Well, I think I put the puzzle together, LoTRO has between 100k and 182k currently paying subscribers:
1. The author of the article is guessing that there are 800,000 paying subscribers by dividing 4 million characters ever created since release by five characters per subscriber. However, we all know that just because 4 million characters were created by subscribers since release, does not necessarily mean that any of those subscriptions are currently active at all.
2. Turbine did not specify that the characters were created with paying subscriptions; and they do have free subscriptions.
3. The author incorrectly claims, "each LOTRO subscription lets the player create up to five characters," and then uses this to arrive at the 800k guess ( 4 mil / 5 chars = 800k ). However, the fact is that each US and European subscription can create 55 characters, or five characters per server. And, many players have said that they do create all 55 characters, just so that they can reserve their character names on all servers; even though they don't play them. Others share their accounts with friends and family, each person creating 5 characters on the same subscription, but each person using a different server.
4. The author of the article writes that LoTRO, "...is now the second-most popular massively multiplayer online game..." But, what Turbine CEO, Jeff Anderson actually said is, "We're probably now the second-largest MMORPG operating that was built in the US right now, you know, built in North America/Europe." This is important, because, "...built in the US..." means he is not including Sony and their MMOs in his statement, nor NCSoft or their MMOs. What does this mean? If Everquest 2 is currently at about 182k paying subscriptions, and Turbine cannot even say that they are leading Sony, then current LoTRO paying subscriptions are less than 182k. If LoTRO is the second largest "...built in the US..." MMO, then it is at least leading Ultima Online, which is currently at about 100k. That puts current paying LoTRO subscriptions at between 100k and 182k.
5. Last, but not least, Midway Games reported that, "The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar sold over 172,000 copies during the quarter, including the special edition of the game." If they sold 172k copies, obviously, current paying subscriptions are less than 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?
I was in Beta for this game. It's a POS IMO. Was laggy as hell (for me) , you have to portal into buildings , obviously uses that POS AC2 engine still.
I was in Beta for this game. It's a POS IMO. Was laggy as hell (for me) , you have to portal into buildings , obviously uses that POS AC2 engine still.
Sounds like you were in a stress test/open beta. Closed beta was lag free. At least EU beta.
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.
That sounds about right. Please give a reference for 180k subs, otherwise it means nothing.
Are you going off box sales?
"The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar sold over 172,000 copies during the quarter, including the special edition of the game." Aug 2, 2007
I highly doubt the numbers are that high. However they have two things that would skew any numbers that might have been thought possible. For one they have the name: Lord of the Rings and Two; they sell lifetime memberships. What ever their current player base you still have to factor in those lifetime memberships.
Well those lifetime subs have spend over 300$ on the game , so i think thay have ever right to be counted in as active subs.
Playing:World of Warcraft. Played:Lord of the Rings Online, Starwars Galaxies. Tried:Starwars the Old Republic, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Aion.
The thing is the numbers are not officially released, so it's up to journalists to dig up that type of data. I assure you, it is extremely interesting and valuable data for financial companies like trading houses and other competing game companies.
Since the information is not officially released it's up to sites like Mmogdata.com to do research and come up with the best numbers they can. They don't have affiliation or influence from any of the game companies. The only thing that is going to make a site like that successful is being accurate and honest in the long run, so that is what they are obviously trying to do.
With an intellectual property like Lord of the Rings I could make a game in my basement with 3 friends that would have 800,000 accounts. It doesn't matter if the game is garbage with no PVP, it's Lord of the Rings. People from around the world are going to log on just to run around and see Tom Bombadil.
That being said, if anyone could screw it up it would be Turbine. They had a PVP server in AC and they put up housing barriers that protected the guild housing in the game. There was a flourishing amazing guild vs guild war going on and land control system and they threw invincible barriers around every guilds house FOR THE NON PVP SERVERS, and then they refused to remove them on the PVP server. Thus every player quit and found a game that wasn't run by total morons. Never play a turbine game. Playing a turbine game is like being in one of those REALLY dirty japanese prons where they take a dump on you. Turbine took a dump on their paying customers on AC Darktide. That is the only legacy they will ever leave.
The thing is the numbers are not officially released, so it's up to journalists to dig up that type of data. I assure you, it is extremely interesting and valuable data for financial companies like trading houses and other competing game companies. Since the information is not officially released it's up to sites like Mmogdata.com to do research and come up with the best numbers they can. They don't have affiliation or influence from any of the game companies. The only thing that is going to make a site like that successful is being accurate and honest in the long run, so that is what they are obviously trying to do. With an intellectual property like Lord of the Rings I could make a game in my basement with 3 friends that would have 800,000 accounts. It doesn't matter if the game is garbage with no PVP, it's Lord of the Rings. People from around the world are going to log on just to run around and see Tom Bombadil. That being said, if anyone could screw it up it would be Turbine. They had a PVP server in AC and they put up housing barriers that protected the guild housing in the game. There was a flourishing amazing guild vs guild war going on and land control system and they threw invincible barriers around every guilds house FOR THE NON PVP SERVERS, and then they refused to remove them on the PVP server. Thus every player quit and found a game that wasn't run by total morons. Never play a turbine game. Playing a turbine game is like being in one of those REALLY dirty japanese prons where they take a dump on you. Turbine took a dump on their paying customers on AC Darktide. That is the only legacy they will ever leave.
Well have fun whit Soe's Vangaurd, SWG, EQ2, Blizzards Wow or whatever game you go to...
but i can ensure you thay wont be better companys.
Playing:World of Warcraft. Played:Lord of the Rings Online, Starwars Galaxies. Tried:Starwars the Old Republic, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Aion.
All we know for certain is that Turbine is not releasing the official numbers but they are clearly trying to market the game using the 'bandwagon' approach to getting people to check out the game. It is a FAIR assumption then to say that sense they have to resort to
specious facts, questionable statistics, and obscure qualified claims to back up the bandwagon marketing that they cannot substantiate those claims directly.
The 800k number is COMPLETELY bogus - there is no question about that. Turbine's marketing using qualified statements and questionable facts leaves good reason to question if LotRO has anywhere near the numbers they keep trying to imply.
All we know for certain is that Turbine is not releasing the official numbers but they are clearly trying to market the game using the 'bandwagon' approach to getting people to check out the game. It is a FAIR assumption then to say that sense they have to resort to
specious facts, questionable statistics, and obscure qualified claims to back up the bandwagon marketing that they cannot substantiate those claims directly.
The 800k number is COMPLETELY bogus - there is no question about that. Turbine's marketing using qualified statements and questionable facts leaves good reason to question if LotRO has anywhere near the numbers they keep trying to imply.
So what if its COMPLETELY bogus? nobody cares about sub nummers,
I find it a great game and thats what mathers, nothing els.
Do you realy think there pepole out there that think the way you do?
Playing:World of Warcraft. Played:Lord of the Rings Online, Starwars Galaxies. Tried:Starwars the Old Republic, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Aion.
Alot of people care about the numbers, as far as they relate to discussion and comparison of an area of interest people at a site like this have. You mind as well go to a college football discussion board and claim nobody cares about polls - while it may be true in an esoteric sense or the polls may be exposed in being inaccurate it is still good material for debate and discussion.
Alot of people care about the numbers, as far as they relate to discussion and comparison of an area of interest people at a site like this have. You mind as well go to a college football discussion board and claim nobody cares about polls - while it may be true in an esoteric sense or the polls may be exposed in being inaccurate it is still good material for debate and discussion.
Yes people out here care, but normal people don't...thay wont buy the game becose turbine does not release there sub nummers...Thay buy the game because thay like it!
Playing:World of Warcraft. Played:Lord of the Rings Online, Starwars Galaxies. Tried:Starwars the Old Republic, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Aion.
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.
That sounds about right. Please give a reference for 180k subs, otherwise it means nothing.
Are you going off box sales?
"The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar sold over 172,000 copies during the quarter, including the special edition of the game." Aug 2, 2007
As you know, sales are not the same as current subscriptions.
Thats April-June, and only US sales, as codemasters does it in the EU.
That's a good point. If we could find codemasters sales for the quarter, we could pin down the range of current paying subscribers, much more closely. If they are about the same at 170k, then a rough estimate of total sales is likely 340k for their first quarter.
That would lead me to believe that active subscriptions are probably closer to 182k than 100k.
The reason they don't need to ad servers is because of the server technology is more advanced then WoW , and the way they created the game makes it a lot more stable then any mmo ever developed. It was in a stratics that I read this. Personally think people give little credit to the actual size fo the land mass in the game and the abiltity of Turbine to make great use of the mass, dividing the Instancing and real world roaming percisely to give the server load the extra room is needs to push 100k plus player around, easily.
WoW servers are running on 4 year old technology, that is why there game engine, game code and game servers are inferior to any other game of that time as well as now. WoW coding can only hold so many people, and the results speak for them selves, very mmessy and unstable server structures.
One thing I have come to love about LotRO is the absolute fantasy of reasoning people stir up to drive whatever point they want to make and to strike down anyone or anything that doesn't claim LotRO to have record number of subscriptions. Now LotRO has magical server technology and the most stable code ever all conspiring to allow massive amounts of players all on a few servers. They launched with just the right number of servers to handle just the exact number this new magical server technology would support because they have the best crystal ball reading staffers technology too. Because of all this LotRO easily has 800k subs, or 2 million for that matter.
We just have to look at all this Turbine technology and ignore the reality that the 800k number came from some lazy ass so called journalist who saw a press release saying '4 million characters' and figured if he divided it by the incorrect max character per account number of 5 he could figure the subs. So - bogus 4 million character number divided by wrong max character per account number of 5 equals fanboy holy grail false subscription number of 800k - walla.
...the 800k number came from some lazy ass so called journalist who saw a press release saying '4 million characters' and figured if he divided it by the incorrect max character per account number of 5 he could figure the subs. So - bogus 4 million character number divided by wrong max character per account number of 5 equals fanboy holy grail false subscription number of 800k - walla.
Indeed, that is what happened. I have already emailed the author and received a reply back, but this is all he had to say:
"Fascinating stuff. Thanks for passing it on. You a gamer?" - Hiawatha Bray
The reason they don't need to ad servers is because of the server technology is more advanced then WoW , and the way they created the game makes it a lot more stable then any mmo ever developed. It was in a stratics that I read this. Personally think people give little credit to the actual size fo the land mass in the game and the abiltity of Turbine to make great use of the mass, dividing the Instancing and real world roaming percisely to give the server load the extra room is needs to push 100k plus player around, easily.
WoW servers are running on 4 year old technology, that is why there game engine, game code and game servers are inferior to any other game of that time as well as now. WoW coding can only hold so many people, and the results speak for them selves, very mmessy and unstable server structures.
If the game had such advanced server technology, then there wouldn't be a need for a new server so shortly after release.
I love LoTRO, I think it's an utterly fantastic game. The population does seem to be growing steadily (on my server at least). All indications are that LoTRO is a hit, if not a WoW killer (and I honestly doubt we will see one of those any time soon).
That said, if LoTRO has 800K-1000K subs, then I'm a puple wombat. That idiotic 800K number that the journalist came up with has since been picked up by the press, it's appearing all over the place now. I honestly find it annoying. It's irresposible journalism (although I'm sure that Turbines PR department isn't too upset by it).
If I had to guess, I'd say 500K right now, including NA, Europe, and Australia/ NZ. NPD recently said 200K boxes have been sold since luanch in NA (an update to their previous lower estimate). Add another 200 K for Europe (probably close to accurate, they have around the same number of servers), and another 100K for Autralia/ NZ (and that's certainly being generous). Even if we assume that there have been another 100K digital dowloads (which I seriously doubt), that only gets us to 600K.
800K? I just can't see it.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
I love LoTRO, I think it's an utterly fantastic game. The population does seem to be growing steadily (on my server at least). All indications are that LoTRO is a hit, if not a WoW killer (and I honestly doubt we will see one of those any time soon).
This sentence always fascinates me...how does someone know if a server is "steadily" growing...What is YOUR criteria to see this "steady" growth. What do you see that other people do not that shows to YOU that more "physical" people are joining the server?
Having re-upped for a trial, I joined the Landroval server. I did a mass /who after leaving newbie world..I changed the settings to show level 1-50 and in Bree and various locations...
We all know the /who is so unscientific that you cannot base your numbers off of this...but, you also cannot say "I see growth"...because you would have to know for sure there is growth...now...from my search..
There was a HUGE number of Level 1's I saw (at least 50 out of the 100 list)...then jumps to say level 10-12 (just a few people)...then I saw level 20-30's. Then I saw another mass of level 50's (about 10-12)
Now...is this what you have done? Or do you see "more people" running around? What levels? How do YOU see that more "physical" people have joined your server. How do you know these are not "alts" ...
You need to be careful with a statement like that. Unless you work for Turbine, you do not know for sure how many people are "subs".
From this calculation above...I would see a bunch of people joining the "trial"...not new "subs"...otherwise those middle numbers would be much larger...as people level...but, no one is levelling. I would call those new people "trialbies" (lol)...that would not be growth...
I love LoTRO, I think it's an utterly fantastic game. The population does seem to be growing steadily (on my server at least). All indications are that LoTRO is a hit, if not a WoW killer (and I honestly doubt we will see one of those any time soon).
This sentence always fascinates me...how does someone know if a server is "steadily" growing...What is YOUR criteria to see this "steady" growth. What do you see that other people do not that shows to YOU that more "physical" people are joining the server?
Having re-upped for a trial, I joined the Landroval server. I did a mass /who after leaving newbie world..I changed the settings to show level 1-50 and in Bree and various locations...
We all know the /who is so unscientific that you cannot base your numbers off of this...but, you also cannot say "I see growth"...because you would have to know for sure there is growth...now...from my search..
There was a HUGE number of Level 1's I saw (at least 50 out of the 100 list)...then jumps to say level 10-12 (just a few people)...then I saw level 20-30's. Then I saw another mass of level 50's (about 10-12)
Now...is this what you have done? Or do you see "more people" running around? What levels? How do YOU see that more "physical" people have joined your server. How do you know these are not "alts" ...
You need to be careful with a statement like that. Unless you work for Turbine, you do not know for sure how many people are "subs".
From this calculation above...I would see a bunch of people joining the "trial"...not new "subs"...otherwise those middle numbers would be much larger...as people level...but, no one is levelling. I would call those new people "trialbies" (lol)...that would not be growth...
Cheers!
The population is definitely growing steadily (if no exponentially) since the free trial was introduced, and the word is also spreading (about the free trial). During the last weeks the "served overloaded" icon is more and more frequent, besides the last weekend I had not problems whatsoever finding a PUG for any fellowship quests I wanted to do.
A month ago it was definitely a pain in the back. On Snowbourn there is a massive layer of people in the 30'ies and early 40'ies - they are mostly the "powergamers" who only joined a couple of weeks ago, when the free trial kicked off (and subscribed since). I am not saaying that the high level population WILL also continue growing, since these people are precisely the ones who will get to lvl 50 in another couple of weeks, and they will start to get bored. BUTy as Yeebo said, the population took a healthy growth in the last couple of weeks, and is growing currently as well. At least on my server in EU.
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
Comments
Well, I think I put the puzzle together, LoTRO has between 100k and 182k currently paying subscribers:
1. The author of the article is guessing that there are 800,000 paying subscribers by dividing 4 million characters ever created since release by five characters per subscriber. However, we all know that just because 4 million characters were created by subscribers since release, does not necessarily mean that any of those subscriptions are currently active at all.
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/09/08/turbine_stakes_its_online_game_turf/
2. Turbine did not specify that the characters were created with paying subscriptions; and they do have free subscriptions.
3. The author incorrectly claims, "each LOTRO subscription lets the player create up to five characters," and then uses this to arrive at the 800k guess ( 4 mil / 5 chars = 800k ). However, the fact is that each US and European subscription can create 55 characters, or five characters per server. And, many players have said that they do create all 55 characters, just so that they can reserve their character names on all servers; even though they don't play them. Others share their accounts with friends and family, each person creating 5 characters on the same subscription, but each person using a different server.
4. The author of the article writes that LoTRO, "...is now the second-most popular massively multiplayer online game..." But, what Turbine CEO, Jeff Anderson actually said is, "We're probably now the second-largest MMORPG operating that was built in the US right now, you know, built in North America/Europe." This is important, because, "...built in the US..." means he is not including Sony and their MMOs in his statement, nor NCSoft or their MMOs. What does this mean? If Everquest 2 is currently at about 182k paying subscriptions, and Turbine cannot even say that they are leading Sony, then current LoTRO paying subscriptions are less than 182k. If LoTRO is the second largest "...built in the US..." MMO, then it is at least leading Ultima Online, which is currently at about 100k. That puts current paying LoTRO subscriptions at between 100k and 182k.
http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/08/0410202
5. Last, but not least, Midway Games reported that, "The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar sold over 172,000 copies during the quarter, including the special edition of the game." If they sold 172k copies, obviously, current paying subscriptions are less than that.
http://au.gamespot.com/news/6176030.html
I was in Beta for this game. It's a POS IMO. Was laggy as hell (for me) , you have to portal into buildings , obviously uses that POS AC2 engine still.
Sounds like you were in a stress test/open beta. Closed beta was lag free. At least EU beta.
No I played the Pre order beta like a month before it came out.
That sounds about right. Please give a reference for 180k subs, otherwise it means nothing.
Are you going off box sales?
"The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar sold over 172,000 copies during the quarter, including the special edition of the game." Aug 2, 2007
http://au.gamespot.com/news/6176030.html
As you know, sales are not the same as current subscriptions.
Thats April-June, and only US sales, as codemasters does it in the EU.
pre-order beta or something was 1 week long
i played in it too.. no lag what so ever, maybe your PC could not handle it?
Well those lifetime subs have spend over 300$ on the game , so i think thay have ever right to be counted in as active subs.
Playing: World of Warcraft.
Played: Lord of the Rings Online, Starwars Galaxies.
Tried: Starwars the Old Republic, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Aion.
The thing is the numbers are not officially released, so it's up to journalists to dig up that type of data. I assure you, it is extremely interesting and valuable data for financial companies like trading houses and other competing game companies.
Since the information is not officially released it's up to sites like Mmogdata.com to do research and come up with the best numbers they can. They don't have affiliation or influence from any of the game companies. The only thing that is going to make a site like that successful is being accurate and honest in the long run, so that is what they are obviously trying to do.
With an intellectual property like Lord of the Rings I could make a game in my basement with 3 friends that would have 800,000 accounts. It doesn't matter if the game is garbage with no PVP, it's Lord of the Rings. People from around the world are going to log on just to run around and see Tom Bombadil.
That being said, if anyone could screw it up it would be Turbine. They had a PVP server in AC and they put up housing barriers that protected the guild housing in the game. There was a flourishing amazing guild vs guild war going on and land control system and they threw invincible barriers around every guilds house FOR THE NON PVP SERVERS, and then they refused to remove them on the PVP server. Thus every player quit and found a game that wasn't run by total morons. Never play a turbine game. Playing a turbine game is like being in one of those REALLY dirty japanese prons where they take a dump on you. Turbine took a dump on their paying customers on AC Darktide. That is the only legacy they will ever leave.
Well have fun whit Soe's Vangaurd, SWG, EQ2, Blizzards Wow or whatever game you go to...
but i can ensure you thay wont be better companys.
Playing: World of Warcraft.
Played: Lord of the Rings Online, Starwars Galaxies.
Tried: Starwars the Old Republic, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Aion.
All we know for certain is that Turbine is not releasing the official numbers but they are clearly trying to market the game using the 'bandwagon' approach to getting people to check out the game. It is a FAIR assumption then to say that sense they have to resort to
specious facts, questionable statistics, and obscure qualified claims to back up the bandwagon marketing that they cannot substantiate those claims directly.
The 800k number is COMPLETELY bogus - there is no question about that. Turbine's marketing using qualified statements and questionable facts leaves good reason to question if LotRO has anywhere near the numbers they keep trying to imply.
--------------------------------
Achiever 60.00%, Socializer 53.00%, Killer 47.00%, Explorer 40.00%
Intel Core i7 Quad, Intel X58 SLi, 6G Corsair XMS DDR3, Intel X-25 SSD, 3 WD Velociraptor SATA SuperTrak SAS EX8650 Array, OCZ 1250W PS, GTX 295, xFi, 32" 1080p LCD
So what if its COMPLETELY bogus? nobody cares about sub nummers,
I find it a great game and thats what mathers, nothing els.
Do you realy think there pepole out there that think the way you do?
Playing: World of Warcraft.
Played: Lord of the Rings Online, Starwars Galaxies.
Tried: Starwars the Old Republic, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Aion.
Alot of people care about the numbers, as far as they relate to discussion and comparison of an area of interest people at a site like this have. You mind as well go to a college football discussion board and claim nobody cares about polls - while it may be true in an esoteric sense or the polls may be exposed in being inaccurate it is still good material for debate and discussion.
--------------------------------
Achiever 60.00%, Socializer 53.00%, Killer 47.00%, Explorer 40.00%
Intel Core i7 Quad, Intel X58 SLi, 6G Corsair XMS DDR3, Intel X-25 SSD, 3 WD Velociraptor SATA SuperTrak SAS EX8650 Array, OCZ 1250W PS, GTX 295, xFi, 32" 1080p LCD
Yes people out here care, but normal people don't...thay wont buy the game becose turbine does not release there sub nummers...Thay buy the game because thay like it!
Playing: World of Warcraft.
Played: Lord of the Rings Online, Starwars Galaxies.
Tried: Starwars the Old Republic, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Aion.
Well, there goes the credibility of that website. There's no way it's 800k. The Boston Globe article cites 800k CHARACTERS, not ACCOUNTS.
We had this long discussion already in the LotRO forums on this site.
That sounds about right. Please give a reference for 180k subs, otherwise it means nothing.
Are you going off box sales?
"The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar sold over 172,000 copies during the quarter, including the special edition of the game." Aug 2, 2007
http://au.gamespot.com/news/6176030.html
As you know, sales are not the same as current subscriptions.
Thats April-June, and only US sales, as codemasters does it in the EU.
That's a good point. If we could find codemasters sales for the quarter, we could pin down the range of current paying subscribers, much more closely. If they are about the same at 170k, then a rough estimate of total sales is likely 340k for their first quarter.
That would lead me to believe that active subscriptions are probably closer to 182k than 100k.
The reason they don't need to ad servers is because of the server technology is more advanced then WoW , and the way they created the game makes it a lot more stable then any mmo ever developed. It was in a stratics that I read this. Personally think people give little credit to the actual size fo the land mass in the game and the abiltity of Turbine to make great use of the mass, dividing the Instancing and real world roaming percisely to give the server load the extra room is needs to push 100k plus player around, easily.
WoW servers are running on 4 year old technology, that is why there game engine, game code and game servers are inferior to any other game of that time as well as now. WoW coding can only hold so many people, and the results speak for them selves, very mmessy and unstable server structures.
One thing I have come to love about LotRO is the absolute fantasy of reasoning people stir up to drive whatever point they want to make and to strike down anyone or anything that doesn't claim LotRO to have record number of subscriptions. Now LotRO has magical server technology and the most stable code ever all conspiring to allow massive amounts of players all on a few servers. They launched with just the right number of servers to handle just the exact number this new magical server technology would support because they have the best crystal ball reading staffers technology too. Because of all this LotRO easily has 800k subs, or 2 million for that matter.
We just have to look at all this Turbine technology and ignore the reality that the 800k number came from some lazy ass so called journalist who saw a press release saying '4 million characters' and figured if he divided it by the incorrect max character per account number of 5 he could figure the subs. So - bogus 4 million character number divided by wrong max character per account number of 5 equals fanboy holy grail false subscription number of 800k - walla.
--------------------------------
Achiever 60.00%, Socializer 53.00%, Killer 47.00%, Explorer 40.00%
Intel Core i7 Quad, Intel X58 SLi, 6G Corsair XMS DDR3, Intel X-25 SSD, 3 WD Velociraptor SATA SuperTrak SAS EX8650 Array, OCZ 1250W PS, GTX 295, xFi, 32" 1080p LCD
You've struck a mighty blow against magical server technology.
Do you mean "Viola", or "Walla"?
Walla
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Achiever 60.00%, Socializer 53.00%, Killer 47.00%, Explorer 40.00%
Intel Core i7 Quad, Intel X58 SLi, 6G Corsair XMS DDR3, Intel X-25 SSD, 3 WD Velociraptor SATA SuperTrak SAS EX8650 Array, OCZ 1250W PS, GTX 295, xFi, 32" 1080p LCD
"Fascinating stuff. Thanks for passing it on. You a gamer?" - Hiawatha Bray
If the game had such advanced server technology, then there wouldn't be a need for a new server so shortly after release.
I love LoTRO, I think it's an utterly fantastic game. The population does seem to be growing steadily (on my server at least). All indications are that LoTRO is a hit, if not a WoW killer (and I honestly doubt we will see one of those any time soon).
That said, if LoTRO has 800K-1000K subs, then I'm a puple wombat. That idiotic 800K number that the journalist came up with has since been picked up by the press, it's appearing all over the place now. I honestly find it annoying. It's irresposible journalism (although I'm sure that Turbines PR department isn't too upset by it).
If I had to guess, I'd say 500K right now, including NA, Europe, and Australia/ NZ. NPD recently said 200K boxes have been sold since luanch in NA (an update to their previous lower estimate). Add another 200 K for Europe (probably close to accurate, they have around the same number of servers), and another 100K for Autralia/ NZ (and that's certainly being generous). Even if we assume that there have been another 100K digital dowloads (which I seriously doubt), that only gets us to 600K.
800K? I just can't see it.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
Yeah, that's also assuming that everyone that bought the game is still subscribing, which is never the case.
This sentence always fascinates me...how does someone know if a server is "steadily" growing...What is YOUR criteria to see this "steady" growth. What do you see that other people do not that shows to YOU that more "physical" people are joining the server?
Having re-upped for a trial, I joined the Landroval server. I did a mass /who after leaving newbie world..I changed the settings to show level 1-50 and in Bree and various locations...
We all know the /who is so unscientific that you cannot base your numbers off of this...but, you also cannot say "I see growth"...because you would have to know for sure there is growth...now...from my search..
There was a HUGE number of Level 1's I saw (at least 50 out of the 100 list)...then jumps to say level 10-12 (just a few people)...then I saw level 20-30's. Then I saw another mass of level 50's (about 10-12)
Now...is this what you have done? Or do you see "more people" running around? What levels? How do YOU see that more "physical" people have joined your server. How do you know these are not "alts" ...
You need to be careful with a statement like that. Unless you work for Turbine, you do not know for sure how many people are "subs".
From this calculation above...I would see a bunch of people joining the "trial"...not new "subs"...otherwise those middle numbers would be much larger...as people level...but, no one is levelling. I would call those new people "trialbies" (lol)...that would not be growth...
Cheers!
This sentence always fascinates me...how does someone know if a server is "steadily" growing...What is YOUR criteria to see this "steady" growth. What do you see that other people do not that shows to YOU that more "physical" people are joining the server?
Having re-upped for a trial, I joined the Landroval server. I did a mass /who after leaving newbie world..I changed the settings to show level 1-50 and in Bree and various locations...
We all know the /who is so unscientific that you cannot base your numbers off of this...but, you also cannot say "I see growth"...because you would have to know for sure there is growth...now...from my search..
There was a HUGE number of Level 1's I saw (at least 50 out of the 100 list)...then jumps to say level 10-12 (just a few people)...then I saw level 20-30's. Then I saw another mass of level 50's (about 10-12)
Now...is this what you have done? Or do you see "more people" running around? What levels? How do YOU see that more "physical" people have joined your server. How do you know these are not "alts" ...
You need to be careful with a statement like that. Unless you work for Turbine, you do not know for sure how many people are "subs".
From this calculation above...I would see a bunch of people joining the "trial"...not new "subs"...otherwise those middle numbers would be much larger...as people level...but, no one is levelling. I would call those new people "trialbies" (lol)...that would not be growth...
Cheers!
The population is definitely growing steadily (if no exponentially) since the free trial was introduced, and the word is also spreading (about the free trial). During the last weeks the "served overloaded" icon is more and more frequent, besides the last weekend I had not problems whatsoever finding a PUG for any fellowship quests I wanted to do.
A month ago it was definitely a pain in the back. On Snowbourn there is a massive layer of people in the 30'ies and early 40'ies - they are mostly the "powergamers" who only joined a couple of weeks ago, when the free trial kicked off (and subscribed since). I am not saaying that the high level population WILL also continue growing, since these people are precisely the ones who will get to lvl 50 in another couple of weeks, and they will start to get bored. BUTy as Yeebo said, the population took a healthy growth in the last couple of weeks, and is growing currently as well. At least on my server in EU.
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.