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How do we define success?
I've been reading a lot of threads about Darkfall, a lot of flaming and hate going towards this game, and a lot of hope. A lot of MMO's get caught up in this post WoW world where the sub numbers are the be all and end all for the game. To an extent I can see how that can be, I mean they have to make money right? But should that be the only thing that really define's a game's success?
I'm going to try Darkfall, it's supposed to be more of a sandbox style MMO which as other games have shown can lead to a lot of fun and interesting things (the BOB incedent on EVE comes to mind
). I personally want to make a crafter, I play WoW now and find myself endlessly grinding materials to make potions/armor (depending on my character) so that I can sell them to other people. I find that very fun, though admitedly shallow. But to me a game that I could go on and say craft armor and search the far ends of the known world for rare and exotic materials sounds really cool! I hope I could do something like that in Darkfall.
To me it seems that a lot of people want a game that they can just progress through and get gear, WoW has become (or always was) that in a lot of ways. But there's a lot of other things that can be far more interesting in an MMO than PVE and end boss encounters, or linear progression. I look at LOTRO which has a nice fanbase, it wasn't for me but a lot of people really liked the story of their character and the world as it developed. I loved WAR and the concept of persistant World PvP, and though I think they got a lot right I think in a few more months or so it will have even more polish and I'll be ready to reapproach it.
But to get back to the point, what makes an MMO successful to you? I think my personal enjoyment of the game is what makes the game worth while to me. It doesn't need to be the best graphically, have perfectly balanced classes, or even 2 million+ subscribers, it just needs to be fun for the people who decide to play it. I think there will be a fair amount of people that will play this game, over 1 million? I strongly doubt that, but there will be enough to have a community of players that are willing to give this game a chance. Again a lot of games are coming with the huge disadvantage of being produced in a post 11million (srsly wtf) WoW era, but that doesn't mean these games aren't good, or at least have the potential to be good.
Originally posted by GTwander:
How are you an MMO? Or any of us for that matter?
I say we strike all users from the site for not being MMOs.
Comments
If it makes $1 over it's production cost than it's a success.
A pretty horrific success. but ya..
Success to who? If the game scams customers and makes a profit then is it a success? It all depends on the perspective.
The rules of Debate are really simple; once you have to stoop to insults instead of facts, logic, or reason to try and win your argument, you've lost.
Iiii-iiiiiit's.... me!!! *Hooray*
–noun 1. the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.
2. the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.
3. a successful performance or achievement: The play was an instant success.
4. a person or thing that is successful: She was a great success on the talk show.
5. Obsolete. outcome.
Simple: If Aventurine makes enough money to keep running the game AND enough of a profit in order to keep their people working on the game, rather than being forced to have them work on something new with better prospects.
If that would still be the case in, say, 6 months after release, (proof of the pudding being in the first 6 months) Darkfall certainly would be a success because that means it is a game which is entertaining in the long run for a lot of people.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Lets just go and lower the bar for DF. Why not .... I'm feeling charitable tonight.
The game will be successful if it launches in 6 or so days. Or ever.. whichever comes first.
I think I'm pretty much in the same boat as the OP. I can live without the latest graphics but the gameplay needs to make up for it.
I'm waiting for a good sandbox game that I want to spend time with and initially Darkfall looked exactly like what I wanted to play. I guess only time will tell. There is so much trolling and false information being posted about the game right now, its hard to tell what the game is shaping up to become.
I would tend to agree with this. It's true that if you put 10 million euro's in the bank for 8 years you would make a sizable amount of money on the interest but I would assume that the investors probably have money in multiple projects like this one and realise that the chances of failure for each individual project are high and will be over the moon even if it just recoups the costs.
I think a decent success would be if the game made a sizable profit and allowed Aventurine to continue as a business and start work on another game.
Well being the only person so far who actually read ur whole post ill answer my opinion.
A successfull MMO for me is an MMO that manages to create a community.
Unfortunatly most modern MMOs fails at this, the playerbase remains largely anonymous to each other, with only few exeptions.
Ultima Online had it thou, to a large extent, also Shadowbane had a proper community.
Which is what im hoping for with Darkfall obviously.
Speaking more in terms of subscriptions id say anything past 300 thousand regular players is a success for this game. It can thrive on less dont get me wrong but if it passes the 300 thousand mark its going to be an established success for sure.
-Darkstar
What a godawful measure of success...i will assume this was sarcasm.
Darkfall will be a success, in my opinion, if they maintain EVE-esque numbers. This doesnt have to be at the very start of release, as EVE really became amazing after release and numerous patches.
Small niche target audience, so you cant judge its success based on comparison to the themepark mmos that have a much wider audience.
Dark made a good post regarding how to measure its success. Personally if they maintain 1-3 full servers (probably about 100k active subs or so) and their EU launch goes well enough to continue financially to a NA launch, then it will be a huge success.
Unfortunatly there will be an army of idiots on release saying this game is a failure, and also people screaming success. We will really have to wait a few months after release to see how it goes.
~~
Darkfall Releases on: February 25th, 2009
Darkfall Recap of everything that has happened the last 3 months: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/213296
"The monsters are tough. I was looking for a challenge, but these things are just too damn smart." -DF Beta Tester
"If people were dismissing it, then they wouldn't be talking about it. The well-meaning gamers root for efforts that try to raise the bar. So who's left? It's so easy being a skeptic." -Tasos
What a godawful measure of success...i will assume this was sarcasm.
Darkfall will be a success, in my opinion, if they maintain EVE-esque numbers. This doesnt have to be at the very start of release, as EVE really became amazing after release and numerous patches.
Small niche target audience, so you cant judge its success based on comparison to the themepark mmos that have a much wider audience.
Dark made a good post regarding how to measure its success. Personally if they maintain 1-3 full servers (probably about 100k active subs or so) and their EU launch goes well enough to continue financially to a NA launch, then it will be a huge success.
Unfortunatly there will be an army of idiots on release saying this game is a failure, and also people screaming success. We will really have to wait a few months after release to see how it goes.
You do realize that by Av's own words a maximum game world is 10K players, therefore 1-3 full servers is 10-30K players and I don't see how they can make a profit at that level.
Of course we seem to be learning that 10K number is total characters on a server both NPC's and PC's since they had to get rid of guards by building towers to reduce the impact on how many players they could have on according to what was put out last week.
If true then maybe 10K is all the slots in their database due to ignorant coding by amateur programmers and there may only be a few thousand players if you have MOBs and other NPC's turned on.
Sure gonna be a empty world if true.
Oh and glad to see no bias in your last sentence there Imbant
I guess I should consider that sarcasm also?
What a godawful measure of success...i will assume this was sarcasm.
Darkfall will be a success, in my opinion, if they maintain EVE-esque numbers. This doesnt have to be at the very start of release, as EVE really became amazing after release and numerous patches.
Small niche target audience, so you cant judge its success based on comparison to the themepark mmos that have a much wider audience.
Dark made a good post regarding how to measure its success. Personally if they maintain 1-3 full servers (probably about 100k active subs or so) and their EU launch goes well enough to continue financially to a NA launch, then it will be a huge success.
Unfortunatly there will be an army of idiots on release saying this game is a failure, and also people screaming success. We will really have to wait a few months after release to see how it goes.
You do realize that by Av's own words a maximum game world is 10K players, therefore 1-3 full servers is 10-30K players and I don't see how they can make a profit at that level.
Of course we seem to be learning that 10K number is total characters on a server both NPC's and PC's since they had to get rid of guards by building towers to reduce the impact on how many players they could have on according to what was put out last week.
If true then maybe 10K is all the slots in their database due to ignorant coding by amateur programmers and there may only be a few thousand players if you have MOBs and other NPC's turned on.
Sure gonna be a empty world if true.
Oh and glad to see no bias in your last sentence there Imbant
I guess I should consider that sarcasm also?
10 thousand concurrant players on a server equals roughly 50 thousand subsciptions.
I know it sounds wild but thats statistics for u.
So 50 thousand accounts per server on three servers is 150 thousand accounts total.
So in other words 7,5 million dollars to start with and 2,25 million per month.
Assuming 50 dollars per unit, and 15 dollars monthy subscription.
That should keep the game going and then some.
-Darkstar
Success is determined by the blood left on the floor if most of it is your enemys then it is a victory if most of it yours then it is defeat.
What a godawful measure of success...i will assume this was sarcasm.
Darkfall will be a success, in my opinion, if they maintain EVE-esque numbers. This doesnt have to be at the very start of release, as EVE really became amazing after release and numerous patches.
Small niche target audience, so you cant judge its success based on comparison to the themepark mmos that have a much wider audience.
Dark made a good post regarding how to measure its success. Personally if they maintain 1-3 full servers (probably about 100k active subs or so) and their EU launch goes well enough to continue financially to a NA launch, then it will be a huge success.
Unfortunatly there will be an army of idiots on release saying this game is a failure, and also people screaming success. We will really have to wait a few months after release to see how it goes.
You do realize that by Av's own words a maximum game world is 10K players, therefore 1-3 full servers is 10-30K players and I don't see how they can make a profit at that level.
Of course we seem to be learning that 10K number is total characters on a server both NPC's and PC's since they had to get rid of guards by building towers to reduce the impact on how many players they could have on according to what was put out last week.
If true then maybe 10K is all the slots in their database due to ignorant coding by amateur programmers and there may only be a few thousand players if you have MOBs and other NPC's turned on.
Sure gonna be a empty world if true.
Oh and glad to see no bias in your last sentence there Imbant
I guess I should consider that sarcasm also?
Dark already covered this i think....but 1-3 full servers does not equal 10-30k subs....its more like 100k subs.
They claim their servers can handle 10k players on it at a time. Especially with a EU release only at the start, with a lot of americans playing on the servers, you have people in different times zones...as in you can have way over 10k subs per server as people wont be on at the same time.
~~
Darkfall Releases on: February 25th, 2009
Darkfall Recap of everything that has happened the last 3 months: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/213296
"The monsters are tough. I was looking for a challenge, but these things are just too damn smart." -DF Beta Tester
"If people were dismissing it, then they wouldn't be talking about it. The well-meaning gamers root for efforts that try to raise the bar. So who's left? It's so easy being a skeptic." -Tasos
LOL fire Tasos and get new PR person who knows what the hell they're doing and this game will be successful.
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR.
Playing EVE Online and AOC.
Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
Very subjective. Some people consider a MMORPG as a success if it live up to the expectations, and some will consider it successful if it can keep enough players to keep the servers running, even if it loses ~90% of the initial subscriptions (AoC much).
One of the more unique ignorant statements I have seen on the forums lately.
Tasos is not a PR person, he is a dev who handles a bare minimum PR because the company doesn't want to do anything beyond that.
~~
Darkfall Releases on: February 25th, 2009
Darkfall Recap of everything that has happened the last 3 months: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/213296
"The monsters are tough. I was looking for a challenge, but these things are just too damn smart." -DF Beta Tester
"If people were dismissing it, then they wouldn't be talking about it. The well-meaning gamers root for efforts that try to raise the bar. So who's left? It's so easy being a skeptic." -Tasos
It will be a success in my eyes of I play it and enjoy it. However, the real measure of success is made by the owners of the company. So technically even if it was just a pre-order scam, if the owners made a ton of cash off it and didn't get arrested Darkfall would be a success.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.