What I find curious is that some ppl actually believe what the OP said is true, lol
He exagerated in the 50% part. But the situation of the servers never lie.
As 60% of the people were logging on concurrenly in the first week (NCsoft source) you had queus with a server based capacity of around 180K players (12/12 * 7 K players).
The present day capacity is 14/18 * 7K players, so that means they can handle around 250K players concurrently at max load...
The sad problem is the oversampled rate of Aion Xfire players (300K sub based EVE is played 4 times less than Aion), so there is an oversampling of around 5K Aion FXire players out of the 11K present.
The game came now under 10K coming from 12K at the first full weekend ... (substracting the 5K fixed oversampling) that would mean a loss of 2 K Xfire players on 7 K real samples.
That would mean the usual 30% drop off just before the end of the free period.
30% is the usual drop in the first free month. So nothing unusual either.
The next big drop will come around the 3/4 months mark, usual ending at around 30% retention rate.
If the game has serious problems around that point it falls to War/Aoc pops (meaning around 10% of the initial burst).
It's all math really.
Still trolling AION eh Zorndorf . He very quick to accuse somene of being a troll if they say anything negative about his beloved Warcraft . I would nt believe his statistics because this is a guy that argued that the average age of a wow player is 30 .
XFire figures are well known not to be accurate . Its mostly younger players that use it so games that have a younger population tend to seam more successful . I played WoW for nearly 4 years on and off and i never knew of one person that used Xfire .maybe thats because i sticked to 18+ guilds or maybe because i played in europe and its something thats more popular in North America .
I dont know how may people play AION untill Ncsoft publish figures like he does nt know how many people play Warcraft still because Blizzard havnt published subscription numbers in over a year .
I would nt be supprised if AION has lost quite a few subs after the initial month because in Europe at least the ques were prohibative to people playing it and i know a lot of people that gave up because of them .
I dont think NCSOFT handled the release very well and they were certainly not quick enough to act . Blizzard did do the right thing on the release of WoW by players in offering them extra free time and ended up with a lot of goodwill because of it .
The issues of botting etc can be resolved but 18 hour ques in the first month of release is unacceptable when people have invested money in buying the game . People end up feeling ripped off .
Personally i think Aion has a lot of potential and i dont expect any mmo to have a smooth release .Its not worth my while subscribing to it again untill after christmas because i m away from home a lot between now and then . I will return early in the new year though and hopefully some of the issues dogging it at present will be sorted out .
Friends of mine that are still playing are having a lot of fun and say the servers are all still full . but again thats in Europe and maybe we prefer a different type of game to the North American crowd .
If we dont hear anything from Ncsoft i ll assume the numbers are bad though just as i assume WoW subs have gone down this year because Blizzard have remained silent about them .
I find it funny that people in gamer forums spout 'facts' about the success or failure of any MMO's, considering they're not privy to the actual numbers (i.e. active subs, total number of boxes sold, total number of players that have quit the games, etc.). If you think game publishers are going to fully disclose all data concerning money flow you're sadly delusional.
Oh, and guys: MMO's succeed or fail not because people with opinions spout them, but because people either play them or they don't. The money's there or it's not. They ARE running businesses, you know.
So putting the 'This game is going down because blah blah blah...mark my words' means squat. You're so good at predicting things, go buy a lottery ticket and tell me how that turns out, mkay?
Meanwhile, Aion's still out there and people are still playing the game - some even enjoying it, regardless of the forum spam. And for those morons that have never played the game but still get off on claiming it's demise at this juncture, nice try. Fail, but nice try. For those of you who HAVE tried it and can't stand it or it's simply not your game, fair enough.
If at first you don't succeed, pay someone who will.
This is how all big budget new MMOs are. I think the only MMO to GAIN subs after launch recently has been Darkfall and Eve. Maybe LotRO.
LOL even if that was true Signus an increase on DFO population means Nothing in the grand scheme of the MMOs, putting it on the same sentence as EVE and LoTRO is just taking the piss, you go from a game that has less than 10k active subs to games that have 200k+, its not even in the same league.
christ would someone please make a game with more than just 2 sides? DAoC had it right, it wasnt about us vs. them it was 3vs3. if 1 side is overpopulated then the other 2 can gang up on them. and even if u were on the underpopulated side u could watch from the side and clear up the few survivors after a big fight. a 2 side goodvsevil system just leaves it open for people to cry foul cause theres more of them than us.
I almost wish I hadn't uninstalled the game just so I could check in and see what the server list looks like at prime time. Which IMO prime time for NA servers in general is between 7:00pm EST and 3:00am EST. Probably splitting the difference would be a good measure of the games health, so around 11:00pm EST.
Yeah I am sure that there are a ton of people who will still play Aion. However the vast majority of MMOG players are getting the feelings of dejavu by now with Aion because it really is just the same old shtick with a slightly different skin. Just like every other game, the honeymoon period is coming to a close and the hype and newness is wearing off and people are looking forward to the next big thing...
You know what is more sad and very Ironic?
That Tabula Rasa was actually a much better game. If NCSoft just had given it a chance and actually tried to fix it.
The whole combat system of Tabula Rasa was 100 times more fluid and smooth as hell. And TAB targeting actually worked.
The mob AI in Tabula Rasa was also 100 times better. The Alien drop ships dropping off patrols and such. Best thing I've ever seen in an MMO to date.
They just had to fix the skill trees and add more content. That's all.
I think they missed an opportunity when they closed it down instead of doing f2p w m/t. DDO is opening up a new server in a couple days and seems to be going strong.
I am not surprised to see most of people leave the game. Because it's way too hard for average players i.e. from WoW or Warhammer. Those players pretty much can't stand any form of grinding either questing or grinding on the same mobs. Most of them can't find quests (too many of them in the guild and they are from WOW...just keep whining "Where can i find quests?" After I explain to them, they relized that they didn't even bother to just walk down the path just a little bit further or just follow the main quest line to next town.
And some from Warhammer players left very soon, because they couldn't PvP to level up and they couldn't take the death penalty. They feel that they die too fast and they can't be lvl 50 in 3 days.
So, yeah this is going to happen sooner or later.
Spot on...
You'll find any manner of lame and nonsensical excuses/reasons why these sorts of players quit. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that they have no ability or interest in the massively of mmorpg, few social skills and no interest in devloping their character and a community. They want the easy life and everything now centered around them.
2 gamesat least now in mmogs for me ...the level up and the end game. Most players want end game (or accept that is how it is) and get their heads down to level up fairly quickly. Then they look around to see whos left becasue sure as hell a large % of blabbermouths wont be there with them,becasue they gave up and we ofc just all talk.
With the volume of quitters in any mmorpg thesedays, players just dont invest in relationships with players that will probably be gone ina few days or weeks,and who can blame them.
Ill take someone quitting a mmog at endgame or if the game is genuinely broken before hand (AOC) but thats not Aion and it wasnt Warhammer either.
The mmorpg genre isnt for everyone and increasingly youll find those people here on mmorpg.com whining when really they just shouldnt bother with mmos and should find themselves another type of game to play. You ofc get the distinct feeling a lot are kids with no $$$ to pay subs/box price for more than one game.
You cant help feeling they just jumped into mmorpgs becasue so many other people did and they felt left out, becasue quite frankly they talk so much rubbish it belies any in depth knowledge of the genre or appreciation of their own psychology.
Oh please. To suggest that the only people that dont like Aion are those that want everything handed to them is idiotic. And its sad that you think Aion is massive or even a true mmorpg for that matter. I get all the WoW hate and what not, but this has nothing to do with WoW persay, its the latest generation of mmorpg players. Sure, WoW kind of fostered the antisocial kiddies, but the kiddies exist with or without WoW. And really, WAR players couldnt handle the dealth loss and not reaching max level in a few days? I would be interested in seeing how the top poster here came up with this informed information. People are entitled to defend the game they love, but making things up to show that you and your game are superior is laughable. If you love Aion, play the game and be happy. If it is so good it surely doesnt need anyone on a message board to defend it.
Comments
He exagerated in the 50% part. But the situation of the servers never lie.
As 60% of the people were logging on concurrenly in the first week (NCsoft source) you had queus with a server based capacity of around 180K players (12/12 * 7 K players).
The present day capacity is 14/18 * 7K players, so that means they can handle around 250K players concurrently at max load...
The sad problem is the oversampled rate of Aion Xfire players (300K sub based EVE is played 4 times less than Aion), so there is an oversampling of around 5K Aion FXire players out of the 11K present.
The game came now under 10K coming from 12K at the first full weekend ... (substracting the 5K fixed oversampling) that would mean a loss of 2 K Xfire players on 7 K real samples.
That would mean the usual 30% drop off just before the end of the free period.
30% is the usual drop in the first free month. So nothing unusual either.
The next big drop will come around the 3/4 months mark, usual ending at around 30% retention rate.
If the game has serious problems around that point it falls to War/Aoc pops (meaning around 10% of the initial burst).
It's all math really.
Still trolling AION eh Zorndorf . He very quick to accuse somene of being a troll if they say anything negative about his beloved Warcraft . I would nt believe his statistics because this is a guy that argued that the average age of a wow player is 30 .
XFire figures are well known not to be accurate . Its mostly younger players that use it so games that have a younger population tend to seam more successful . I played WoW for nearly 4 years on and off and i never knew of one person that used Xfire .maybe thats because i sticked to 18+ guilds or maybe because i played in europe and its something thats more popular in North America .
I dont know how may people play AION untill Ncsoft publish figures like he does nt know how many people play Warcraft still because Blizzard havnt published subscription numbers in over a year .
I would nt be supprised if AION has lost quite a few subs after the initial month because in Europe at least the ques were prohibative to people playing it and i know a lot of people that gave up because of them .
I dont think NCSOFT handled the release very well and they were certainly not quick enough to act . Blizzard did do the right thing on the release of WoW by players in offering them extra free time and ended up with a lot of goodwill because of it .
The issues of botting etc can be resolved but 18 hour ques in the first month of release is unacceptable when people have invested money in buying the game . People end up feeling ripped off .
Personally i think Aion has a lot of potential and i dont expect any mmo to have a smooth release .Its not worth my while subscribing to it again untill after christmas because i m away from home a lot between now and then . I will return early in the new year though and hopefully some of the issues dogging it at present will be sorted out .
Friends of mine that are still playing are having a lot of fun and say the servers are all still full . but again thats in Europe and maybe we prefer a different type of game to the North American crowd .
If we dont hear anything from Ncsoft i ll assume the numbers are bad though just as i assume WoW subs have gone down this year because Blizzard have remained silent about them .
I find it funny that people in gamer forums spout 'facts' about the success or failure of any MMO's, considering they're not privy to the actual numbers (i.e. active subs, total number of boxes sold, total number of players that have quit the games, etc.). If you think game publishers are going to fully disclose all data concerning money flow you're sadly delusional.
Oh, and guys: MMO's succeed or fail not because people with opinions spout them, but because people either play them or they don't. The money's there or it's not. They ARE running businesses, you know.
So putting the 'This game is going down because blah blah blah...mark my words' means squat. You're so good at predicting things, go buy a lottery ticket and tell me how that turns out, mkay?
Meanwhile, Aion's still out there and people are still playing the game - some even enjoying it, regardless of the forum spam. And for those morons that have never played the game but still get off on claiming it's demise at this juncture, nice try. Fail, but nice try. For those of you who HAVE tried it and can't stand it or it's simply not your game, fair enough.
If at first you don't succeed, pay someone who will.
LOL even if that was true Signus an increase on DFO population means Nothing in the grand scheme of the MMOs, putting it on the same sentence as EVE and LoTRO is just taking the piss, you go from a game that has less than 10k active subs to games that have 200k+, its not even in the same league.
christ would someone please make a game with more than just 2 sides? DAoC had it right, it wasnt about us vs. them it was 3vs3. if 1 side is overpopulated then the other 2 can gang up on them. and even if u were on the underpopulated side u could watch from the side and clear up the few survivors after a big fight. a 2 side goodvsevil system just leaves it open for people to cry foul cause theres more of them than us.
You know what is more sad and very Ironic?
That Tabula Rasa was actually a much better game. If NCSoft just had given it a chance and actually tried to fix it.
The whole combat system of Tabula Rasa was 100 times more fluid and smooth as hell. And TAB targeting actually worked.
The mob AI in Tabula Rasa was also 100 times better. The Alien drop ships dropping off patrols and such. Best thing I've ever seen in an MMO to date.
They just had to fix the skill trees and add more content. That's all.
I think they missed an opportunity when they closed it down instead of doing f2p w m/t. DDO is opening up a new server in a couple days and seems to be going strong.
Spot on...
You'll find any manner of lame and nonsensical excuses/reasons why these sorts of players quit. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that they have no ability or interest in the massively of mmorpg, few social skills and no interest in devloping their character and a community. They want the easy life and everything now centered around them.
2 gamesat least now in mmogs for me ...the level up and the end game. Most players want end game (or accept that is how it is) and get their heads down to level up fairly quickly. Then they look around to see whos left becasue sure as hell a large % of blabbermouths wont be there with them,becasue they gave up and we ofc just all talk.
With the volume of quitters in any mmorpg thesedays, players just dont invest in relationships with players that will probably be gone ina few days or weeks,and who can blame them.
Ill take someone quitting a mmog at endgame or if the game is genuinely broken before hand (AOC) but thats not Aion and it wasnt Warhammer either.
The mmorpg genre isnt for everyone and increasingly youll find those people here on mmorpg.com whining when really they just shouldnt bother with mmos and should find themselves another type of game to play. You ofc get the distinct feeling a lot are kids with no $$$ to pay subs/box price for more than one game.
You cant help feeling they just jumped into mmorpgs becasue so many other people did and they felt left out, becasue quite frankly they talk so much rubbish it belies any in depth knowledge of the genre or appreciation of their own psychology.
Oh please. To suggest that the only people that dont like Aion are those that want everything handed to them is idiotic. And its sad that you think Aion is massive or even a true mmorpg for that matter. I get all the WoW hate and what not, but this has nothing to do with WoW persay, its the latest generation of mmorpg players. Sure, WoW kind of fostered the antisocial kiddies, but the kiddies exist with or without WoW. And really, WAR players couldnt handle the dealth loss and not reaching max level in a few days? I would be interested in seeing how the top poster here came up with this informed information. People are entitled to defend the game they love, but making things up to show that you and your game are superior is laughable. If you love Aion, play the game and be happy. If it is so good it surely doesnt need anyone on a message board to defend it.