Assumptions 1. LotRO has a more casual playerbase. 2. LotRO uses later and better server technology. 3. Due to 1 and 2 a LotRO realm can support two to three times the number of subscribers, say 20k for simplicity.
Conclusion LotRO has ~460000 subscribers (20k per realm times 23 realms).
Adjustments Adjust assumptions to own tastes and do the math. Note that the latest WoW numbers came in January, so make your own assumptions on current numbers too. I believe the number of realms back than was fairly close to what it is today though. In any case, best of luck to Turbine and LotRO. Though it wasn't entirely to my taste, I hope the game is doing very well, and continues to do so. We need more subscription based games above the 500k mark.
EVE is unique, black empty space and all. And while I was kidding come one - you may be insane if you think LotRO is squeezing 30k or 50k people per server.
You aren't following the logic. 30-40K people total per server. That ever play. Not at one time. With 5K being the max that can log in at one time.
Let me break it down again for you.
World of Warcraft 3500 per server max with about 10-12K per server total population
EvE 30K about max on the server with 210Kish the total server population.
So I personally see LOTRO somewhere in the middle of those two. World of Warcraft generally seems to be the lowest for Server caps and total population per server. I think it is due to them having too many servers. They kept listening to the people wanting a new server every few months and now they have a ton of dead servers (relatively speaking of course). I think if they merged up their servers (which they kind of did with the Battlground clusters anyways) the could very well be around 30-40K per server with a max of around 3500-5000 logged in at one time.
For a P2P game 800k would make LOTRO like the 3rd most popular game ever. I have serious doubts that this game is that popular, 300k would be pushing the realm of believability for active subs....
It wouldn't be the 3rd most popular mmorpg every, more like number 6 or 7.
Subscriptions is where it’s at. 800K subs would place LotRO 2nd all time in subs depending on how you want to count Lineage / Lineage II. If I’m not mistaken Lineage doesn’t use a subscription model but actually charges a meaningful amount to play, which make them distinctly different then most of the big number non subscription based games including WoW in China. In terms of yearly income 800K would put LotRO a solid 4th all time.
even if taking into consideration only subscribtions, there are a number of MMORPG that outperformed Lotro. World of Warcraft, Lineage and Lineage 2 (both use a monthly fee). Ragnarok Online never released official information but , judging by the status the game has all over asia, its safe to say this game had over 1 million subscribers.
There are other MMORPG's of which I'm not entirely sure what the subscriber base is, so I won't mention them here, but I would seriously be surprised if Legend of Mir 2 does not have more subscribers than Lotro.
For a P2P game 800k would make LOTRO like the 3rd most popular game ever. I have serious doubts that this game is that popular, 300k would be pushing the realm of believability for active subs....
LotRO peaked at about 180k active subs a few months ago and the active subs have now declined a little.
This 800k figure is about three times the amount of game boxes sold world wide.
It's sad or funny depending on your point of view that mmogdata.com can't check the amount sold of the game and come to the conclusion that it's nowhere near 800k.
Umm not saying your numbers are wrong or that your lying to us or anything, but may I ask were you got your facts from, as you seem to be the only one that knows for sure what LoTRO's subscriptions are. Sorry call me, paranoid, jaded etc. but I tend not to take the word of unknow thread poster XXI as fact without well you know.. facts. Never know when they are actaully a disgruntled ex-employ, perma banned goldfarmer, or Dev from competing MMO. Yeah I know I'm weird like that
For a P2P game 800k would make LOTRO like the 3rd most popular game ever. I have serious doubts that this game is that popular, 300k would be pushing the realm of believability for active subs....
LotRO peaked at about 180k active subs a few months ago and the active subs have now declined a little.
This 800k figure is about three times the amount of game boxes sold world wide.
It's sad or funny depending on your point of view that mmogdata.com can't check the amount sold of the game and come to the conclusion that it's nowhere near 800k.
Umm not saying your numbers are wrong or that your lying to us or anything, but may I ask were you got your facts from, as you seem to be the only one that knows for sure what LoTRO's subscriptions are. Sorry call me, paranoid, jaded etc. but I tend not to take the word of unknow thread poster XXI as fact without well you know.. facts. Never know when they are actaully a disgruntled ex-employ, perma banned goldfarmer, or Dev from competing MMO. Yeah I know I'm weird like that
Recently, www.mmogdata.com updated the subscription numbers on some of the MMORPGs that they track. Among these were LOTRO. Now, I think LOTRO is doing pretty good and I like the game, but I am more than a little suspicious of 800k. It just seems a little too high. Maybe MMOGdata is counting total subscribers instead of current subscribers. Does anyone else think this number is a little high?
Most websites only count how many subscribers they got for the lifetime not how many people are playing the game now. The same thing go for WOW it had 8 million subscribers for the lifetime doesn't mean they have 8mil people playing now. Alot of games don't show how many ppl are playing online each day they only show High and Low on each server. There is only a few that show how many people are online at that time.
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For a P2P game 800k would make LOTRO like the 3rd most popular game ever. I have serious doubts that this game is that popular, 300k would be pushing the realm of believability for active subs....
LotRO peaked at about 180k active subs a few months ago and the active subs have now declined a little.
This 800k figure is about three times the amount of game boxes sold world wide.
It's sad or funny depending on your point of view that mmogdata.com can't check the amount sold of the game and come to the conclusion that it's nowhere near 800k.
Umm not saying your numbers are wrong or that your lying to us or anything, but may I ask were you got your facts from, as you seem to be the only one that knows for sure what LoTRO's subscriptions are. Sorry call me, paranoid, jaded etc. but I tend not to take the word of unknow thread poster XXI as fact without well you know.. facts. Never know when they are actaully a disgruntled ex-employ, perma banned goldfarmer, or Dev from competing MMO. Yeah I know I'm weird like that
Sorry, I can't reveal that information.
Then that number is no more credible than the 800k number, you may as well use a zillion.
LotRO has NOTHING about it that indicates it is at subscription numbers that are at all significant or remarkable, no adding of servers, no increasing login queues, nothing. While I am sure the game is doing well for Turbine it is simply wishful fan thinking to suggest that it has acheived notable or record levels of subscriptions when there has been no server growth and no announcement as to such. Additionally, when the company is regularly making specious claims about 'millions of characters' it is easy to assume they are trying to find some truth they can tout that sounds like what they want to say (millions of subs) but cannot. I have NO doubt given Turbine's advertising and claims that if they had a substantial number of subs they would be broadcasting it for all to here.
Well I am no idea what LOTRO subscription number sre. I do know that one weekends(on the server that I am on) that its hard to find quest mobs or much of anything else to kill as there seems to be two or three people around per spawn site. I wish they would add a new server or two.
LotRO has NOTHING about it that indicates it is at subscription numbers that are at all significant or remarkable, no adding of servers, no increasing login queues, nothing. While I am sure the game is doing well for Turbine it is simply wishful fan thinking to suggest that it has acheived notable or record levels of subscriptions when there has been no server growth and no announcement as to such. Additionally, when the company is regularly making specious claims about 'millions of characters' it is easy to assume they are trying to find some truth they can tout that sounds like what they want to say (millions of subs) but cannot. I have NO doubt given Turbine's advertising and claims that if they had a substantial number of subs they would be broadcasting it for all to here.
Except they have never done so before. They have never release server numbers and as far as I know they never even released boxes sold. That doesn't mean they are hiding stuff, it just means they don't do it.
There is no reason to think that they are doing less then 300K subscriptions which would put them right around the number 2 MMO in NA which is what the CEO said. He said that LOTRO was the number 2 mmo in NA. So what ever the second highest after WoW is then that is who LOTRO beat and has more subs then.
There is no reason for Server growth. Login Queues were only used to direct new players to less populated servers so they could have even server population. I would guess that their servers are actually capable of holding more then 5K at peak population. They are using new technology and we already know that servers are capable of holding 30K+ people.
The reason we haven't seen any new servers added is because they haven't had to reach their caps yet. And I highly doubt that they are capped at 3500. World of warcraft might use low quality servers, but Turbine's servers were able to hold around that much 8 years ago, so I really doubt they are still setting their peak population at the same number.
FWIW, CCP also posts their numbers for EVE. IMO, LotRO lacks that compelling something that makes people want to keep playing forever and ever. The setting is not enough, IMO (and I'm a die-hard fan of Middle-earth.) That's my personal opinion of it. Also, like many others, I doubt they've hit anything close to 800K subs. I wonder how many peeps they can have concurrently logged in to one server? Multiply that number by the total number of servers and you'll get the max they could possibly have at the moment. I doubt that number will allow for 800K active subs.
They have something like 24 servers currently. Modest server technology that Turbine had back in 1999 allowed for about 3K people on the server at once. So we will use that as an estimate even though I would guess it is closer to 4-5K. Server population cap is usually around 10% of your total server population but lets use 1/3 as a good number of people on at any given time.
So 24 servers times 9000 people equals 216,000 at a bare minimum.
The high estimate with servers capable of holding 5K people at once and holding 10% of the server population at any given time would give us
24 servers time 50,000 people equals 1.2 million subscribers at pretty much the maximum.
So 800K is quite possible on their given equipment.
(A good example is the fact that EvE currently has around 200,000 subscribers but they only have a peak population of around 30K at any one time. This means approximately 15% of their server population is pretty much the cap for their server. )
ac2 allowed almost 4k people online remember last beta days with 3900 people online when turbine had the numbers on launcher? and that was old technology . 2 weeks ago on windfola server at 10.30 east time on a saturday night were 2675 players online, not counting with anounimous people. so that 800k number don't suprise me at all
Delusional. The game doesn't have 800k subscribers. Turbine would be peeing themselves and every game site with the happy news if it was. You guys are dreaming if you think they are packing in 800k accounts on 10 or 12 U.S. and 10 or 12 Euro servers.
Just because these wankers on this new data site post numbers (with no source at all mind you) doesn't mean its correct.
Until Turbine comes out and tells everyone, no one knows. Guess all you want, justify with "server technology" estimates but the fact is if it was doing so well, Turbine would be all over it jamming it in everyones face.
The numbers come from a variety of sources, and some games have more than one source. These sources include press releases, direct data from the developers, company investor documents, news articles, public comments and anonymous sources.
6. Your numbers are all made up or are just guesses!
I assure you, they are not. It is true that many companies keep their subscriber numbers confidential, but others are more open about it (less so as each month goes by). Almost all of the data I use comes from actual sources, although often those sources are insiders who only give the information on the condition of anonymity. If I simply wanted to make up numbers, I’d put out an update every week, and those updates would quickly be revealed as faulty when compared to, say, company press releases. So, while I am the first to admit that the data is not always reliable and it is most definitely not made up – or at least, not by me.
Delusional. The game doesn't have 800k subscribers. Turbine would be peeing themselves and every game site with the happy news if it was. You guys are dreaming if you think they are packing in 800k accounts on 10 or 12 U.S. and 10 or 12 Euro servers. ... Until Turbine comes out and tells everyone, no one knows. Guess all you want, justify with "server technology" estimates but the fact is if it was doing so well, Turbine would be all over it jamming it in everyones face.
Agree.
I think this rationale is PARTICULARLY sound when you consider that Turbine has been taking the 'bandwagon' approach to marketing LotRO since before it was released. Their whole marketing campaign has been the 'play it because everyone else is' but instead of justifying that with subs they say obscure things parsed carefully to give the impression without actually making that claim. CLEARLY if they had the numbers and could legitimately make the claim they would.
Additionally, to believe the 800k types out there you would have to believe one of two possible scenarios both of which are easily unrealistic. Those being the following:
- The game launched with 800k subs and maintains that today, no real losses or at least all losses being replaced by newcomers.
or...
- The game launched with a lower number of players and the infrastructure in place to support far, far, far more and the rapid growth since to record subscriptions since has just been filling that capacity.
The first is terribly unlikely as we all know that no game holds all that try it and no matter what your thoughts on LotRO are and its subs it is just patently unreasonable to think they launched with 800k players and have yet to post growth or loss. The first scenario also requires a belief that Turbine new EXACTLY how many people would buy LotRO well before launch and setup the servers perfectly accordingly, even that they knew before launch how much it would sell months after launch. The second scenario is equally ridiculous, servers cost money and their is no way in hell they would have setup 20 servers for 200k or 300k at launch only to wait months for them to all fill up. Also, if the second case where true the servers at the start would have been terribly vacant and only now getting filled up to the point needed in such a game.
The lack of server growth speaks volumes to the potential subs LotRO has. it doesn't give us a number or a ballpark but it easily tells us they are not in gangbuster record setting territory. Besides that, as was said if they where doing 800k+ they would put that in those ads instead of inventing BS about how many characters have been created.
Delusional. The game doesn't have 800k subscribers. Turbine would be peeing themselves and every game site with the happy news if it was. You guys are dreaming if you think they are packing in 800k accounts on 10 or 12 U.S. and 10 or 12 Euro servers. ... Until Turbine comes out and tells everyone, no one knows. Guess all you want, justify with "server technology" estimates but the fact is if it was doing so well, Turbine would be all over it jamming it in everyones face.
Agree.
I think this rationale is PARTICULARLY sound when you consider that Turbine has been taking the 'bandwagon' approach to marketting LotRO since before it was released. Their whole marketting campaign has been the 'play it because everyone else is' but instead of justifying that with subs they say obscure things parsed carefully to give the impression without actually making that claim. CLEARLY if they had the numbers and could legitimately make the claim they would.
why should they make the claim? they never did it before with their other games. besides most companies don't do that.
While I don't have any problems with some of the average peeps logged on per server numbers that've been bandied about, there are two comments I'll make about them.
1. The error bar on these things is huge. Without any knowledge of what their actual servers can handle, our estimates can vary very widely. I mentioned the idea simply because that would set a MAXIMUM limit to their subscriber base. It has been shown that such a number does indeed encompass 800K active subs. Whether they *actually* have that many is hard even to guess at, as we are trying to do.
2. Using Eve as an example is a bad idea. Eve has only 1 server (and 1 test server). CCP tends to this server with great care and attention, far more, I'm willing to bet, than any other MMO of comparitive or greater size. I'll bet that CCP has invested a lot of money in that one server, so its capabilities are going to be far beyond what a standard server on, say, WoW (which has 4 servers/machine, IIRC). I'd say that Eve is an aberration in this matter (as well as many others, bless its' heart).
As time goes by, we may be able to glean some more data from Turbine or other sources that'll let us nail down their sub numbers with more accuracy.
Originally posted by Quingu why should they make the claim? they never did it before with their other games. besides most companies don't do that.
They are making that claim - their entire advertising plan is to tell people to try it because everyone else is. Can you seriously suggest that they would run the ad about '4 million characters created' if they could instead make a legitimate claim as to the subscriber base? As for the other games - that was then this is now. Are you suggesting that companies always do only what they have ever done before? Lastly, if we are to believe the hype and hyperbole from fans and Turbine LotRO is different from their other games because it is the 2nd biggest MMO ever - those other games where not big time mass market products so different policies can apply.
Believe me, forget me believe the reality of how companies work, turbine's policy is NOT that they do not release sub numbers it is that they release only sub numbers that they believe will directly benifit the bottom line of the game. if LotRO had record setting subs (which 800k and the other claims would indicate) then they would be shoting it from every outlet they could as that would be like a big gamer community stamp of approval and a big bandwagon bonus to attracting new players.
PLAY THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE™ FOR FREE!
Turbine launches 7-day Free Trial Program for the Hottest MMO of the Year
WESTWOOD, MA -- August 29, 2007 -- Turbine, Inc. has launched the official 7-day free trial of The Lord of the Rings™: Shadows of Angmar™ (LOTRO). Beginning today, fans in North America, Australia and New Zealand can play the best online game for free by visiting http://trial.lotro.com/.
LOTRO has received critical acclaim from around the globe. Since its launch in April, LOTRO has quickly become the second largest MMORPGwith an estimated 4 million characters calling Middle-earth their home. The game continues to grow with two massive updates that have increased the world by over 20%:
Now tell me Turbine is not selling their game on the claim of its achievement in reaching record numbers of players. We have all seen the ads, the comments, etc. Clearly Turbine is doing the bandwagon thing. So how in the world could they determine that the best way to attract players is by advertising how popular they are but NOT publishing legitimate subscriptions numbers unless the reality is that the subscription numbers are not impressive or otherwise notable? 4 million characters created? Even that is qualified with 'estimated' - hell, they could have had a DVE write a script to create 2 million toons one evening so that is a completely meaningless claim/statistic. Why would they use something so obviously BS is they had the real record numbers to back it up?
Come on man, it is obvious by this alone - add in the server count thing and the other points and clearly Turbine is trying to generate hype with obfuscation and specious claims because the real numbers don't prove out the hype.
Delusional. The game doesn't have 800k subscribers. Turbine would be peeing themselves and every game site with the happy news if it was. You guys are dreaming if you think they are packing in 800k accounts on 10 or 12 U.S. and 10 or 12 Euro servers. ... Until Turbine comes out and tells everyone, no one knows. Guess all you want, justify with "server technology" estimates but the fact is if it was doing so well, Turbine would be all over it jamming it in everyones face.
Agree.
I think this rationale is PARTICULARLY sound when you consider that Turbine has been taking the 'bandwagon' approach to marketting LotRO since before it was released. Their whole marketting campaign has been the 'play it because everyone else is' but instead of justifying that with subs they say obscure things parsed carefully to give the impression without actually making that claim. CLEARLY if they had the numbers and could legitimately make the claim they would.
why should they make the claim? they never did it before with their other games. besides most companies don't do that.
If we could determine how many boxes they have sold (including digital downloads), and thus how many real accounts have been made, we could fairly easily approximate the total number of active subscriptions. At the very least, we would have a ceiling.
In all likelihood, LotRO probably does not have any more than 2/3 of its total purchased accounts still active, no different than any other game of its age (older games drop down way lower due to attrition, else WoW would probably have 20M active accounts). I would not be surprised if it was only around the 50% mark. At any rate, if 2/3 is taken to be accurate, then for 800K subscriptions they would need 1,200,000 boxes sold.
Do you think the game has sold that many boxes? I personally do not.
Not suprising that LOTRO would have a nice showing in their game for there are many Lotr fans in the world. The game sells just on the Lotr lore alone, It doesn't need to be spectacular to be majorly successful.
Well, from stress testing in beta last year, I can tell you that each 'region' within the world can hold upwards of 200 people and there are roughly 25 'regions' in LOTRO's Middle Earth at this time. That is a capacity for 5000 players simultaneously. As the poster above mentions, if you have a 10% usage to sub ratio, then each server cluster could hold 50k subscriptions at max. Some people are forgeting the concept of server clusters (aka worlds). Each 'region' could very well be a server itself. So when you add a place like Evendim to live content you are basically 'adding a server' to the server cluster.
The fact that LOTRO hasn't added any new server clusters is kind of irrelevant.
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Originally posted by Cerion The fact that LOTRO hasn't added any new server clusters is kind of irrelevant.
No, it isn't.
Successful game = More servers added since launch
Not so successful = No additional servers since launch
Do you see the difference?
eh..No, not really.
well before an mmo is released marketing specialists will try to guess how many copies will be sold of the game, and how many subscribers there will be.
Having more added servers shortly after launch = game is doing better than expected
Closing servers shortly after launch = game is doing worse than expected
no servers closing or added = game is doing as expected.
Comments
Honestly, I still put more trust into my own little calculations made some 10 weeks ago:
Let me break it down again for you.
World of Warcraft 3500 per server max with about 10-12K per server total population
EvE 30K about max on the server with 210Kish the total server population.
So I personally see LOTRO somewhere in the middle of those two. World of Warcraft generally seems to be the lowest for Server caps and total population per server. I think it is due to them having too many servers. They kept listening to the people wanting a new server every few months and now they have a ton of dead servers (relatively speaking of course). I think if they merged up their servers (which they kind of did with the Battlground clusters anyways) the could very well be around 30-40K per server with a max of around 3500-5000 logged in at one time.
War Beta Tester
It wouldn't be the 3rd most popular mmorpg every, more like number 6 or 7.
even if taking into consideration only subscribtions, there are a number of MMORPG that outperformed Lotro. World of Warcraft, Lineage and Lineage 2 (both use a monthly fee). Ragnarok Online never released official information but , judging by the status the game has all over asia, its safe to say this game had over 1 million subscribers.
There are other MMORPG's of which I'm not entirely sure what the subscriber base is, so I won't mention them here, but I would seriously be surprised if Legend of Mir 2 does not have more subscribers than Lotro.
LotRO peaked at about 180k active subs a few months ago and the active subs have now declined a little.
This 800k figure is about three times the amount of game boxes sold world wide.
It's sad or funny depending on your point of view that mmogdata.com can't check the amount sold of the game and come to the conclusion that it's nowhere near 800k.
Umm not saying your numbers are wrong or that your lying to us or anything, but may I ask were you got your facts from, as you seem to be the only one that knows for sure what LoTRO's subscriptions are. Sorry call me, paranoid, jaded etc. but I tend not to take the word of unknow thread poster XXI as fact without well you know.. facts. Never know when they are actaully a disgruntled ex-employ, perma banned goldfarmer, or Dev from competing MMO. Yeah I know I'm weird like thatLotRO peaked at about 180k active subs a few months ago and the active subs have now declined a little.
This 800k figure is about three times the amount of game boxes sold world wide.
It's sad or funny depending on your point of view that mmogdata.com can't check the amount sold of the game and come to the conclusion that it's nowhere near 800k.
Umm not saying your numbers are wrong or that your lying to us or anything, but may I ask were you got your facts from, as you seem to be the only one that knows for sure what LoTRO's subscriptions are. Sorry call me, paranoid, jaded etc. but I tend not to take the word of unknow thread poster XXI as fact without well you know.. facts. Never know when they are actaully a disgruntled ex-employ, perma banned goldfarmer, or Dev from competing MMO. Yeah I know I'm weird like that
Sorry, I can't reveal that information.Most websites only count how many subscribers they got for the lifetime not how many people are playing the game now. The same thing go for WOW it had 8 million subscribers for the lifetime doesn't mean they have 8mil people playing now. Alot of games don't show how many ppl are playing online each day they only show High and Low on each server. There is only a few that show how many people are online at that time.
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LotRO peaked at about 180k active subs a few months ago and the active subs have now declined a little.
This 800k figure is about three times the amount of game boxes sold world wide.
It's sad or funny depending on your point of view that mmogdata.com can't check the amount sold of the game and come to the conclusion that it's nowhere near 800k.
Umm not saying your numbers are wrong or that your lying to us or anything, but may I ask were you got your facts from, as you seem to be the only one that knows for sure what LoTRO's subscriptions are. Sorry call me, paranoid, jaded etc. but I tend not to take the word of unknow thread poster XXI as fact without well you know.. facts. Never know when they are actaully a disgruntled ex-employ, perma banned goldfarmer, or Dev from competing MMO. Yeah I know I'm weird like that
Sorry, I can't reveal that information.Then that number is no more credible than the 800k number, you may as well use a zillion.
LotRO has NOTHING about it that indicates it is at subscription numbers that are at all significant or remarkable, no adding of servers, no increasing login queues, nothing. While I am sure the game is doing well for Turbine it is simply wishful fan thinking to suggest that it has acheived notable or record levels of subscriptions when there has been no server growth and no announcement as to such. Additionally, when the company is regularly making specious claims about 'millions of characters' it is easy to assume they are trying to find some truth they can tout that sounds like what they want to say (millions of subs) but cannot. I have NO doubt given Turbine's advertising and claims that if they had a substantial number of subs they would be broadcasting it for all to here.
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Well I am no idea what LOTRO subscription number sre. I do know that one weekends(on the server that I am on) that its hard to find quest mobs or much of anything else to kill as there seems to be two or three people around per spawn site. I wish they would add a new server or two.
There is no reason to think that they are doing less then 300K subscriptions which would put them right around the number 2 MMO in NA which is what the CEO said. He said that LOTRO was the number 2 mmo in NA. So what ever the second highest after WoW is then that is who LOTRO beat and has more subs then.
There is no reason for Server growth. Login Queues were only used to direct new players to less populated servers so they could have even server population. I would guess that their servers are actually capable of holding more then 5K at peak population. They are using new technology and we already know that servers are capable of holding 30K+ people.
The reason we haven't seen any new servers added is because they haven't had to reach their caps yet. And I highly doubt that they are capped at 3500. World of warcraft might use low quality servers, but Turbine's servers were able to hold around that much 8 years ago, so I really doubt they are still setting their peak population at the same number.
War Beta Tester
So 24 servers times 9000 people equals 216,000 at a bare minimum.
The high estimate with servers capable of holding 5K people at once and holding 10% of the server population at any given time would give us
24 servers time 50,000 people equals 1.2 million subscribers at pretty much the maximum.
So 800K is quite possible on their given equipment.
(A good example is the fact that EvE currently has around 200,000 subscribers but they only have a peak population of around 30K at any one time. This means approximately 15% of their server population is pretty much the cap for their server. )
ac2 allowed almost 4k people online remember last beta days with 3900 people online when turbine had the numbers on launcher? and that was old technology . 2 weeks ago on windfola server at 10.30 east time on a saturday night were 2675 players online, not counting with anounimous people. so that 800k number don't suprise me at all
Delusional. The game doesn't have 800k subscribers. Turbine would be peeing themselves and every game site with the happy news if it was. You guys are dreaming if you think they are packing in 800k accounts on 10 or 12 U.S. and 10 or 12 Euro servers.
Just because these wankers on this new data site post numbers (with no source at all mind you) doesn't mean its correct.
Until Turbine comes out and tells everyone, no one knows. Guess all you want, justify with "server technology" estimates but the fact is if it was doing so well, Turbine would be all over it jamming it in everyones face.
5. Where do you get your numbers?
The numbers come from a variety of sources, and some games have more than one source. These sources include press releases, direct data from the developers, company investor documents, news articles, public comments and anonymous sources.
6. Your numbers are all made up or are just guesses!
I assure you, they are not. It is true that many companies keep their subscriber numbers confidential, but others are more open about it (less so as each month goes by). Almost all of the data I use comes from actual sources, although often those sources are insiders who only give the information on the condition of anonymity. If I simply wanted to make up numbers, I’d put out an update every week, and those updates would quickly be revealed as faulty when compared to, say, company press releases. So, while I am the first to admit that the data is not always reliable and it is most definitely not made up – or at least, not by me.
mmogdata.voig.com/Information/FAQ.HTML
Agree.
I think this rationale is PARTICULARLY sound when you consider that Turbine has been taking the 'bandwagon' approach to marketing LotRO since before it was released. Their whole marketing campaign has been the 'play it because everyone else is' but instead of justifying that with subs they say obscure things parsed carefully to give the impression without actually making that claim. CLEARLY if they had the numbers and could legitimately make the claim they would.
Additionally, to believe the 800k types out there you would have to believe one of two possible scenarios both of which are easily unrealistic. Those being the following:
- The game launched with 800k subs and maintains that today, no real losses or at least all losses being replaced by newcomers.
or...
- The game launched with a lower number of players and the infrastructure in place to support far, far, far more and the rapid growth since to record subscriptions since has just been filling that capacity.
The first is terribly unlikely as we all know that no game holds all that try it and no matter what your thoughts on LotRO are and its subs it is just patently unreasonable to think they launched with 800k players and have yet to post growth or loss. The first scenario also requires a belief that Turbine new EXACTLY how many people would buy LotRO well before launch and setup the servers perfectly accordingly, even that they knew before launch how much it would sell months after launch. The second scenario is equally ridiculous, servers cost money and their is no way in hell they would have setup 20 servers for 200k or 300k at launch only to wait months for them to all fill up. Also, if the second case where true the servers at the start would have been terribly vacant and only now getting filled up to the point needed in such a game.
The lack of server growth speaks volumes to the potential subs LotRO has. it doesn't give us a number or a ballpark but it easily tells us they are not in gangbuster record setting territory. Besides that, as was said if they where doing 800k+ they would put that in those ads instead of inventing BS about how many characters have been created.
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Agree.
I think this rationale is PARTICULARLY sound when you consider that Turbine has been taking the 'bandwagon' approach to marketting LotRO since before it was released. Their whole marketting campaign has been the 'play it because everyone else is' but instead of justifying that with subs they say obscure things parsed carefully to give the impression without actually making that claim. CLEARLY if they had the numbers and could legitimately make the claim they would.
why should they make the claim? they never did it before with their other games. besides most companies don't do that.
While I don't have any problems with some of the average peeps logged on per server numbers that've been bandied about, there are two comments I'll make about them.
1. The error bar on these things is huge. Without any knowledge of what their actual servers can handle, our estimates can vary very widely. I mentioned the idea simply because that would set a MAXIMUM limit to their subscriber base. It has been shown that such a number does indeed encompass 800K active subs. Whether they *actually* have that many is hard even to guess at, as we are trying to do.
2. Using Eve as an example is a bad idea. Eve has only 1 server (and 1 test server). CCP tends to this server with great care and attention, far more, I'm willing to bet, than any other MMO of comparitive or greater size. I'll bet that CCP has invested a lot of money in that one server, so its capabilities are going to be far beyond what a standard server on, say, WoW (which has 4 servers/machine, IIRC). I'd say that Eve is an aberration in this matter (as well as many others, bless its' heart).
As time goes by, we may be able to glean some more data from Turbine or other sources that'll let us nail down their sub numbers with more accuracy.
They are making that claim - their entire advertising plan is to tell people to try it because everyone else is. Can you seriously suggest that they would run the ad about '4 million characters created' if they could instead make a legitimate claim as to the subscriber base? As for the other games - that was then this is now. Are you suggesting that companies always do only what they have ever done before? Lastly, if we are to believe the hype and hyperbole from fans and Turbine LotRO is different from their other games because it is the 2nd biggest MMO ever - those other games where not big time mass market products so different policies can apply.
Believe me, forget me believe the reality of how companies work, turbine's policy is NOT that they do not release sub numbers it is that they release only sub numbers that they believe will directly benifit the bottom line of the game. if LotRO had record setting subs (which 800k and the other claims would indicate) then they would be shoting it from every outlet they could as that would be like a big gamer community stamp of approval and a big bandwagon bonus to attracting new players.
Now tell me Turbine is not selling their game on the claim of its achievement in reaching record numbers of players. We have all seen the ads, the comments, etc. Clearly Turbine is doing the bandwagon thing. So how in the world could they determine that the best way to attract players is by advertising how popular they are but NOT publishing legitimate subscriptions numbers unless the reality is that the subscription numbers are not impressive or otherwise notable? 4 million characters created? Even that is qualified with 'estimated' - hell, they could have had a DVE write a script to create 2 million toons one evening so that is a completely meaningless claim/statistic. Why would they use something so obviously BS is they had the real record numbers to back it up?
Come on man, it is obvious by this alone - add in the server count thing and the other points and clearly Turbine is trying to generate hype with obfuscation and specious claims because the real numbers don't prove out the hype.
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Agree.
I think this rationale is PARTICULARLY sound when you consider that Turbine has been taking the 'bandwagon' approach to marketting LotRO since before it was released. Their whole marketting campaign has been the 'play it because everyone else is' but instead of justifying that with subs they say obscure things parsed carefully to give the impression without actually making that claim. CLEARLY if they had the numbers and could legitimately make the claim they would.
why should they make the claim? they never did it before with their other games. besides most companies don't do that.
Geez man....never mindIf we could determine how many boxes they have sold (including digital downloads), and thus how many real accounts have been made, we could fairly easily approximate the total number of active subscriptions. At the very least, we would have a ceiling.
In all likelihood, LotRO probably does not have any more than 2/3 of its total purchased accounts still active, no different than any other game of its age (older games drop down way lower due to attrition, else WoW would probably have 20M active accounts). I would not be surprised if it was only around the 50% mark. At any rate, if 2/3 is taken to be accurate, then for 800K subscriptions they would need 1,200,000 boxes sold.
Do you think the game has sold that many boxes? I personally do not.
2/3 retention would be a monumental achievement in the history of subscription gaming.
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Achiever 60.00%, Socializer 53.00%, Killer 47.00%, Explorer 40.00%
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Well if the numbers on that site are a lie for LOTRO, then they are a lie for all other games there.
Not suprising that LOTRO would have a nice showing in their game for there are many Lotr fans in the world. The game sells just on the Lotr lore alone, It doesn't need to be spectacular to be majorly successful.
Well, from stress testing in beta last year, I can tell you that each 'region' within the world can hold upwards of 200 people and there are roughly 25 'regions' in LOTRO's Middle Earth at this time. That is a capacity for 5000 players simultaneously. As the poster above mentions, if you have a 10% usage to sub ratio, then each server cluster could hold 50k subscriptions at max. Some people are forgeting the concept of server clusters (aka worlds). Each 'region' could very well be a server itself. So when you add a place like Evendim to live content you are basically 'adding a server' to the server cluster.
The fact that LOTRO hasn't added any new server clusters is kind of irrelevant.
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Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO
Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
No, it isn't.
Successful game = More servers added since launch
Not so successful = No additional servers since launch
Do you see the difference?
No, it isn't.
Successful game = More servers added since launch
Not so successful = No additional servers since launch
Do you see the difference?
eh..No, not really.well before an mmo is released marketing specialists will try to guess how many copies will be sold of the game, and how many subscribers there will be.
Having more added servers shortly after launch = game is doing better than expected
Closing servers shortly after launch = game is doing worse than expected
no servers closing or added = game is doing as expected.