100k myself. I think the low back in November was probably 75-80k, and they are up 20% since then. I don't think the numbers will stay this way long though. People with lvl 80s who returned are enjoying the increased populations because of the mergers.. but there still isn't a lot to do at 80. And the $5 box new players are going to still have a shock when they leave tortage.
We'll see. I just wish we could talk about the game without the two extremes.
Well, there are some pretty fanatic people over at Darkfall. Try writing bad stuff about Darkfall and you will be attacked. Having said that I agree that the AOC forum is a bit crazy. However it has changed during the last 6 months from an extreemly hate orientated attitude too a overly positive tone. Bottom line is that its a extreme attitude here. Either positive or negative. As for subscription numbers i basically see three categories of people. The ones saying 50-70K subs, the ones saying 100-125k subs and the ones with 250k and above. The last one is just stupid. The server capacity now (after merge) is 300K players and they are far from full. Dont take them seriously. /ignore... As for place on xfire AoC was between 55th and 58th back in early december. Now they are between 48 and 51. Quite nice. I am hoping this trend continues.
It's more than quite nice. 4250 gaming hours is with 7 hours server downtime (patchday yesterday).
so the real number is more like 4250/ (17/24) = 6070 on a normal weekday. Thats like in the 30's. We will see end of this week or in weekend how this is going. But mark my words. There is a huge backflux of people these days.
Unless there is really something crazy that happens on patch days, it doesn't affect the numbers. Most of the time you can't even tell which Tuesdays they have 8 hr maintanince and which they have 15 min rolling restarts in WOW. Players will just wait to get their 2-4 hours of gametime. There have been 12hour downtimes on major patch days that actually see an increase (because people want to see the new content). The dowtimes are off-peak hours and people just wait to play when the servers come back up. Only in really long downtimes do they show up on Xfire.
As to Acuendor. I'm actually edging up closer to 100k myself. I think the low back in November was probably 75-80k, and they are up 20% since then. I don't think the numbers will stay this way long though. People with lvl 80s who returned are enjoying the increased populations because of the mergers.. but there still isn't a lot to do at 80. And the $5 box new players are going to still have a shock when they leave tortage.
We'll see. I just wish we could talk about the game without the two extremes.
Main complaint for the time period was that PVP at 80 was over in a matter of seconds.
So what do the dev's do? They go ahead and nerf defensive gems - the only way a lot of classes were able to be viable at the time, and for PVP to actually be long enough to require tactics.
After that great decision pretty much every melee class, including tanks, were walking around one shotting everyone, and each other.
It is obvious that the population is not increasing. There are simply more people with subscriptions actually logging in. I've seen nothing to suggest that the population is increasing at all. Anyone I talked to in the brief time I spent on Agony was a long-time subscriber.
There is no fresh blood...the game is now in attrition mode.
It is obvious that the population is not increasing. There are simply more people with subscriptions actually logging in. I've seen nothing to suggest that the population is increasing at all. Anyone I talked to in the brief time I spent on Agony was a long-time subscriber. There is no fresh blood...the game is now in attrition mode.
It is obvious that the population is not increasing. There are simply more people with subscriptions actually logging in. I've seen nothing to suggest that the population is increasing at all. Anyone I talked to in the brief time I spent on Agony was a long-time subscriber. There is no fresh blood...the game is now in attrition mode.
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
Ohh, maybe it's the +50% in Xfire numbers he's refering to. lol
It is obvious that the population is not increasing. There are simply more people with subscriptions actually logging in. I've seen nothing to suggest that the population is increasing at all. Anyone I talked to in the brief time I spent on Agony was a long-time subscriber. There is no fresh blood...the game is now in attrition mode.
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
Ohh, maybe it's the +50% in Xfire numbers he's refering to. lol
Oh yes I didn't think of that one, stupid me lol
I am an old returning player from launch and I think the game is definately improving and yes there are alot of new players.
My reason for quitting the first time was due to the loads of game bugs and friends that left, now they have returned I am now back too.
It is obvious that the population is not increasing. There are simply more people with subscriptions actually logging in. I've seen nothing to suggest that the population is increasing at all. Anyone I talked to in the brief time I spent on Agony was a long-time subscriber. There is no fresh blood...the game is now in attrition mode.
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
Ohh, maybe it's the +50% in Xfire numbers he's refering to. lol
Oh yes I didn't think of that one, stupid me lol
I am an old returning player from launch and I think the game is definately improving and yes there are alot of new players.
My reason for quitting the first time was due to the loads of game bugs and friends that left, now they have returned I am now back too.
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by Soupgoblin
Originally posted by sancher36
Originally posted by ScamMan
Originally posted by sancher36
Originally posted by gamesrfun
It is obvious that the population is not increasing. There are simply more people with subscriptions actually logging in. I've seen nothing to suggest that the population is increasing at all. Anyone I talked to in the brief time I spent on Agony was a long-time subscriber. There is no fresh blood...the game is now in attrition mode.
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
Ohh, maybe it's the +50% in Xfire numbers he's refering to. lol
Oh yes I didn't think of that one, stupid me lol
I am an old returning player from launch and I think the game is definately improving and yes there are alot of new players.
My reason for quitting the first time was due to the loads of game bugs and friends that left, now they have returned I am now back too.
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
A subscription from which he can log into numerous servers and get an opinion that way - first hand experience.
for the last and i mean realy last time xfire and igoogle arent accurate maybe its on the rise there but it could still be at a stalmate or decreasing the only way u can know for sure iis if funcome releases a how many players are subbed list
It is worthless to compare between games but you can see trends in the same game with it. Anytime a new expansion releases it goes up, anytime a game closes down servers for several hours they drop a little. Look on the big gap on AoC when the server was down for the merge. Don't trust the exact % but if it moves 5% or more I would say we got a raise.
Also AoCs forum have more new and returning players than earlier so the game is gaining some players, how many and how many the game have now is still a question but it is still good news.
#46 and 4600 hours on a weekday. Not bad considdering the server transfers that will immobilizes a lot of characters.
Strike up the band, AOC is at half point to reaching LotRO (which has about 175k subscribers).
Why do you keep bumping this pathetic thread? Have you looked at the games AOC is competing against? AOC is now almost caught up to a game called "Twelve Sky".... and is still leagues behind anything that would be considered a successful MMORPG.
When you make a post about AOC moving up spots, you should list the games that it passed, that would be crazy funny. " OMG.. AOC is now more popular than Hello Kitty Online Lego Adventures!!!!! "
#46 and 4600 hours on a weekday. Not bad considdering the server transfers that will immobilizes a lot of characters.
Strike up the band, AOC is at half point to reaching LotRO (which has about 175k subscribers).
Why do you keep bumping this pathetic thread? Have you looked at the games AOC is competing against? AOC is now almost caught up to a game called "Twelve Sky".... and is still leagues behind anything that would be considered a successful MMORPG.
When you make a post about AOC moving up spots, you should list the games that it passed, that would be crazy funny. " OMG.. AOC is now more popular than Hello Kitty Online Lego Adventures!!!!! "
Doing that would be pathetic. There is absolutely no way you can compare Xfire numbers in between games and say "ohh this game got X number of players, therefore this other game got Y number of players". A game with PvE centric content would have less Ventrilo Xfire type of activity, while a heavy RvR type of game or a FPS team vs team type of game would have much higher Ventrilo or Xfire activity... SO let's keep it simple. AoC's Xfire numbers have increased and that indicates increasing population. Anything beyond that is not worth discussing even.
Comments
psssssssst I will tell ya a secret. they just merged servers from 50 down to18. Ya think that might have something to do with how many people you are seeing ?
Ohhh don't be too hard on the Noob
20 people pr level logged on in none prime time is a lot, merge or no merge.
shit I didn't see a dozen people in Tarrantia on Wicanna EST prime time just now. AoC has not seen 20 people per level since the week after launch LOL.70K subs on 20 servers dude, read it and weep. Thats a average of what 3K per server if everyone logged on at the same time. I used to see 2 - 3 K logged on Guiniverre when I played DaOC and AoC is averaging that as a total server pop?
70K? Ref please.
translate.google.com/translate 3rd paragraph from bottom
Fredrik Thoresen
He estimates that the "Age of Conan" now has around 70,000 players, against the 415,000 active players Funcom reported in August last year.
his credentials:
Currently working for DnB NOR Markets in Oslo, Norway with equity research, following the Nordic Information Technology sector. Previous experience from the software industry, MBA in International Business, undergrad Economics and Computer Science.
Current Position
* Equity Analyst at DnB NOR Markets
Education
* Monterey Institute of International Studies, Fisher Graduate School of International Business
* Augustana College
www.linkedin.com/in/fredrikth
who he works for - DnB NOR Markets
Company Overview
DnB NOR Markets provides capital markets services. The company’s services include equities trading, corporate finance, foreign exchange dealing, and interest-rate futures and options. It also analyzes and advises on securities, interest rate, and currency markets and offers online investor accounting services. DnB Markets is based in Oslo, Norway and has offices in London, New York, and Singapore.
investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp
got any solid figures from another investment company or a quote from anyone with better credentials?
Until you do I think we can go with 70K as a pretty accurate figure. I am sure you do not like that figure, but that is just tough cookies as they say. The cat is no longer in the bag, the fanboys cry, the shills have no source to prove otherwise.
Last time I checked it's the guy that try to establish something that need to back it up with facts. You refer to one sentence by a guy you belive a lot in (Your whole post is about how much you belive in him actually). But you see, regardless of how much you worship this guy, you still have failed to bring up the calculation or other numbers that support your claim. I say again, Ref please?
Yep just one sentence from a guy with a MBA , 2 undergrad degrees and who evaluates companies and their worth as investments as his profession
Last time I checked the fanboys were the one posting that the game had several hundred thousand subscribers based on nothing more than Funcoms press releases and what they said they saw when playing..
Let me get something straight though, when XFire numbers were going down from 60K hours a day to 4K hours a day they were were bad and useless. In December when they got a spike back up into the 5k a day range they were good and wonderful tools. Now when a investment banker from a international company who has a MBA and 2 undergrad degrees uses them to project that the game has 70K subscribers they are once again unreliable and bad.
Which is it?
I miss DAoC
In the same way the haters seem to in a funny way look away from Xfire numbers now when AoC is up. My suggestion to you all, screw Xfire and play the game. If there is anything we have learned over the last days, it is that AoC now have serverpopulation supporting fun MMOing. That's all we really need to know.
"AoC is the most kick ass MMO ever made", Nack Gurtelrose.
Here is the funny thing though. AOC is not 'up' on Xfire. It has been 50 for the past two days.. exactly where it was a month ago, and two months ago. The OP used one of AOC's 'good days' to try and convince people that AOC was trending higher. The fact is the game occassionally spikes up the charts a few spots, then falls back.
Read the early part of the thread.. people said " when it breaks into the low 40's, it will mean something". It did get up all the way to 45 for one day, which was kinda close.. but it has now fallen back to the 50's, like most people who have been following Xfire knew it would.
Here is the funny thing though. AOC is not 'up' on Xfire. It has been 50 for the past two days.. exactly where it was a month ago, and two months ago. The OP used one of AOC's 'good days' to try and convince people that AOC was trending higher. The fact is the game occassionally spikes up the charts a few spots, then falls back.
Read the early part of the thread.. people said " when it breaks into the low 40's, it will mean something". It did get up all the way to 45 for one day, which was kinda close.. but it has now fallen back to the 50's, like most people who have been following Xfire knew it would.
Alandora, xfire is up about 30% in game time on xfire since early december. Back then it had about 930 active players on a tuesday. Yesterday it had about 1130. Thats a pretty big increase % wise. I posted my figures here on this forum proving this.
Regarding Thoresen. Hi is a good analyst, however he has been wrong many times. This is the nature of financial analysis. They are paid to give best guesses. Now read that last word again. Guesses! 70k is a guess. A good guess but still a guess. In addition the 70k guess does not take into cosideration the latest increase in players as it is several weeks old. Analysts give their figures to their customer first, then after a while they give it to the public. So its probably from december when funcom was 30% lower.
So lets assume that its correct and we know that xfire has grown by 30%. The new player base should be 91K.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
Here is the funny thing though. AOC is not 'up' on Xfire. It has been 50 for the past two days.. exactly where it was a month ago, and two months ago. The OP used one of AOC's 'good days' to try and convince people that AOC was trending higher. The fact is the game occassionally spikes up the charts a few spots, then falls back.
Read the early part of the thread.. people said " when it breaks into the low 40's, it will mean something". It did get up all the way to 45 for one day, which was kinda close.. but it has now fallen back to the 50's, like most people who have been following Xfire knew it would.
Alandora, xfire is up about 30% in game time on xfire since early december. Back then it had about 930 active players on a tuesday. Yesterday it had about 1130. Thats a pretty big increase % wise. I posted my figures here on this forum proving this.
Regarding Thoresen. Hi is a good analyst, however he has been wrong many times. This is the nature of financial analysis. They are paid to give best guesses. Now read that last word again. Guesses! 70k is a guess. A good guess but still a guess. In addition the 70k guess does not take into cosideration the latest increase in players as it is several weeks old. Analysts give their figures to their customer first, then after a while they give it to the public. So its probably from december when funcom was 30% lower.
So lets assume that its correct and we know that xfire has grown by 30%. The new player base should be 91K.
Sorry, yeah, but the OP started this thread using the 'ranking' as his proof so that is what we go by. And the OP is the one throwing out the 200-350k subscriber number. Those are the posts most of us are replying to.
If you read this thread, most people think that both AOC populations AND Xfire use for AOC have been increasing the past month. Both for good reasons, and 'scam type' reasons. Mergers have created a lot of excitement, and more players per server means more fun gameplay which means the average time per player has increased. The cheap boxes also brought in a lot of new players. But also the Xfire numbers have been 'tampered' with because it is being actively promoted on the official forums.
One of the reasons these boards get trolled so much, and some 'average' posters end up sounding like trolls is because certain people (and their alts) are just egging them on by making rediculous comments. It just reminds players of the crazy hype comments that the developers were saying pre-launch.
The reason people created 'failcom' logos wasn't because the game was bad at launch (most players would just move on).. the reason there is so much 'hate' towards Funcom is because they were so deceptive and rediculous in their marketing pre-launch. The alt-poster on this forum is doing exactly the same thing... and it just stirs up the trolls.
Here is the funny thing though. AOC is not 'up' on Xfire. It has been 50 for the past two days.. exactly where it was a month ago, and two months ago. The OP used one of AOC's 'good days' to try and convince people that AOC was trending higher. The fact is the game occassionally spikes up the charts a few spots, then falls back.
Read the early part of the thread.. people said " when it breaks into the low 40's, it will mean something". It did get up all the way to 45 for one day, which was kinda close.. but it has now fallen back to the 50's, like most people who have been following Xfire knew it would.
Alandora, xfire is up about 30% in game time on xfire since early december. Back then it had about 930 active players on a tuesday. Yesterday it had about 1130. Thats a pretty big increase % wise. I posted my figures here on this forum proving this.
Regarding Thoresen. Hi is a good analyst, however he has been wrong many times. This is the nature of financial analysis. They are paid to give best guesses. Now read that last word again. Guesses! 70k is a guess. A good guess but still a guess. In addition the 70k guess does not take into cosideration the latest increase in players as it is several weeks old. Analysts give their figures to their customer first, then after a while they give it to the public. So its probably from december when funcom was 30% lower.
So lets assume that its correct and we know that xfire has grown by 30%. The new player base should be 91K.
My personal guess is around 100 - 125K at present But then that is also just a guess.
I miss DAoC
Well I've just joined the game, so you can +1
It's a great game, it deserves so much more players though. I hope this game really does do better for it's self. The problem is the damage has all ready been done really. Lets hope funny fun funcom can pull things around, seems to be the case now!
One annoying thing about this game, is that the character creation is just SOO much....I just love to try loads of classes before I even start getting into one.....just means I have to make each and everyone look sexeh before I can play them
I like cookies.
Yes, damage has been done, but damage can be fixed. FC has already shown that they have the qualities I demand from my MMO developer:
To give examples of the 4:
Much of AoC is already in place. It is only a question about time now before people come back. We are seeing already a lot of people coming, but it will take several months before the game is back to old numbers.
I agree with you. Good innsight! I am hoping that Funcom has learned that lying to the community directly reflects on their earnings. Still I dont really beleive that they will stop the lying and exagerations. Its in their nature, and its part of their company culture. This is because the majority owner and the CEO (Trond Aas) beleive in holding back information and twisting the truth. (i.e. lying) This trinkles down the organisation and becomes part of the company.
I beleive that most Funcom employees are honest, competent, and hard working people with the best intentions. But they are not the ones calling the shots.
Now having said that I sincerely beleive that AoC is an extremely good game. It is very good fun. I also beleive that the new Game Director is doing great things with the game and the community. I beleive the game will grow and that it will be a benchmark game.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
Back down to #51
I agree about the new director, and about the game having gotten much better, especially the client stability issues. The lying from Funcom was basically only 2 people (1 of which is now gone) that we know of. And the new director is certainly a step up from MJ from warhammer.
But these forums are a different matter. I think most people have a ballpark figure of how many subscribers each game has. If you ask on LotRO, Warhammer, WOW an EVE... even the biggest fanboys will probably be within 25% of the average forum poster's opinion. Come to AOC, and Mr Alts and a few others are stil claiming 400% of the most likely value.
There is no other game on these forums, or on their official forums that seems to have a campaign to prove high subscriber numbers (or returning/new players) that really feels like a continuation of the deceitfulness of EE and GG. " Hi, i've never posted here before, but i just had to come here and tell you how great the game is and that I"m having a blast since returning" < total post count - 1>
Well, there are some pretty fanatic people over at Darkfall. Try writing bad stuff about Darkfall and you will be attacked. Having said that I agree that the AOC forum is a bit crazy. However it has changed during the last 6 months from an extreemly hate orientated attitude too a overly positive tone. Bottom line is that its a extreme attitude here. Either positive or negative.
As for subscription numbers i basically see three categories of people. The ones saying 50-70K subs, the ones saying 100-125k subs and the ones with 250k and above. The last one is just stupid. The server capacity now (after merge) is 300K players and they are far from full. Dont take them seriously. /ignore...
As for place on xfire AoC was between 55th and 58th back in early december. Now they are between 48 and 51. Quite nice. I am hoping this trend continues.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
It's more than quite nice. 4250 gaming hours is with 7 hours server downtime (patchday yesterday).
so the real number is more like 4250/ (17/24) = 6070 on a normal weekday. Thats like in the 30's. We will see end of this week or in weekend how this is going. But mark my words. There is a huge backflux of people these days.
It's more than quite nice. 4250 gaming hours is with 7 hours server downtime (patchday yesterday).
so the real number is more like 4250/ (17/24) = 6070 on a normal weekday. Thats like in the 30's. We will see end of this week or in weekend how this is going. But mark my words. There is a huge backflux of people these days.
Unless there is really something crazy that happens on patch days, it doesn't affect the numbers. Most of the time you can't even tell which Tuesdays they have 8 hr maintanince and which they have 15 min rolling restarts in WOW. Players will just wait to get their 2-4 hours of gametime. There have been 12hour downtimes on major patch days that actually see an increase (because people want to see the new content). The dowtimes are off-peak hours and people just wait to play when the servers come back up. Only in really long downtimes do they show up on Xfire.
As to Acuendor. I'm actually edging up closer to 100k myself. I think the low back in November was probably 75-80k, and they are up 20% since then. I don't think the numbers will stay this way long though. People with lvl 80s who returned are enjoying the increased populations because of the mergers.. but there still isn't a lot to do at 80. And the $5 box new players are going to still have a shock when they leave tortage.
We'll see. I just wish we could talk about the game without the two extremes.
It's more than quite nice. 4250 gaming hours is with 7 hours server downtime (patchday yesterday).
so the real number is more like 4250/ (17/24) = 6070 on a normal weekday. Thats like in the 30's. We will see end of this week or in weekend how this is going. But mark my words. There is a huge backflux of people these days.
Unless there is really something crazy that happens on patch days, it doesn't affect the numbers. Most of the time you can't even tell which Tuesdays they have 8 hr maintanince and which they have 15 min rolling restarts in WOW. Players will just wait to get their 2-4 hours of gametime. There have been 12hour downtimes on major patch days that actually see an increase (because people want to see the new content). The dowtimes are off-peak hours and people just wait to play when the servers come back up. Only in really long downtimes do they show up on Xfire.
As to Acuendor. I'm actually edging up closer to 100k myself. I think the low back in November was probably 75-80k, and they are up 20% since then. I don't think the numbers will stay this way long though. People with lvl 80s who returned are enjoying the increased populations because of the mergers.. but there still isn't a lot to do at 80. And the $5 box new players are going to still have a shock when they leave tortage.
We'll see. I just wish we could talk about the game without the two extremes.
Bahhh... Xfire.
Ah, good old AOC.
Main complaint for the time period was that PVP at 80 was over in a matter of seconds.
So what do the dev's do? They go ahead and nerf defensive gems - the only way a lot of classes were able to be viable at the time, and for PVP to actually be long enough to require tactics.
After that great decision pretty much every melee class, including tanks, were walking around one shotting everyone, and each other.
Gold.
It is obvious that the population is not increasing. There are simply more people with subscriptions actually logging in. I've seen nothing to suggest that the population is increasing at all. Anyone I talked to in the brief time I spent on Agony was a long-time subscriber.
There is no fresh blood...the game is now in attrition mode.
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
Oh yes I didn't think of that one, stupid me lol
I am an old returning player from launch and I think the game is definately improving and yes there are alot of new players.
My reason for quitting the first time was due to the loads of game bugs and friends that left, now they have returned I am now back too.
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
Oh yes I didn't think of that one, stupid me lol
I am an old returning player from launch and I think the game is definately improving and yes there are alot of new players.
My reason for quitting the first time was due to the loads of game bugs and friends that left, now they have returned I am now back too.
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
Oh yes I didn't think of that one, stupid me lol
I am an old returning player from launch and I think the game is definately improving and yes there are alot of new players.
My reason for quitting the first time was due to the loads of game bugs and friends that left, now they have returned I am now back too.
Ok so where are the facts to backup your claim??
A subscription from which he can log into numerous servers and get an opinion that way - first hand experience.
It is worthless to compare between games but you can see trends in the same game with it. Anytime a new expansion releases it goes up, anytime a game closes down servers for several hours they drop a little. Look on the big gap on AoC when the server was down for the merge. Don't trust the exact % but if it moves 5% or more I would say we got a raise.
Also AoCs forum have more new and returning players than earlier so the game is gaining some players, how many and how many the game have now is still a question but it is still good news.
#46 and 4600 hours on a weekday. Not bad considdering the server transfers that will immobilizes a lot of characters.
Strike up the band, AOC is at half point to reaching LotRO (which has about 175k subscribers).
Why do you keep bumping this pathetic thread? Have you looked at the games AOC is competing against? AOC is now almost caught up to a game called "Twelve Sky".... and is still leagues behind anything that would be considered a successful MMORPG.
When you make a post about AOC moving up spots, you should list the games that it passed, that would be crazy funny. " OMG.. AOC is now more popular than Hello Kitty Online Lego Adventures!!!!! "
Strike up the band, AOC is at half point to reaching LotRO (which has about 175k subscribers).
Why do you keep bumping this pathetic thread? Have you looked at the games AOC is competing against? AOC is now almost caught up to a game called "Twelve Sky".... and is still leagues behind anything that would be considered a successful MMORPG.
When you make a post about AOC moving up spots, you should list the games that it passed, that would be crazy funny. " OMG.. AOC is now more popular than Hello Kitty Online Lego Adventures!!!!! "
Doing that would be pathetic. There is absolutely no way you can compare Xfire numbers in between games and say "ohh this game got X number of players, therefore this other game got Y number of players". A game with PvE centric content would have less Ventrilo Xfire type of activity, while a heavy RvR type of game or a FPS team vs team type of game would have much higher Ventrilo or Xfire activity... SO let's keep it simple. AoC's Xfire numbers have increased and that indicates increasing population. Anything beyond that is not worth discussing even.