You took the bait Avery. A CFO of a publically traded company can never ever send a special mail to someone revealing inside information on revenue before the Quarterly report has been presented. The poster above you got this information from here www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/223622/1Q-09-update-from-Olev-Sandnes-Funcom-CFO-And-yes-the-results-are-not-good.html and OP never give us the reference. And I guess we will never see it either as it is a criminal act to fabricate evidence with the intention to manipulate the stock exchange market. I reported the post to MMORPG but it seems like they have not got around to it yet.
Ahem. I take offence to this post for a variety of reasons...but the most serious concern I have is the idea that a CFO cannot report on the company situation before a financial report.
Nothing could be further from the truth. A company CFO may provide investors information IF THAT INFORMATION IS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE TO ALL INVESTORS. To my knowledge it is. Insider trading is when a company misleads the public or keeps public information private.
But hey, if you want to yell at Olev in 10 days, be my guest.
Lit
lol. Did I ever refute that a CFO can't speak whenever he likes to? Nope, but you are quite right in one thing, he need to speak out publically. A special mail to your special friend in Helsinki is not publically available information.. But hey.. It's all good.. While you are at it, why don't you just make that mail available to us lucky forum readers
After playing the game yesterday, the player base is so small on the hottest PvP server Tyrany that anyone would notice a nbew person.
It's like 3 guys in a small room for 9 months and then a new guy shows up, they would notice.
However, the server is sooooooooooooo small, population wise it's a joke. I would be suprised if more than 1500 people loged in a day, probably mostly the same people.......compared to 4k+ at release for original PvP servers.
**************
Even post mergers the game seems dead, and that is not mentioning how little effort Funcom put foward to fix the game...........it is still just as broken as when I left. As my PC was good enough to play the game.
After playing the game yesterday, the player base is so small on the hottest PvP server Tyrany that anyone would notice a nbew person. It's like 3 guys in a small room for 9 months and then a new guy shows up, they would notice. However, the server is sooooooooooooo small, population wise it's a joke. I would be suprised if more than 1500 people loged in a day, probably mostly the same people.......compared to 4k+ at release for original PvP servers. Old news we all know that server population isn't sky high, but compare pre merges and post merges the activity is like day and night. On Fury where I played when I logged on yesterday I was doing PvP with the guild, we had 4/5 instances in kesh and usually 3-4 of those where full of PvP action. The last one also had people in it, but not packed with pvp action. Servers merges did fix one thing that was crucial, they made most of the servers have a healthier population that supports both sieges and a lot more world pvp. Of course merges alone won't make people come back in the thousands, but servers does feel a lot more active now then what they used to be before merges. Maybe the situation is different on US servers I don't know, I don't play on those. :P Before merge you would have 1 instance in Kesh, maybe 2 if lucky and only 1 instance that had pvp action, and it was always the same guys vs eachother. Population is a lot higher, but seeing funcom haven't gained back all the 800k subscribers they once had comparing it to launch is nice way to make things look good in your way. ************** Even post mergers the game seems dead, and that is not mentioning how little effort Funcom put foward to fix the game...........it is still just as broken as when I left. As my PC was good enough to play the game. If you find it just as broken then explain to us what is broken, what exactly haven't they fixed yet? I find people who make claims the game is broken rather funny as in 99% of the cases they never write what they feel is broken. all they say the game is still broken.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC) On my radar: TSW, MO MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
The lack of population on new merged servers is news to me..............Kesh is the only end game zone where people can hang out and as all MMOs, most people are level caped so it's not suprising that such a small space would have multiple instances.
I will give a huge write up when I'm finished, but sadly as I stated, aside from broken classes/abilities/feats at release.....I have not encountered anything that has changed so far........combos take less but the PvP combat is still pretty turn based or instant gib due to stuns...........and an all out joust w/o stuns still takes forever.
I'm sure they changed a lot but, Funcom changes things by 1% or .01 depending on when your gear was designed....so those changesdid not change the game much.
The two zones and 20 new quest were nominal as well compared to the emptiness of this game.
The lack of population on new merged servers is news to me..............Kesh is the only end game zone where people can hang out and as all MMOs, most people are level caped so it's not suprising that such a small space would have multiple instances. Well here's a news flash for you then. Did you really think server merges would make all people come back to the game? I just created a new alt yesterday to play for fun and giggles, and from what I could see activity on fury is still not too bad, saw lots of players running around so on Fury at least it seems the population throughout the zones and levels are not all to bad. I helped a guildie in conall's valley the other day with some elite mobs and it seems like there was a decent amount of players running around there, and he confirmed that. The low population was never the problem with AoC but as there was a lot of other problems it did become a issue. the biggest issues that drove people away from AoC wasn't the lack of endgame content. My old guild lost half it's members due to bugs and performance issues. when we lost half the people the other started leaving due to they there was nothing to do, and the funny part was the guild hadn't even tried raiding or PvE at all. They pretty much left because everyone else left. I will give a huge write up when I'm finished, but sadly as I stated, aside from broken classes/abilities/feats at release.....I have not encountered anything that has changed so far........combos take less but the PvP combat is still pretty turn based or instant gib due to stuns...........and an all out joust w/o stuns still takes forever. Stuns isn't instagib anymore, but if you are a squishy and encounters a Sin it means your dead. stuns will drop when you get a % of damage, but I still struggle against sin's who sneak up on me stuns me and dps me down before I can do much at all. The time where being stunned meant you would be stunnedthe full duration is long gone. So if you feel this is a issue you quite possible encountered some classes that consider your class to be free xp for them.
Combat being turn based I do struggle a bit to see, I never felt it as being turn based. What classes do you play? There is a few class feats still bugged, but truth is majority of them does work. but some classes still have bugged ones that is true. Majority of abilities, stats and feats does work tho. I'm sure they changed a lot but, Funcom changes things by 1% or .01 depending on when your gear was designed....so those changesdid not change the game much. Did you expect more? the itemization patch might make those numbers completely different only time will tell, but AoC was advertised as not beign a gear based game, and hence stats will also not be as big improvements as other games. The two zones and 20 new quest were nominal as well compared to the emptiness of this game. Ymir's pass is so far the most fun and best zone in the game imo. the new quest are decent but they just fill in the gaps that was around some levels. I agree more content is needed, and if they hadn't been forced to fix most of the game and bad stuff done at launch and during summer 2008 we would have had a different situation contentwise today. But can't change what has happened.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC) On my radar: TSW, MO MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
I play a level caped assassin so missed the mid level stuff, but it's either me instant gibing or someone else instant gibing me (I did use instant gib loosly ~ the fight is over before the opponent can do anything), stealth is still a joke.....it is nef=rfed because all classes have stealth, but that just gimps the proposed stealth classes,,,,,,,,,and I have stun imunity, but I do watch fights from stealth and that is how it goes.
Also, servers do feel empty - player wise, even with instancing there seem to be way fewer of them than at release.
AoC would of been a good game if it gave players something (endgame instances, arenas, etc) to do and had a better combat system. If it had great PvP or PvE it would have done well 500-1mil subs, if it had one of those and a combat system that was good and fun it would have been 5 mil easy.
To much time on the engine not enough on the game.
Funcom has published it's numbers before, do you require an update "officially" every month or something? As far as I know the only time they ever released any figures was in the Q2 report. If they have the nerve to announce current figures I would be stunned. No CEO/CFO in his or her right mind would publicly announce bad news. If the game had a jumped back up to a half million plus subs they would be shouting it from the rooftops.
I bet there are more mmo companies that don't publish than do. How come no one ever bitches on other game forums? like say Turbines? Or is it limited only to new members to mmorpg who either have to over rapturously praise the game or over zealous moaning? I remember seeing the same bitches on every forum of a released game I have ever participated on including LoTRO's. You just see less on the forums where a majority of the purchasers were happy with their purchase. Everyone is not just picking on AoC just for the hell of it. All things considered here is some correct info for you, every person that has posted their "Guess" to subscriber numbers pre Quarter documentation release has always ended up wrong. Way out. That's using their own methods too. Not to brag I still think my estimates of 100 K plus or minus 25 K in early December was pretty spot on. Since the XFire manipulation threads I won't bother guessing anymore though. May we ask why sub numbers mean so much? Seems to be a 2 way street. Fans post ohmygawd the servers are bursting threads. Critics post ohmygawd everyone is leaving threads. Unless you misunderstood in another thread. A suspected decrease in income for Funcom (as a whole) does not correlate into a decrease in Age of Conan sub numbers - which can never, ever, be proven as fact either way. This is not a court of of law. Nothing has to be proven as a 100% fact. It is a discussion forum where people can express their opinions. When FC releases thier Q4 numbers next week it will not be a "suspected decrease in income" it will be hard nimbers. Seems like they are already preparing the investors for some pretty bad news, which wil be followed immediatly by "the market went to hell and everyones stock sucks" posts. Simple fact is since last quarter the only thing consistant and actually up but bad to use is Xfire (amount of people playing, not time put into the game) That line there is telling that more people with Xfire are playing, in correlation to more people taking part in official surveys are consistant too. XFire and even web traffic numbers can be manipulated. It is odd that less and less people are going to the official boards, 39% less reach in the last three months according to Alexa as of this posting, yet you are citing increased participation of a survey which was ran from the boards as evidence of a population increase.
I play a level caped assassin so missed the mid level stuff, but it's either me instant gibing or someone else instant gibing me (I did use instant gib loosly ~ the fight is over before the opponent can do anything), stealth is still a joke.....it is nef=rfed because all classes have stealth, but that just gimps the proposed stealth classes,,,,,,,,,and I have stun imunity, but I do watch fights from stealth and that is how it goes. Sin's are probably one of the best anti CC classes that exist, mix high dps into that and you get yourself a killer class. Never played the sin mysel, but it is the only class I do have issues with taking down no matter which of my characters I play. Bow specced ranger, Hybrid Barb and Bear shaman. Also, servers do feel empty - player wise, even with instancing there seem to be way fewer of them than at release. I will agree that the instancing are not ideal and there is no doubt fewer players now then at launch, but that is quite logical too when you look at the current subscriber base and what it was the first month. The instances is somewhat of a necessary evil with AoC, I have gotten used to them so they don't really bother me, but I do see your point too. Fewer players also directly affects the feeling of more empty servers then what they was at launch. Then again I think it's important to compare the feeling the serers give today with how it was before merges. I played both before and after and the difference is quite huge. Still room for loads more people tho, but who know's what the future brings. AoC would of been a good game if it gave players something (endgame instances, arenas, etc) to do and had a better combat system. If it had great PvP or PvE it would have done well 500-1mil subs, if it had one of those and a combat system that was good and fun it would have been 5 mil easy. If Funcom had spent 6 more months on finishing the product, bug fixing and adding content the game would have ben in a whole different state then it currently is, AoC was released too early and could easy have benefitted greatly from another 6-9 months polishing and adding content. One of the reasons it was in production as long as it was is due to the GD wanting to change at times quite huge and important areas of the game. Changing combat system or changing the way things works can at worst mean rewriting majority of the code. this takes time and it doesn't necessary make the final product better. If funcom had stuck with one release candidate and spent 6 months to 1 year polishing that rather then change combo system, change other quite important features of the game they would probably have had a huge success. There is a lot of "If" in what Funcom could have done differently, and while the launch technicly was probably one of the best for any MMO, the game soon saw the problems coming to the surface. When I first heard of AoC I was thinking "cool finally a pvp game that sounds different then everyone else". When the hype started for real I dropped off following the game as it was obvious some people were talking out of their arse to promote the game.
I love the combat system in AoC, it could probably be made more interesting, but it is a refreshing change from the other MMO's I have played. DFO will be a game I will look into a few months after it's release because it also promises way too much goodies. I think AoC is a good game for a minority of the MMO players as it does some things really well, other things not so well. That's how every MMO are tho so nothing different there. And I think if Funcom can manage to improve the game as they have done so far, but instead of fixing adding content AoC will be a good game during 2009 and quite possibly have a increased player base. I doubt we will see numbers as 1 million, but I do think if they pull it off and does the right things they can easy get closer to 300k players. Hopefully DFO arrives at time and can give AoC some good competition, the more competition the better for the MMO genre.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC) On my radar: TSW, MO MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
#43 today but up new all time high since last fall. 5820 gamed hours (compared to 5165, last high 2 weeks back) with as much as 1376 gamers logged on Xfire (compared to 1270, last high 2 weeks back). The trend is getting stronger.
#43 today but up new all time high since last fall. 5820 gamed hours (compared to 5165, last high 2 weeks back) with as much as 1376 gamers logged on Xfire (compared to 1270, last high 2 weeks back). The trend is getting stronger.
Careful now...the viral nature of even discussing the growth trend is hard on the haters, and may provoke "Nuh-Uh's" out of the lot.
I think if I did not see my guild growing, and weekend raiding happening, along with grouping left and right, I would question this rise...but, the fact is, the players continue to come in. Questions are being asked in the main global chat, and I have had some of the best dungeon runs in the last month or so.
As a matter of fact, I posted one of my adventures here if anyone wishes to read...
#43 today but up new all time high since last fall. 5820 gamed hours (compared to 5165, last high 2 weeks back) with as much as 1376 gamers logged on Xfire (compared to 1270, last high 2 weeks back). The trend is getting stronger.
Careful now...the viral nature of even discussing the growth trend is hard on the haters, and may provoke "Nuh-Uh's" out of the lot.
I think if I did not see my guild growing, and weekend raiding happening, along with grouping left and right, I would question this rise...but, the fact is, the players continue to come in. Questions are being asked in the main global chat, and I have had some of the best dungeon runs in the last month or so.
As a matter of fact, I posted one of my adventures here if anyone wishes to read...
Nice stuff Openedge. You should load your stuff up to the AoC forums or the frontpage of the MMORPG forum. For the strong population increasing trends currently seen in AoC, there are probably some of the regulars loosing their sleep over this. That is however not mine or your problem. We can just kick back and smile because we know that this weekend will be a mayhem of Raiding with tons of people in Wing3 (after patch 1.04). Make sure you blogg on Wing3. Would be interesting to see. I've heard the place is seriously tough and complex. I don''t expect to get too fare right away.
I love when people ask this. How long has it been since Ymir's pass was added? 3 months or so? How long did it take the average player to play that new content? a few hours How long has the 'new' patch been on the test servers? How many more months are we going to be talking about dx10 still not added?
Compare that to Warhammer, Lotro, EVE and WOW who have massive patches very frequently.
"May we ask why sub numbers mean so much? I love when people ask this. How long has it been since Ymir's pass was added? 3 months or so? How long did it take the average player to play that new content? a few hours How long has the 'new' patch been on the test servers? How many more months are we going to be talking about dx10 still not added? Compare that to Warhammer, Lotro, EVE and WOW who have massive patches very frequently. subscribers = developers = content.
Yell at the players resubscribing, I just facilitate the Xfire numbers. And just in case you don't understand them an increase from 850 to 1367 logged Xfire users on a weekday is an 61% increase, or an increase from 3200 gaming hours to 5820 is a 82% increase. In other words the amount of AoC subscribers (as indicated by Xfire) seem to have increased somewhere in between 61 and 82%. Your points fail on this fact.
I know it must be hard to understand with your subscriber=developers=content logic. It is hard because your logic is wrong. I would rather believe subscribers=Quality! What I think we are about to see is the much spoken of GvG Siege and war system of AoC kicking in. A world where basically the conflicts in between guilds and the players themselves creat the endgame content. Check it out, it's not bad.
Edit: Ohhh by the way, show me any other MMO that have had a population increase of 61 to 82% over the last 6 -7 weeks.
"May we ask why sub numbers mean so much? I love when people ask this. How long has it been since Ymir's pass was added? 3 months or so? How long did it take the average player to play that new content? a few hours How long has the 'new' patch been on the test servers? How many more months are we going to be talking about dx10 still not added? Compare that to Warhammer, Lotro, EVE and WOW who have massive patches very frequently. subscribers = developers = content.
Yell at the players resubscribing, I just facilitate the Xfire numbers. And just in case you don't understand them an increase from 850 to 1367 logged Xfire users on a weekday is an 61% increase, or an increase from 3200 gaming hours to 5820 is a 82% increase. In other words the amount of AoC subscribers (as indicated by Xfire) seem to have increased somewhere in between 61 and 82%. Your points fail on this fact.
I know it must be hard to understand with your subscriber=developers=content logic. It is hard because your logic is wrong. I would rather believe subscribers=Quality! What I think we are about to see is the much spoken of GvG Siege and war system of AoC kicking in. A world where basically the conflicts in between guilds and the players themselves creat the endgame content. Check it out, it's not bad.
Edit: Ohhh by the way, show me any other MMO that have had a population increase of 61 to 82% over the last 6 -7 weeks.
I sense that if somehow 300 more fanboys were persuaded to use xfire, AOC subs would magically go up by 22%... Also, any drop in xfire numbers must be interpreted as users dissatisfied with the xfire client and in no way customers dissatisfied with FC...
#43 today but up new all time high since last fall. 5820 gamed hours (compared to 5165, last high 2 weeks back) with as much as 1376 gamers logged on Xfire (compared to 1270, last high 2 weeks back). The trend is getting stronger.
#43 today but up new all time high since last fall. 5820 gamed hours (compared to 5165, last high 2 weeks back) with as much as 1376 gamers logged on Xfire (compared to 1270, last high 2 weeks back). The trend is getting stronger.
FYI Yesterday was a National holiday in the US
No, it was The Presidents day. Only some gouvernment worker get that day off. So point not taken.
Yup numbers don't lie, but if Age of Conan was the forth highest selling PC game last year and was once ranked #4 on Xfire. AoC is an MMO which stands for time sink - then why does it have fewer hours logged/ individual players than other MMOs? Does anyone find AoC's position to be a good thing?
Some were mentioned but not all of them - so here is the list of MMOs doing better than AoC, per yesterday:
1) Warcraft (of course)
9) Guildwars
13) Eve online
17) Warhammer
26) Maple story - Funcom compares age of conan to maple story so it's under performing per them. Also I could not imagine many Maple story players having X fire, but Oh well.
27) Flyff - some MMO I never heard of.
29) Shaiya - free to play MMO
34) Perfect World - a new free to play MMO
35) Runes of magic - an MMO that has not even been released yet!
39) Lineage II
42) Age of Conan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You go girl!!!!!!!!!!! Moving on up ;D
44) Twelve Sky - a free to play MMO.
**********************************
By my calculations AoC should be a free to play MMO, based in china.
Yup numbers don't lie, but if Age of Conan was the forth highest selling PC game last year and was once ranked #4 on Xfire. AoC is an MMO which stands for time sink - then why does it have fewer hours logged/ individual players than other MMOs? Does anyone find AoC's position to be a good thing? Some were mentioned but not all of them - so here is the list of MMOs doing better than AoC, per yesterday: 1) Warcraft (of course) 9) Guildwars 13) Eve online 17) Warhammer 26) Maple story - Funcom compares age of conan to maple story so it's under performing per them. Also I could not imagine many Maple story players having X fire, but Oh well. 27) Flyff - some MMO I never heard of. 29) Shaiya - free to play MMO 34) Perfect World - a new free to play MMO 35) Runes of magic - an MMO that has not even been released yet! 39) Lineage II 42) Age of Conan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You go girl!!!!!!!!!!! Moving on up ;D 44) Twelve Sky - a free to play MMO. ********************************** By my calculations AoC should be a free to play MMO, based in china.
you missed
14) Lord of The Rings Online
15) Cabal Online
24) Diablo II
I miss DAoC
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by finaticd
After playing the game yesterday, the player base is so small on the hottest PvP server Tyrany that anyone would notice a nbew person. It's like 3 guys in a small room for 9 months and then a new guy shows up, they would notice. However, the server is sooooooooooooo small, population wise it's a joke. I would be suprised if more than 1500 people loged in a day, probably mostly the same people.......compared to 4k+ at release for original PvP servers.
************** Even post mergers the game seems dead, and that is not mentioning how little effort Funcom put foward to fix the game...........it is still just as broken as when I left. As my PC was good enough to play the game.
It is amusing that you pick the quietest day of the week to check population.
FYI Tyranny KESH weekend play: Seeing 4 instances regulary. There was 2 yesterday, did you check? It's called pretty PACKED.
You know, official surveys tells us 4 things,
1. That Tyranny is a popular sever choice
2. That the majority of people that play the game have found Funcom's handlings of the Server Merges and Transfer options to be "Excellent"
3. 19% of people that are transferring that took the survey are heading to Tyranny.
4. You opinon, whilst it is yours, sorry to say is a minority one. Out of every surveyed most people felt things are a lot better docs.google.com/Doc
What your post tells me is that I seriously doubt you play the game, you may of in the past for sure, not any more either. It tells me your information is wrong and time and time again you show no proof. You dismiss the majority of people's opinon that play the game and only take your own as gospel truth.
The only thing broken, is the broken record of incorrect false postings you make about the state of the game on the whole.
After playing the game yesterday, the player base is so small on the hottest PvP server Tyrany that anyone would notice a nbew person. It's like 3 guys in a small room for 9 months and then a new guy shows up, they would notice. However, the server is sooooooooooooo small, population wise it's a joke. I would be suprised if more than 1500 people loged in a day, probably mostly the same people.......compared to 4k+ at release for original PvP servers.
************** Even post mergers the game seems dead, and that is not mentioning how little effort Funcom put foward to fix the game...........it is still just as broken as when I left. As my PC was good enough to play the game.
It is amusing that you pick the quietest day of the week to check population.
FYI Tyranny KESH weekend play: Seeing 4 instances regulary. There was 2 yesterday, did you check? It's called pretty PACKED.
You know, official surveys tells us 4 things,
1. That Tyranny is a popular sever choice
2. That the majority of people that play the game have found Funcom's handlings of the Server Merges and Transfer options to be "Excellent"
3. 19% of people that are transferring that took the survey are heading to Tyranny.
4. You opinon, whilst it is yours, sorry to say is a minority one. Out of every surveyed most people felt things are a lot better docs.google.com/Doc
What your post tells me is that I seriously doubt you play the game, you may of in the past for sure, not any more either. It tells me your information is wrong and time and time again you show no proof. You dismiss the majority of people's opinon that play the game and only take your own as gospel truth.
The only thing broken, is the broken record of incorrect false postings you make about the state of the game on the whole.
My point was that not many people are playing in the game......this Kesh area is the only thing to do at level cap the vast majority of the time..........there were a bit over 250 people that I pulled up from 70-80, so that is where they were. Even if it was 4 times that it would still indicate a very small population. Though I was playing on the weekend and the game looks pretty empty, player wise aside from Kesh.....a snap shot of 10 players wont change that.
Your point is that the players like the game? Fine, but the majority of the people who bought the game probably did not..so those surveys are responses of people that were able to tuff it out for 9 months on vacant servers and tuff out rerolling multiple times to do the same content over and over.
******************
Also, remember most players came from empty servers and X fered there so after running through the game for hours and not seeing some one, then coming to a more populated server the perspective is off.
********************
I apologize I had higher standards and thought the populations rose do to all of those threads, though they may have, it's still the lonliest MMO I have played.......mabye I'm unlucky and everyone get's into a diffrent instance, dunno.
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by finaticd
Originally posted by AmazingAvery
Originally posted by finaticd
After playing the game yesterday, the player base is so small on the hottest PvP server Tyrany that anyone would notice a nbew person. It's like 3 guys in a small room for 9 months and then a new guy shows up, they would notice. However, the server is sooooooooooooo small, population wise it's a joke. I would be suprised if more than 1500 people loged in a day, probably mostly the same people.......compared to 4k+ at release for original PvP servers.
************** Even post mergers the game seems dead, and that is not mentioning how little effort Funcom put foward to fix the game...........it is still just as broken as when I left. As my PC was good enough to play the game.
It is amusing that you pick the quietest day of the week to check population.
FYI Tyranny KESH weekend play: Seeing 4 instances regulary. There was 2 yesterday, did you check? It's called pretty PACKED.
You know, official surveys tells us 4 things,
1. That Tyranny is a popular sever choice
2. That the majority of people that play the game have found Funcom's handlings of the Server Merges and Transfer options to be "Excellent"
3. 19% of people that are transferring that took the survey are heading to Tyranny.
4. You opinon, whilst it is yours, sorry to say is a minority one. Out of every surveyed most people felt things are a lot better docs.google.com/Doc
What your post tells me is that I seriously doubt you play the game, you may of in the past for sure, not any more either. It tells me your information is wrong and time and time again you show no proof. You dismiss the majority of people's opinon that play the game and only take your own as gospel truth.
The only thing broken, is the broken record of incorrect false postings you make about the state of the game on the whole.
My point was that not many people are playing in the game......this Kesh area is the only thing to do at level cap the vast majority of the time..........there were a bit over 250 people that I pulled up from 70-80, so that is where they were. Even if it was 4 times that it would still indicate a very small population. Though I was playing on the weekend and the game looks pretty empty, player wise aside from Kesh.....a snap shot of 10 players wont change that.
Your point is that the players like the game? Fine, but the majority of the people who bought the game probably did not..so those surveys are responses of people that were able to tuff it out for 9 months on vacant servers and tuff out rerolling multiple times to do the same content over and over.
******************
Also, remember most players came from empty servers and X fered there so after running through the game for hours and not seeing some one, then coming to a more populated server the perspective is off.
********************
I apologize I had higher standards and thought the populations rose do to all of those threads, though they may have, it's still the lonliest MMO I have played.......mabye I'm unlucky and everyone get's into a diffrent instance, dunno.
I am sorry I thought that when you made that post on Tuesday you also wrote "After playing the game yesterday" which would then make Monday, the quietest day of the week?
The high standards that you have are your Xfire stats.
Please tell me that there has been a population drop on Xfire since Septemeber. Here is the catch, instead of people such as yourself usually discriminating the casual player, the stats I am talking about are the actual number of people logging in and being recorded by xfire not the amount of hours they put into the game. You will find it is pretty consistent in that area let me asure you
EDIT: just to add, I am not one for saying woohooo a jump in xfire stats is a *** % increase. This actually shows the population with regards to people who use xfire in that particular small populous is steady up and down, which one might either take as the changes are good enough for people to stay - or not - and if not those changes also may of brought new blood in. Either way it is consistant, and not a judgement on how often people log in an play - unless you have the disposistion that a casual gamer sub is somewhat less of a player that someone who may put 50hrs a week plus in a game. Still costs the same.
He just did a look and saw 5 instances in Kesh on the quietest day of the week, compared to your routing to try and prove me wrong that there were 4 instances on that picture from 4 weeks back lol. That was a week day mid day too!
Nice try silky.
Also if you read what I wrote I put there are 4 there regularly, I saw 2 on the same day he did, and posted a picture showing that there are 4 which was not at weekend but midday weekday. I have seen about 4 over the weekends since merge.
No decievement sorry.
2 instances on my time on Monday
The guy says he saw 5 on his time Monday
I posted a pic saying there is regularly 4 on a weekend
#43 today but up new all time high since last fall. 5820 gamed hours (compared to 5165, last high 2 weeks back) with as much as 1376 gamers logged on Xfire (compared to 1270, last high 2 weeks back). The trend is getting stronger.
FYI Yesterday was a National holiday in the US
No, it was The Presidents day. Only some gouvernment worker get that day off. So point not taken.
YES all 4 of my kids were home due to the holiday. So was 1/2 of my neiborhood ( They don't work for the government ) In the US many used the Holiday for a 3 day weekend.
Since when is 8 PM EST mid-day? that is peek for any MMO based in the USA.
I wasn't in Kesh, I was PKing on white sands and getting murder points for killing players 3 levels lower!
5 instances is what the guy who I sent a tell to told me.
Though by doing a class search by level ranges we can get an estimate of how many players play now, which seems way down. So do it on the mythical peek time and show how many players play the game.
***************
I would do it but I go out on Thur - Saturday nights. But I am willing to bet even post mergers that Tyranny is not up to it's peak numbers.
*****************
At release most original servers had 3.5-4k players on pretty much always (not post release servers), then 3 months later it was down to 2k ish, then 6 months later most had 150 players- 700.
So now that mergers are done, it's a good time to compare and keep in mind that there are fewer servers.
-----I can't search the official forums but I'm sure those posts are still there.
EDIT: guess the release population died faster than I thought:
Comments
You took the bait Avery. A CFO of a publically traded company can never ever send a special mail to someone revealing inside information on revenue before the Quarterly report has been presented. The poster above you got this information from here www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/223622/1Q-09-update-from-Olev-Sandnes-Funcom-CFO-And-yes-the-results-are-not-good.html and OP never give us the reference. And I guess we will never see it either as it is a criminal act to fabricate evidence with the intention to manipulate the stock exchange market. I reported the post to MMORPG but it seems like they have not got around to it yet.
Ahem. I take offence to this post for a variety of reasons...but the most serious concern I have is the idea that a CFO cannot report on the company situation before a financial report.
Nothing could be further from the truth. A company CFO may provide investors information IF THAT INFORMATION IS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE TO ALL INVESTORS. To my knowledge it is. Insider trading is when a company misleads the public or keeps public information private.
But hey, if you want to yell at Olev in 10 days, be my guest.
Lit
lol. Did I ever refute that a CFO can't speak whenever he likes to? Nope, but you are quite right in one thing, he need to speak out publically. A special mail to your special friend in Helsinki is not publically available information.. But hey.. It's all good.. While you are at it, why don't you just make that mail available to us lucky forum readers
After playing the game yesterday, the player base is so small on the hottest PvP server Tyrany that anyone would notice a nbew person.
It's like 3 guys in a small room for 9 months and then a new guy shows up, they would notice.
However, the server is sooooooooooooo small, population wise it's a joke. I would be suprised if more than 1500 people loged in a day, probably mostly the same people.......compared to 4k+ at release for original PvP servers.
**************
Even post mergers the game seems dead, and that is not mentioning how little effort Funcom put foward to fix the game...........it is still just as broken as when I left. As my PC was good enough to play the game.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
The lack of population on new merged servers is news to me..............Kesh is the only end game zone where people can hang out and as all MMOs, most people are level caped so it's not suprising that such a small space would have multiple instances.
I will give a huge write up when I'm finished, but sadly as I stated, aside from broken classes/abilities/feats at release.....I have not encountered anything that has changed so far........combos take less but the PvP combat is still pretty turn based or instant gib due to stuns...........and an all out joust w/o stuns still takes forever.
I'm sure they changed a lot but, Funcom changes things by 1% or .01 depending on when your gear was designed....so those changesdid not change the game much.
The two zones and 20 new quest were nominal as well compared to the emptiness of this game.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
I play a level caped assassin so missed the mid level stuff, but it's either me instant gibing or someone else instant gibing me (I did use instant gib loosly ~ the fight is over before the opponent can do anything), stealth is still a joke.....it is nef=rfed because all classes have stealth, but that just gimps the proposed stealth classes,,,,,,,,,and I have stun imunity, but I do watch fights from stealth and that is how it goes.
Also, servers do feel empty - player wise, even with instancing there seem to be way fewer of them than at release.
AoC would of been a good game if it gave players something (endgame instances, arenas, etc) to do and had a better combat system. If it had great PvP or PvE it would have done well 500-1mil subs, if it had one of those and a combat system that was good and fun it would have been 5 mil easy.
To much time on the engine not enough on the game.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
I miss DAoC
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
#43 today but up new all time high since last fall. 5820 gamed hours (compared to 5165, last high 2 weeks back) with as much as 1376 gamers logged on Xfire (compared to 1270, last high 2 weeks back). The trend is getting stronger.
Careful now...the viral nature of even discussing the growth trend is hard on the haters, and may provoke "Nuh-Uh's" out of the lot.
I think if I did not see my guild growing, and weekend raiding happening, along with grouping left and right, I would question this rise...but, the fact is, the players continue to come in. Questions are being asked in the main global chat, and I have had some of the best dungeon runs in the last month or so.
As a matter of fact, I posted one of my adventures here if anyone wishes to read...
Entering Black Castle
Great stuff. Can't wait for patch 1.4 now.
Careful now...the viral nature of even discussing the growth trend is hard on the haters, and may provoke "Nuh-Uh's" out of the lot.
I think if I did not see my guild growing, and weekend raiding happening, along with grouping left and right, I would question this rise...but, the fact is, the players continue to come in. Questions are being asked in the main global chat, and I have had some of the best dungeon runs in the last month or so.
As a matter of fact, I posted one of my adventures here if anyone wishes to read...
Entering Black Castle
Great stuff. Can't wait for patch 1.4 now.
Nice stuff Openedge. You should load your stuff up to the AoC forums or the frontpage of the MMORPG forum. For the strong population increasing trends currently seen in AoC, there are probably some of the regulars loosing their sleep over this. That is however not mine or your problem. We can just kick back and smile because we know that this weekend will be a mayhem of Raiding with tons of people in Wing3 (after patch 1.04). Make sure you blogg on Wing3. Would be interesting to see. I've heard the place is seriously tough and complex. I don''t expect to get too fare right away.
"May we ask why sub numbers mean so much?
I love when people ask this. How long has it been since Ymir's pass was added? 3 months or so? How long did it take the average player to play that new content? a few hours How long has the 'new' patch been on the test servers? How many more months are we going to be talking about dx10 still not added?
Compare that to Warhammer, Lotro, EVE and WOW who have massive patches very frequently.
subscribers = developers = content.
Yell at the players resubscribing, I just facilitate the Xfire numbers. And just in case you don't understand them an increase from 850 to 1367 logged Xfire users on a weekday is an 61% increase, or an increase from 3200 gaming hours to 5820 is a 82% increase. In other words the amount of AoC subscribers (as indicated by Xfire) seem to have increased somewhere in between 61 and 82%. Your points fail on this fact.
I know it must be hard to understand with your subscriber=developers=content logic. It is hard because your logic is wrong. I would rather believe subscribers=Quality! What I think we are about to see is the much spoken of GvG Siege and war system of AoC kicking in. A world where basically the conflicts in between guilds and the players themselves creat the endgame content. Check it out, it's not bad.
Edit: Ohhh by the way, show me any other MMO that have had a population increase of 61 to 82% over the last 6 -7 weeks.
Yell at the players resubscribing, I just facilitate the Xfire numbers. And just in case you don't understand them an increase from 850 to 1367 logged Xfire users on a weekday is an 61% increase, or an increase from 3200 gaming hours to 5820 is a 82% increase. In other words the amount of AoC subscribers (as indicated by Xfire) seem to have increased somewhere in between 61 and 82%. Your points fail on this fact.
I know it must be hard to understand with your subscriber=developers=content logic. It is hard because your logic is wrong. I would rather believe subscribers=Quality! What I think we are about to see is the much spoken of GvG Siege and war system of AoC kicking in. A world where basically the conflicts in between guilds and the players themselves creat the endgame content. Check it out, it's not bad.
Edit: Ohhh by the way, show me any other MMO that have had a population increase of 61 to 82% over the last 6 -7 weeks.
I sense that if somehow 300 more fanboys were persuaded to use xfire, AOC subs would magically go up by 22%... Also, any drop in xfire numbers must be interpreted as users dissatisfied with the xfire client and in no way customers dissatisfied with FC...
FYI Yesterday was a National holiday in the US
FYI Yesterday was a National holiday in the US
No, it was The Presidents day. Only some gouvernment worker get that day off. So point not taken.
Yup numbers don't lie, but if Age of Conan was the forth highest selling PC game last year and was once ranked #4 on Xfire. AoC is an MMO which stands for time sink - then why does it have fewer hours logged/ individual players than other MMOs? Does anyone find AoC's position to be a good thing?
Some were mentioned but not all of them - so here is the list of MMOs doing better than AoC, per yesterday:
1) Warcraft (of course)
9) Guildwars
13) Eve online
17) Warhammer
26) Maple story - Funcom compares age of conan to maple story so it's under performing per them. Also I could not imagine many Maple story players having X fire, but Oh well.
27) Flyff - some MMO I never heard of.
29) Shaiya - free to play MMO
34) Perfect World - a new free to play MMO
35) Runes of magic - an MMO that has not even been released yet!
39) Lineage II
42) Age of Conan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You go girl!!!!!!!!!!! Moving on up ;D
44) Twelve Sky - a free to play MMO.
**********************************
By my calculations AoC should be a free to play MMO, based in china.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
you missed
14) Lord of The Rings Online
15) Cabal Online
24) Diablo II
I miss DAoC
It is amusing that you pick the quietest day of the week to check population.
FYI Tyranny KESH weekend play: Seeing 4 instances regulary. There was 2 yesterday, did you check? It's called pretty PACKED.
You know, official surveys tells us 4 things,
1. That Tyranny is a popular sever choice
2. That the majority of people that play the game have found Funcom's handlings of the Server Merges and Transfer options to be "Excellent"
3. 19% of people that are transferring that took the survey are heading to Tyranny.
docs.google.com/Doc
4. You opinon, whilst it is yours, sorry to say is a minority one. Out of every surveyed most people felt things are a lot better docs.google.com/Doc
What your post tells me is that I seriously doubt you play the game, you may of in the past for sure, not any more either. It tells me your information is wrong and time and time again you show no proof. You dismiss the majority of people's opinon that play the game and only take your own as gospel truth.
The only thing broken, is the broken record of incorrect false postings you make about the state of the game on the whole.
It is amusing that you pick the quietest day of the week to check population.
FYI Tyranny KESH weekend play: Seeing 4 instances regulary. There was 2 yesterday, did you check? It's called pretty PACKED.
You know, official surveys tells us 4 things,
1. That Tyranny is a popular sever choice
2. That the majority of people that play the game have found Funcom's handlings of the Server Merges and Transfer options to be "Excellent"
3. 19% of people that are transferring that took the survey are heading to Tyranny.
docs.google.com/Doc
4. You opinon, whilst it is yours, sorry to say is a minority one. Out of every surveyed most people felt things are a lot better docs.google.com/Doc
What your post tells me is that I seriously doubt you play the game, you may of in the past for sure, not any more either. It tells me your information is wrong and time and time again you show no proof. You dismiss the majority of people's opinon that play the game and only take your own as gospel truth.
The only thing broken, is the broken record of incorrect false postings you make about the state of the game on the whole.
My point was that not many people are playing in the game......this Kesh area is the only thing to do at level cap the vast majority of the time..........there were a bit over 250 people that I pulled up from 70-80, so that is where they were. Even if it was 4 times that it would still indicate a very small population. Though I was playing on the weekend and the game looks pretty empty, player wise aside from Kesh.....a snap shot of 10 players wont change that.
Your point is that the players like the game? Fine, but the majority of the people who bought the game probably did not..so those surveys are responses of people that were able to tuff it out for 9 months on vacant servers and tuff out rerolling multiple times to do the same content over and over.
******************
Also, remember most players came from empty servers and X fered there so after running through the game for hours and not seeing some one, then coming to a more populated server the perspective is off.
********************
I apologize I had higher standards and thought the populations rose do to all of those threads, though they may have, it's still the lonliest MMO I have played.......mabye I'm unlucky and everyone get's into a diffrent instance, dunno.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
It is amusing that you pick the quietest day of the week to check population.
FYI Tyranny KESH weekend play: Seeing 4 instances regulary. There was 2 yesterday, did you check? It's called pretty PACKED.
You know, official surveys tells us 4 things,
1. That Tyranny is a popular sever choice
2. That the majority of people that play the game have found Funcom's handlings of the Server Merges and Transfer options to be "Excellent"
3. 19% of people that are transferring that took the survey are heading to Tyranny.
docs.google.com/Doc
4. You opinon, whilst it is yours, sorry to say is a minority one. Out of every surveyed most people felt things are a lot better docs.google.com/Doc
What your post tells me is that I seriously doubt you play the game, you may of in the past for sure, not any more either. It tells me your information is wrong and time and time again you show no proof. You dismiss the majority of people's opinon that play the game and only take your own as gospel truth.
The only thing broken, is the broken record of incorrect false postings you make about the state of the game on the whole.
My point was that not many people are playing in the game......this Kesh area is the only thing to do at level cap the vast majority of the time..........there were a bit over 250 people that I pulled up from 70-80, so that is where they were. Even if it was 4 times that it would still indicate a very small population. Though I was playing on the weekend and the game looks pretty empty, player wise aside from Kesh.....a snap shot of 10 players wont change that.
Your point is that the players like the game? Fine, but the majority of the people who bought the game probably did not..so those surveys are responses of people that were able to tuff it out for 9 months on vacant servers and tuff out rerolling multiple times to do the same content over and over.
******************
Also, remember most players came from empty servers and X fered there so after running through the game for hours and not seeing some one, then coming to a more populated server the perspective is off.
********************
I apologize I had higher standards and thought the populations rose do to all of those threads, though they may have, it's still the lonliest MMO I have played.......mabye I'm unlucky and everyone get's into a diffrent instance, dunno.
I am sorry I thought that when you made that post on Tuesday you also wrote "After playing the game yesterday" which would then make Monday, the quietest day of the week?
The high standards that you have are your Xfire stats.
Please tell me that there has been a population drop on Xfire since Septemeber. Here is the catch, instead of people such as yourself usually discriminating the casual player, the stats I am talking about are the actual number of people logging in and being recorded by xfire not the amount of hours they put into the game. You will find it is pretty consistent in that area let me asure you
EDIT: just to add, I am not one for saying woohooo a jump in xfire stats is a *** % increase. This actually shows the population with regards to people who use xfire in that particular small populous is steady up and down, which one might either take as the changes are good enough for people to stay - or not - and if not those changes also may of brought new blood in. Either way it is consistant, and not a judgement on how often people log in an play - unless you have the disposistion that a casual gamer sub is somewhat less of a player that someone who may put 50hrs a week plus in a game. Still costs the same.
.
And the point is?
Did you read what the the poster put in this thread?
"Now your point is that the ONLY place where end game players congregate has multiple instances. Big deal, even if there are 500 level 80s jammed in that instance it does not make my information less correct as most players should be at level cap.
I just did a look up here are the results, by searching through every class x level range:
181 level 80s,
80 level 70s-79s,
5 Kesh instances
WoW 300 players, blowing my mind."
He just did a look and saw 5 instances in Kesh on the quietest day of the week, compared to your routing to try and prove me wrong that there were 4 instances on that picture from 4 weeks back lol. That was a week day mid day too!
Nice try silky.
Also if you read what I wrote I put there are 4 there regularly, I saw 2 on the same day he did, and posted a picture showing that there are 4 which was not at weekend but midday weekday. I have seen about 4 over the weekends since merge.
No decievement sorry.
2 instances on my time on Monday
The guy says he saw 5 on his time Monday
I posted a pic saying there is regularly 4 on a weekend
Widely accepted as flourishing and busy!
FYI Yesterday was a National holiday in the US
No, it was The Presidents day. Only some gouvernment worker get that day off. So point not taken.
YES all 4 of my kids were home due to the holiday. So was 1/2 of my neiborhood ( They don't work for the government
) In the US many used the Holiday for a 3 day weekend.
Since when is 8 PM EST mid-day? that is peek for any MMO based in the USA.
I wasn't in Kesh, I was PKing on white sands and getting murder points for killing players 3 levels lower!
5 instances is what the guy who I sent a tell to told me.
Though by doing a class search by level ranges we can get an estimate of how many players play now, which seems way down. So do it on the mythical peek time and show how many players play the game.
***************
I would do it but I go out on Thur - Saturday nights. But I am willing to bet even post mergers that Tyranny is not up to it's peak numbers.
*****************
At release most original servers had 3.5-4k players on pretty much always (not post release servers), then 3 months later it was down to 2k ish, then 6 months later most had 150 players- 700.
So now that mergers are done, it's a good time to compare and keep in mind that there are fewer servers.
-----I can't search the official forums but I'm sure those posts are still there.
EDIT: guess the release population died faster than I thought:
www.flickr.com/photos/abriael/2634834540/sizes/o/
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427