I'm not sure how this game works but they should make everyone the highest level for the remainder of the time - at least give them something to remember.
I think the lesson is that the first impression means everything. The game has been great since the expansion, but the gaming community mostly didn't want to give it another chance. Not many people people bought the expansion because of the bad memories they had at the game's release and the bad word of mouth about the game at its release.
It was a good game, it just had too much working against it. If you look at all the games in the mmorpg genre, you will notice that games which released with few bugs and problems and lots of fun things to do have stayed successful over the years. Games that take over 6 months to fix all the problems never recover.
It is sad to see the game fail and for the subscribers to lose it, but on the other hand the developers will be excited to move on and the subscribers have a ton of great upcoming games to choose from. What happened here is inevitable, games will die off as the space gets more crowded.
The game itself did not really capture my attention. I played it after quitting Anarchy Online a few years ago and even then many parts of the game was a ghost town. The graphics were great and the game was fun, but as an MMORPG it seemed too linear. The worst part of the game IMO was the character creation, that part just didn't "do it" for me. They needed to have better races and better looking characters.
So goodbye AC2 and hello DDO, one of the best games on the horizon right now. Good job Turbine I will see you in DDO!
Not that I don't like the AC series but lets look at Turbines history,
AC2 - closed
AC1 - dated, they did not maintain this game well enough. Most of the competition upgrades about once a year. AC1 has only had 1 graphic / interface change in its entire history, and it was a minor one on top of it.
Lord of the Rings online - or whatever they are calling it now. no advertisement, no marketing, no real news.
DDO - probably has the most potential right now but these guys have a terrible track record at maintaining their products. It may be good at release but Turbine will quickly unfocus from it and move onto another product.
Thats the trend anyway. (past preformance is always a good way to gauge future)
My thoughts are this, Turbine is definatly a one game company. They need to pick a title and stick to it. They do not have the ability to run more then one title at a time.
I am a fan of the Asheron's Call series. Even after I quit playing them (around the time Turbine took over), I still checked up on what was going on. I never felt Turbine did a good job advertising or improving the game. Yeah, they had a monthly patch, but they didn't fix the big problems. They were more interested in the bugs that helped players rather then the bugs that hurt them. The classes never really became balanced. Every month a new class would become the best and they kept giving free class changes for a few months straight. Turbine knew they would be shutting down AC2 before they released the xpack. They just wanted to squeeze every last penny they could before they did so. The first few months of AC2 were by far the best gaming experience I ever had. Yeah the classes were not the most even, and it has a few bugs, but it was fun. I feel bad that it is closing, but I know with the lineup of MMOs we have coming up, everyone will be able to find something they enjoy.
AC1 has only had 1 graphic / interface change in its entire history, and it was a minor one on top of it.
It has 12 patches a year where new quests and content is added which actually matters. Better graphics don't matter.
Almost all games patch on a regular basis. Better graphics DO matter. Look at any MMORPG (or any PC game for that matter) that has been released in the last few years. Graphic / interface improvements. The "graphics doesn't matter" is a feel good line. Otherwise AC would not have dropped from over 120,000 subscribers to just over 30,000. (http://www.mmorpgchart.com/)
Poor interface, poor graphics. Yes lots of good content, I agree. It would have been nice if Turbine had just stuck with AC and refined and improved it over the last few years rather then divide up the resources between all these games they are trying to do and neglect AC.
AC1 has only had 1 graphic / interface change in its entire history, and it was a minor one on top of it.
It has 12 patches a year where new quests and content is added which actually matters. Better graphics don't matter.
Almost all games patch on a regular basis. Better graphics DO matter. Look at any MMORPG (or any PC game for that matter) that has been released in the last few years. Graphic / interface improvements. The "graphics doesn't matter" is a feel good line. Otherwise AC would not have dropped from over 120,000 subscribers to just over 30,000. (http://www.mmorpgchart.com/)
Poor interface, poor graphics. Yes lots of good content, I agree. It would have been nice if Turbine had just stuck with AC and refined and improved it over the last few years rather then divide up the resources between all these games they are trying to do and neglect AC.
You can't say that a drop like that (over 100,000 people) is because of graphics/interface. Sure no one wants to play a game where you can see every single pixel, but Asheron's Call graphics were not that bad. They are not as good as the graphics we see in upcoming MMOs, but they are not bad. Sure those things could turn some potential customers off, but the people who are already there won't just stop playing over graphics. If you look at the chart you linked to us, the most noticable drops happened around '02 and on. That is around the time Turbine bought the franchise, give or take a a year or two. So obviously Turbine did/is doing something wrong. That with the release of games such as SWG, WoW, Lineage2, and other new MMO's, people said forget it, cancelled their accounts and went on to bigger and better things. I do agree though, if AC1 would get an xpack with updated graphics, new content (items, quests, skills) it would boost sales and defiently show an increase in accounts, I know I would give it a try. People would reactivate their accounts, and some new ones would be made. Though I fear that if an expansion were to be released it would be advertised poorly or not at all, much like the AC2 xpack. And even if it were adverttised very well, it would not change the fact that Turbine is putting all their effort on DDO and LoTRO, which I fear will also be disappointing after launch.
We will see. Hopefully Turbine has learned from the closing of AC2 what they are doing wrong.
You can't say that a drop like that (over 100,000 people) is because of graphics/interface. Sure no one wants to play a game where you can see every single pixel, but Asheron's Call graphics were not that bad. They are not as good as the graphics we see in upcoming MMOs, but they are not bad. Sure those things could turn some potential customers off, but the people who are already there won't just stop playing over graphics. If you look at the chart you linked to us, the most noticable drops happened around '02 and on. That is around the time Turbine bought the franchise, give or take a a year or two. So obviously Turbine did/is doing something wrong. That with the release of games such as SWG, WoW, Lineage2, and other new MMO's, people said forget it, cancelled their accounts and went on to bigger and better things. I do agree though, if AC1 would get an xpack with updated graphics, new content (items, quests, skills) it would boost sales and defiently show an increase in accounts, I know I would give it a try. People would reactivate their accounts, and some new ones would be made. Though I fear that if an expansion were to be released it would be advertised poorly or not at all, much like the AC2 xpack. And even if it were adverttised very well, it would not change the fact that Turbine is putting all their effort on DDO and LoTRO, which I fear will also be disappointing after launch.
We will see. Hopefully Turbine has learned from the closing of AC2 what they are doing wrong.
Im not saying that it is completely because of graphic/interface but lets face it, its not helping. Loosing 100k customers should have been a huge wake up call but it wasn't.
Your comment is right on the money. Like I said before, they should have just stuck with AC and refined and improved that game.
If you are a true hardcore gamer, then graphics don't matter. They only matter to the stupid masses. Also, nothing wrong with the interface. It actually responds faster in some functions since the expansion.
I do agree though, if AC1 would get an xpack with updated graphics, new content (items, quests, skills) it would boost sales and defiently show an increase in accounts, I know I would give it a try.
Steve, that's exactly what they did a month ago, so go out and get it (put your money where your mouth is). How can you make suggestions on what would improve the game if you are so behind on knowing the state of the game today?
Originally posted by Torak Not that I don't like the AC series but lets look at Turbines history, AC2 - closed AC1 - dated, they did not maintain this game well enough. Most of the competition upgrades about once a year. AC1 has only had 1 graphic / interface change in its entire history, and it was a minor one on top of it. Lord of the Rings online - or whatever they are calling it now. no advertisement, no marketing, no real news. DDO - probably has the most potential right now but these guys have a terrible track record at maintaining their products. It may be good at release but Turbine will quickly unfocus from it and move onto another product. Thats the trend anyway. (past preformance is always a good way to gauge future) My thoughts are this, Turbine is definatly a one game company. They need to pick a title and stick to it. They do not have the ability to run more then one title at a time.
If thats their history they should realy on focus on 1 game, maybe they would be able to pull that off? Probably not They already screwed themselves over.
Wow i heard about this a week or so ago...i have never played but i was planning on it.
"Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil." - Plato
Wow i heard about this a week or so ago...i have never played but i was planning on it.
"Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil." - Plato
lol. Ok well i clicked on it and it went to the shopping cart, but they tried to sell Throne of destiny instead. My bad for not noticing the fist time that the name of the game had changed. You can hardly blame me on not doing research cus there ain't much to do. Clink on link, moves to shopping cart. I'm not thinking that they are gonna change the name of the game after I click the Order button.
Originally posted by loeslein That's kind of a weird move to release an expansion pack and then can it.
It's actually quite intelligent .. milk the community for some last minute dosh..
-- Note: PlayNC will refuse to allow you access to your account if you forget your password and can't provide a scanned image of the product key for the first product you purchased..... LOL
Originally posted by Nihilx To be fair, anyone keeping an eye on the world of MMORPG's knew this had to happer sooner or later. From day one, AC2 was heavily underpopulated, something the regular updates and the expansions couldn't seem to remedy.
Thank you very much for responding in a non-emotional, and analytical way. You are able to look at the gross failure of AC2 from a purely buisness point of view. And yes, 6 months after release AC2 was unofficially dead. It lost roughly 90% of its total player base. Going from roughly 60k players to 6k players!
After that it was kept on life support from the profits of AC1.
Comments
I'm not sure how this game works but they should make everyone the highest level for the remainder of the time - at least give them something to remember.
I think the lesson is that the first impression means everything. The game has been great since the expansion, but the gaming community mostly didn't want to give it another chance. Not many people people bought the expansion because of the bad memories they had at the game's release and the bad word of mouth about the game at its release.
It was a good game, it just had too much working against it. If you look at all the games in the mmorpg genre, you will notice that games which released with few bugs and problems and lots of fun things to do have stayed successful over the years. Games that take over 6 months to fix all the problems never recover.
My regards to the community also.
I know how it is to lose your favorite game. Hope you find a new gaming home somewhere.
It is sad to see the game fail and for the subscribers to lose it, but on the other hand the developers will be excited to move on and the subscribers have a ton of great upcoming games to choose from. What happened here is inevitable, games will die off as the space gets more crowded.
The game itself did not really capture my attention. I played it after quitting Anarchy Online a few years ago and even then many parts of the game was a ghost town. The graphics were great and the game was fun, but as an MMORPG it seemed too linear. The worst part of the game IMO was the character creation, that part just didn't "do it" for me. They needed to have better races and better looking characters.
So goodbye AC2 and hello DDO, one of the best games on the horizon right now. Good job Turbine I will see you in DDO!
Not that I don't like the AC series but lets look at Turbines history,
AC2 - closed
AC1 - dated, they did not maintain this game well enough. Most of the competition upgrades about once a year. AC1 has only had 1 graphic / interface change in its entire history, and it was a minor one on top of it.
Lord of the Rings online - or whatever they are calling it now. no advertisement, no marketing, no real news.
DDO - probably has the most potential right now but these guys have a terrible track record at maintaining their products. It may be good at release but Turbine will quickly unfocus from it and move onto another product.
Thats the trend anyway. (past preformance is always a good way to gauge future)
My thoughts are this, Turbine is definatly a one game company. They need to pick a title and stick to it. They do not have the ability to run more then one title at a time.
It has 12 patches a year where new quests and content is added which actually matters. Better graphics don't matter.
I am a fan of the Asheron's Call series. Even after I quit playing them (around the time Turbine took over), I still checked up on what was going on. I never felt Turbine did a good job advertising or improving the game. Yeah, they had a monthly patch, but they didn't fix the big problems. They were more interested in the bugs that helped players rather then the bugs that hurt them. The classes never really became balanced. Every month a new class would become the best and they kept giving free class changes for a few months straight. Turbine knew they would be shutting down AC2 before they released the xpack. They just wanted to squeeze every last penny they could before they did so. The first few months of AC2 were by far the best gaming experience I ever had. Yeah the classes were not the most even, and it has a few bugs, but it was fun. I feel bad that it is closing, but I know with the lineup of MMOs we have coming up, everyone will be able to find something they enjoy.
It has 12 patches a year where new quests and content is added which actually matters. Better graphics don't matter.
Almost all games patch on a regular basis. Better graphics DO matter. Look at any MMORPG (or any PC game for that matter) that has been released in the last few years. Graphic / interface improvements. The "graphics doesn't matter" is a feel good line. Otherwise AC would not have dropped from over 120,000 subscribers to just over 30,000. (http://www.mmorpgchart.com/)
Poor interface, poor graphics. Yes lots of good content, I agree. It would have been nice if Turbine had just stuck with AC and refined and improved it over the last few years rather then divide up the resources between all these games they are trying to do and neglect AC.
It has 12 patches a year where new quests and content is added which actually matters. Better graphics don't matter.
Almost all games patch on a regular basis. Better graphics DO matter. Look at any MMORPG (or any PC game for that matter) that has been released in the last few years. Graphic / interface improvements. The "graphics doesn't matter" is a feel good line. Otherwise AC would not have dropped from over 120,000 subscribers to just over 30,000. (http://www.mmorpgchart.com/)
Poor interface, poor graphics. Yes lots of good content, I agree. It would have been nice if Turbine had just stuck with AC and refined and improved it over the last few years rather then divide up the resources between all these games they are trying to do and neglect AC.
You can't say that a drop like that (over 100,000 people) is because of graphics/interface. Sure no one wants to play a game where you can see every single pixel, but Asheron's Call graphics were not that bad. They are not as good as the graphics we see in upcoming MMOs, but they are not bad. Sure those things could turn some potential customers off, but the people who are already there won't just stop playing over graphics. If you look at the chart you linked to us, the most noticable drops happened around '02 and on. That is around the time Turbine bought the franchise, give or take a a year or two. So obviously Turbine did/is doing something wrong. That with the release of games such as SWG, WoW, Lineage2, and other new MMO's, people said forget it, cancelled their accounts and went on to bigger and better things.
I do agree though, if AC1 would get an xpack with updated graphics, new content (items, quests, skills) it would boost sales and defiently show an increase in accounts, I know I would give it a try. People would reactivate their accounts, and some new ones would be made. Though I fear that if an expansion were to be released it would be advertised poorly or not at all, much like the AC2 xpack. And even if it were adverttised very well, it would not change the fact that Turbine is putting all their effort on DDO and LoTRO, which I fear will also be disappointing after launch.
We will see. Hopefully Turbine has learned from the closing of AC2 what they are doing wrong.
You can't say that a drop like that (over 100,000 people) is because of graphics/interface. Sure no one wants to play a game where you can see every single pixel, but Asheron's Call graphics were not that bad. They are not as good as the graphics we see in upcoming MMOs, but they are not bad. Sure those things could turn some potential customers off, but the people who are already there won't just stop playing over graphics. If you look at the chart you linked to us, the most noticable drops happened around '02 and on. That is around the time Turbine bought the franchise, give or take a a year or two. So obviously Turbine did/is doing something wrong. That with the release of games such as SWG, WoW, Lineage2, and other new MMO's, people said forget it, cancelled their accounts and went on to bigger and better things.
I do agree though, if AC1 would get an xpack with updated graphics, new content (items, quests, skills) it would boost sales and defiently show an increase in accounts, I know I would give it a try. People would reactivate their accounts, and some new ones would be made. Though I fear that if an expansion were to be released it would be advertised poorly or not at all, much like the AC2 xpack. And even if it were adverttised very well, it would not change the fact that Turbine is putting all their effort on DDO and LoTRO, which I fear will also be disappointing after launch.
We will see. Hopefully Turbine has learned from the closing of AC2 what they are doing wrong.
Im not saying that it is completely because of graphic/interface but lets face it, its not helping. Loosing 100k customers should have been a huge wake up call but it wasn't.
Your comment is right on the money. Like I said before, they should have just stuck with AC and refined and improved that game.
If you are a true hardcore gamer, then graphics don't matter. They only matter to the stupid masses. Also, nothing wrong with the interface. It actually responds faster in some functions since the expansion.
Steve, that's exactly what they did a month ago, so go out and get it (put your money where your mouth is). How can you make suggestions on what would improve the game if you are so behind on knowing the state of the game today?
AC2 is easily in my top 5 MMOs ever (I've played around 20). Thanks for the good times AC2...your story line quests were the best.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
"Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil." - Plato
"Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil." - Plato
No they aren't. If you click the "order" button on the AC2 page, it doesn't actually work. Do a little more research next time.
lol. Ok well i clicked on it and it went to the shopping cart, but they tried to sell Throne of destiny instead. My bad for not noticing the fist time that the name of the game had changed. You can hardly blame me on not doing research cus there ain't much to do. Clink on link, moves to shopping cart. I'm not thinking that they are gonna change the name of the game after I click the Order button.
It's actually quite intelligent .. milk the community for some last minute dosh..
--
Note: PlayNC will refuse to allow you access to your account if you forget your password and can't provide a scanned image of the product key for the first product you purchased..... LOL
It's actually quite intelligent .. milk the community for some last minute dosh..
I particularly liked there new slogan, it was either on the box or the site, "The call is stronger than ever." Too bad no one answered
Thank you very much for responding in a non-emotional, and analytical way. You are able to look at the gross failure of AC2 from a purely buisness point of view. And yes, 6 months after release AC2 was unofficially dead. It lost roughly 90% of its total player base. Going from roughly 60k players to 6k players!
After that it was kept on life support from the profits of AC1.
-Personal Website (A Work still in progress):
http://www.geocities.com/xplororor/index.html
-AC, AC2, AO, EQ, Freelancer, SWG:
http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor
-More SWG:
http://community.webshots.com/user/captain_sica_xol
-More EQ, Dungeon Siege, *UXO*, Diablo II:Lords of Destruction:
http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_archives01
-EverQuest II, Horizons:
http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_eq2archives01
-EVE Online !!!
http://community.webshots.com/user/sica_xol_archives01
-DAoC
http://community.webshots.com/user/sica_xol_archives02
-Coming sooner or later... CoH, WoW, MXO, UO, GW, As3, RS
NOOOOOO
Star Wars Galaxies will be next, followed by Everquest 2.
What? You think that EQ2 will shut down before Shadowbane or Horizons?
...
This is where I draw the line: __________________.