Why did WoW need cross server technology? Bottomline: the population was "trending down":
Remember they started talking about cross-server tech c. 2 years ago. It was post-MoP and raids were not filling up quickly, the AH wasn't as active etc. Now in part it will have been because people who had gone through the old raids didn't want to do them again - OK the legendary cloak chain meant they had to but eventually .... so wait times increased.
And maybe fewer new people were coming into the game or fewer old people returning for MoP. What we subsequently learnt was that the population hot a dip, bobbed up and down a bit before plummeting in the summer to 6.8M. I am sure that Blizzard - with their internal stats - could see what was happening. Trending down is how I have summarised a c. 18 month period.
Fewer people on the same number of servers = lower population density per server on average. And Blizzard responded with cross-server tech rather then server merges - which would have been a problem when WoD launched.
Which underlines - as others have said - the fact that WoW's population numbers, as reported, will be accurate. Blizzard don't have to give them out; the reason they do is because WoW is a major revenue source. So they provide the numbers to allow investors to make financial judgements - which is why the number has to be accurate.
The tech doesn't give you any new players though - which is what WS really needs.
Thank you for your answer, I was looking for such a reply in the first place, too bad so few people here with the actual capacity to give a direct answer to a direct question, so much trash has to be put aside :S
1) Obviously, you havent :-) if you have then you are just a desperate fanboi denying the obvious and no I wasnt comparing wow to wow, i was comparing wow to ws
I don't know if you even realize the irony in calling me a 'fanboi denying the obvious'.
What i said about WOW's combat isn't just 'my' opinion but a well established fact in industry. I didn't just make it up on the fly. Millions more will tell you the same. In your case however you are the only one so far claiming that WS combat is more responsive in comparison to WOW. First time i am reading this.
And that was typo..i fixed it. I meant to say comparing WOW to WS not WOW to WOW.
2) You are comparing immersion from a visual point of view? Wat wat?
Yes from visual point of view. The world, the characters, the atmosphere etc. Lore gives the world a backstory but it doesn't make it visually appealing.
And also lore = characters, world, events, all that mixed together is lore, get your definitions right before arguing.
I never said anything about Lore. problem is your inability to read and comprehend. From very beginning i am talking about the asthetics and visuals of WS. lore got nothing to do with visual presentation.
Arguing about aesthetics or design is like arguing about different colors, its just stupid and something that kids usually do.
Back to calling names are we? i notice that you resort to back handed insults when you run out of valid things to say. The whole point of these forums is to discuss opinions and preferences. I don't know how discussing asthetic and design makes you anymore childish than discussing combat?
Too bad the combat is horrible. I'm not talking about the not standing in colors gameplay either - though that sucks. I'm talking about the optimization issues of the game and the crazy frame rate spikes. The game suffers badly in this regard due to the fail graphics engine. You lag and you die. That simple. Especially in PVP that is not fun anyway due to balancing issues.
Same goes for latency as well. If you lag you die, which is probably why this type of trigger combat system isn't used in the same way as Carbine has used it. Not to mention their stance on 40 man raids was both delusional and arrogant to the point is was sickening.
You can go to the official forums right now and see people with great gaming PCs still complaining as they did during launch that optimization sucks - the ones that came back. It can't be fixed and Carbine new about it. The problem is with the engine itself. They new this and so they pushed the game out. They literally have to go inch by inch to fix the game's performance. How this game went so far deep into development and this was not discovered shows the ignorance of Carbine. But lets cover it up with a sense of humor and a children's cartoon art direction.
The game runs better on low end PCs. The people who try to tell you this game runs fine are liars, have low end rigs and do not care about performance and or are Carbine fan boys.
Even if they are somehow right? If you take all the data in the game performs unevenly at best. In a game focused around twitch combat uneven performance pretty much kills it. Not to mention any server lag. As the low population overall reflects on as well as other problems.
No amount of casual content is going to fix the combat problems. The Carbine team is smaller, so it is going to take them years to fix the performance problems of the game - IF they even can. Free to Play is the only way to have a bad chance, at saving this game from being shut down completely. That's just my opinion but this has a Warhammer : AoR like feel to (situation wise, not game wise : War hammer was better) it and it was more expensive to make.
Originally posted by mayito7777 Is this game still sub only or is already F2P?
No word.
And I don't believe you should expect it to change.
It is not possible to simply flick a switch and convert a business model. Work would need to be done; and even f it was money would then need to be spent on marketing and so forth. And NCSoft are looking to reduce costs at the moment.
And why would going f2p "save" the game? A short term boost perhaps whilst people checked it out and then ..... hardly an incentive for NCSoft to change.
They might change - they have the experience of running cash shops etc. but reducing costs and seeking to maintain a core subscriber base is probably the preferred option and closing the game another.
Why did WoW need cross server technology? Bottomline: the population was "trending down":
Remember they started talking about cross-server tech c. 2 years ago. It was post-MoP and raids were not filling up quickly, the AH wasn't as active etc. Now in part it will have been because people who had gone through the old raids didn't want to do them again - OK the legendary cloak chain meant they had to but eventually .... so wait times increased.
And maybe fewer new people were coming into the game or fewer old people returning for MoP. What we subsequently learnt was that the population hot a dip, bobbed up and down a bit before plummeting in the summer to 6.8M. I am sure that Blizzard - with their internal stats - could see what was happening. Trending down is how I have summarised a c. 18 month period.
Fewer people on the same number of servers = lower population density per server on average. And Blizzard responded with cross-server tech rather then server merges - which would have been a problem when WoD launched.
Which underlines - as others have said - the fact that WoW's population numbers, as reported, will be accurate. Blizzard don't have to give them out; the reason they do is because WoW is a major revenue source. So they provide the numbers to allow investors to make financial judgements - which is why the number has to be accurate.
The tech doesn't give you any new players though - which is what WS really needs.
Thank you for your answer, I was looking for such a reply in the first place, too bad so few people here with the actual capacity to give a direct answer to a direct question, so much trash has to be put aside :S
I read all of the posts in this thread (yeah, i got nothing else to do) and you are the one creating trash.
I am not sure what is it you are trying to do. Defend WildStar? It has more population but nobody knows about it? It is a better game? If this is what you are trying to do, you are very bad at it. I played WildStar, so i know all of your info is wrong / outright lies (or as you fanboys like to call it, different version of truth and / or sweet taste of delusion) but even if i haven't played it, i never want to after reading fanboy posts like yours. Seriously. You are the perfect type of customer Carbine wants: worships hardcore without knowing what it really is, worships developers because they are god themselves and spit to other games / players because they are lol filthy casuals lol. WildStar is like EvE without sandbox - it's community is elitist but lacks real skills and well, i am sorry but trash because of this reason.
Keep fooling yourself.
Stages of a new mmo: 1) It's just beta. It still has plenty of time before release. 2) It just launched. Give it time. WoW wasn't built in a day. 3) We don't need you anyway. 4) F2P announced. 5)Huge influx of players. 6) Look how much has changed. 7) Cash shop is the only thing developed lately. 8) It has been a long journey and we thank everyone who was part of it. Shutting down in 3 months. (Courtesy of Robokapp.)
You can chuckle all you want, but it doesnt change the fact :-) we can argue which design/car is better BMW or Mercedes (matter of taste), but we can all agree that a modern car is better in every way than a 30 year old junk wagon of same brand/model, unless you are a heirloom collector, which is a strange deviation from normal.
Can we please put the car analogy out of its misery? I don't recall ever buying a car and having mechanics come over every month to add stuff and change existing parts. It's apples and oranges.
As far as Wildstar goes, its raid-centricity pretty much guaranteed it wasn't the game for me. But its move to more casual play (if true) is probably less likely to draw people like me than it is to piss off their current niche fans. I guess time will tell, I just hope their current loyalists aren't about to lose the game they love.
Comments
Thank you for your answer, I was looking for such a reply in the first place, too bad so few people here with the actual capacity to give a direct answer to a direct question, so much trash has to be put aside :S
Wildstar felt like a soulless world, with only medicore action gameplay, both GW2 and ESO have more exciting combat...
the best part of the game was its humor, from which there was sadly not enough vissible...
indontbthink ansingle patch can repair that...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Too bad the combat is horrible. I'm not talking about the not standing in colors gameplay either - though that sucks. I'm talking about the optimization issues of the game and the crazy frame rate spikes. The game suffers badly in this regard due to the fail graphics engine. You lag and you die. That simple. Especially in PVP that is not fun anyway due to balancing issues.
Same goes for latency as well. If you lag you die, which is probably why this type of trigger combat system isn't used in the same way as Carbine has used it. Not to mention their stance on 40 man raids was both delusional and arrogant to the point is was sickening.
You can go to the official forums right now and see people with great gaming PCs still complaining as they did during launch that optimization sucks - the ones that came back. It can't be fixed and Carbine new about it. The problem is with the engine itself. They new this and so they pushed the game out. They literally have to go inch by inch to fix the game's performance. How this game went so far deep into development and this was not discovered shows the ignorance of Carbine. But lets cover it up with a sense of humor and a children's cartoon art direction.
The game runs better on low end PCs. The people who try to tell you this game runs fine are liars, have low end rigs and do not care about performance and or are Carbine fan boys.
Even if they are somehow right? If you take all the data in the game performs unevenly at best. In a game focused around twitch combat uneven performance pretty much kills it. Not to mention any server lag. As the low population overall reflects on as well as other problems.
No amount of casual content is going to fix the combat problems. The Carbine team is smaller, so it is going to take them years to fix the performance problems of the game - IF they even can. Free to Play is the only way to have a bad chance, at saving this game from being shut down completely. That's just my opinion but this has a Warhammer : AoR like feel to (situation wise, not game wise : War hammer was better) it and it was more expensive to make.
want 7 free days of playing? Try this
http://www.swtor.com/r/ZptVnY
No word.
And I don't believe you should expect it to change.
It is not possible to simply flick a switch and convert a business model. Work would need to be done; and even f it was money would then need to be spent on marketing and so forth. And NCSoft are looking to reduce costs at the moment.
And why would going f2p "save" the game? A short term boost perhaps whilst people checked it out and then ..... hardly an incentive for NCSoft to change.
They might change - they have the experience of running cash shops etc. but reducing costs and seeking to maintain a core subscriber base is probably the preferred option and closing the game another.
I read all of the posts in this thread (yeah, i got nothing else to do) and you are the one creating trash.
I am not sure what is it you are trying to do. Defend WildStar? It has more population but nobody knows about it? It is a better game? If this is what you are trying to do, you are very bad at it. I played WildStar, so i know all of your info is wrong / outright lies (or as you fanboys like to call it, different version of truth and / or sweet taste of delusion) but even if i haven't played it, i never want to after reading fanboy posts like yours. Seriously. You are the perfect type of customer Carbine wants: worships hardcore without knowing what it really is, worships developers because they are god themselves and spit to other games / players because they are lol filthy casuals lol. WildStar is like EvE without sandbox - it's community is elitist but lacks real skills and well, i am sorry but trash because of this reason.
Keep fooling yourself.
Stages of a new mmo: 1) It's just beta. It still has plenty of time before release. 2) It just launched. Give it time. WoW wasn't built in a day. 3) We don't need you anyway. 4) F2P announced. 5)Huge influx of players. 6) Look how much has changed. 7) Cash shop is the only thing developed lately. 8) It has been a long journey and we thank everyone who was part of it. Shutting down in 3 months. (Courtesy of Robokapp.)
Can we please put the car analogy out of its misery? I don't recall ever buying a car and having mechanics come over every month to add stuff and change existing parts. It's apples and oranges.
As far as Wildstar goes, its raid-centricity pretty much guaranteed it wasn't the game for me. But its move to more casual play (if true) is probably less likely to draw people like me than it is to piss off their current niche fans. I guess time will tell, I just hope their current loyalists aren't about to lose the game they love.